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Black list opens road to parliament

By LINDA DOHERTY

12 June 2000 - Warren Mundine hails from one of Australia's most famous Aboriginal sporting families and if the Dubbo city councillor has his wish he will one day deliver a political first for his people.

A cousin of rugby league player-turned-boxer Anthony Mundine, Warren Mundine's chosen sport is politics and he has quickly risen to head Labor's State indigenous affairs committee and to stand last year for the National Party-held seat of Dubbo, won by an Independent with the help of ALP preferences.

NSW Labor has never sent an Aboriginal politician to either Canberra or Macquarie Street but the weekend endorsement by the ALP State conference to give indigenous candidates a 20 per cent weighting in preselection contests is aimed at redressing that fact, initially at the local government level.

The weighting is the same given to female candidates to reach Labor's quota of 35 per cent of women in Parliament but a second key change on the weekend - to put indigenous candidates in winnable seats - is probably more important to Aboriginal contenders, who generally spurn the factional system.

Mr Mundine scored a swing of 8 per cent when he contested Dubbo, but the rural seat needed 19.5 per cent to fall to Labor.

"The 20 per cent loading will give a boost to Aboriginal candidates," he says. "To be quite honest, one of the problems in the past, especially in city areas, is the way the factions operate and Aboriginals haven't had much of a chance."

Twice elected to Dubbo Council and the chairman of the NSW Local Government Aboriginal Network, Mr Mundine predicts 50 Aborigines will sit on local councils within the next eight years. There are already 31 in NSW (2 per cent of councillors) when 12 years ago there were four.

In the past decade, six Aborigines have stood for Federal and State seats but the "problem was they were in conservative seats".

The first targets for indigenous candidates will be western NSW where the population in many towns is largely Aboriginal.

"In Wilcannia, for example, we have only one councillor but we are 80 per cent of the population," Mr Mundine said.

But a push by left-wingers in recent years for seats to be reserved in Parliament for Aborigines appears to have been finally lost.

"We didn't want to look at earmarking seats," Mr Mundine said. "We wanted to have people working through the party system who are Labor people. We didn't want to go out and find some glamorous, good-looking Aboriginal person just for the sake of it.

"We need to get more Aboriginals involved in local government, because it's a good training ground to learn political skills.

"And we need to broaden our platform. I couldn't get elected to Dubbo City Council if I just stood on Aboriginal issues."

Clip from The Sydney Morning Herald

related links :

• Australian Election 2001
• We must fight for indigenous-led solutions
  November 2001 - News reporting has been dominated by only a few topics recently. You may not be aware that the Federal Government was recently forced by public pressure (including ANTaR's) to release a damning report which it had suppressed for six months. The Commonwealth Grants Commission's report put beyond doubt what ANTaR and many Indigenous organisations had been trying to draw attention to for many years, that: - Indigenous people's access to mainstream commonwealth funded health, employment and education services is scandalously low.
• ANTaR - Major Political Parties need to lift their game on Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs
  November 7, 2001 - "The Coalition's policy confirms its assimilationist and paternalistic ‘practical reconciliation’ approach to Indigenous Affairs. If returned, the Coalition offers the bleak prospect of a further stifled Reconciliation process, already stalled after 6 years of the divisive Howard Government.”
• Coalition plans bigger role for Aborigines
  October 18, 2001 - Aboriginal communities would be given a greater say in how government services were delivered to them under a re-elected Coalition government.
• Aboriginal candidates are few, but determined
  October 15, 2001- Four out of five Labor Aboriginal candidates may have been elected at the recent NT poll, but at the federal level there is still little indigenous representation. And safe seats for indigenous aspirants are few and far between.
• Tackling Indigenous disadvantage demands new election commitment
  October 14, 2001 - A new call for the major political parties to commit to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage by negotiating an agreement or treaty with Indigenous Australians has been issued by over 50 charities and community welfare organisations in the lead up to the Federal Election.
• Excerpt from leader's debate
  October 2001 - ".. Not while I'm PM. Could I just finish? I think a treaty is divisive. A treaty is something one country makes with another .."

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