PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING, MP
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LAWS, RADIO 2UE, SYDNEY, 17 JUNE 1993
E& OE PROOF COPY
JL: With me in the studio the Prime Minister of Australia. Good morning and
welcome.
PM: Good morning John.
JL: There was fog in Canberra was there?
PM: Yes, we darted through it.
JL: So long as it was safe.
PM: Yes, it is easier to get off the ground than get back down.
JL That's right, wintery mornings are not much fun in Canberra. A wintery
morning right around Australia and a lot of people feeling a little chilled
by the Mabo decision and I think somehow a lot of people are getting it
out of proportion. Do you think that is right?
PM: Yes I think so. This is a reasonably complex issue and a complex legal
judgement, it is something the High Court took a better part of a decade
in deciding and it is a milestone decision and one which I think gives
Australia a tremendous opportunity to get its relationship with the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait people right.
JL Can you understand the white population of Australia and there are an
awful lot of them finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the
Aboriginal people will be compensated in their minds. Now whether this
is fact or not time will tell and it might take a long time, but the Aboriginal
people will be compensated, that they will receive more money, stories
being told that 1.5 per cent of the population has 15 per cent of the land
mass of Australia. I don't think the people who made those statements
2
bothered to have a look at the quality of the land mass that they had, but
these are alarmist statements that are being made and cause concern
amongst the public. Do you understand the concern?
PM: Yes, I can see people thinking that in some way Aboriginal people have
been treated in a preferential way, but that is not true. In many countries
these issues, judgements have been made by governments and by
supreme courts and of course just across the Tasman in New Zealand
there was a treaty of settlement, the treaty-of Waitangi.
JL Which is still in place.
PM: Which is still in place. Now, there was no -treaty in Australia. Aboriginal
Australians were dispossessed of the land and what this decision says
and it is fairly simple really, it says that where continuing association
with the land can be established a native title may exist.
J L: Yes, but there is the rub, continuing association. Now if you slip that set
of headphones on there in order that you can listen to the people who
are going to call in that want to talk to you because I see it as being very
important as some people do have what I believe to be an incorrect point
of view on the subject of Mabo. Over the week and a bit that I have
been back I have done my best to explain it as I see it in light of the
Court ruling, as clearly and without hysteria, but still some hysteria
exists and a lot of Australians would like to talk to the Prime Minister.
Here is your opportunity. Hello.
C: I don't know whether I arn limited to a question or not Mr Keating, but I
find this, that your term of Mabo, you are creating concerns by using an
interpretation of a judgement. So, right on, having said that, I will say
this to you, the claims that are being made at the are not going to
mention Mabo is being ridiculed by the Aboriginal Affairs Minister, and
you have not made a public comment on such claims. Do you agree
with Mr Tickner?
PM: Oh yes, I have made public comments about them. These claims have
got nothing to do with Mabo. These are some of these silly claims of
NSW.
C: I have already agreed with you that in my opinion they have got nothing
to do with Mabo. I am talking, do you agree, that it is a total waste of
public funds making these futile claims?
PMV: Absolutely. But it is not public funds that are being wasted because I
don't think the claims will stand at all.
C: Well who prepares the claims? Isn't the ALS and Mr Coe and a few
solicitors and a few barristers and all this getting involved in this?
PM: That may be true.
C: Well where is that money coming from
PM: Well let's understand this point, the claims haven't got a snowballs
chance in hell of succeeding. They have got nothing to do with Mabo,
nothing whatsoever.
C: Never mind about Mabo, why are you allowing the total waste of tax
payers funds on these futile claims?
PM: You could say the sarme thing for legal aid for non-aboriginal
Australians? Why should we allow legal aid for non-aboriginal
Australians for what you may call futile claims?
C: That cry baby act has gone down the drain a long time ago.
PM: No its not. It's there now.
C: You are making the..
PM: What's your point?
C: The point is this, that you are as boss of this country you are allowing a
total waste of funds under the guise of Mabo.
PM: It has got nothing to do with Mabo, nothing whatsoever.
C: OK good. Now do you want another question?
PM: No, you asked me about this, I am not here basically to soak up all your
prejudices, I am here to answer a few questions about Mabo.
JL: Ok, but let's just clarify this. The point that you have made to the Prime
Minister is that you believe that he is allowing public funds to be wasted
in the form of claims through the Aboriginal legal services that as he
said, don't have a snowflakes chance in hell of succeeding, his reply to
that, which wasn't a bad one was if the white people of Australia are
permitted to have legal aid, which they are, is it not fair and reasonable
that the Aboriginal people should also have legal aid?
C: But we are not allowed to have legal aid for that.
JL: Well aren't we, I don't know?
PM: You can have legal aid for your particular pet obsession if you wish, and
it may have justice and it may not, just as Aboriginal claims may have
justice.
C: I can't afford to even walk into the solicitors office.
PM: Well you may qualify for legal aid if you had a matter of substance, thats
the point.
C: Don't try and con this whole business of putting it on to what the whites
can get. The whites have been held back, I am not arguing about the
racial side of this business, I am arguing on the hysteria that you and
your Government and the Aboriginal Affairs have caused.
PM: Now, hang on. Just understand this point, this is a decision of the High
Court of the Australia, our most supreme national court. This is not a
matter which has been initiated by the Government at all, it is something
which the Government has to respond to, to put an administrative
framework and a framework in law into place so as to hear and dispense
native title.
C: I have heard you make these claims before, but I point out that this
judgement is regarding the Murray Island people and the State of
Queensland. It did not say, well listen, now, we are going to make this
all applicable to the mainlanders people.
PM: I think you fail to understand what the decision means.
JL: Apart from that it would have set a precedent, but you are not
understanding what the decision means.
C: But Mr Keating is trying to have a settlement out of court, put it that way.
PM: No we are not. We are not trying to do anything of the kind.
C: Well what are you talking about, compensation?
PM: What is your beet? I mean don't you think that Aboriginal Australians
are entitled to any land that was theirs?
C: Of course they are, they should be treated the same as everyone else.
PM: Well ok then, what's your problem?
C: I have to buy my land, why can't they buy theirs? But forget about that
racial business.
JL Hang on, lets get an answer to that question, you had to buy your land,
why can't they buy theirs? What's the Prime Minister got to say to that?
