Indigenous dreaming of a new era

Throughout the past couple of years I have been a public critic of both major federal parties, Labor and the Coalition, especially of their bipartisan support for the abolition of ATSIC.

Sure, I was one of the first Indigenous commentators to go on record as saying the old ATSIC was past its “use by” date - but I insisted, as did Jackie Huggins and her national review team later, that it needed to be replaced by a more accountable and transparent elected model.

So after the demise of a mean-spirited Coalition government, which has successfully wound back the clock four decades on all significant Indigenous policy initiatives, including education, land rights, health, employment, housing, national elective representation and so on, we ought to pause for a moment and reflect on how we intend to approach a new era under a new administration.

Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister, has declared his hand openly on the issue of a national elected Indigenous representative body and so we should hope that it will be a given - and be implemented by Labor within the first 12 months of the new term.

Who could ever forget the poignant words of Rudd’s predecessor Mark Latham before the last election, who announced to the world on March 30, 2004 that he would abolish ATSIC if he became Prime Minister, saying: "ATSIC is no longer capable of addressing endemic problems in Indigenous communities."

And how ironically prophetic were Latham’s words, “It (ATSIC) has lost the confidence of much of its own constituency and the wider community,” articulated in the same interview when just weeks later the nation had formed the identical view of Latham’s leadership and returned Howard to the Lodge.

Latham’s inept handling of Labor’s election campaign, which simply imploded before our eyes on national television, gifted the Coalition Government an increased majority, including control of both houses, and added a further three years of hardship and stress to the lives of those living on and below the bread line.

And we all know Indigenous Australians, as a discrete group, are over-represented in the category of Australians who experience financial difficulties.

It is therefore refreshing to hear Rudd has committed Labor to building a national consensus to improve the social and economic wellbeing of Indigenous people, to enable them to exercise their rights and to meet their responsibilities as members of the broader Australian community.

Labor recognises that governments have a responsibility to turn this disadvantage around and have said, through policy papers, that it is determined to see change through evidence-based programs which avoid bureaucracy and are designed in partnership with Indigenous people.

Jenny Macklin, the former shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister, said in her speech A New Direction With Indigenous Australians delivered to the 44th Australian Labor Party National Conference held in Sydney on April 27, 2007 that Labor would form a national Indigenous representative body. She said:

Fundamentally, our approach is different from the Howard Government’s because we are not afraid of hearing what Indigenous people actually think and want. We are prepared to have an honest conversation, to be told where we're going wrong, to work in partnership and with respect.

That’s why this platform today commits Labor to creating a new national representative body for Indigenous Australians. Labor doesn’t want Indigenous people to just be the subject of a national conversation; we need them to be part of that conversation. Part of the action. Part of the solutions.

So what are the issues and what type of representation do we want?

As I’ve travelled this vast country attending an assortment of Indigenous gatherings I’ve gained a broad perspective of what Indigenous people feel is required to address the current imbalance in both the representation and service delivery for their respective communities.

I’ll preface my comments on ATSIC by saying the majority of past ATSIC representatives were honourable leaders who tried their best to deliver programs in a fair and equitable manner.

Notwithstanding my observation many community members who spoke to me feel they personally contributed to the demise of ATSIC through their inability to speak out on the lack of accountability and transparency of their leaders. Most agree that they voted the usual suspects into public office hoping they would change their questionable habits, but as with past experience they were proven wrong again.

I was told the usual suspects seemed to have their priorities wrong. When they should have been working for their people from their office base or out in the field among them they chose instead to entertain their associates at the local pub or gambling venues - playing pokies or betting at the TAB. When not at these locations I was told the “so called” leaders were generally accruing travel allowance fees and fuel card expenses on unnecessary and irrelevant travel.

In other words many of the voters simply voted along family lines instead of for the best person from their community. Some felt they had an obligation to follow the family line, while others openly admitted to me that they were coerced or intimidated by standover merchants or smooth talkers living within their community to vote a certain way.

Many even suggested that some unscrupulous leaders personally rubber stamped Indigenous confirmation letters of non-Indigenous people so they in turn could be eligible to vote for them in the ATSIC elections. I told these people to take their complaints to the police but many said they wouldn’t because of their fear of repercussions on them and their families from the offenders who rule their communities with a heavy hand.

I recognise that many responsible voters cast their vote without fear or favour on a candidate they thought could best represent them and their community. But in the final analysis that vote regrettably didn’t deliver enough leaders of substance to positively influence major policy initiatives.

Scores of people I’ve met around the nation have questioned the suitability of some ATSIC regional councillors when assessing the allocation of funding for domestic violence programs when it was common knowledge in their community that these councillors were the perpetrators of violent and regular beatings of their partners.

Others commented on the appropriateness of some of ATSIC regional councillors passing judgment on detailed business applications when many of them are compulsive gamblers or simply careless with money and who have difficulty paying regular household bills.

Most elected representatives have no experience of owning or managing a small business and therefore have limited practical knowledge to call on in forming their decision at the Regional Council budget deliberations.

And again similar comments have been passed onto me by community members who were aghast at regional councillors doing the job of assessing alcohol and drug programs when paradoxically some of them would be suitably qualified, as alcohol and drug dependent people, for entry into the programs in question.

I’m confident this time around that the voting public will be more cautious when casting their crucial vote as I believe they all know that they will not get another opportunity from a sympathetic government to elect a national representative body if they get it wrong again.

On an issues front you only need to look at recent newspaper articles to see what today’s major crisis is.

The West Australian (November 8) reported a senior police officer telling a coronial inquest into Aboriginal deaths that up to 25 planes a week with up to 90 cartons of alcohol on board had been flying into the remote community of Oombulgurri.

“We have had reports of planes landing and being unstable and tipping, you know, because of the weight, too much weight, and just being primarily alcohol on board,” Sgt Thompson told State Coroner Alastair Hope last month.

The Courier-Mail (September 20) had bold headlines of warring tribal clans (Wik Mungkin and Wik Ngathan tribes) fuelled by a boatload of "sly grog" turning on police in a riot involving up to 200 people at the Aboriginal community of Aurukun.

The article reported that sly groggers evaded police roadblocks by shipping a dinghy full of rum, beer and wine from nearby Weipa on Sunday, sparking a week of violence in the Cape York community.

Mostly communities want what other mainstream communities have and that is an adequate police presence to assist with law and order and for their people to access higher levels of education, employment, health and housing opportunities.

The Indigenous community members seek to have social parity with mainstream society which requires a long term financial commitment from government to “close the gap” on health and social disadvantage and on life expectancy - something that continues to be a blight on Australia’s international human rights record.

A recent report revealed that 90 per cent of the total Northern Territory prison population were of Indigenous descent; and there was an unacceptable and appalling over-representation of Indigenous youth and women in jails nationally.

Many Indigenous people feel they have run into a brick wall with their native title claims due to the incompetence of far too many inept Native Title Representative Bodies who favour some traditional owner groups over others and distribute their minimal resources accordingly.

So after the celebrations of the Labor party victory have subsided I suggest all Indigenous people of voting age seriously engage with one another in communities and enter into dialogue with government officials. They need to become part of the decision making process on the name, composition and terms of reference of the proposed national elected representative body.

But the most important thing I would like Indigenous people to think of when they go to cast their vote in an AEC-sanctioned secret ballot for a new national representative body is the famous old saying of George Santayana who once said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."