Aboriginal people paying the price
In Canberra, on March 26-27, the Australian National University's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research convened a conference to assess the Reeves report. The resulting monograph, Land Rights at Risk? Evaluations of the Reeves Report, contained 16 papers from the conference, but none from an indigenous presenter.
Following are excerpts from one of those papers omitted from the monograph, Building on the NT Land Rights Act, Or Dismantling It? by JOSIE CRAWSHAW, a commissioner with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission NT (Northern Zone).
I want to say something about the different perceptions of the land rights act which may explain some of the tensions that exist at this conference, even among people who are critical of the [Reeves] review and its recommendations.
I think that some of you see the land rights act as righting some of the wrongs, as expressing a moral and philosophical position in a structure provided by politicians, anthropologists and lawyers from which Aboriginal people benefit.
For us, the NT Land Rights Act was a victory at the end of a heroic struggle. This struggle involved the people of north-east Arnhem Land, Yirrkala, the Gurindji, the people of Redfern, the Freedom Riders, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the hundreds of people who are not Aboriginal people and who had never been to the NT.
It was the promise kept by the Whitlam Labor government that came into power on a groundswell of opposition after 23 years of the kind of federal government we have now.
Yes, we want to build on that victory. But it is clear we are being asked to dismantle it.
There is more than the review of the land rights act happening to Aboriginal people in the Territory. There is a racist government operating on a zero tolerance strategy; not just in policing, but zero tolerance for land claims and zero tolerance for self-determination.
We have a commonwealth government which, from the time of the Prime Minister's first press conference on winning the election, has sought to dismantle Aboriginal organisations. It's a government that continues to defend the social engineering that resulted in the theft of our children.
That's the context in which this review of the land rights act has taken place.
Yes, the land rights act has flaws; and Aboriginal people whose land was already alienated and who could not use its provisions have paid the price.
The process of the review has also been flawed; and Aboriginal people have again paid the price.
ATSIC was forced to sign a blank cheque to cover the costs of this review — $1.3 million and rising. And even as ATSIC foots the bill, the steering committee overseeing the review was not even offered a draft, and there was no contact between the reviewers and the steering committee for seven months.
It was not surprising, then, that the recommendations of the review are flawed. And if they ever become law, Aboriginal people will pay the price yet again.
At the moment, the Reeves team are saying: "Why don't you help us? Why are you negative? We're doing our best." But their remedy is to abolish the major land councils established under the act, to divide up the responsibility among 18 land councils and then place control — and 100% of the revenues of the Aboriginal Benefits Reserve — in the hands of an unelected body, the Northern Territory Aboriginal Council (NTAC).
The NT government has opposed every single land claim made under the legislation it is supposed to administer. Millions of dollars from public monies have been spent on this exercise.
They have conducted hysterical, negative and racist campaigns against land rights, declaring that land owned by Aboriginal peoples is worthless because it leaves the marketplace.
Claimants have faced massive opposition in land claims, not just from the government, but also from pastoral companies, tourist operators, hotel owners, and four-wheel drive clubs, with sometimes five or six sets of lawyers in opposition. Claims like Kenbi have taken so long that traditional owners involved in the claim have died before it could be settled.
After the Racial Discrimination Act, post-Mabo and even after the Native Title Act, illegal leases have been issued over our land.
We are being asked to trust — and even enter into partnership with — a government that receives five times the per capita grant money of other states so that people in the NT can live like people in Victoria. Yet Aboriginal people live in Third World conditions with Third World health problems.
While every cent of the money that is spent by Aboriginal organisations is heavily scrutinised, we discover that 56 cents in every dollar intended for Aboriginal education goes on administration.
Land councils actually spend money providing water, sewerage, transport — services normally provided by government. In this strident oppositional political climate, the two major land councils have been forced to take up wider issues, and recently campaigned successfully in the statehood referendum.
So it's not surprising that the government would welcome the dismantling of the councils and the transfer of ATSIC's role and resources to a government-appointed body.
Who will work to improve the situation of Aboriginal people in the Territory? The government that has opposed land rights for 23 years? The government that has not supported the basic rights of Aboriginal peoples to services and infrastructure?
The government that has encouraged people to give up their native title rights in exchange for a kidney dialysis machine installed for general use in Katherine Hospital?
The government that, in its social plan for Alice Springs, flags the idea of social security benefits becoming payable only in an Aboriginal person's home community and not in town? The government that, in effect, proposes apartheid-style pass laws for the NT while accusing Aboriginal peoples of apartheid because we want some say in who comes on our land?
Add to this the constant insults and humiliations we suffer.
One insult came recently from a member of the House of Representatives standing committee hearing submissions on the Reeves report. When asking a member of the Tiwi Land Council about attitudes towards uninvited visitors, he said, "I am not suggesting you have big pots these days", presumably meaning pots to cook whitefellas in.
A businessman who has made a fortune selling grog insults us on national television. The Footy Show — the most popular show on TV — has its host in blackface to impersonate Nicky Winmar, one of our great footballers.
And I haven't even mentioned Howard's draft preamble to the constitution. Well, I have now.
Uneven playing field? More like a greasy pole.
And we are being politely chastised for not wanting to be part of the dismantling process. We are being asked to get rid of rights that were not given by politicians, lawyers or anthropologists, but fought for for decades by many people all over this country.
We are being asked to trust those who protested when we gained our land and who now tell us there is no future in our land. In the face of a racist onslaught coming from all directions, we are being asked to become partners with the perpetrators.
Finally — and most importantly — we are being asked to cooperate, not just in the breaking of international covenants and federal law, but in the breaking of our own law.
Colonial authorities chose those Aboriginal people they wanted to represent our groups and gave them a breastplate to wear as a sign of authority — King Billy, Queen Nellie. If these recommendations ever become law, the last vestige of self-determination will disappear. We won't just be facing a return to the welfare days. With the removal of authority from traditional owners proposed, some of us will be asked to wear breastplates again.
It will be as if the 1967 referendum had never happened; as if the Yirrkala people, the Gurindji and Aboriginal people in every state had never fought to gain control over their lives.
The land rights act did return land stolen from Aboriginal people, it did return control over land to some of our people and it did give a measure of self-determination through the permit system. And we are ready to build on these foundations.
But this means extending self-determination and control. It means strengthening our representative organisations. It means the money to fund such a process. It means the will of governments to do their job, which is to solve the health, education and employment problems of Aboriginal peoples.
We can do our job; let the government do theirs.