Subjects: Reconciliation; treaties; national apology.
E&OE ...............................
JONES:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
Thank you for your time, is it cold in Canberra?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is indeed. Very brisk.
JONES:
Did you feel embarrassed or shamed or anything at the weekend in the way in which you were treated?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I expected a fairly difficult reception at the gathering at Saturday. I am sorry that people took the view that I came to that expressing an opinion based on some kind of opinion polling. See Alan, what I'm expressing about this whole issue are views that I sincerely hold. I know people say why don't you say sorry, well I've said sorry personally on numerous occasions. What they want is a formal national apology. The Government and I am not just speaking for myself, I speak for the entire Government on this and it's a matter that's been discussed at great length, we don't think it's appropriate for the current generation of Australians to apologise for the injustices committed by past generations. Now that has been a view that I've held and the Government has held for a long time. I hold it sincerely. I regret that a lot of people disagree with me. I guess some people agree with me. But in the end I don't react to just changing tabulations of public opinion. It's a sincerely held view of mine and if the Australian people decide in their wisdom at an appropriate time that it is not a view they can sustain, well that is the nature of the democratic process. But I owe them above everything else the honesty of my own view.
Now the other point I make is that the notion of a treaty which has emerged very strongly from this weekend is I think a very divisive notion. I notice that Mr Beazley has embraced a treaty, it is now Labor Party policy to examine the possibility of a treaty. I think that will divide us. I mean nations make treaties, not parts of nations with each other.
And the other area that I am concerned about is the notion of separate development which seems to me to be a consequence of self-determination.
JONES:
Can I just take a couple of those points please, because there was this declaration which was presented to whom ever was prepared to accept it. The ninth paragraph of the declaration says, we desire a future where all Australians enjoy their rights, you wanted to say, did you not, equal rights?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I did. And I think most Australians would agree that we want equal rights. You see, the great problem about this debate is that most people support reconciliation - I do very strongly, my Government does very strongly. I am sure the people who walked across the Harbour Bridge yesterday were walking in favour of reconciliation, but they'd have had different views about what represents reconciliation. Some of them would have been wanting a treaty, some of them would have been simply wanting as we wanted in our declaration, every Australian to have equal rights.
JONES:
Another part of that declaration talks about self-determination, it says - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have the right to self-determination within the nation. Are you concerned as Prime Minister of Australia that an agreement to that language could lead to a claim for a sovereign state within a state?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am not sure what it means and I wanted it to say that they should have the right to self-determination along with all other sections of the Australian community so there could be no . . .
JONES:
Which means the right to better yourself.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, exactly. For personal fulfilment and personal satisfaction and fulfilling personal aspirations. In its current form, it conjures up the notion of some kind of separate development. Now other people can accept willy-nilly, you know can say well I'll accept this declaration, we'll work out precisely what it means later, but as Prime Minister if I had said yes to that, and subsequently people had come to me and said well what we really want is some kind of separate development, it would have been very difficult because I would have been accepting it not just as John Howard but on behalf of the entire nation. I don't have the luxury in those circumstances of speaking other than as Prime Minister.
JONES:
And you've got to avoid providing a minefield for lawyers?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have got to avoid providing a minefield for lawyers and the pity of this debate is that the great bulk of that declaration I agree with. The great bulk of that declaration I am sure that 95% of Australians agree with. There are areas of difference, they are limited but they're nonetheless important. And they were the subject of the I guess the expressions of criticism of me at the weekend. I can't do anything about that. I went to that Corroboree in good faith, I went there willing to express my solidarity with the aspirations of reconciliation, I believe in it, I went there to say that I brought goodwill. I admire the work that people like Evelyn Scott have put into the leadership of the reconciliation movement. I think they've done a magnificent job and I am glad for their sake that the weekend was successful. I really mean that but I still have an obligation to all of the Australian people to say what I believe and to express the sincerely held and carefully developed views of the Government. And once I stop doing that then I am really breaking my covenant with the Australian people.
JONES:
Well the declaration also talks about the fact that quote, we respect and recognise continuing customary laws, beliefs and traditions. Now, I interviewed Paddy McGuinness on this because he had written that all customary aboriginal laws include, and this is a very distasteful thing, but this is what he wrote, the ritual gang rape of a woman by friends of her husband, or the making available by elders of a girl to younger men in exchange for payment in some form and he questioned whether we should be recognising those customary laws and if so what was the relationship to the common law. Is that a concern that your Government has about recognising continuing customary laws?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I didn't have that particular matter that you referred to in mind. I mean I don't want to sort of get into that.
JONES:
Exactly.
PRIME MINISTER:
But the notion that you have one, that you might have one set of laws for one section of the population and another set of laws for the rest of the population, even if it is said as a postscript that the first set of laws will be subject to the general law, is one that I still have a lot of difficulty with. We weren't able to do that. What we did say was that we were willing to say that we recognised the place of I think traditional law within the culture of the aboriginal people and in that context it relates more to the nature of their culture rather than a legal system. I mean this is something that one could explore further and if it could be expressed in a somewhat different way and it didn't have the connotation of a separate legal stream, then there may not be any difference . . .
