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Monday 9 July 2007, Media Release

NAIDOC ADDRESS BY NSWALC CHAIRPERSON BEV MANTON AT PENRITH CIVIC CENTRE

Good morning everyone

I would like to acknowledge the past & present Indigenous people of this land we are meeting on today

I would like also to acknowledge the NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Paul Lynch, Councillor Roy Ah-See of the Sydney/Newcastle ALC region and other distinguished guests

It is my great pleasure to be here today as the first elected female Chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, as we mark the 50th anniversary of modern day NAIDOC celebrations.

I must admit to some mixed feelings being here today at the Penrith Town Hall – this was the venue of the last NSWALC Council’s very last meeting before they were sacked and replaced by an Administrator in November 2003.

I will choose to focus on the positive, however, and look upon the venue as an appropriate place to mark the Council’s rebirth.

NSWALC

The good news during this 40th anniversary year of the 1967 referendum is the return of an elected board at the NSW Aboriginal Land Council – this restores a representative voice for Aboriginal people

NSWALC’s statewide election on May 19 returned an elected leadership after three and half years under administration

NSWALC Board represents the interests of more than 23,000 registered members of 121 Local Aboriginal Land Councils across the state

More than 5000 people turned out to elect a new nine member State Council

While there were 16,500 voting members -- turnout was comparable with voluntary voting systems around the world

Few people outside of the Aboriginal community are aware of what NSWALC is and what it does

It’s a self-funding statutory authority introduced under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1983)

In short, its goal is to empower Aboriginal people in NSW through economic and social independence

NSWALC supports a statewide network of 121 LALCs from the annual interest generated by a prudently managed Statutory Investment Fund which is worth more than $680 m

If success were measured in normal commercial terms – by the amount of money we have in the bank and the amount of land in our portfolio – NSWALC and its land council network would be considered a shining beacon of enterprise

Our core business is land claims

The land council network oversees an Aboriginal-owned land estate of more than 616,460 hectares with an unimproved capital value of more than $2 billion

The newly elected Council will be responsible for taking the system into the next phase of land rights—the sustainable development and management of our land base for the benefit of present and future generations

The administration period was used to rebuild the administrative and political base of the organisation

The new Council is operating at a crucial period in the history of land rights in NSW

It will be working with new legislation following recent amendments to the Act, a new Minister, a new parliament and a new management team

Unlike other jurisdictions the NSW land rights legislation provides for Aboriginal representation and self determination

It is totally unique in both an Australian and global context and enjoys bi-partisan support in the NSW Parliament

We are very aware, however, that land rights alone cannot solve the deep seated and complex disadvantage facing Aboriginal people.

Working with government and most importantly, business, we must innovate to generate economic activity and deliver socioeconomic outcomes to Aboriginal people which have mostly eluded this nation to date

NAIDOC WEEK
NAIDOC is a celebration of our both our history and the survival of our culture as well as an opportunity to reflect on where we stand in today’s Australia.

It is an inclusive celebration, which gives non-Aboriginal people an opportunity to join with us and learn about our proud and strong history over at least 40,000 years.

While there have been many historical events during the past 50 years -- very few NAIDOC Celebrations would have coincided with events as momentous and significant as the present day.

I am of course referring to the Howard Government’s extraordinary military-style intervention in the Northern Territory.

During this NAIDOC celebration, there is no better time for our fellow Australians to think about what it means to be an Aboriginal person in early 21st century Australia and to walk at least a few steps in our shoes.

Millions of words have flowed since Prime Minister Howard and Minister Brough, announced their discriminatory, punitive, top-down, and ill-conceived plan.

All too few have pointed to the facts about what this “shock and awe” campaign is really all about.

It is actually a frank admission of failure by the Australian Government.

Mr. Howard, has opened a Pandora’s Box -- and in doing so, he has revealed the true extent of the neglect and failure by multiple governments in Aboriginal affairs.

Governments have failed to provide basic services such as housing, health, education and job opportunities for too many Aboriginal people for too long.

And now that box has been opened we must now ensure the lid stays firmly open.

Mr. Howard has placed the plight of Aboriginal people, including the evils of child and substance abuses, front and centre in the public debate – and for that I applaud him.

This country can no longer ignore the fact that at least $ 4 billion is required to ensure equality of services for all Australians – and that is just in the NT.

Of course, like the overwhelming majority of Australians, I don’t think for one moment Mr. Howard began this crusade with the primary motivation of helping Aboriginal children.

The highly regarded Galaxy poll of a week ago showed 58 per cent of voters believed Mr. Howard was “addressing problems in Aboriginal communities because of the upcoming federal election”.

Furthermore, only 25 per cent agreed Mr. Howard was taking action “because he really cares about the issue”.

That leaves an awful lot of Howard haters – the favoured label for anyone who dares question government policy.

Using the pretext of the Little Children Are Sacred report, the Howard Government has launched a breath-taking assault on the rights of people, based solely on their race.

It is a response which, curiously the report’s authors, Pat Anderson and Rex Wild QC, have both publicly rejected.

Let’s have a look at just a few of the measures Howard and Brough announced on June 21 – D Day for this government’s second desert invasion.

They said that all 22,000 Aboriginal children in the NT would be subjected to compulsory “health checks” for signs of sexual abuse.
The Prime Minister repeated this promise four days later.

By the end of that week, however, the Government had abandoned this policy without explanation.

