Power intoxication

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.