Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to speak about some significant anniversaries dealing with Indigenous Australians that are coming up in the next few months. The first, which occurs on 27 May, is the 40th anniversary of the referendum to alter section 51 of the Constitution. By a very large margin it was the most successful referendum ever held in Australia. As all senators would be aware, the vast majority of questions put to referenda to amend the Constitution have failed, many of them dismally. This one not only succeeded but received a yes vote of over 90 per cent.

It should be noted precisely what that question did. It is sometimes slightly misrepresented as having given Aboriginal people the vote or some other measure like that. It amended section 51, which is the section that gives powers to the federal parliament, the Commonwealth parliament, to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth. The relevant section said that the parliament had the power to make laws for the peace, good order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to the people of any race other than the Aboriginal race. It was the removal of the words ‘other than the Aboriginal race in any state’ that was the subject of the referendum. What that did, in the eyes of many people, and particularly Indigenous Australians, was to make it clear that Aboriginal people should be a full part of this nation of Australia. It is quite an absurd concept in many ways to think it could ever be thought otherwise. Whatever your views on the nature of Australia, Australian values and how you define and describe Australia, it is a bit hard to think of any group of people more intrinsically Australian than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people whose descendents have been custodians and residents of this land for tens of thousands of years.

I note the comment by Muriel Bamblett, writing in the Age earlier this week, that, for her, 1967 marked the time when becoming a true nation became possible. It is important to use anniversaries such as these to reflect on some of their underlying meaning. The fact that we managed to get Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians working together with such power and strength that we got a 90 per cent positive vote—I say ‘we’; I was two years old at the time: I mean ‘we as Australians’—is a sign of how there is an ability to work together to strengthen the rights of Indigenous Australians.

But such occasions also remind us of what has not been achieved—the hopes that were held then that still have not been realised and, in my view, the potential of our nation that still has not been fully realised. They are a time, as many people have said, for us to look at reviving that spirit of the 1967 referendum to restore a representative voice for Indigenous people, to tackle the disadvantage and marginalisations that many Indigenous Australians and communities still face, to seek to strengthen and implement the principles of self-determination, to promote respect for Aboriginal people and to mandate a cultural competence for all our public services. Those were just some of the suggestions Muriel Bamblett made.

This is a time when we should look at the opportunities to further build our nation. As Ms Bamblett suggested, we need a nation built on real rights for all. As Indigenous academic Larissa Berendt says, when you acknowledge the rights of Aboriginal people you do not take anything away from other individuals. In fact, you increase the overall rights pie for everyone. Ms Bamblett used an analogy for our country which I found particularly apt, which is: if we provided a true voice and true opportunity and equality for Indigenous Australians and recognised their rights to voice, land and culture, it would be like adding yeast to our potential. It would enable the Australian nation to really rise and achieve its full potential. This occasion is also a reminder that we should accept and learn from all of our history—not just the good bits or the bits that contributed to creating a feelgood picture. Whether it be a nation’s or an individual’s history, it is often the difficult times and the difficult consequences that one can learn most from.

That leads me to another anniversary I wish to note, which comes up on 10 June this year—that is, the 50th anniversary of the commencement of a major strike on Palm Island, an island off the coast of North Queensland near Townsville which has had some news coverage on and off over recent years. It is a reminder that history and experience cannot be separated from the reality of Palm Island today. The fact that people today still refer back to that strike on Palm Island indicates how significant it was in so many ways. When we understand that history it puts some of the reactions that occurred to the death in custody of Mulrunji a few years ago into clearer context and somewhat starker relief.

I will read from an account by Nicole Watson of events of the time in 1957:

The superintendent at the time of the strike was an ex-policeman, Roy Bartlam, said to be notorious for his sadistic punishments. He strictly enforced a morning roll call of all Aboriginal residents on the island. Those who were late were jailed for two weeks. All Indigenous residents, including the elderly and pregnant women, were forced to work 30 hours per week with rations as their only remuneration.

Another grievance during Bartlam’s rule was the distribution of rations. Whereas the European minority receiving ample supplies, Indigenous people were forced to queue for leftovers.

Although wages and conditions were the major causes of the strike, the immediate trigger was Bartlam’s decision to deport one Albie Geia. Geia had committed the offence—

so-called—

of disobeying the European overseer.

When Geia refused to leave, the community rallied behind him declaring a strike on June 10, 1957. For five days the strikers controlled the island. The strike was eventually broken through dawn raids on the homes of community leaders. The men and their families, manacled in leg irons, were led to a military patrol boat. The men remained in chains throughout the journey.

The strikers were exiled to other reserves on the mainland. None were charged with committing a criminal offence ...

