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Dawn of a new era

By Stephen Hagan

27 November 2007 - Kevin Rudd, prime minister-elect, has declared his hand openly on the issue of a national elected Indigenous representative body and hopefully Labor will implement it within the first 12 months of their new term.

It is refreshing to hear that Rudd has committed Labor to building a national consensus to improve the social and economic wellbeing of Indigenous people, to enable them to exercise their rights and meet their responsibilities as members of the broader Australian community.

Labor recognise that governments have a responsibility to turn this disadvantage around and have said through policy papers that it is determined to see change through evidence-based programs which avoid bureaucracy and are designed in partnership with Indigenous people.

Jenny Macklin, the party's Indigenous affairs spokeswoman, said in her speech to the Labor National Conference earlier this year that Labor would form a national Indigenous representative body.

So what are the issues and what type of representation do we want?

Throughout the past couple of years I have been a public critic of both major federal parties, especially of their bipartisan support on the abolition of ATSIC.

Sure I was one of the first Indigenous commentators to go on record as saying the old ATSIC was past its 'used by' date - but I insisted, as did Jackie Huggins and her national review team later, that it needed to be replaced by a more accountable and transparent elected model.

So what are the issues and what type of representation do we want?

As I've travelled this vast country attending an assortment of large Indigenous gatherings I've gained a broad perspective of what Indigenous people feel is required to address the current imbalance in both the representation and service delivery for their respective communities.

I'll preface my comments on ATSIC by saying the majority of past ATSIC representatives were honourable leaders who tried their best to deliver programmes in a fair and equitable manner.

ATSIC problems

But many community members who spoke to me feel they personally contributed to the demise of ATSIC through their inability to speak out on the lack of accountability and transparency of their leaders. Most agree that they voted the usual suspects into public office hoping they would change their questionable habits, but as with past experience they were proven wrong again.

I recognise that many responsible voters cast their vote without fear or favour on a candidate they thought could best represent them and their community, but in the final analysis that vote regrettably didn't deliver enough leaders of substance to positively influence major policy initiatives by Commissioners at the national level.

Scores of people I've met around the nation have questioned the suitability of some ATSIC Regional Councillors assessing the allocation of funding for domestic violence programmes when it was common knowledge in their community that they were the perpetrators of violent beatings of their partners on a regular basis.

Others commented on the appropriateness of some of ATSIC Regional Councillors passing judgement on detailed business applications when many of them were compulsive gamblers or simply careless with money and who have difficulty meeting payment on regular household bills.

And again similar comments have been passed on to me by community members who were aghast at Regional Councillors assessing programmes on alcohol and drug programmes when paradoxically some of them would be suitably qualified, as alcohol and drug dependent people, for entry into the programmes in question.

I'm confident this time around that the voting public will be more cautious when casting their crucial vote as I believe they all know that they will not get another opportunity from a sympathetic government to elect a national representative body if they get it wrong again.

The big issues

On an issues front you only need to look at recent newspaper articles to see what today's major crisis is.

The West Australian (November 8) reported a senior police officer telling a coronial inquest into Aboriginal deaths that up to 25 planes a week with up to 90 cartons of alcohol on board had been flying into the remote community of Oombulgurri.

The Courier Mail (September 20) had bold headlines of warring tribal clans (Wik Mungkin and Wik Ngathan tribes) fuelled by a boatload of "sly grog" turning on police in a riot involving up to 200 people at the Aboriginal community of Aurukun.

Mostly communities want what other mainstream communities have and that is an adequate police presence to implement a law and order programme and for their people to access to high levels of education, employment, health and housing opportunities.

The Indigenous community members seek to have social parity with mainstream society which requires a long term financial commitment from government to 'closing the gap' on life expectancy and the multitude of accompanying health and social disadvantages that continues to be a blight on Australia's human rights record internationally.

A recent report said 90 per cent of the Northern Territory prison population was of Indigenous descent. This, and an appalling over-representation of Indigenous youth and women in gaols nationally, is unacceptable.

Many Indigenous people feel they have run into a brick wall on their native title claims due to the incompetence of far too many inept Native Title Representative Bodies who favour some traditional owner groups over others and distribute their minimal resources accordingly.

So I suggest all Indigenous people of voting age to seriously engage with one another in communities so they can enter into dialogue with government officials and be part of the decision making process on the name, composition and terms of reference of the proposed national elected representative body.

But the most important thing I would like Indigenous people to think of when they go to cast their vote in an AEC sanctioned secret ballot for a new national representative body is the famous old saying of philosopher and novelist George Santayana who once said; "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Stephen Hagan is a lecturer in the Centre for Australian Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Southern Queensland.

Source: ABC

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