PM: Well if there had been a treaty here In* 1 788 then the thing Is may be that
the crown might have bought its land.
C: There couldn't be a treaty, Mr Keating, you know that, because there
was too many tribes and clans and whatever.
PM: Well thank you for your anthropological advice.
C: Well that's in history, I am not talking about history.
PM: I think you're talking prejudice, mostly, aren't you? That's what you are
really talking. You don't want to see Aboriginal Australians have any
right to the land. It grates on you that they have a decision here, which
is a decision in justice which you then want to focus on crazy land
claims that have nothing to do with it to try and diminish its standing.
That's what you're about.
C: I am not making the claims, the Aboriginals are.
PM: I think you have had a fair enough go, I understand your point. But let
me just finalise this. The claims over NSW have got nothing to do with
Mabo, nothing whatsoever.
JL: But the point is it is a point of aggravation to the average Australian to
see monies, which they believe to be their monies, that are provided to
the Aboriginal legal services being spent on claims that are futile and
alarmist.
PM: Well some may be.
JL: Well its pretty alarmist to hear that they want two thirds of NSW.
PM: I know, but I don't think that the serious people who basically are
involved in this issue on the Aboriginal side of things are supporting
these things and they have said so. Therefore that will mean in the end
there will not be big cases and long expenses.
JL: Yes, but I am simply asking you do you understand that if the people
aren't equip with the knowledge, and the people are not equipped, you
can hear by the first call that they are not equipped with the knowledge,
but if they don't have the understanding that they are going to panic.
PM: Well, John, it is probably worth telling people just to make this point that
native title is a title subordinate to the crown. That is, where freehold or
leasehold has been dispensed in the past the High Court has held that
the native -title has been extinguished.
JL: Gone.
PM: So if you take Sydney, the suburbs of Sydney, the settled areas, the
freehold areas of rural NSW, QLD, WA et cetera, the native title is
extinguished.
J L: But can it ever be restored?
PM: No, it can't be restored where it is extinguished.
JL: You see that is the question being asked by many. It might have been
extinguished by freehold title, can it ever be restored, the answer is no.
PM: No.
JL: What about leasehold land?
PM: No. Leasehold to, accept for titles from 1975 onwards, which have been
invalidly issued, some invalidly issued. This is one of the questions we
discussed at the Premiers Conference last week and that was that some
leasehold, pastoral leasehold comes in say 30 and 40 year leases. So,
let's say a family has been on a piece of land for 60 years and then its
lease expires and it applies for another 30 years does the native title
take over? Well the view I put at the Council of Australian Governments
is we would regard that land, that leasehold, in that case to have
extinguished the native title.
JL: And it would continue. So people who have had leases on pastoral
property for generation after generation?
PM: It would continue. So the technicality of the lease expiring after say
years.
JL: How much land does involve itself in the Mabo decision?
PM: I think quite a lot of the unalienated crown land of the country. But again
this is mostly in OLD, WA and some of it in NSW. But as you know you
have got to drive a long way through this State through the freehold titles
of the farming community before you get to large tracts of unalienated
crown land. So, you are talking about a hinterland of NSW.
JL: Now, if the Aboriginal people can reclaim possession of that unoccupied
crown land, that unused crown land, does that mean then that the white
population of Australia can be forbidden to enter that land?
PM: I don't think so.
JL It wouldn't be much good if that were the case, would it?
PM: Native title has factors about it other than possession of land as we
know it. The Aboriginal association with land is not the association or
understanding of land as non-aboiginal Australians know it. And
remember this, John, the native title can't be sold, it can't be sold to you
or me, it can only revert back to the Crown.
JL: Ok, now we must take another call, because that was the idea to let the
people of Australia talk to you directly so that they would have a better
understanding of the problem. Hello.
C: Good morning.
JL: OK, the Prime Minister is here.
C: My question to the Prime Minister, I would like to actually ask him quite
a few questions on Mabo, but just a very broad question, Mr Keating,
why does your Government see the Aboriginal people as a much more
equal people then the average white Australian?
PM: We don't. We see them as equal.
C: Well you might say that, but all the indications are that you don't.
PM: But I think it was implied in your question that you don't. You think that
non-aboriginal Australians there ought to be discrimination in their
favour against blacks.
C: Not whatsoever. I don't see that at all. But myself and every person I
talk to, I am not racist, every person I talk to..
PM: That's what they all say, don't they? They put these questions, they
always say, I am not racist, but, you know " I don't believe that Aboriginal
Australians ought to have a basis in equality with non aboriginal
Australians". Well of course that is part of the problem.
C: Aren't they more equal than us at the moment with the preferences they
get?
PM: It is not for me to be giving you a history lesson, they were largely
dispossessed of the land they held.
C: I think there is a question over that. I think a lot of people would tell you
that. You are telling us one thing and expecting us to believe it.
PM: Well if you are sitting on the title of any block of land in NSW you can
bet an Aboriginal person at some stage was dispossessed of it.
C: You know that for sure, do you?
PM: Well of course we know it for sure.
C: Yeah. Well going on to your last caller there I think he had some
pertinent things to say that you couldn't answer either.
PM: Yeah I know but you hold his view, don't you?
C: Of course I do.
PM: That's part of the problem.
JL: Let's clarify the view. What is the view?
C: My question in general, I mean is with regard just to the whole aboriginal
question is why does the average white Australian feel that he is
prejudiced against? Why? Because of the things your Government
does.
PM: Like what?
C: The preferential treatment.
PM: Are you challenging the High Court decision? Are you saying that the
High Court has got this all wrong?
C: No, I am not saying that at all. I wouldn't know who was on the High
Court.
PM: Well why don't you sign off, if you don't know anything about it and
you're not interested, good bye. You can't challenge these things and
then say, I don't know about them.
JL: Well he's gone. But you see sadly what you are hearing there is in
some ways very typical of the feeling that exists and it may be a very
unhealthy feeling but it exists there. What do you do to placate those
people who feel that strongly, and they do feel, I talk to them every day,
they do feel that they are being disadvantaged by what is being given to
the aboriginal people.
PM: Well what is being given to the aboriginal people is at this stage limited
land, let's say before the Mabo judgement, limited land opportunities and
some income support and social justice in education and in health, so
there are Commonwealth programs for health and social justice to deal
with such things as diseases which particularly afflicted Aboriginal
people, like glaucoma of the eyes, and infant mortality and all these
other piroblems; they had we have tried to direct funding to deal with
those problems, to extend educational opportuniies to Aboriginal
people.
