Resistance from the far right continues to impede Australia’s painfully slow progress toward some kind of reconciliation of our greatest unfinished business – the illegal and immoral colonial occupation of this continent, the dispossession of its First Nations people, and their ongoing oppression.
These days, January never passes without some kind of debate over the appropriateness of celebrating our national day on the date on which that occupation began.
In its most recent report card, the Federal government has recognised its continuing failure to achieve Closing the Gap goals aimed at reducing Indigenous disadvantage in areas such as child mortality, life expectancy, employment, literacy, school attendance and early education.
By far the most significant development in First Nations issues in recent times has been the Uluru Statement From the Heart, released in late May last year by a constitutional convention of more than 250 Indigenous leaders from around Australia.
The convention was organised by a Referendum Council appointed jointly by the Federal Government and the Labor Opposition to advise them on the next steps towards constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The resulting statement (which is very short and which anyone can read in full on the web in a few minutes) calls for a “First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution”, and a “Makaratta Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.
According to the statement, “Makarrata” (apparently a complex, multi-layered Yolngu word) is “the coming together after a struggle”.
The Statement says that the word “captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination”.
However, despite coming from what was probably the most representative gathering of Australia’s First Nations people since colonial occupation, the advice the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull had asked for was rejected by his government in October last year.
The government rejected the recommendation for a First Nations Voice on the grounds that it “would inevitably become seen as a third chamber of parliament” and that such a referendum proposal would have little chance of succeeding.
This response has been widely interpreted as yet another concession to the more right-wing forces inside the Turnbull government.
The Uluru Statement’s supporters – which include a significant number of conservative organisations, leaders and commentators – have questioned and challenged the government’s stance.
They argue that the Voice couldn’t possibly be seen as a third house of parliament, because the current parliament would set its structure, procedures and rules, and could change these at any time under the usual parliamentary process.
It would be a purely advisory body, with no power to disrupt or delay legislation. The significant thing that constitutional status would ensure is that the existence of such an advisory body could not become the mere plaything of successive federal governments, to create and dissolve when they wished, as they have with previous government founded Indigenous advisory bodies.
Comments from the Federal government attempting to defend its rejection of the historic Statement have been scant and superficial, with little or no attempt to provide any logical or evidential support for its stated reasons.
Its response shocked and dismayed many Indigenous Australians and their supporters, but – in the way of such things – it’s also galvanised them into action.
The matter of the Makarrata – the truth-telling and agreement process – is also still to be addressed.
Enacting this recommendation doesn’t require a referendum, but given the current federal government’s response to the constitutional Voice proposition, nobody is expecting much from them on this part of the Statement either.
As with many other issues, this may be an instance where local communities need to sidestep an unresponsive government and show the way.
In 1993, as part of the International Year of Indigenous People and in response to grassroots advocacy, Newcastle Council led the way in local communities working with Indigenous people in adopting a ground-breaking “Commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples”.
This document spread quickly to other communities and councils around Australia, and had a significant impact in showing how local government could support and work with local Indigenous communities, and advocate on their behalf to other spheres of government.
Newcastle Council showed similar leadership on a national issue in the run-up to last year’s marriage equality referendum.
This may be another such moment.
The language of the council’s 1993 Commitment (and its 1998 update) is entirely consistent with the Makarrata concept in last year’s Uluru Statement, and there is no reason why such a process couldn’t or shouldn’t begin from a local community initiative, especially from a council with a progressive record in the issue, and which covers the area hosting the University of Newcastle’s Wollatuka Institute, one of Australia’s leading Aboriginal Studies centres.
Such a local initiative may seem a small contribution given the magnitude of the national challenge set by the Uluru Statement, but history shows that from such little things big things may grow.
