The panic and fear merchants are busy in an attempt to
stampede the Native Title Bill through the Senate. The Prime
Minister, Mr Keating, is leading the charge,
The Sydney Morning Herald's Canberra Bureau Chief Geoff Kitney
has obtained a record of a dinner speech in Canberra on monday
night. The purpose of the dinner was to mark the end of the
first term of the members of ATSIC, who face elections on
saturday.
The story reports:
Describing the Mabo bill as one of the best pieces of
social legislation ever, Mr Keating advised its
Aboriginal supporters to "knock down everybody in your
way" in pressing for the Senate to pass it.
"You go for it because if you don't, you won't get it,"
he said.
"Sitting back, being polite, playing the balanced game,
giving everyone their due place in the political system
when half the system wants to take it from you. The thing
to do is knock them over, don't take any nonsense from
them.
"Anyone who puts this bill asunder will wear the stain on
their soul forever.
Mr Keating said that if the bill was defeated he did not
believe there would be another attempt - "If the fight is
lost it's a fight which will be a long time coming in the
future, if ever again."
...Responding to the pressure from some Aboriginal
leaders for more concessions and the criticism that in
its present form the bill represented a compromise. Mr
Keating said "There is no dirty compromise here. I think
it was a very haughty and proper process and one which
has brought forward an historic piece of legislation -
good not just in Australian national terms but good in
world terms."
What kind of talk is this from the leader of the country?
No dirty compromises here? The President of the National
Farmers Federation, Graham Blight, recently said, in reference
to securing their goal of securing pastoral leases from native
title, "People forget the time we rolled the Prime Minister on
the doorstep of a Cabinet meeting late at night."
The Cabinet meeting was most likely that at which the Prime
Minister reversed his position on the possibility of native
title coexisting with pastoral leases. In keeping with the
exclusive notions of ownership enshrined by the Bill, pastoral
leases (e.g a lease to run cattle) will completely extinguish
native title.
The Prime Minister was on the right track for a while when he
acknowledged that coexistence was possible between native
title and pastoral lease. But he was lead astray and shows no
signs of regaining the plot. Parliament, and not just the
Prime Minister, needs to find its way back.
And let us not lose sight of the fact that the Anglo-
Australian Crown has not even deigned to discuss ownership of
minerals. It asserts that minerals belong to the Crown, Mining
leases will override native title should they clash - but
native title will be revived at the end of mining. No dirty
compromise here?
In other words, in return for some First Peoples - those who
can demonstrate an unbroken traditional association with areas
of 'vacant Crown land' or who can buy a cattle station - being
able to obtain recognition of their native title rights (minus
mineral rights) it will be at the expense of the legislative
dispossession of the remaining First Peoples to their
birthright countries.
Classic divide and rule. "You better grab it or you'll lose
it." says the man in the expensive imported suit (but what is
that taint not quite hidden by the expensive cologne?).
No place for brotherly solidarity here. No place for saying
"Stuff your Bill if it does not take care of those who have
been most affected by the process of dispossession. We won't
give it the blessing of respectability until you have properly
provided for all of our families."
And that is what these Aboriginal leaders are giving away (for
virtually nothing) to Mr Keating and the Federated Farmers -
international respectability so they can continue to benefit
as the legitmate brokers of the wealth of the land. That is a
gain worth cementing in law.
The fact that the Prime Minister is exhorting First Peoples to
adopt culturally inappropriate means of conflict resolution,
based on his personal philosophy no doubt, provides a telling
pointer as to the origins of the rush to get the Bill made
law.
The agenda being pursued is not one which reflects the
patience of First Peoples to bring an element of understanding
based on traditional wisdom into the lives of those in
authority. That is a long struggle and may well take another
hundred years, or longer. We hope not.
ATTACK FROM THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE.
The present alliance which supports the Native Title Bill
consists of the Labor Government, the National Farmers
Federation and a team of Aboriginal negotiators. This should
set off alarm bells.
The Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on
Wednesday, and will go to the Senate on December 7. The two
Greens Senators (who hold part of the balance of power) have
not stated that they will support the Bill, and have indicated
that it should be subject to further examination by committee,
and that further negotiations should be held with First
Peoples remote from the Prime Minister's dining room.
The attack on those seeking to subject the Bill (which is
acknowledged to be of major importance for Australia) was
immediate. The Prime Minister labelled as 'extremists' people
who wanted to raise issues sauch as mineral rights for First
Peoples. He has also issued his "knock down everybody in your
way" command to his chosen Aboriginal representatives.
On monday, the executive director of the National Farmers
Federation 'warned' that if the Bill did not go through
quickly the base of his organisations support might collapse.
They would defect to other positions which, by implication,
were opposed to any acknowledgement of native title rights.
Some farmers, from Queensland, were already resigning from the
NFF.
The message was loud an clear - not "Let's pause and discuss
what is involved here to everyone's satisfaction" but "RUSH
THIS THROUGH!" Mr Farley knows that the Bill is a good deal
for the interests he represents - the very people who are
busily exploiting the eternal inheritance of First Peoples by
way of wheat, wool, beef...in the world in which wealth flows
the wrong way.
What's the rush? Will the Bill not withstand reflection and
scrutiny? What is it that the elite who have stitched the
package together fear? An elite which comprises a Prime
Minister, leading Black bureaucrats, executive director of the
National Farmers Federation? Their positions in the scheme of
things? Are the interests of lower forms of life close to
their hearts?
Leading Aboriginal bureaucrat Lois O'Donoghue lost no time in
attacking the Greens claiming that they had hi-jacked
Aboriginal authority with the proposal that the Bill be given
some time. Why? Panic and fear may be part of it. She may
truly believe that this is the best deal going and it will be
lost if not immediately accepted lock stock and barrel.
The neocolonial organisation ATSIC, which she heads as an
appointee by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, represents a
substantial investment by the dominant Anglo-Australian
formation.
It is an investment which seeks to impose an ethnocentric
notion of representation on First Peoples in an effort to
substitute an alternative arrangement (acceptable to Western
interests) for the authentic arrangement unrecognised by the
doctrine of terra nullius.
In other words, to replace a cross-cultural dialogue with a
monocultural monologue. Here is a taste from the 'knock 'em
down' dinner meeting reported in the SMH:
Mr Keating praised the chairwoman of ATSIC, Ms Lois
O'Donoghue, for her role in securing the Mabo agreement,
saying: "There is no substitute for leadership, there
never was. And there never will be."
Ms O'Donoghue responded in kind, saying of Mr Keating
"There is no substitute for a leader of a country
bringing his personal authority and influence to bear on
an issue which goes to the heart of a nation's sense of
itself. Your part in this drama will not be forgotten.
The people here will not forget."
Too much reverb - turn off the echo on the elitist
monocultural monologue.
But what about the forgotten people who struggle for
recognition of their birthrights to their living countries
under pastoral leases? They were clearly not present in person
or in spirit at the Prime Minister's dinner - excluded by what
criteria built into the selection of ATSIC Commissioners.
Note that the forgotten people were also excluded by Malcolm
Fraser's Northern Territory Land Rights Act. The former Prime
Minister is presently calling for a review of that Act. He
said (The Australian 1 Dec):
At some point we've got to reach a stage where we say the
rights to people to claim land cannot go on forever
because its disturbing to lots of other people.
And this legislation never transcended the boundaries of the
Whiteman's cattle station - carved out of First Peoples living
countries. People, if they were lucky, got a square kilometre
of their land to build their shacks on - but don't go
disturbing the cattle on the remaining thousands of square
kilometres mind you.
Note that Mr Fraser was not calling for a review of his
'experiment' in self-government in the Northern Territory
which placed the well-being of First Peoples in the uncaring
hands of a bunch of cowboys. Yet that is the social and
environmental disaster which cries our for attention.
While it is easy to understand why the interests of First
Peoples suffer at the hands of such people, it is less easy to
find your way through the confusion surrounding 'Aboriginal
leaders' generated according to the imperial specifications of
the Anglo-Australian formation.
