I FL 14 k eb 1 12 No . u2i F .02
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH AT RARUNGA SPORTS AND CULTURAL
FESTIVAL, NORTHERN TERRITORY 12 JUNE 1988
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
Traditional owners Of Barunga, tradtional owners from
throughout the Northern Territory and those from South
Australia, Western Australia and Queensland who are present
with us today, Chairman, the Northern Territory Land
Council, all Aboriginal people from elsewhere in Australia,
my friend and colleague the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs
Gerry Hand, and friends one and all.
Could I say to you on behalf of Hazel and myself how
thrilled we are to be with you today. I want to thank
everyone who in any way has been responsible for the
organisation of this welcome and for the which you have
presented to us. To anyone who in any way has been
responsible for today, our heart-felt thanks,
As you know 1988 is a special year in Australia. I hope
that you will understand that before this year arrived I had
been trying to make all Australians understand that the 200
years that are being talked about in this bicentenary year,
I've asked all Australians to understand that those 200
years which come on top of 40,000 years of Aboriginial
culture, traditions and civilisation, that it is the
Aboriginal people who were the prior occupiers and owners of
this land. You were the people who for 40,000 years have
cared for this land and it's only if we understand that that
we are entitled in any way to have these celebrations in
1988. It's because I see now the signs that are strongly emerging
of the preparedness on the part of Aboriginal people and of
non-Aboriginal people to start to talk sensibly about these
things that I am so happy. I want, in front of all of you
if I may, to pay a particular tribute to Gerry Hand, the
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, who I think more than
anyone in non-Aboriginal Australia has taken the initiative
to make these processes possible.
What we have witnessed here today has been historic for two
reasons. Firstly you have given us the opportunity of
seeing the survival and the renewal of your great traditions
and we thank you for the way in which you have allowed them
to survive and ensured that they will. But the second thing
that we have seen today is, I believe, truly historic. I
have had the opportunity as you'll have witnessed to sit
there with your leaders and they have put to me proposals
with which I have been able to agree.
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Those proposals that they have Put and with which I have
agreed are these. Firstly, that there $ hall be a treaty
negotiated between the Aboriginal people and the Government
on behalf of all' the people of Australia. Secondly, that
the next step is that you the Aboriginal people should
decide what it is that you want to see in that treaty. The
third step is that I have agreed that we should provide you
with assistance to establish those consultation processes
and in particular that there should be a committee of seven
of your traditional elders who will have the responsibility
for organising those consultations with the view to
organising at the end of the consultations an Australia-wide
convention which will represent the culmination of your own
negotiations and discussions. Fourthly, that when you have
conducted these processes of consultation that we as a
government should then be prepared to receive and to
consider the results of your thinking and your consultation.
And fifthly, that we agreed that these processes should
start before the end of this year and that we would expect
and hope and work for the conclusion of such a treaty before
the end of the life of this Parliament.
Those are, the five considerations that your elders put to me
and to which I agreed. So now what we expect to happen is
that on your part, as I on behalf of the Government, having
agreed that you will now start these processes of-talking
amongst yourselves under the leadership of that committee of
seven of your elders, to work out just what it is that you
want to see. As you do that I give you the commitment of
the preparedness, the willingness, the desire of my
Government to respond positively.
At the end of this process when these things-are done my
fervent wish that I expressed, as you'll recall last year,
my fervent wish is that at the end of that process a
position will have been reached In which the non-Aboriginal
people of Australia will recognise the injustices of the
past, will recognise the obligations that we have to create
an Australia in which your culture and traditions will not
only be able to survive but to flourish, in which you the
Aboriginal people will have the opportunity of living in
dignity, living in an environment in which you will have the
opportunity for self-management, in which your law and
tribal customs will be able to apply to the maximum possible
extent, that these things will be done, that you will have
that sort of Australia in which to live and that you on your
part will accept then that Australia has accepted and will
continue to dischaig. e its commitment.
when those things are done, when that agreement can
culminate in that treaty, compact call it as we will
decide that then after this 200 years that truly we will
have an Australia within which the Aboriginal and the
non-Aboriginal Australia will be able to live together truly
in peace and in dignity in the situation in which we will
respect one another and in an Australia in which you and all
other Australians will be able to live the life that you
desire.
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It's been too long, far too long in achieving or even being
able to think that we will reach that position and I do
truly believe that as a result of what's been happening
recently, and a large part of what we've been able to do
today it's my belief that really now for the first time we
can expect that sort of outcome to which I have referred.
So to all of you that had any part in creating this positive
atmosphere in which we can expect this outcome, I repeat my
thanks and deep gratitude and give you my commitment, the
commitment of my government and certainly the commitment of
my minister that we will now stand ready to respond to these
processes to which we have agreed today.
Finally, on behalf of Hazel and myself I thank you for the
paintings arid the other gifts that you've given to us today.
We will take them back to Canberra with us and they will
serve to remind me and Hazel, not only for the time that
we're in government but for the rest of our lives, of a day
that will always be in our memories. Thank you.
ends
I L~ L . eti e ri i~. 1A Ho . U2 I
TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH BY GALARRWUY YUNUPINGU, CHAIRMAN, CENTRAL
LAND COUNCIL, 12 JUNE 1988
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
I can see some smiles in the faces which is very much
encouragement to all of us and I think to talk about after those
statements that the PM has made it is something that we wanted to
hear particularly at this gathering.
PM does not know that the presentation hasn't ended yet so we
will give him another surprise. And this surprise is one very
important as a reminder to the PM and his Government and as a
reminder to any other government who will take power of this
country. That it will be something, something to remind any
government who will run in its power to change policies and
constitutions that Aboriginal people will always be in front of
their policy making and decision making that we are people
to this country, that the notice that we will present to the
Prime minister' now will remind, not only Bob Hawke, but the next
one after him and the next one after him and the next one after
him and the next one after him and we can count that for another
twenty to a hundred years. And after and more after and forever.
This is the country we are talking about, the country of
Australia and if that is the case you are now witnessing the
people who express their desire of ownership and belongingness,
that we are part of it. We always will be as we, in this
celebration of the Bicentennial year, we do want to celebrate the
way it is being celebrated this year, but separately. Let's
celebrate the next 200 years of Australia jointly and if that
statement will go and last for the next 200 years let's achieve
it now, And I'll stop there because somebody with big ears and
televisions and radios, they are all over the place here, might
twist my political statements and make it as a political
nonsense. But if that is the case let them make their own
statements, let them run it, but let's run it if there's a media
in the crowd please make it right. Make it right that we have
been waiting for the day that has happened now.
( tape break)
a petition that unites Aboriginal people throughout
Australia. That thi6 petition will be presented to the
Commonwealth Government of Australia while Bob Hawke is the Prime
Minister and pass it on to the next one and the next one and the
next one and the next one and the next one and the next one. And
I will make him responsible that he will honour that this
petition will greet this brand new Parliament House of Australia,
not forgetting and leaving Aboriginal people right out of what
Australia is all about.
Thank you.
ends