JL: I have always endeavoured to explain it in this fashion. That equality is
what is required, equality in the eyes of the law and equality in
opportunity. But in order for Aboriginal people to have equal opportunity
some extra funding is required at certain stages, in certain areas,
education being one, health being another. Is that true, or not true?
PM: That's right. And also in some cases income support because often
where Aboriginal people live there isn't the opportunities, and not often
the opportunities that existed some time ago for employment arnd so
some of the spending programs of the Commonwealth actually provide
work opportunities for Aboriginal people. That's by and large the remit of
Commonwealth programs and spending to date. Now that money is
administered by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
But Mabo is a different thing. Mabo is about saying, the High Court is
saying, that native title survived the acquisition of sovereignty by the
crown.
J L: Ok, but the point to remember, and the point that the people need to
remember is that that High Court ruling is extinguished by the
possession of-freehold title and leasehold title.
PM: Yes.
JL: And it can't be reignited.
PM: I will read you the two points. I think these are the two key points of the
Mason, Chief Justice, Brennan Dean, Gaudron and McHugh,
Native Title for land survived the Crowns acquisition of sovereignty and
radical title. And then they go on to say that by Mason, Brennan and
McHugh that the title to the Meriam people is subject to the power of the
Parliament of Queensland and the power of the Governor and Council of
Queensland to extinguish that title by valid exercise of their respective
powers providing any exercise of those powers is not inconsistent with
the laws of the Commonwealth. In other words where ever a State
issues a title it extinguishes the native title. It has the power.
J L: Is it true that you could simply overthrow the whole thing?
PM: No. Because if a State sought to say it would turn all, say Crown land,
into freehold, you could only do that under the Constitution on just terms.
JL: So they would have to be recompensed?
PM: So if there were Native Title subsequently established the State which
extinguished the crown land in favour of a freehold title and thus
extinguishing the native title would need to pay just terms, and that could
be very expensive.
JL: Ok and those just terms would be decided, I presume, by the High
Court?
PM: They would probably end up in the High Court.
J L: So we would be right back where we started?
IPM: Well from a States point of view with a very large bill. See, John, can I
just say this what the Commonwealth is seeking to do, what we want
from this is basically this, the High Court has made that decision and the
things which we are requiring of these things, recognition of native title
as a legal reality and therefore bringing the land management laws of
the various States up accordingly. Native Title to be treated in a nondiscriminatory
way on a par with anyone else's land. That Native title
which has survived, that is, which has survived all of these grants of
interest in land is not now unnecessarily wiped out and that we set up a
process, a tribunal for finding out who has native title and where it is.
And that the widest issues such as dispossession and social justice also
be addressed. Now, they are a totally reasonable set of propositions,
that native title is now a legal reality and must be addressed, land laws
must be adjusted, native title should be treated in a non-discri minatory
way, that which has survived shouldn't now be wiped out, and tribunals
should be established to hear and award native title. In other words
what the Commonwealth Govemnment is seeking to do is to develop a
legal framework, an administrative framework to put the Mabo High
Court judgement into effect.
JL: Okay, well lets see what other listeners think about it. Hello.
C: Hello, I would just like to say to Mr Keating that all these people ringing
up saying your trying to blame him for it. It is not his fault. The High
Court has made this decision and he has just got to implement what
they have decided for him. He can't say, well we aren't going to do this,
you know, people have got to be calm and understand what the High
Court has done. They have got to accept that that is the way life is
going to be now.
PM: Can I just say this as well, it doesn't in any way interfere with a title
anyone in this country currently holds. So people have had fears about
their farm at West Wyalong or Bathurst or something..
JL Where are you calling from?
C: On the North Coast.
JL Okay, well people have had fears there too.
PM: Well I mean, those fears are groundless, that is that there is no threat to
their title at all. This is basically about that which is left. This is the
urialienated crown land which has not been extinguished by former and
earlier grants of interest in land by state land manager, you know, State
departments of lands, etc.
JL~ Okay, so you wanted to tell the Prime Minister it is not his fault, you've
told him.
C: I can't understand why everybody is giving him a hard time about.
PM: Prime Ministers get hard times, that I don't mind, but I
C: It is not that. But I think they are sort of taking it up with the wrong
people if they don't agree with it. I mean, you're the one who is in
charge of the country but you didn't make the decision, you'e just got to
try and explain to everybody. People don't want to understand it.
JL Well people prefer to listen to their hysterical point of view because it
gives them a sharper axe to grind.
C: Exactly.
PM: Anyway, you are tolerant about it. And that is the important thing and I
thank you for that.
JL: Okay and thanks for the call too. Another thing we must also establish,
when you say it only applies to the unoccupied land that exists in this
country. But surely it doesn't apply to all of that. It can only apply, my
reading of it, it can only apply if a continuing ongoing association with
that land can be proved.
PM: Exactly, that is why, you see Mabo, even its fullest expression, will only
give to a minority of the Aboriginal community land because many of
them were dispossessed of the land and therefore can't make a claim.
J L: Will it give them land or will it give them compensation as well, will it
give them money as well?
PM: No. In the first instance it would give them land. It would only give them
compensation if someone wanted to put an economic use on the land,
mining or something else.
J L: But they would not get royalties for mining?
PM: No. Because the minerals under the land would be reserved to the
Crown as they are for non-Aboriginal Australians. You will find on your
title of your home, block of land, that minerals on the thing are reserved
to the Crown.
JU: Yeah, so the same would apply to native titles?
PM: The same applies to native titles. That is, that if somebody can
establish the fact that or a community of Aboriginals that they have lived
in a region and have had a continuing association with the land and they
are rewarded a native title, any compensation they are paid is paid in
relation to the disturbance and inconvenience which would come from
an economic use. Can I say, John, just as a farmer who might have
2000 acres out in Bathurst or something and someone finds an alluvial
gold deposit on it or wants to do something else with it, pays to that
person compensation for digging a hole in the land, driving across the
land, putting it to some economic use.
JL: Well can we look at that conversely. Lets say the other side of Bourke,
a group of Aboriginal people can say that they had an ongoing claim to
some land there. And running right through the middle of this piece of
land is a beautiful bitumen road paid for by the taxpayers of Australia. In
turn, will the Aboriginal people have to compensate us for the
improvements made to the land?