ATSIC is the former Department of Aboriginal Affairs - which
was an organisation designed to carry out the will of its
imperial minister. Commands went one way - from the 'top'.
many of the old DAA hands found their way to 'top' positions
when the organisation was revamped (new logo etc).
Based on European ideas of representation, ATSIC is supported
by only a third of those eligible to vote. It is clearly not
representative even by its own Eurocentric criteria. And its
supporters desperately seek to demonstrate that it does have
the confidence of First Peoples and that it can deliver. The
Native Title Bill may fit the bill exactly.
It is not surprising, under these circumstances, to find the
Aboriginal negotiators promoted by the Anglo-Australian
system, in alliance with the National Framers Federation.
Which voice has been excluded?
FOR THE RECORD - A SELLOUT.
In an interview with Rick Farley in The Land of 25 November,
we learn of an undertaking made by the Aboriginal Negotiating
committee advising the Prime Minister on October 31:
"For the record, we should say that it is not the
intention of our organisations to seek to test the
validity of pastoral leases issued before 1975 (the year
of the Racial Discrimination Act -R) for the simple
reason that no point would be served by that course -
given that in the unlikely event of the action succeeding
the consequence would be that the Act would immediately
validate, and in so doing, extinguish any remnant native
title. Our agreement has provided the practical outcome
that Aboriginal people require, namely a continued right
of concurrent enforceable access and use, and the right
to seek to convert to a more secure title upon
acquisition."
Mr Farley goes on to demonstrate why such efforts in court,
after the Native Title Bill becomes law, would be a waste of
resources:
Once a precedent was established (that pastoral leases
extinguish native title -R), no similar actions would be
heard by the courts. The Commonwealth legislation
establishes that the Register (Registrar?-R) of native
title claims would not accept vexatious claims, or claims
over land where native title has been extinguished.
Rick Farley spelt it out:
It is possible that valid pastoral leases may be tested
in courts to decide whether any form of native title
remains, even though there is no support for such action
from mainstream Aboriginal groups.
What 'mainstream' is it they are part of? Certainly not the
mainstream which flows from the struggle to obtain recognition
of indigenous birthrights to country which was never properly
taken from them.
As part of the bullshit being spread around as fertiliser for
us mushrooms being kept in the dark, the National Farmers
Federation is talking about there being some kind of voluntary
code of conduct by which the farmers might allow acceptable
Blacks to pay the occasional visit to their living countries.
As though this model had not been thoroughly discredited in
the Northern Territory over the last hundred years.
As though the bad faith in the heart of most pastoralists
would voluntarily allow a Blackfellow within a thousand miles
of the place now that there is this dangerous talk of 'native
title'. Having cleared the country to comply with the
exclusive ambitions and dreams of the upwardly mobile, let the
Blacks back in? You must be joking. The Native Title Bill aims
to put their claims to rest once and for all.
The mainstream Aboriginal organisations will not support the
struggle for the recognition of the rights to be reunited with
ones eternal soul in the land - the struggle to put these
rights on a far stronger footing than the whim of the
cattleman. Forget about the uncontested wastelands, whose will
dominates in the contested areas? That is the test of those
who claim to be life's representatives.
The messages which flow through the decision-making of these
'mainstream' Aboriginal groups are not the messages which flow
along life's songlines in the authentic arrangement of First
Australia.
Statutory bodies like ATSIC and the Central Land Council have
the appearance of representing First Peoples, but when it
comes to the crunch they lack the substance. That substance
comes from Dreaming credentials - and these are not issued by
the Crown but by life's masters, senior lawmen some of whom
are sitting on their living countries despite the blow-in
cattleman's lease.
The voice of these senior people is the expression of the life
spirit in the land itself.
At this time we should be embracing - not disowning - the
surviving land priests. We should not be supporting
legislation which pushes their life-songs aside to
institutionalise the mournful bellowing of maltreated cattle.
To what voice will the Parliamant of Australia listen?