Power intoxication

Indira Gandhi (1917 - 1984) Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977, and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, once said: “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

The Australia 2020 Forum held in the nation’s capital on April 19-20 was designed to provide a unique, possibly once-in-a-lifetime, opportunity for Australia’s brightest Indigenous minds to come together in an ambience of impartiality to pool their collective thoughts on solutions for the future.

As part of that privileged group of 100 who participated in the Options for the future of Indigenous Australia stream I was optimistic of constructive and practical outcomes emanating from the weekend gathering.

Although I was in a buoyant mood in my approach to the weekend I’d be deceitful if I didn’t say I was, at times, somewhat anxious of the thought that there could well be a conference implosion from the weight of divergent views of high profile personalities who might find proceedings not to their liking.

I gathered Dr Jackie Huggins, Co-Chair of the Indigenous stream, had similar thoughts as well when, on the 2020 Forum website, she instructed Indigenous participants, in a succinct if not a tad audacious manner, to leave their egos at the door.

On the opening morning delegates could be seen excitedly greeting one another inside the Great Hall in Parliament House while waiting for the national address by the Prime Minister. Although powerful in his delivery I must say the delegate who impressed me more than the PM in the introductory session was Sana Nakata who spoke after the notable “Welcome to Country” address by Matilda House.

Ms Nakata, who is a PhD student of Torres Strait Islander descent and the daughter of eminent UTS Professor Martin Nakata, gave an eloquent, insightful and inspiring paper which left an indelible impression on the 1,000-strong delegation and large media throng; and in so doing assured them that the future of Indigenous affairs was in safe hands.

Besides Dr Huggins, who spoke on the final day closing session, the other Indigenous delegates who spoke to the full assembly during the two days, Tim Goodwin and Rachel Perkins, were outstanding ambassadors for Indigenous Australia and were deserving of their positions on the official dais.

The two-day Forum, for me, was a dichotomy of chances taken and opportunities lost.

It wasn’t for want of trying that opportunities were missed. In respect to the management of individual streams I believe the sessions were well organised and for that credit must go to the efficient facilitators who managed to elicit big ticket items and actionable strategies from delegates after only one and half days of deliberation.

The big ticket items were able to be arrived at as a direct consequence of facilitators presenting delegates with a strategically controlled environment: 10 participants in 10 round table diverse groupings; multiple scribes per table, television cameras constantly recording every word spoken; photographers clicking away at will recording participants from all angles; time limit of two minutes per speaker, to name a few of the conditions for engaging in the debate.

In fact the first day’s outcomes exceeded most delegates’ expectation with the Treaty and a Futures Fund to alleviate Indigenous disadvantage being the number one and two items respectively, followed closely by the revitalisation of a national representative body.

It wasn’t until the following morning that dismay and outrage came to the fore for delegates when Cape York leader Noel Pearson was reported in The Canberra Times as saying the Indigenous stream was struggling to come up with the big ideas and that there were no ideas he had not previously heard.

As delegates entered the meeting room for the commencement of the second day it became apparent that things were about to change dramatically with the unannounced arrival of new Indigenous delegates who were in different sessions the day prior; including Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Marcia Langton.

All of a sudden high profile delegates who were relatively quiet on the first day; including Peter Yu and Pat Dodson, became more animated and could be seen networking delegates around the room.

And all of this on top of the Pearson article had many delegate minds’ ticking overtime.

As Minister Jenny Macklin introduced a new controversial format for the 10 round table sessions, breaking the momentum from day one, the euphoria from the opening day turned chillingly sombre.

Highly respected lawyer Kate George from Western Australia had to be consoled by friends as she, like many others, saw the dynamics of Indigenous politics unfold and knew in that instant that the summit was about to go “pear shaped”.

Predictably for delegates the day ended as it began when Minister Macklin took advantage of strained relations between members by misrepresenting our expressed views on the big ticket items of a Treaty and Future’s Fund to the full assembly of 1,000 delegates and to the large, live, national audience viewing proceedings on ABC TV.

Disappointingly as delegates made their way home from the Forum the real power brokers in Indigenous affairs came to the fore with attack after attack on the gains made on day one through the media.

On April 21 The Australian ran a story under the headline "Push for a treaty divides delegates" with quotes from Warren Mundine and Sue Gordon.

Sue Gordon, said she was so worried the rights agenda had "hijacked" the Indigenous stream on Saturday, by the Sunday she and many others met to push the economic issues:

I think that there was a push to have the rights and symbols agenda and, when there was talks of treaty and rights, not a lot of people supported it.

There were two different types of thinkers there ... people of the rights agenda pushing symbols and another group who wanted to move the agenda into what we other Aboriginal people are thinking. We need to move from just symbols to practical reconciliation.

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine said that although constitutional recognition was important, it should not have been allowed to dominate discussions. "I think they could have spent their time better," he said.

Central Land Council director David Ross, speaking to The Centralian Advocate on April 23 slammed Noel Pearson’s boycott of the 2020 Summit. The Centralian Advocate noted that Mr Pearson did not turn up to the summit on Sunday, after criticising Saturday's sessions for failing to generate new ideas.

But Mr Ross said:

Even though the views were nothing new, you have to fix the past to move forward. … Noel Pearson got the salts because we weren't coming up with anything new. He basically dictates through his column in The Australian what he wants in his own view.

You put him with other Aboriginal people and he has difficulty dealing with different views.

Indigenous lawyer Megan Davis was also critical of Noel Pearson in her Sydney Morning Herald perspective piece on April 24:

For some, the writing was on the wall when Noel Pearson appeared to sleep through much of Saturday's session and was animated only when Kevin Rudd was in the room. Pearson then failed to turn up on Sunday, showing great disrespect to the others in the stream and wasting a place at the summit table that many others would have been honoured to take.

The Government must break the spell cast by Pearson and his colleagues. It would be a grave error to ignore the extraordinary goodwill and strong consensus generated in the Indigenous stream at the summit in favour of vocal but marginal sectional interests that the Government appears to believe are more palatable to the wider population.

On April 29 Wesley Aird continued to air dirty linen on prominent pages of The Australian when he asserted that "We need to stop people getting pissed and beating each other up. How is that going to happen in Canberra?". "If I was sleeping in the park tonight or in a party house in Aurukun or Yuendumu, I couldn't give a stuff (about a new body)."

Personally I thought the 2020 Forum was a success in bringing a diverse group of Indigenous leaders together and the big ticket items in the main were a positive outcome. The issues raised by disgruntled leaders, some who weren’t even there, of addressing chronic social issues, missed the point. Those issues have been identified and are currently being funded - this forum was about big ticket items.

In that respect the Treaty - or constitutional changes - was designed to offer protection to Indigenous Australians against the government in instances where they use Race Laws (exclusion of the 1975 Race Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory Intervention) to the detriment of Indigenous peoples.

One thing that is patently clear to me after witnessing events unfold at the 2020 Forum and the debate that raged between media savvy Indigenous leaders who continue to spitefully attack one since then is the urgent need to reinstate a national representative body.

Until we have a representative body, with a mandate from Indigenous voters to speak on our behalf, the government will continue to laugh at our fractured unelected leadership as viewed farcically in the national media - and play wedge politics at their convenience.

As Indira Gandhi once said, “… leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people,” and to that end I believe the new representative body, when elected, will resemble nothing of the old ATSIC where muscle appeared to have prevailed.