By Peter Poynton
TOWNSVILLE — Since 1967, when the road to legal equality for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders was cleared by 90.2% approval in a federal referendum, things have been far from smooth.
Consider the 14 Queensland Aboriginal Communities: these ghettos, former missions and reserves, were electorally excised from their incorporated local government authorities.
Originally the reserves were much larger. They've been whittled away over the last 100 years. The Aboriginal inhabitants worry about not being able to hunt and gather food in national parks which they still own under the new Land Rights Act, but which they will rent back to the Queensland government for very little.
Aborigines in Cape York still hunt and gather about half their food. There are no supermarkets in Coen, Normanton, Old Mapoon or Laura.
Another problem is the 14 communities themselves. They are small urban centres. Their community councils are charged with providing services, but largely lack the means to do this. Funding is on an annual rather than triennial basis, frustrating forward planning. Consequently, the communities are pockets of poverty.
The state Labor government's Land Rights Act has no provision for a land acquisition fund. By contrast, in NSW, 7.5% of state land tax is paid annually to Aboriginal land trusts to acquire land as compensation for their losses over the last 200 years.
Section 19(b) of the Queensland Community Service (Aboriginal) Act 1984-90, prevents voters in Aboriginal communities from participating in elections for shire and municipal governments that surround them. While desiring to retain their self-governed communities, the Aboriginal communities desperately want to participate in the larger picture, especially in places like Cook Shire, where they are about 70% of the population.
If they weren't excluded from the shire vote, there would be some Aboriginal councillors in Cook, and the local Aborigines would have a say in land management, which is what they want.
The shire and municipal councils argue that, because the communities aren't charged rates, and therefore no services are provided, their inhabitants should not have a vote in local government elections.
But consider Palm Island, a self-governed part of the municipality of Townsville. It is an unrated area whose residents are excluded from voting for the city council, and a place where Townsville City Council carries out no public works.
Don Dunstan, the former premier of South Australia, has suggested that state or federal government should pay the rates for the communities, and the local governments carry out public works to the extent that they were brought up to equal standard with the rest of the municipality/shire. My sources say that things like school toilets — a city council concern — are filthy on Palm Island, because the community council there is impoverished.
The situation facing the Queensland Aboriginal Communities clearly exposes the Goss government's land rights legislation for what it is — a cynical sham. It merely grants inalienable freehold title over the land they live on to Aborigines living on the former reserves. n