PM: No, they won't because they wouldn't want the road probably in the first
place, but it is not their road. Because the road will have a title to it, you
understand, it will be an easement.
JL: Okay, so do all roads have titles?
PM: Yes, they will have an easement title. Not all roads, some will be just
dusty roads and they may well be on Aboriginal land.
JL: But what happens if they are stock routes and the Aboriginal people say
which would be their right if they were to enjoy equal title along with
freehold title the same title as we all enjoy, what would happen if the
Aboriginal people said, okay well I'm sorry this is our land and the road
is closed?
PM: Well the stock routes are mostly already reserved if we look at any of
these maps where you see the titles expressed in various..
J L: See these are the things that are worrying people.
PM: Well they are mostly reserved already. So what you call a stock route
where people actually use it to drive stock over vast distances are
reserved. So that is really not a problem but one of the points I would
like to make here John, and one I mentioned a moment ago, that Is
probably the great majority of Aboriginal people will not benefit from
Mabo at all because having been pushed off their land and
dispossessed of it they can't now make a claim to a continuing
association with it.
JL: And that is important? So in other words, there can't be a mob of people
in Redfern who have lived there for 20 years who suddenly say, my
mum came from the Kimberleys and I'm going back there and the land is
mine?
PM: No. Because they might have been pushed off it many years earlier.
There is a couple of things the High Court has said about this which I
think, were also part of the decision, let me read it.
JL: Is it in High Court jargon because that is difficult to understand?
PM: No. It is very easy to read. Aboriginals were dispossessed of their land
parcel by parcel to make way for expanding colonial settlement. Their
dispossession underwrote the development of the nation and the acts
and events by which that dispossession in legal theory was carried into
practical effect constitute the darkest aspect of the history of this nation.
The nation as a whole must remain diminished and unless until there is
acknowledgment of and retreat from these past injustices. Now the first
sentence says, Aboriginals were dispossessed of their land parcel by
parcel to make way for expanding colonial settlement. Now that means
if they were dispossessed they can't now apply under Mabo so there is
sort of an inherent injustice about the way in which Mabo will now in the
latter part of the 20th century apply. That it will only apply to those who
were not dispossessed of the land. But for those who were
dispossessed there is nothing in it for them. And that is why at the
Council of Australian Govemnments Meeting I talked about a package for
land acquisition for dispossessed people who can't get anything from
Mabo.
JL: And these people would be in the minority?
PM: No. I think the people who will be awarded grants of interest in land say
as a native title will be in the minority. That is, the majority of Aboriginal
people probably won't get anything from Mabo.
J L: Hello?
C Hello.
JL Where are you calling from?
C: I'm calling from North Queensland. Mr Laws said a while ago there
about the back of Bourke about a bit of land, well I actually come from
the back of Bourke I was born there in 1950 and was reared up there
and I recently went back for a reunion and I tell you what, to walk into
that pound and see Bourke NSW today and what it was in 1963-68
when I left, it was a crying shame. Your cameras don't go down the
street, you don't tell the truth, you don't take photos, you get there and
you cut everything out and then you put it on A Current Affair and
Minutes, but you don't tell the truth to Australia.
JL: Who doesn't?
C: The lot of you. 60 Minutes, bloody Current Affair.
JL: Hold on, I'm not yet responsible for 60 Minutes or A Cur-rent Affair. What
do you want to do, you want to unveil the truth to us, do you?
C: The whole of the main street of Bourke is mesh and tin roller doors.
JL: I know that.
C: You can't walk up there after dark.
JL: Well Wilcannia is the same I know that.
C: Wilcannia is the same Brewarrina is the same, Cunnamulla.
JL: I know all of that.
C: Mate I can take you to a lot of places.
JL: Okay, so what is the point you want to make to the Prime Minister.
C: Well the point is how much Aboriginal have you got to have in you to
class yourself as an Aboriginal?
JL That is a convoluted question and really has nothing to do with Mabo. I
think you were on for a bit of a bitch about things in general, perhaps
you and I can cover that subject alone at some other time. Hello?
C: Hello. I would just like to say I'm of white descent. I think I have been
lucky to be bom here. We have got good education and everything.
This history of our country can't be changed and we have got good
opportunity for education and everything as has those of black descent.
And wouldn't it be good if when we are all older if we could all look
around and say that we have got what we've got through hard work, not
through court case?
JU Well the point you are making there Is what? You don't believe the
Aboriginal people would get what they have got through hard work?
C: No it is not that at all. It Is just that Isn't it time that we just looked
forward rather than the Aboriginals going for this...
PM: Well can I just say, the thing to look forward to is a country which is in its
soul at peace with itself. That is not prospering in including the
dispossession of another people and that is the point of the High Court
decision, that is the point of the reference I just read about the
dispossession injustice. I mean, we are a unique country now, this is a
multicultural country it has changed enormously since the war. It has
tremendous opportunities, it is an island continent, we are the only
nation in the world that has a continent to itself, we don't share a border
with anybody, we are located in the fastest growing part of the world.
We have the natural protection of the sea. There are great opportunities
here. But to go forward together as a people means we have to go
forward together on terms on which we all agree. And to have the
original inhabitants not agreeing, saying that they were dispossessed
and largely disadvantaged means we will never do that completely.
Now that is why the Mabo decision is an opportunity. It is an opportunity
to deal very late in the piece, but better late than never, with the injustice
of Aboriginal dispossession. And that is what it is about. But it doesn't
threaten, see the point about it is that it doesn't threaten anyone else's
property in these areas of Australia we are talking about, but what it
does, it brings up on a basis of equality the opportunity of the original
inhabitants to have a piece of the country themselves.
J L: Okay, I think that answers that, but tell me this, if the original inhabitants
were given back a piece of what the High Court said was theirs and
there is no denying the High Court ruling simply says that native title did
exist, now if this is given back to the people that had it originally, will
they then be given an opportunity to work that land as the people who
are non-Aboriginal work that land? Will they then be given an
opportunity to do what the people have done who bought their land
freehold and paid cold hard cash for it, will they then be given an
opportunity to become self supportive? Or will they be given the land
and continue to be supported to the tune of more than $ 1 billion a year?
