MEDIA STATEMENT for the 1996 Australian Federal Elections
Yaluritja (Clarrie Isaacs)
PRESIDENT, Aboriginal Government of Australia
Policies of the Government and the Opposition are the same old worn out
policies rehashed and represented. The Australian election offers
nothing progressive or worthwhile for the indigenous peoples of
Australia, nor for the Islanders of Australia.
Maintaining the status quo: The barriers of dispossession and
dismemberment. The false notion, sold like snake oil to the indigenous
Australians, is that the whites-only referendum of 1967 gave them
citizenship and allowed them to vote and to drink alcohol. This in fact
implemented a policy of dismemberment, re-enslavement and poverty which
handed the white Australian Government the power to make laws to govern
the indigenous people of Australia.
This apartheid policy has been systematically continued right up to
present days in Australia.
The blacks of Australia have been contained in a welfare mode. Only a
few politically acceptable changes have been allowed to happen, provided
of course they take effect slowly enough to preserve the control of
Australia's neo colonial regimes and to allow the use of the services of
black puppets to give the illusion of indigenous authenticity and to
promote the impression of black empowerment and advancement.
The major concern that has not been addressed by the two major political
parties is racism, which is prolific within Australian society and which
mainly flows from the Houses of Parliament.
Equally serious issues are the legal and judicial system in Australia, a
country of all white judges. the portfolios of Aboriginal Affairs that
are held by the Government and the Opposition number about 20. Of these,
19 are held by people of non-Aboriginal status.
Health, education, unemployment, personal and community development and
tourism are the major areas in which most Government policies are
directed and these have produced a proliferation of Governmental
controls. The most obvious is the Federal Labour Government's welfare
agency, the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders Commission (ATSIC)
which fraudulently holds the status of being a Non-Government
Organisation (NGO) under the umbrella of the United Nations. The direct
result of this Federal Government manipulation is to control all facets
of opportunity that may become available to the indigenous peoples of
Australia. Such controls constitute Australia's Apartheid barriers.
We expected Native title, but we got Native welfare Flowing from the
land mark decision of the case of Mabo and others, the notion of terra
nulius was dispelled. Therefore the neo colonial regimes in Australia
have no legitimate status of claim to land on this continent. In 1993,
in Canberra, 700 indigenous people attending an indigenous gathering to
discuss important matters of indigenous land ownership, marched against
the Federal Labour Government's policy of Native Title, tore up and
burnt the Government policy document at the front of the Federal
Parliament building and then symbolically removed the centre piece of an
indigenous mosaic, with the statement that Parliament is no longer a
place where people can meet as equals. Regardless of this, the Federal
Labour Government of Australia with the help of their black puppets
pushed on with the Native Title policy which has delivered nothing.
Native Title Tribunal > From the very beginning, and throughout its
whole operation, the Native Title Tribunal has been a farce and served
the Federal Labour Government by stalling any positive outcomes in
reclaiming the land willed to them by their foremothers and forefathers.
While at the same time the Native Title Tribunal has been an instrument
to coerce the indigenous peoples of Australia to accept the Labour
Party's policy of compensation which, as at the 1st September 1994,
amounted to a grand sum of less than $124 for each indigenous person of
Australia. (The equivalent of half a dozen cartons of hot beer.)
Not a republic, but a democracy of consensus The ownership status of the
land mass of Australia changed because of the invasion of the British,
with their intention to set up a penal colony, not another British
nation. Because the theft of the land was committed by the British, the
return of the land must be through direct consultation with the British.
The neocolonial regimes in Australia today can only be legitimately seen
as squatters in possession of stolen property.
Indigenous sovereignty and self determination The indigenous people of
Australia have a legitimate right to sovereignty and self determination,
a right to speak for themselves, a right to be recognised in their own
identity as nations of indigenous peoples. None of the issues of
fundamental importance to these people can be resolved until they are
given the power to exercise their authorities as they choose.
As the election approaches, each of the major political parties has the
opportunity to come into the real world of the 21st Century by
presenting policies that provide these fundamental and natural rights to
indigenous peoples.
In dealing with international experiences of indigenous and
non-indigenous peoples, common ground has been identified and
implemented. Nobody has been dispossessed of their quality of lifestyle.
Everyone's contribution and personal commitment to the nation in which
we live can be enhanced.
Yaluritja (Clarrie Isaacs)
President,
Aboriginal Government of Australia
For further information,
contact 0419 917 443,
fax to (09) 324 1701,
post to P.O. Box 177 West Perth, WA 6872
email: mktrecon@iinet.net.au
http://www.iinet.net.au/~mktrecon/svnc/index.html