Djerrkura stood up for the rights of Indigenous peoples. We will miss him

It was a tragic Sorry Day, 2004. It was the day Djerrkura died.  The nation has lost a leader. Many of us have lost a dear friend and colleague. 

He's gone at 50-bloody-4: taken on the eve of the anniversary of the 1967 referendum and eve of the Howard government's introduction of a bill into the Federal Parliament to abolish ATSIC.  Djerrkura was the last appointed Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. He was almost its first elected Chair.

The story of what happened in and around the ATSIC boardroom on December 16, 1999 will have to wait for another day but one often wonders how things would be now had Mr Djerrkura walked out of the boardroom as ATSIC Chair that day. He knew it was the beginning of the end of his all-too-brief career on the national political stage. The devastation was etched into his face at the post-ballot news conference. He also knew the Commission was operating in a hostile political environment.  It had its back to the wall. 

Those who think the Howard government's proposed abolition of ATSIC is the product of recent political events would be well served to have a close look at how Howard treated Mr Djerrkura and the Commission after his appointment in 1996.  He was a senior Wangurri elder, well connected to the conservative political and business establishment in the Northern Territory.  He was a former director of the Henry and Walker group, the main commercial backer of the arch-conservative Country Liberal Party.  He had been a CLP candidate in the Northern Territory, and a former chairman of the then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commercial Development Corporation, now Indigenous Business Australia. He was handpicked by Howard as a "conservative".

But the Howard government dumped him when it became obvious he would not turn his back on his own people and he realised he was dealing with a Prime Minister deeply antagonistic to the legitimate aspirations of his people. Howard refused to meet him during the entire second half of his term, deferring all requests for an audience to his Aboriginal Affairs Minister, John Herron.

It was also obvious that Howard was deeply antagonistic to the concept of ATSIC. Mr Djerrkura was deeply troubled by this. He was caught between Howard's conservatism in dealing with those who appointed him and his own conservative past in dealing with his own people and his fellow elected Commissioners. It was a mark of the man that he publicly fronted both.
He chose a public forum in the Warrnambool Performing Arts Centre on March 5, 1999 to deliver what many close to him still consider one his finest messages to both. Most of the Aboriginal people in the audience were avid supporters of the man who succeeded him as ATSIC Chair. 

He began, as was his custom, by acknowledging the traditional owners, the Yaarar Goundidj peoples. He continued:

I thank them for welcoming me to their country. It is good to be in the home of other saltwater peoples. I also thank Commissioner Clark for his personal invitation to share this forum with so many distinguished colleagues.

We meet here tonight united by a common enemy. That enemy is ignorance. It is all about us. It dwells in some of the highest offices in the land. I could spend all night talking about examples in the public debate just in the past few weeks. But, I won't. I simply remind you of this.

The man who occupies the highest political office in Victoria has just been telling everyone the Aboriginal peoples of this country originally came from Polynesia. I'll be honest. When I heard that statement I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But then someone reminded me Premier Kennett used to be in advertising.

I assure you things are no better in the National Capital. I think it fair to say relations between the current federal government and the Aboriginal peoples of this country have never been worse. The root cause is ignorance. And that ignorance feeds arrogance.

Let's be clear. I have no doubt there are many good people in government in Canberra. I am sure they are committed. I am sure they are trying their best to advance our interests. But I do not believe they have the all-important ear of the Prime Minister.

I believe those who do have zero tolerance for our legitimate political, social, cultural and economic aspirations. In their eyes we should be a silent minority. Not to be seen by this Prime Minister. And, not to be heard. They have one agenda. To gut ATSIC. And, to gag ATSIC.

Ignorance and arrogance blind them to the fact they have no mandate to do either. Above all else they would have the Prime Minister believe one thing: that the commission that I chair, and associated organisations who advocate for the legitimate rights and aspirations of our people, are riddled with Labor sympathisers.

If I succeed in nothing else tonight I want to nail this political kite to the floor. I stand before you tonight as a former conservative political candidate. I make no secret of it. I make no apology for it. I count many Liberal politicians among my friends. Labor politicians too.

I came into my job knowing that the Commission could and would work with a small "l" liberal government. What we cannot work with is a big 'C' conservative government.

ATSIC has, and does, work with the liberal elements of the current federal government. We also look back to the days when Malcolm Fraser, Fred Chaney and Ian Viner were in power. Thankfully they are still very active, privately and publicly, in pursuing a liberal agenda for this country.

They were in power at a time when all sides of politics worked together to address the appalling levels of disadvantage our peoples continue to suffer in this country. The division we now see does not cut across traditional party lines. The division which troubles us is clearly within this current government. It has one policy for reconciliation. It has another for recrimination. From where I sit the policy of recrimination is being actively pursued. Reconciliation is not.

You would be aware from the media reports over the past few days that I came here tonight to launch a new ATSIC publication. It is called Please Explain (pdf, 5554KB). It sets out the story of the Howard government, the United Nations and the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It explains why this government has received a please explain from a United Nations committee concerned with fundamental human rights. I commend the publication to you and the exhaustive commission report to the committee upon which it is based.

Commissioner Clark and others will be travelling to Geneva over the next few days to hear the government explain itself before that committee. They will travel with copies of both ATSIC documents. They, and the commission, will no doubt face the usual chorus of complaints that we are using taxpayers dollars to go overseas to talk Australia down. We are not talking Australia down. We are talking up for our rights. We have a mandate to do so.

The ATSIC Act empowers us to advocate for the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples both within and without Australia. We would be derelict in our duty if we did not do so. The "please explains" should be sought not from the Commission, but from those who would seek to deny us our legal right to speak up ... both here and overseas.

He received a standing ovation. It was not the first and not the last. He delivered his last public address in Canberra just a couple of weeks ago at the launch of a book by historian Mark McKenna, on the unresolved hopes for a republic and the difficult journey of reconciliation. The abolition of ATSIC, he said, was being done in "the classic imperial fashion, without negotiation, without understanding and with little empathy".  He noted he had called for Geoff Clark to resign for the good of the organisation, but his harshest words were reserved for the Prime Minister who turned his back on him:

Let me be clear. The Prime Minister has long refused to accept the fundamental difference of Aboriginal people in our community. He was never sympathetic to the principles on which ATSIC was based and founded. He has always rejected any suggestion of Indigenous autonomy and self-determination. Even when the Prime Minister took up my invitation to visit Arnhem Land in 1998, he seemed incapable of understanding Indigenous aspirations.

Those words were ringing in my ears as I listened to the start of the debate on the bill to abolish ATSIC. As everyone I talk to in this debate had long suspected, the bill went far beyond abolition of the Commission.  Bob McMullan put it well: "In practice it does much more: It gives effect to the Prime Minister's long-held desire to dismantle every means available to Indigenous Australians to participate in decisions about their future." We know it. He knows it.

Howard and his big 'C' conservatives want to silence the black voice in Australia and overseas. We all owe it to the memory of Djerrkura to ensure they do not succeed. I'll miss his style, his grace and his humour. Sorry Day will never be the same.