JONES:
So you do hope that you would be able to come to agreement with the Council for Reconciliation on appropriate wording?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you might, I mean I have indicated to them you might be able to do it on that issue, but I haven't seen that appropriate wording. But in the other areas, I mean I had a talk with them on Thursday, a very good talk with all of the, a number of the aboriginal leaders about the treaty and I said with the greatest goodwill in the world, I can't support a process that leads to a treaty because it's a divisive notion, we are all Australians together.
[break]
JONES:
Prime Minister, Peter Yu, the boss of the Kimberly Land Council writing about this, referred to Patrick Dodson's Wentworth Lecture in which he recommended the establishment of a committee comprising forty distinguished Australians and I quote - charged with the responsibility of drafting a treaty between aboriginal people and the government. Do you feel as though the ante is being upped here, that one demand is now following upon another?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly the notion of a treaty has emerged very strongly over the last week, and I'm concerned about that because it will be divisive. I don't believe the Australian community wants to look at this nation of ours in bits. It passionately wants aboriginal Australians to be treated equally, to have their aspirations satisfied in the same way as all other Australians. It's sad about past mistreatment, it wants complete equality, it wants to get rid of racial prejudice and discrimination, it wants aborigines to have much greater opportunities in the future. It does not in my view want the notion of a treaty opened up and I am against that because I don't think it would be in the interests of Australia and I am really concerned that the treaty has emerged in the last week in a prominent way. I mean I saw people with stickers on their clothing yesterday calling for a treaty, now I think if we start to have a debate about a treaty in this country it will be divisive, it won't get people together. I think it runs the risk of pushing them apart.
JONES:
So we're not just talking about housing, health, education and your government has provided more in money for those causes than any previous government.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, we have. And we will continue to give them massive priority. And I think the practical reconciliation of which I continually speak is fundamental to addressing the disadvantage that indigenous people suffer. There are other parts of reconciliation I acknowledge that. There is a spiritual part of it very definitely but, I think a treaty will create division because you can't, a nation can't make a treaty with itself. We make treaties with other countries, not with ourselves. And what we should be seeking to do is to treat all Australians together. We can't go back and say well look you know the New Zealanders had a treaty, but that was in 1830. You can't turn the clock back on something like that, you have to dealt with the here and now and the here and now in my view will not be aided by talk of a treaty and I'm very . . .
JONES:
Is there a problem with many Australians whereby on the one hand there seems to be a demand to maintain for indigenous Australians to maintain existing cultures, but still be the beneficiaries of all those things that flow from assimilation into a more westernised culture. Is there a conflict there?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don't think it is, I don't think there is, I think you can maintain the separate aboriginal culture and you can give it special treatment because they are the nation's first people. I don't have any problem with that as a notion. But the concept of a treaty goes far beyond that. I don't have any difficulty with giving a special place in the life of our country to the culture of indigenous people, and I think it is increasingly and people are very happy with that, they want it to occur, they think it is part of the Australian story and it is.
JONES:
In the formal Constitution though, not the preamble, aboriginal indigenous Australians are not recognised, should they be?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we tried to put a preamble in and it was knocked over. And many of the people who have been very vocal over the past few weeks and have been critical of me, urged Australia to vote no to the preamble on the grounds presumably that it didn't go far enough. I mean Aden Ridgeway didn't, I mean he and I in fact worked on it together. But I find it very strange that over the past few days in particular I have seen faces on the television screens roundly condemning my handling of this issue and calling for greater recognition of indigenous people and yet they were some of the same people who called on Australians last November to vote no to the preamble.
JONES:
Should there be positive discrimination in favour of indigenous Australians to have a wider representation by them in the parliamentary process?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not in favour of having separate indigenous seats if that's what you are talking about, no. I think once again that goes against the notion of people being treated equally. I'm certainly in favour of putting additional resources into addressing the disadvantage of indigenous people because clearly they are the most disadvantaged section of our community. I have always argued that and because I believe it and we will always endeavour to address it. But the notion of having separate seats based on people's racial or cultural background is not one that appeals to me at all.
JONES:
Do you ever wonder why Mr Hawke and Mr Keating, your predecessors weren't asked to meet all these demands that are now being asked of you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I often wonder that about a lot of things, particularly in relation to this. My understanding of the history of this is incidentally that Mr Hawke looked at the idea of a treaty and then walked away from it and that some tell me that the notion of reconciliation was then developed as replacement for having a treaty. He certainly did talk about it at one stage and then it disappeared. I think his instinct to let it disappear was probably correct. But he is out of office now and so is Mr Keating and so are all the other former prime ministers and you can say and do things when you are out office and not in office that don't have the same implications if you say the same thing when you are the current prime minister. And I am very conscious that when I look at these things I have to think of the consequences for the future of the country.
JONES:
So what are you saying to Australia today in light of what happened at the weekend?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am saying it was a wonderful demonstration of general support by the Australian community for reconciliation. I don't think there is any doubt about that and I am very much part of that mood and I believe in reconciliation but I do have points of departure. I don't agree with the notion of a treaty, I think that would be divisive. I can't support the idea of a formal national apology for the reason that our current generation of Australians should not be held responsible for the misdeeds of earlier ones. Now that's a view a lot of Australians condemn of me, I am sorry about that. But I can only sincerely state what I believe. I feel personal sorrow for past injustice, but I can only say what I believe and I would be breaking the most important obligation I have to the Australian people in doing anything else.
JONES:
Thank you for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ENDS]