Reconciliation: a worthy and achievable cause or a political idea before its time?

Let me explain by reference to Australia's past.

One can identify a number of ethnic groups, who in Australia's past were "outsiders" and were not fully accepted by the mainstream Australian community. Most prominent were the Chinese immigrants of the 19th century. Other groups subject to social frictions were the Irish (and Catholics in general) until maybe the 1960s, Southern European immigrants (so-called "wogs"), especially following WW2, Asian immigrants from the 1970s etc.

Reconciliation between these groups and the greater community was achieved informally through the economic success of the immigrant communities themselves, and through inter-marriage and assimilation with other Australians. (With apologies to Al Grassby) official policies played little part in this process.

While Australia's Indigenous population has been here the longest, reconciliation has been held back by a number of factors.

Firstly, by virtue of their physical isolation from the rest of the world for thousands of years, Australia's Indigenous population started from a very low technological base, had no formal educational learning culture, and no written language. These are great handicaps in achieving economic progress. In addition Indigenous Australians had little tolerance for alcohol (introduced by colonists), genetics adapted to bush diets rather than European foods, and were very susceptible to introduced and lifestyle diseases. Finally, disturbance of the traditional way of life, coupled with the introduction of ill-suited welfare, were very destructive.

A major negative has also been ideologically based "quick fixes", which were often misrepresented as cure-alls, but which in reality were often distractions from core problems that have never been properly addressed.

Prominent "quick fixes" have been the following.

The 1967 Referendum, while a step in the right direction, has been widely misrepresented in the popular belief. Legally, it only directly applied to a small proportion of the population now regarded as Indigenous, though arguably its symbolic effect was huge.

By way of example, many people actually believe that, prior to 1967, Indigenous Australians were not counted in our Population Census. In reality, statistics on Indigenous people have been collected since the Empire Census of 1861. They have also been enumerated in all Population Censuses since the establishment of the Commonwealth. The 1966 Census separately counted 80,207 full-blood and half-blood Aborigines, with those of lesser descent enumerated in the general count because they were not then regarded as Indigenous. Contrary to popular belief, the Referendum also didn't confer Australian citizenship on Indigenous people or give them the right to vote. Indigenous people (even under the old definition) mostly already had the vote, though rules varied by state.

The Mabo decision, the other officially regarded landmark on the reconciliation journey, granted native title rights, mainly to Indigenous people in remote areas. While it was hugely important as a legal triumph for Indigenous people, I am not sure that it did much to help reconciliation. In terms of reconciliation, Mabo arguably was the most divisive decision ever brought down by the High Court. Besides creating uncertainty in land law, that created fear concerning property rights and required subsequent clarification in legislation, it arguably enriched the legal fraternity more than it benefitted a typical person of Indigenous descent.

The broader granting (from the 1970s) of land rights, while widely welcomed, has not been the cure-all that many had hoped for. Most remote communities, while they value their title to lands, have derived little economic benefit from land ownership, even though in some respects they receive preferential treatment to other landowners. Collective ownership is often considered a barrier to economic development and individual home ownership. Preferential treatment to other landowners (e.g. rights to negotiate with miners) has also become a cause of resentment.

Native title benefits are now non-assessable non-exempt income and are therefore not subject to income tax. Similarly, any capital gains or losses made from surrendering or cancelling native title rights are disregarded for tax purposes. Aboriginal lands are also commonly exempt from rates. For example, under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983, if land owned by an Aboriginal Land Council falls within a certain category, it is automatically exempt from rates and other charges.