Bennelong Society Conference 2005:
Remote Aboriginal Communities: Where are the Jobs?
Indigenous Freedom
Warren Mundine
It was Charles Darwin who said:
It is neither the strongest nor the most intelligent species
that survive; it is the species that is most responsive to change.
How very true those words are to the situation of Indigenous
Australians. How do people think Indigenous Australians survived
in the harsh, isolated environment of Australia for thousands
of years?
It was because we were able and willing to change and adapt
to our environment.
How were we able to survive invasion and colonisation?
It was because we were able and willing to change and adapt
to our new environment.
Unfortunately the last statement is not true for far too many
Indigenous Australians.
The coming of the Whiteman to Australia has meant massive changes
to Indigenous Australian society, customs, culture, economy and
the environment we lived in.
From a life of relative luxury and a stable social structure
for thousands of years we were driven to the fringe; literally
living on the fringe of every cattle and sheep station, country
town and major city in shanty towns or missions and reserves.
We become outcasts in our own country with only the remnants of
our society living in the most isolated and remote regions.
The world had changed incredibly. Indigenous Australians had
to change from a hunter and gather society to an industrialised
people in the space of two hundred years where the Whiteman had
taken thousands of years. This has caused enormous destruction
and hardship with far too few survivors and far too many losers.
The struggles of Indigenous Australians for equally, political
and legal rights and access into the wider Australian economy
and the benefits of that economy culminated in the 1967 referendum
and the Indigenous policies of Land Rights, Abstudy, the National
Aboriginal Consultative Council and its successor ATSIC and many
other such programs from the seventies to the present day.
We have in 2005 now 30 years of success, failures and the many
in-betweens. What have we learnt from that 30 years and what does
those lessons teach us about Indigenous Australian's present and
future situations?
The first lesion is as Jean-Marie Tjibouti, President of the
Kanak Liberation Front, said at the hight of the Kanak rebellion
in New Caledonia during the 1980s. When questioned about his Kanakness
he said:
There seems to be buried in every government policy of every
major political party this basic idea of preserving a mythical
noble savage ideal of Indigenous Australia. When these policies
fail or Indigenous Australians don't live up to these basic Whiteman
views of Indigenous Australians, then it is the Indigenous Australians
who are blamed for the failures or are told they are not real
Indigenous people.
Where's your jahbi-jahbi or lap-lap? Where's your painted body
or fantastic artwork? You don't appear or look Indigenous? What
can you expect from such people? It's the only way they know how
to treat their women! Museum pieces. We are not museum pieces.
While I'm on the subject of the treatment of Indigenous Australian
women, I have to state publicly the decision by that judge in
the Northern Territory, Chief Justice Brian Martin, concerning
the assault and anal rape a 14-year-old girl. The 14-year-old
Indigenous girl was a child in anyone's language. It was nothing
but a disgrace and I call it judicial abuse of Indigenous Australian
children. How would that judge like to be dragged off the bench,
bashed and anally raped? The man's a disgrace and the treatment
of that girl is a disgrace.
Indigenous Australians are quit civilised and quit capable
to distinguish what is Indigenous customary law and what is assault
and anal rape of a child. Obviously that judge can't. We're not
museum pieces but it seems he is and anyone defending his decision
are as well.
Unfortunately there has now developed a group of Indigenous
Australians who claim leadership of our people who wish also to
preserve us as museum pieces as well and keep us locked in poverty
and socially dysfunctional communities. It keeps them in a job.
It is now time to take stock of the last 30 years of policies
and programs for Indigenous Australians and look to breaking the
chains that are holding us in those poverty-stricken and socially
dysfunctional communities. Be they in the large metropolitan cities
or the farthest flung remote community.
I must point out that not all the policies have been bad. In
fact a large majority have had a very positive affect on Indigenous
communities. The Land Rights and Native Title legislation in the
beginning had a positive affect on our communities.
Indigenous Australians were able to regain the lands that had
being lost over the past 200 years. Now we are at the second stage---how
do we use the land for the benefits that put real socio-economic
development into our communities?
There has been a lot of nonsense spoken in the past 12 months
when I first released my ideas of using land for socio-economic
development and even looking at privatisation of some lands for
housing and investment.
First of all, no one can argue that the present situation can
be or should be maintained. Indigenous communities across Australia
are imploding, with social structures in collapse, no respect
for law and order whether Whiteman's or Indigenous customary law,
no employment prospects, poor housing, poor or non-existent infrastructure,
a growth in domestic violence, sexual assault and rape of women
and children, alcohol and substance abuse. I could go on, but
the statistics are there for everyone.
How can we overcome this? The lessons of the last 30 years
are that we can no longer lock communities out of the mainstream
of Australian and the world socially or economically.
The youth of our communities are crying out for a future and
to give them that future we need to:
- Ensure our hard fought gains in Native Title, ILUA's and
State Land Rights legislation need to be protected so that they
can be used for the direct benefit of everyone. We need to utilise
our land to create an environment that delivers socio-economic
outcomes for our communities in the areas of social community
issues, employment, health and education.
- Create more efficient management and corporate governance
practices.
- Provide specific outcomes and be outcomes driven.
- Provide clear socio-economic benefits to everyone---not just
the few.
- Break through the dependency cycle on mainstream government
programs which, despite their best intentions, can hinder and
harm rather than help.
- Break the dependency on welfare.
- Make sure that our voice is heard and that our seat at their
table is secure.
- Ensure land tenure is secure but the opportunity to improve
that land for the benefit of communities is clear.
- Ensure that the benefits of native title and land rights---negotiated
outcomes---are being shared by all the Indigenous people within
and without the claim group, not only by a privileged few.
- Ensure that the corporate governance of our organisations
is above reproach. Corruption, conflict of interest, nepotism
and maladministration have no place in today's structure. In
fact shouldn't have been the case in the first place.
- Dietary problems, tobacco use, low life expectancy, poor
child health; and the list goes on, have afflicted our communities
and individuals. These are self-inflicted and therefore we need
to change our own personal and community behaviour.
- We can no longer tolerate criminal elements within our communities
such as domestic violence offenders, rapists, paedophiles, drug
sellers, murderers and violent people. Their behaviour must change
or gaol and exclusion from our communities.
- Ensure government policies and programs are not paternalistic
nor hands-off, but are in partnership, working with us.
How do we do this?
- The development of Indigenous private enterprises, home and
property ownership is the basis for building that future.
- Working with Indigenous youth by putting them into trades
and/or University programs where they can be self-employed or
run their own enterprises must be put in place.
- Educational programs for Indigenous children to help them
make the cultural jump in seeing the benefits of private enterprise,
home and property ownership, and self-employment are to be developed
and put in place.
- Scholarships to help Indigenous children attend boarding
schools and/or schools of excellence in large cities are to be
developed, supported and put in place.
- English, maths and science should be the major spending areas
for all education departments dealing with Indigenous children---starting
in pre-school.
- Private home ownership needs to be encouraged, supported
and put in place.
I know some of these things are already in place, but they
need to be central to any development for Indigenous Australians
and properly resourced.
It is only through these acts that true Indigenous Freedom
can be obtained.
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