PM: Well they can be given the land and I hope in some cases, operate the
land in a way which is economic and provides employment and
opportunities for them. But the whole notion of Aboriginal association to
the land is a spiritual association, it is not an economic association as
we understand land and the value of land.
JL: It is very hard for people to understand that though?
PM: I know, it is not a concept which I think non-Aboriginal Australians grasp
eswily but it Is a religious association there which goes more to working
out what the dollars and cents are on 30 June. It Is the actual spiritual
association. I think that is the important point. I think it Is one of the
reasons why Aboriginal people have felt dispossessed.
JL: But if the land is given back to the people, even though they may be a
minority and I get the impression that very few Aboriginal people or
tribes are going to benefit by it in the long run, how then do you explain
to the non-Aboriginal population that make up about 98 per cent of the
place, most of them taxpayers, how do you explain to them that their tax
dollar still goes to the tune of about $ 1 billion a year to help Aboriginal
people?
PM: Because the people it is helping are those that would never benefit often
from a Mabo claim, and even in the event that they do, they still have
these problems in health and in education and in lack of access to
opportunities which we have sought to remedy by Commonwealth
funding over the years. And we are still only just, in a sense, marking
time. We probably made some progress, we've made some progress in
health but not as much as we should make I don't think, the same in
education. And that is why that funding will always remain important. I
think there is a great gulf in the opportunities which are available to
Aboriginal Australians and..
J L: And white Australians. But it needs to be explained to the people
because that is the bit of coating on the pill.
PM: Well I don't think it is bitter. I don't think Australians mind that in their
budgets that they do deal with problems such as Aboriginal malnutrition
and infant mortality and educational opportunities. And you notice with
the Royal Commission into the Deaths in Custody, a lot of the problems
flowing from that come from the problem of lack of opportunity, lack of
education.
J L: Lack of equal opportunity.
PM: Lack of equal opportunity and so the nation tries to even that up through
these funding programs. Now Mabo is a different concept altogether but
you see, John, if Mabo meant that a claim over Circular Quay in Sydney
or George Street had any strength about it then people would have
genuine concerns about their rights to interest in land and their wealth.
But this decision applies to those places where a title has not been
issued and only if there is a continuing association.
J L: See, that is the important point, and that is the point nobody wants to
hear. The continuing association has to be proof of the land. So, again
let me say It, I've said it a hundred times, there can't be a bunch of
people In Redfern suddenly say I want all the land west of Bourke ' cause
my grandmother was there because they can't prove an ongoing
continuing association. And all of it is going to taeyar anyway.
PM: It is going to take years. And the other thing is the State government
can extinguish the native title where it suits it. For instance, if they
wanted to acquire your property or my property for a reason, for a
school, for a bridge, for a road, for a park, then you can be notified by a
State Minister, you can have discussions about the acquisition, but in
the end the State has the power to resume the land and to change its
title, it will then give you compensation, but you get, in the final analysis,
little say in it and if you want to challenge the decision you can go off to
the Land and Environment Court. Now in the same way, they can do
the same with native title. And that is, again the High Court has made
that quite clear, that is that a State still has the sovereignty to extinguish
a native title particularly for public purposes.
JL: But they must be compensated as we would be compensated.
PM: As we would be compensated, that is it.
JL: Hello?
C: Hello, I want to talk about Aboriginal land rights.
JL: Okay, are you Aboriginal?
C: Yeah I'm Aboriginal. I come from Kintook west of Alice Springs.
JL: What do you want to say to the Prime Minister?
C: I want to say that the Land Right Act has not helped Aboriginal people it
only helps land councils. We started Kintook communities in Perth and
we run a business and the land council came along and forced us to
close our door.
JL: The Aboriginal Land Council?
C: Yes, the land council in Northern Territory.
JL: I see, well how could they force you to close the store?
C: They told me to close my store and at that time I said to them that I was
a traditional land owner but they ignored what I said to them.
JL What you are telling is hardly associated directly with Mabo.
PM: I'm happy to pick up the point though. Look, there is no doubt that in
some places there Is conflict In terms of the view of particular people in
areas and the land councils. Now in the Northern Territory we have
what is called statutory land rights. Land has been given to Aboriginal
people not by way of the common law for which the High Court
envisages with Mabo but by way of a law of the parliaments of the
Commonwealth and the Northern Territory. In other words, a gift of land
from the pariaments of the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory.
Now how that land, the ownership and use of that land, has largely
devolved to decisions by Aboriginal Land Councils. Now these are often
at odds with the views of some of the people who live in some of these
regions. But again, if you ask the Aboriginal people as a people do they
feel that, if you like, there is a sort of enhanced empowerment to
Aboriginal people through land councils I think the answer will be in the
affirmative. They would say yes to that. Whereas, if their power is
fragmented over individuals and groups of individuals who can't run a set
of accounts, who can't manage these properties, and who can't basically
receive the proceeds or dividends that may flow from them, and who
can't represent themselves well enough in particular situations where
land is being allocated that the land council does that for them. Now,
this is at this stage you are not talking about Mabo, you are talking about
Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory, we are not seeking at this
stage to say everything is happy in the garden between all Aboriginal
people and the land councils, of course, it isn't. But again, on balance,
are Aboriginal people better off with a land council system? and I think
most Aboriginal people think they are.
JL Okay madam does that cover it for you?
C: No.
JL: I didn't think it would but I'm afraid it is going to have to because we will
spend too long on the subject and what the Prime Minister said I think is
understandable. Most of us, not everybody is happy with the
arrangement with the Aboriginal Land Councils, but the majority are.
Hello?
C: Good morning John, good momning PM, it is Paul Vanetti, cartoonist here
mate how are you?
PM: Good thank you.
C: I've just been up to Queensland and Northern NSW. I'm now
syndicating my cartoons right throughout Australia so I thought I would
get out there and have a look at some of the places that I'm sending
cartoons to and the enormous fear that is out there. I would be talking to
people in pubs and just meeting editors and the fear that is out there is
just unbelievable. I have never dealt with an issue a topic.