Health Minister, Tony Abbott, could not deny this reversal was prompted by Australian Medical Association advice that such checks without parental permission constituted assault.

So there you have it -- a key part of the Government’s “save the children” crusade was a physical assault on all NT Aboriginal children.

Not so surprising when you consider that this same government locked scores of refugee children behind barbed wire for years.

Then you have the flagged changes to the NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act and removal of the permit system.

Can someone please tell me what hard won legal property rights have to do with child abuse?

I was proud to have sat next to Pat Turner when she identified this crusade as a “Trojan horse” to strip Aboriginal people of their land – again.

The response offered was a typical politician’s mealy-mouthed claim that this wasn’t, in fact, about taking away our land.

Well I have a simple challenge for the Prime Minister.

If you’re fair dinkum -- if you want Aboriginal people to get behind your NT foray – abandon your proposed land-grab in the same way as you have abandoned compulsory health checks.

We will back your decision to the hilt.

And while you’re at it – please explain to the Australian people how an army of temporary volunteers is going to provide long-term solutions to the permanent shortfall of doctors, teachers and police in the NT.

Please explain why all Aboriginal parents in the NT face quarantining of their welfare and baby bonus benefits while for the rest of Australia it will only be “bad parents”.

Please explain how prohibition will work. Give us just one example of where prohibition has succeeded in the world, ever.

And following Minister Brough’s weekend reconnaissance mission to the occupied territory – please explain how the opening of wet bars in dry communities fits with your prohibition policy.

Didn’t Pat Anderson point to the “rivers of grog” flowing through all NT communities as being a key factor in the abuse and dysfunction?

Surely the Minister’s statement is yet another indication that this NT crusade was half-baked and rushed in both its planning and execution?

Even after 11 years of national stewardship of Aboriginal affairs, this government is clearly making policy on the run – in fact it’s making it up as it goes along

This NAIDOC week I urge all non-Aboriginal Australians to put themselves in our shoes for just one moment.

Consider how you would react if the Government were to announce out of the blue that it was taking away your land and it was imposing medical checks on all your children.

How would you like army and police knocking on all your doors because of the actions of a relatively few evil, sick or perverted people?

Aboriginal people are sick of being labeled as “a problem” and treated as strangers in our own land.

We are Australians too.

Not surprisingly, the appalling flaws in the Howard Government’s rescue mission have upset many Australians.

Perhaps even more disturbing, however, was the follow-up to the Government’s bombshell – the Big Don’t Argue.

Two Government and media appointed “Aboriginal Leaders” publicly smeared their own people because they had the cheek to question this dangerously flawed policy.

Of course, these two men can’t get elected anywhere.

One of them I don’t think has ever even contested an elected position.

Yet these so-called leaders had the gall to attack their own people and willingly offer the government a fig leaf of respectability for their misguided military adventure.

When I saw Noel Pearson’s extraordinary interview on Lateline last month I thought “this man is drunk with power”.

He described Pat Turner’s reasoned questioning of the government’s actions as “almost a form of madness” and claimed Aboriginal people “had turned into a nation of cripples”.

Let’s set aside the fact that such terms are grossly offensive to the more than a million Australians with a disability and their carers.

I say to Noel Pearson: How dare you?

How dare you run down Aboriginal people and their supporters for standing up to a botched last minute rescue mission dreamt up by people with very questionable track records?

I was amazed to read in Noel’s national weekend column his confession that “I do not follow politics in the Northern Territory closely”.

The way he has been spruiking around the place you might have expected that he, at least, had his finger on the pulse.

But Noel is not being the wise person that he has been known to be for many years.

Like many Australians, I have held him in very high regard for a long time but he seems to have now shot himself in the foot.

He has been an active participant in an extraordinary assault on Aboriginal people and I can’t comprehend it.

I make these comments mindful of the fact that media loves nothing better than a black upon black verbal dust up.

But in the end, these issues are not about John Howard, Noel Pearson or Bev Manton.

It’s about this country getting real and proving that it still believes in a fair go.

Let’s ditch the arguments around ideological hang-ups dating back to the 1950’s Cold War.

Let’s not pretend that paternalism and imposed solutions without Aboriginal involvement have any place in the 21st Century.

This country is crying out for mainstream political leaders who will sit down with Aboriginal Australians and talk realistically how we can work together to address a national tragedy.

In the meantime - Aboriginal people should harness the massive anger they are feeling today and channel it towards where it will count the most – at the ballot box.

Smug politicians have always contented themselves saying that we as Aboriginal people just “don’t have the numbers” and there are no votes in doing the right thing by us.

Well they are wrong and I urge you to tell as many people – Aboriginal and other Australians -- as possible about what is going on.

And I urge you to make sure you are on the electoral roll before John Howard declares the election.

Get on the roll now because John Howard has changed the electoral laws to disenfranchise anybody who is not on the roll when the election is called.

Don’t just tell Labor or minor party politicians about your concerns, speak to your government MPs as well.

Ask them how they feel about John Howard destroying Liberal Party traditions and trashing its reputation?

Ask them, is this the same Liberal Party which abolished the White Australia Policy?

Is the same party which produced the likes of Malcolm Fraser, Fred Chaney and Ian Viner, who have remained devoted to the Aboriginal cause long after their political careers ended?

Tell them you are angry and make sure your voice is heard.

As the old song goes: “None of us is free, When one of us’s in chains.”

And let me also say, in the words of one of the world’s great black leaders, Martin Luther King:

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Thank you.