Will to win

To this end Rudd has the wood on Howard as he is on record as saying he will establish a new Indigenous representative body to advise his government on policy direction.

This then brings me to my concerns of the direction of the newly formed National Aboriginal Alliance (NAA) and the part they will play in shaping the national Indigenous agenda. In particular will they still be an entity if Rudd win’s the upcoming federal election and follows through with his promise to establish an elected national Indigenous representative body.

Or will they become a think tank on Indigenous issues like the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research based at the Australian National University.

Michael Mansell, in the first NAA media release of 14 September, refers to the group as instigators of the beginning of resistance and providing a national voice of dissent and one that will offer leadership instead of ‘black bashing’.

Pastor Geoffrey Stokes, a Wongatha man from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, concurred with Michael and viewed the new organisation as the body that can express our aspirations in our way.

But of most concern to me is the language of this new movement – or more specifically the absence of the word Indigenous. The release goes under the title of  A new independent voice for Aboriginal Australians. It refers to the 100 or so participants as being 100 Aboriginal people from land councils, Stolen Generations organisations, health and housing bodies, the national youth forum, media organisations, doctors and Elders as well as people living in town camps and remote communities and outstations.

Is it the intention of this new national body to exclude future representation of Torres Strait Islander people from their movement or from their language?

There was a surfeit of outstanding Indigenous lawyers present at the Alice Springs meeting that would be the envy of most law firms and I query whether the absence of the word Indigenous was a coincidence or oversight.

Is the absence of the word Indigenous in their new title (NAA) and in the language of their media release indicative of an attempt to wind back the clock to when such names as the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC), Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS), and Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) were synonymous with the national lexicon?

Those organisations since the 1980s have changed through the amalgamation of ADC and DAA to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the AIAS to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).

I am a great admirer of lead members of the organising committee, but to them I say remember one word – Mabo – and ask them to think of that famous name and how he changed the landscape of Indigenous affairs in this country forever.

The David and Goliath battle of Eddie Koiki Mabo v State of Queensland that culminated in the favourable 1992 High Court judgement was by far the most significant legal victory for Indigenous Australians.