JU Yeah well there is going to be fear if-people listen to nonsense and
people, now let me just say this to you, you will find many people find it
very easy to dislike Aboriginal people that is their prerogative to like or
dislike and if they get and opportunity to throw a lite more mud than
they have already thrown they leap upon that opportunity. Now if
hysterical comment is going to be made concerning Mabo it will be
grabbed by other hysterical people who are looking, again, for another
reason to be critical of Aboriginal people. And I haven't always spoken
in favour of the Aboriginal people but you better start to tell people that it
is about time to start being a bit realistic about Mabo and not using it as
a hammer to belt Aboriginal people around the head or the Government
around the head because neither of them are directly responsible for
what the High Court said.
C: That is right, the point that I want to make here is that in politics, in
anything, you are really dealing with perceptions and I hope the Prime
Minister understands that and perception is everything. I deal with it
every day. It is similar to, I guess we could make a comparison with the
GST thing during the election, and people are saying to me that this will
be the Prime Minister's GST.
PM: But look, why say things like that, and what have people got to be fearful
about. This is land on which there is no title, which is not alienated from
the Crown, so it is Crown land on which a claim for native title can be
heard providing it can be established as a continuing association with
the land. Now what have people got to be fearful about of? They
haven't got to be fearful about land under their hotel or the main street or
the shops or the farms around, what have they got to be fearful of?
C: Well I think that is the point that we have got to get across.
JL: That is the point that we are getting across, that is exactly why the
Prime Minister is here.
PM: That is the key point, the fact is this, what am I to do, the High Court, our
most supreme national court has made a decision saying that native title
survived the acquisition of sovereignty at settlement. Now the
Commonwealth can stay right out of this. Right out of it. And then we
would have for the next 20 or 30 years on High Court case after another.
One land claim after another. And how much uncertainty would that
introduce. If the next thing that happened is a group of Aboriginal
people decided rather than to rely upon Commonwealth legislation, they
would then take a land claim over a certain area of NSW or Queensland
or Western Australia to the High Court and then that is made. So the
High Court says, look we can't handle all these claims we will put them
Federal Court. So the Federal Court then nas a bank of land claims
which go on from now till 30 or 40 years from now and no State mines or
land Minister who want to issue a grant of issue in land could in any way
be certain about who the native title holder was, there would be no law
and it would be all decided by court decision one after the other.
JL: And people are now concerned about the amounts of money being spent
in court procedures, and that would quadruple.
PM: Well exactly so unless there is a system of administrative law put Into
place to manage it, instead of tribunals to hear it where the tribunals
become expert in anthropological informnation and the dissemination of
information and which have Aboriginal expertise on them so that they
know when a claimant comes that they can quite quickly determine
whether there is any prospect of a native title. Unless such mechanisms
are established, this could all be decided by court cases.
JL: Prime Minister, I'm going to have to interrupt you because the news is
about to come along. Could you spare us five minutes after the news.
We've got a couple here we would like to cover, I think it is very
important we have an opportunity to summarise it and the news will be
here in about 30 seconds. So you people who are calling us from all
over..
JL: My guest is the Prime Minister, our discussion is Mabo. And it would
appear from what we have heard so far that the understanding of the
facts of Mabo is still distant from the minds of many, Prime Minister.
PM: Well I think that is probably right, John, but I think many other people are
starting to understand what it means. See, I think there is a bit of a sort
of a notion that a whole lot of land has got to be sort of handed out to
groups of Aboriginal people, you know, maybe sitting somewhere
waiting to be given some land. That fact is, these people have actually
got to be on the land, they are actually there now, they are actually on
the land now. It is not as if they are sort of sitting in Sydney waiting for a
grant of interest in land somewhere in NSW, they have actually got to be
there now.
JL: And will it be necessary when the time comes for them to prove that
they have been there for some considerable time and didn't arrive this
week?
PM: Yes, it will be like any other land claim which we have had under
statutory land rights, a relatively sophisticated process of hearing and
determining whether a native title truly exists. But the notion that we
have got all that empty land out there and there is a group of Aboriginals
a long way off hoping to be given some of it is not the situation at all.
They are actually there now, they are actually living on that land now. In
the case of the Merian people in the Murray Islands around which the
case was built originally, they were still growing vegetables and
occupying and using the land as they were before Cook arrived and so
fte continuing association was obvious. In the same way this land canniot
be allocated to people other than those who are currently there now.
JL 0OK and can prove an ongoing association?
PM: Yes, exactly.
JL OK we will take same calls.
C: Thank you very much John, good morning.
PM Good morning.
C: What most people actually have no problem with the Mabo situation
except of course, maybe in the rural sector, but it is most probably the
ongoing benefits that they intend to worry them.
JL Can you just answer one question for me, excuse me for interrupting.
Why do you think that people have an ongoing problem in the rural
sector.
C: Because basically that dealing with the land on a day to day basis for
their own survival.
PM: Can I make the point though it is not their land, it is not same non-
Aboriginal persons land because if they have title to that land in the rural
sector a farm or a pastoral property, it is not an issue here, it is land
unconnected with that. I think that is the point.
JL So what the Prime Minister is saying, those people who do have a fear
In the rural area, the fear is unbased unless they are using land for
which they don't hold some sort of title, but if they have got freehold title
or leasehold title they have not got a worry in the world. Their land can
not be touched.
C: Can I continue but I think the situation with most people of white
background most probably, would be discrimination they feel that
basically the Prime Minister stated that under his ' One Nation' statement
that there will be more like a one nation situation, but there is one
hundred, there a thousand billion a year being dished out to a set group
and the result is there is separate bodies to administer that group which
could be taken care of quite equally by the Social Security and Ethnic
Affairs and the Housing Department. Which means to say that one
hundred billion could be quite easily distributed and those people then
come into line with everybody else. This is I think most probably most
peopies beef, is that they feel they are being aiscriminated against in
relationship to those other people who have given the extra as you say,
ftindngs.
PM: Why don't we tryand dealiwith It. Your complaintIs aslIunderstand atIs
that Commonwealth funding for Aboriginal support and services Is
administered by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
and not by a Commonwealth department. It used to be administered by
a Commonwealth department, it was administered by the Department of
Aboriginal Affairs, bt a period, over t last 20 years or so I think we
found that that was not a successful mechanism or device to administer
funds to a community which is often removed from the capital cities, in
areas where there are not a lot of public facilities, where a normal
department which is issuing social security benefits just is not in a
position to be able to manage programs and where everybody the
Commonwealth's interest, the public interest, the budget and most
particularly the interest of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
was advantaged by having these funds allocated with closer attention to
the way in which the live and the places where they are and the kinds of
programs which they had to fund. Therefore ATSIC, the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Commission has now, I think, successfully played
a role in doing that. The key to it all is basically justice questions, the
same reasons the Commonwealth pays supporting parents benefit, the
same reason the Commonwealth pays unemployment benefit is
because people need it, it is allocated on the basis of need.
