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The Senate must act to stop the erosion of Indigenous representation

By Robbie Williams

18 May 2004 - From the moment the ATSIC Review was announced and its subsequent report released, the key test always was and remains whether and how Indigenous people¹s circumstances, rights and representation were to be improved and advanced.

The government has failed that threshold test.

What we are seeing from the Howard government is the most comprehensive and discriminatory ³white-outs² of the limited democratic rights to representation and a say in the decisions that affect them ever effected against a particular group of Australian citizens since colonisation.

They are a set of actions by government that demands to be challenged in the High Court.

It is unacceptable that a democratically elected national Indigenous representative body is abolished by government fiat, without consultation, without a replacement, without informed support or consent, without even cabinet submission, by hand-picked representatives.

It is not in the national interest. It does not reflect good public policy in Aboriginal affairs - nor is it best or even usual practice.

It is contemptuous of the interests as well as the right of Indigenous Australians to more effective public policy outcomes in Aboriginal affairs, and the right to have a say and place in its construct and determination.

How would any elected MP, Senator, or political party react if this were perpetrated on them?

This saga that passes for public policy development by this government is as flawed and unacceptable in intent as it is in process.

The public record shows that the government has breached its own best ­ and usual ­ practice in this matter. They have defied a principle that, ironically, was enunciated only few days before the PM¹s announcement by his own Departmental Secretary, Peter Shergold: the primacy and importance of the Cabinet submissions process in this country.

Not only was there no Cabinet submission but the PM¹s announcement was apparently not even supported by the Indigenous Affairs Minister, who appears to have been sidelined and then subsequently and comprehensively rolled in the Cabinet room.

The reality is that the brave new bureaucratic world of mainstreaming is being made up on the run. So much for the government¹s claim of a considered response to the ATSIC Review.

As well as the government again being caught out making it up as they go, they have a fundamental problem with the legitimacy and the practical reality of the proposed appointed National Council.

A reality that begs the question as to why the bureaucracy does not already have the necessary expertise under the newly announced mainstream arrangements, if these are so good?

One that only underlines the necessity for a regional and national elected Indigenous representative body.

To whom do governments go to identify the needs and solutions of the Aboriginal community, and who can do so with authority, a mandate and with legitimacy? And how?

The history of Aboriginal affairs in Australia shows that mainstream bureaucracy has proven incapable of doing this. The record of government in the past eight years, and in the latest federal budget, only attests further to this systemic failure.

Indeed, the government¹s own changes, which seek to remove ATSIC, clearly admit this very point, as do the most recent authoritative reports: the ATSIC Review report, the Productivity Commission and Grants Commission reports; as does Secretary Shergold¹s manifesto on mainstreaming.

Further evidence of this major flaw in the government¹s position is that it has had to retain ATSIC Regional Councils for a further 12 months.

Who else, bar a few Indigenous Councils mainly in Queensland and the Northern Territory, will the proposed new mainstream system of government agencies engage with to help make the new mainstream system work?

The bottom line now is: what is to replace ATSIC?

The government¹s failure to replace ATSIC with a national elected representative body has been widely condemned, even in some conservative media.

In fact, we are seeing more factual elements and a far more informed public debate on Aboriginal affairs in the past few weeks than we have seen for years.

Yet neither Labor nor the other parties ­ nor the government for that matter - has properly consulted on any replacement model.

It is hard to find a credible high -profile Indigenous leader who supports the government¹s proposal to abolish ATSIC and replace it with appointees.

The government position is unfolding and increasingly being seen to be unsustainable, unworkable and therefore unsupportable.

The Labor Party policy position was clear: it has never been policy to abolish ATSIC. Labor¹s proposed framework is less clear. Nevertheless, Labor¹s commitment to a national elected Indigenous body and a proper consultative process is fundamental, and remains intact.

There is a clear role and obligation - and now a clear case - for the Opposition, Greens, Democrats and Independents to block the government¹s proposals in the Senate.

It is hard to see how Labor or any other party can claim it supports self-determination and then kill off a duly elected and independent Commission without a model to replace it.

There is a clear obligation on the Senate to exercise its role as a House of Review by rejecting and/or heavily amending the worst policy excesses of a zealous government and Prime Minister.

The sheer excess and extremism of what is being proposed, let alone the efficacy, demands that the whole thrust -as well as the detail and consequences of the government¹s actions and proposals - must be properly, fully and carefully considered by the Parliament through the process of review given to the Senate by the constitution.

The Senate parties and the system of Senate review committees have a wealth of information and issues to properly weigh and consider.

This includes the ATSIC Review report, the detailed ATSIC Board and Regional Council Chairs¹ responses and the framework already enunciated by the ALP¹s Indigenous Affairs spokesperson and their Leader, Mark Latham.

While the Democrats, Greens and key Independents have also spelt out their concerns and position.

The vast majority of Indigenous Australians expect nothing less than that the Senate perform its role and act.

Robbie Williams is ATSIC Commissioner for Brisbane and SEQ.

Source: On Line Opinion

Further information:

• Our paternalistic model of government
  14 May 2004 - Gatjil Djerrkura: Let me be clear. The Prime Minister has long refused to accept the fundamental difference of Aboriginal people in our community. He was never sympathetic to the principles on which ATSIC was based and founded. He has always rejected any suggestion of indigenous autonomy and self-determination. Even when the Prime Minister took up my invitation to visit Arnhem Land in 1998, he seemed incapable of understanding indigenous aspirations.
• A quest for national decency
  April 24, 2004 - Sir William Deane: We have reached a sort of blind alley in the search for national Aboriginal reconciliation and it is no longer enough to talk about walking onwards. Rather we must now start to work together to build new pathways and bridges.
• Howard silences Aboriginal advocates
  April 16, 2004- The Federal Government has ended the policy of self-determination which for three decades has taken the voices of elected Aboriginal representatives to Canberra, with the Prime Minister, John Howard, announcing he will abolish the nation's peak indigenous body.

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