Last weekend, if not the weekend before, the magazine in my home town newspaper, the Courier-Mail, carried a cover story on Palm Island. In amongst the people talked to for the story was a woman named Dulcie Isaro. Her father was amongst a group of island men who declared the general strike in 1957 over living conditions. She recalls the words of her father, Willie Thaiday, who told her, ‘We’re not dogs.’ The police came from Townsville and arrested the strike leaders, including her father, and dragged them away in chains. Dulcie Isaro, then 15, was also taken, along with her mother, Madge; her big sister, Nina, then 18; and her brother, Bill, 13. They had lived in the top end of the mission, the main settlement, but were taken away from that. She is quoted as remembering the island’s then superintendent, Mr Bartlam, telling the police, ‘When you take them, make sure Willie is chained to the mast.’ Dulcie Isaro is now 64 and she has painstakingly recorded what happened in the strike in 1957. When you look at some of the reality of what happened there, the reasons behind it, why the reaction from the residents of Palm Island was so strong and the sorts of actions that were taken, including police dawn raids and dragging people away in chains as a way of trying to break down that resistance, it does have some very clear echoes with some of the responses from police and others after the death in custody of Mulrunji in 2004. These things have deep resonance and they have that resonance for a reason.

I also note another anniversary which emphasises the importance of acknowledging history and recognising its consequences as a way of drawing lessons from it. That is the 10th anniversary of the tabling of the Bringing them home report, which examined and chronicled in great detail the experiences of the stolen generations and the detailed documented evidence of the practices and in some cases the specific policy of removing children from their parents and from family groups for no specific reason in many cases other than the colour of their skin. That report was tabled in this parliament on 26 May 1997. It is worth emphasising that whilst there are many recommendations within it, a number of those recommendations have not been implemented. They were rejected at the time by the government. There was a follow-up report by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee which also contained some recommendations; again, some of those were not supported by the government.

The 54 recommendations of the Bringing them home report were grouped into eight broad themes dealing with acknowledgement and apology; family tracing and reunion; rehabilitation; education and training; guarantees against repetition; reparation or compensation; issues of contemporary separation; and consultation, monitoring and coordination. As I said, the government did not support all of those recommendations. When they were responding to the Senate committee’s report—they tabled that response nearly six years ago, in June 2001—the government stated that they did not support recommendations regarding the establishment of a reparations tribunal or any mechanism for implementing reparations or individual compensation. I quote my former Democrat colleague Senator Aden Ridgeway in responding to that government view:

... the recommendations of the Bringing them home report are not a collection of options for governments to choose from. What we—

the Democrats—

were essentially saying, and what the human rights commission said at the time, during the Senate inquiry, was that the recommendations are a package of complementary measures that need to be implemented as a whole. Collectively, it is about those recommendations constituting the minimum acceptable response required to heal the legacy that is borne by members of the stolen generations, their families and their communities.

The report, as I said, contained a number of recommendations relating to reparation and they reflected what is detailed as the van Boven principles to guide those reparation measures. Those are basic principles and guidelines on the right to reparation for victims of gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law that were adopted at international level back in 1996. The report recommended that reparation be made to all who suffered because of forcible removal policies, including individuals who were forcibly removed as children; family members who suffered as a result of their removal; communities which, as a result of the forcible removal of children, suffered cultural and community disintegration; and descendants of those forcibly removed who, as a result, have been deprived of community ties, culture and language, and links with and entitlements to their traditional land. That is recommendation No. 4 of the report. That recommendation has never been implemented. Indeed, it has been specifically rejected.

I do think it is important to emphasise—as mentioned about the Palm Island strike and the reality of the stolen wages example, another issue that I do not have time to touch on today. The stolen wages issue was the subject of another Senate committee inquiry that reported last December—it is not enough to just say: ‘Well, at least these were all a long time ago and they have been recognised, sort of. You should all just move on and get over it.’ The legacy of this sort of damage is long term and very deep, and it can be extremely severe.

Nobody is suggesting that just paying money through reparation or compensation is going to resolve all of that but it is quite clear, and the intensive inquiry made it quite clear, that it must be part of the package. It is very much unfinished business yet to be addressed. For that reason I seek to table today an exposure draft for legislation that seeks to implement these recommendations regarding the stolen generations compensation, as well as an explanatory memorandum that is attached to the exposure draft, in order to further seek community views about what I believe is a key area of unfinished business. Nearly 10 years down the track it is still an issue that needs resolution and acknowledgement as part of ensuring that we take that step forward, as Muriel Bamblett said, towards realising our full potential as a nation. I seek leave to table the exposure draft and the explanatory memorandum.

Leave granted.