C: I don't get extra money, if I run out of money I can not go and get extra
money. . i
PM: You can if you are unemployed.
C: and expect it to be fixed up.
PM: You can if you are unemployed. If you run out of money and you run out
of work then you qualify for the unemployment benefit.
C: I have a case just recently, a guy had actually set aside a thousand odd
dollars that he had to pay the Tax Department. Two months later he
was on the actual unemployment situation, they said you go away and
spend that thousand dollars and then you can come back and get
unemployment benefit. He said that is allocated to the Tax Department.
JL: I don't quite understand, I lost it a bit.
PM: I can't resolve all those issues. I am just simply trying to respond to your
point that in some way funds for Aboriginal people are allocated on
same discriminatory basis in their favour. In fact that is not true, they
are allocated to again, on the basis of non-discrim ination so that social
justice questions can be deait with in the Aboniginal community as they
are dealt with in the non-Abonginal community.
C: My children don't get paid to go to school.
PM: Your children might niot be paid to go to school of course. But again,
this is not true of Aboriginal people either, but things such as Austudy
which is available for secondary school on the basis of income is
available also to Aboriginal people and it is called Abstudy.
J L Yes, but the point that he is making is that some of these payments are
higher for Aboriginal people than they are for white people.
PM: But the thing is the State builds the schools, you are not building the
school either, it is being built with Commonwealth and State money and
that is just the same for Aboriginal communities. If your beef is that
there is in some way discrimination in favour of Aboriginal people, there
is no discrimination in favour of Aboriginal people, there may be funding
in favour of Aboriginal people so as to diminish the discrimination which
has already occurred against them.
J L You see it is designed, I read it this way, it is designed to create equality
where equality would not be possible were the Aboriginal people not
given a little extra at certain times in the areas of health and education.
C: In all my life I have never had any extras, I have always had to work..
JL You are one of the lucky ones, neither have I,. we have all done that
most of us. There is some who can't work, some Aboriginal people find
it difficult to get a job opportunity because they haven't had the
education, that they generated the work ethic and in order to get that
they perhaps need a little extra help at some time along the way. And
that is what is considered and perceived by people like you and many
other people understandably to be discriminatory.
C: I am not discriminatory, I've employed an Aborigine actually.
JL Yes.
C: in the morning, he disappeared at 9: 00 and came back on the
following Thursday for his pay.
JL That's right because they are not accustomed to having a work ethic, but
that has got to do with upbringing and background and not very much to
do with Mabo.
C: Thank you.
JL We'll take another one maybe Prime Minister and then wind it up.
C: Mr Laws, Mr Prime Minister, I haven't got beef as such I am just a bit
puzzled. I have read the Mabo case a couple of times land rights In
order to settle the Queensland Coast Deregulatory Acts and the Racial
Discrimination Act being inconsistent with each other. Anid as such
every commentary you've made which have been very accurately
reported are in dicta, not in the judgement itself. So don't we have to
have a High Court case to actually decide whether they have land rights
first before everybody all go hysterical?
PM: No, they decided. I read earlier on the program that the decision of
Justice Masan, Brennon, Dean, Toolhey, Gaudron and McHugh and it
says this " native title to land survived the Crown's acquisition of
sovereignty in radical titleo. In other words it survived settlement.
C: I have got here assuming the Menam people could establish their
traditional land rights et cetera.
PM: There is no point in me debating the High Court decision with you. The
point I made earlier is this, that is what the High Court hear in evidence
or didn't hear, this was a case that went on for a very long period of time,
there is not point in you and me second guessing that. They have made
their position clear. But the point I made earlier is the key point. What
would people prefer, that is the Commonwealth and the States of this
country organising a body of administrative law and arrangements to
hear and award native titles sensibly and to provide certainty to the
whole of the Australian community and investment community or for the
Commonwealth to get right out of this and say we'll just leave this to the
High Court and the Federal Court to hear one claim after another? It
was the Murray Islands in the first place, it will be a piece of land
somewhere in north western NSW in the second case, it will be a piece
of land in Western Australia in the third case it will be one after the
other, then there will be hundreds over a period of years of claims which
will be heard by the Court and no certainty while ever those claims are in
process. Or you can have the Parliaments of this country responding to
the decision and setting up a body of law.
That is the right thing to do. What the Commonwealth is -trying to do
here is the right thing, that is to recognise the fact that a seminal change
has been made, a decision has been made by our most supreme of
courts saying that a native title exists.
C: They didn't. They have not said that native title exits, they said
assuming it exists..
PM: They nave. LOOK, there s no point in me oeing pecantic with you. I am~
reading it, I have got it night in front of me " native title of land survived
the Crown's acquisition of sovereignty.
C: Assuming the High Court did not, I am going back to Professor Lane's?
with the utmost respect in the world, I have got two very eminent people
pirofessionally and yourself giving different views.
PM: I'm not seeking to interpret the judgement, I am reading it to you.
C: Yes, but you are reading mostly dicta and not judgement.
PM: No I'm not. I can't sit on this program and read the various judgements
of each judge. The decision is about 200 pages long, but the summary
judgement is what I am reading.
JL: And the summary says clearly, I mean we haven't had one Premier want
to argue the point that you are arguing and given the opportunity they
would have liked to.
C: I am just going by Professor Lane's assertion on it and I am doing a
barrister's course at the moment.
JL: I think you have to pay attention to the summary that the Prime Minister
is reading to you in black and white right before his very eyes.
PM: It is all very simple this. In the end it boils down to. this, what the High
Court said if native people, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander
people are living on land that they have traditionally lived on and can
prove an association with then they can become a native title holder.
That is basically the sense of it, but where in the years since 1788 all
these grants of interests in land by the Crown, by State land ministers
and mines ministers have gone on, they have extinguished the native
title. Basically I am talking about native title over what is left and what is
left is areas mostly remote from the capital cities and which go beyond
the pastoral areas of this country, the freehold areas.
JL: OK, now we are going to have to call it a day there. In summary let's
just clarify the situation again once and for all so that we all understand.
The only claims that can be made are on land that have no title at all, no
lease title, no freehold title.
PM: That is right.
JL: They can only be effective claims if an ongoing association with that
land can be proved.
( es. Say for titles issuea after 1975 wnich may oe issuea in a
discriminatory way and contravene the Racial Discnmination Act. In
those cases pastoral leases, there is a matter for judgement there about
what is called revival of title. But what I have said is in terms of the
Commonwealth making law on the matter, we would hold those pastoral
titles with ongoing economic use to have extinguished the native title.
JL And the same with freehold title?
PM: And the same with freehold title. With freehold it is dear. Where
freehold title is
JL Even after 1975?
PM: No after 1975 freehold titles could be issued invalidly. John, can I just
say this to you. The Aboriginal community always seemed to be
laggarded often by people, but I think people should understand this
concession that they have made and it is a very important one. From
1975 to 1993 for 18 years much valid native title would have the
prospect of becoming invalid and invalid non-Aboriginal title will be
made valid were the Commonwealth and the States to validate these
titles.
JL Yes.
PM: Now, if you are an Aboriginal person and you had a native title and it
was valid, would you voluntarily give up its validity for it to be rendered
invalid and to see an invalid title be made valid over an 18 year period of
thousands of titles and to do it willingly? That is what the Aboriginal
community have by and large offered the Govemments of this country
the agreement to validate those titles. Would a group of non-Aboriginal
Australians make a similar generous offer?
JL I would doubt it.
PM: See, how many non-Aboriginals say that is OK, look our title is valid but
you the States and the Commonwealth Government can render it invalid
and all those invalid titles you can make valid; I mean it wouldn't be
said.
JL No it wouldn't be said.
PM: The Aboriginal people have made this offer because they know in the
practicality of administering a set of arrangements under Mabo that land
was issued after 1975, it was probably issued in a discriminatory way
because the land manager at the time didn't know a native title existed.
Therefore they are saying morally these State ministers didn't know land
title existed, but legally we have the right to keep the validity and they
are giving tnat up. ithink this community ougnt to unoierstana mne
generosity of that position.
JL OK the other point that I think Is probably one of the most Important
points is confidence in the rest of the world that investment in Australia
is safe and sound and that we are not going to have ongoing fights
about who owns what piece of land. Surety the sooner some statutory
body is set up by the Government and the States collectively to handle
all these things the sooner confidence in investment in Australia can be
renewed.
PM: Yes. There are two things, that is the titles from 1975-1993 have to be
validated, that means that all those valid native titles have got to be
Invalidated and the invalid non-Aboriginal titles have got to be validated.
That is the first point which brings certainty to all those leases issued
since 1975 and then as you say correctly we need mechanisms in place
to hear and award native title in the future.
JL: OK, now if compensation is made to the Aboriginal people in sizeable
sums of money, will the Commonwealth see to it that that money is put
in trust or invested property so that the interest payable from large sums
of money paid in compensation can go towards the billion dollars a year
now paid by the 98 per cent of other tax payers in Australia towards the
support of the Aboriginal people? In other words will they be
encouraged to support themselves with their own money?
PM: There is another concept here we have not mentioned and that the
question of revival of title. Let me explain this because it goes to
compensation. If say on a piece of native title land someone discovers
an alluvial gold deposit, it may be a deposit which can be mined within
seven years mining starts, seven years later the mining is finished.
There is no reason why we should needlessly extinguish the title that
has lasted all this time, thousands of years and now 200 years if you
like, and then extinguish it to allow the mining of a seven year gold
deposit. So, the proposition is that when the mining ceases the title
revives, the native title revives. In that event the compensation would
be much less because the native title holder has not lost the title and
given the fact that compensation anyway is going to go to surface
disturbance and inconvenience because the right to minerals will not be
vested in native title holders as it is not invested in non-Aboriginal title
holders there will be therefore no royalties, therefore the compensation
is basically about the same compensation a farmer would receive if
somebody drove across their land to put a transmission wire up or to put
a road through there.
JL: OK, but in order to placate the people who feel that they are being
discriminated against because the Aboriginal people are getting what
they consider correctly or incorrectly to be favourable treatment, if large
compensation payments are mace then surely it would be in the
interests of the Commonwealth to see that some of that money was set
aside in some sort of trust fund in order that contribution could be made
to the Aboriginal people by the Aboriginal people.
PM: I think what will happen John, and this is a matter for in a sense
Aboriginal Australia itself, but by and large these funds would be paid to
the trust funds of the land councils and they would then be used for
Aboriginal purposes that is for justice and opportunity purposes and to
the extent that there is more funds available in the normal course of land
council management that of course, complements whatever the
Commonwealth is paying directly off the Budget.
JL: OK, thank you very much for your time you have been very generous
with it and we should try and keep it clear in the minds of people who do
tend to feel uncomfortable about it and again summarise by saying if
land is covered by lease hold or freehold title it can not be touched. That
many of the claims being made by the extreme Aboriginal groups are far
from realistic and will never come to fruition and unless the land is totally
unoccupied and an ongoing association with that land can be proved, no
land will be given to Aboriginal groups.
PM: Exactly, but I think the even greater point John is this. That if we want
to progress as a country truly at peace with itself inside, that is where
the opportunities available to Australians are equal opportunities the
Mabo judgement does give Australia a chance to even up, to give
Aboriginal people some of the rights that non-Aboriginal Australians
have had. So it is not a case of discrimination in favour of Aboriginal
people, it is a case of bringing them up to rights which non-Aboriginal
Australians have enjoyed. That coupled with the fact that we have as
ourselves changed as a community through the migration program,
through the sophistication of our society, it lets us get on with it and not
have this question about dispossession and if you like, criticism by other
countries of the way we manage our domestic affairs with our
indigenous people had put that aside and I think this is why the Mabo
decision is a great opportunity if handled properly, but again I repeat left
to the decision itself it will only affect a minority of Aboriginal people, it
will only beneficially affect a minority of Aboriginal people and that is why
we have to think about other social justice programs so that land may be
provided in some way to those who were formerly dispossessed of the
land and can't make a Mabo claim.
JL: OK, Prime Minister thank you for your time.
PM: Thank you John.
ends.