CHAIRPERSON BEV MANTON
PORT STEPHENS ADVISORY COUNCIL
July 2009
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Distinguished guest, Ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk with you again.
Let me begin by acknowledging our Worimi traditional owners, Elders and those who have gone before us.
They are the custodians of our land and are responsible for protecting our culture and traditions.
You know when we talk about traditional country in this way, we mean something beyond the dictionary definition of the word.
For Aboriginal Australians, country has an altogether different meaning.
When we say country, we might mean homeland, or tribal or clan area.
And we mean more than just a place on a map.
We are not necessarily referring to a geographical place.
We are talking about the whole of the landscape, not just the places in it.
For us, country is a word for all the values, places, resources, stories, and all the cultural obligations associated with that area and its features.
It describes the entirety of our ancestral domains.
All of it is important - we have no wilderness, nor the opposite of wilderness, nor anything in between.
Country is country.
So when we acknowledge traditional country, as increasingly people do in Australia, it is no empty ritual.
It is to acknowledge who we, the Aboriginal people are, and our place in this nation.
It is to take special note of a place and the people who belong to it.
And so I honour the traditional owners of this land, the Worimi people, still proud, still surviving 221 years since the first encounter between black and white Australians.
Well ladies and gentlemen,
You don't have to be a bleeding heart to understand the anguish and complexity of those two centuries for Aboriginal Australians.
One of the most stable and ancient of human communities suddenly came into contact with what was, at the time, the most technologically-advanced nation on earth, the British ...... a society with very different conceptions of property, social relations, time and seasons, land use, law and justice.
The mismatch was profound, and its effects re-echo today.
Aborigines went from being owners and custodians of this land to victims and fringe dwellers.
A brutal irony given the importance of country in the Dreaming.
However, you cannot un-ring the bell.
The past is written - white settlement is done.
But what we can control is the present and the future.
Because while past misdeeds are beyond our help we are doubly guilty if we drop the ball now, knowing what we know today.
I am a Worimi woman, born and raised on the Aboriginal mission in Karuah.
My grandmother Jessie Ping was a Gurreenngai woman from the Barrington Tops in Gloucester.
My mother was a very strong woman who thankfully instilled common sense in me.
I am very proud of my ancestry and knowing who I am.
I made my entry into public and political life by becoming the Aboriginal Education Assistant at Karuah Public School in 1976.
Today, I have the privilege to be the Chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council.
It is a self-funding statutory body, not a government department or Government funded organisation.
The Aboriginal Land Council is responsible for protecting and promoting the rights and interests of Aboriginal people in NSW.
Our vision statement is to: liberate and empower Aboriginal people in NSW through social and economic independence.
The Council provides the political and policy leadership for the organization.
We also seek to provide comment on issues that are important to Aboriginal people in this state and also work with the state government to influence policy.
There are a couple of points I would like to touch on.
Firstly, despite many good policies and programs to address Aboriginal disadvantage, the life expectancy of Aboriginal people remains dramatically lower than that of non-Aboriginal people.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has foreshadowed a productive new era of informed consent for Aboriginal people in their dealings with the Commonwealth government.
The NSW Aboriginal Land Council welcomed the Prime Minister's acknowledgement that there is no single solution to the problems in Aboriginal affairs.
We are hoping for a productive era of informed consent for Aboriginal people in their dealings with the Commonwealth on policies and programs to improve conditions in Aboriginal communities.
We applaud those targets the Prime Minister has set including
- To close the life expectancy gap within a generation.
- To halve the gap in mortality rates for Aboriginal children under five within a generation.
- To halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements within a decade.
We believe every Australian would hope they are achieved.
However, on the political level, there needs to be an end to the political lip service around the word partnership.
We seek a concrete commitment to true partnerships between all tiers of Government and peak Aboriginal organisations tied to a recognition of Aboriginal rights.
It must also be acknowledged that:
- over the past 25 years there has been no accountability of government to Aboriginal people in New South Wales.
- the return of land into Aboriginal ownership has been at a snail's pace.
- this robs Aboriginal people of the ability to use that land to deliver real socio-economic benefits back to our people and to further assist their efforts to "close the gap."
Ongoing claims for land are also often the subject of protracted, costly, and unnecessary legal dispute.
It is little understood in the wider community that valid land claims remain the sole form of compensation available to our people in New South Wales for the dispossession of our lands.
The preamble to that Act spells out that land in the State of NSW was traditionally owned and occupied by Aborigines and that land is of spiritual, social, cultural and economic importance to Aborigines.
Land claims are core business for NSWALC, particularly given land is the only form of compensation for dispossession now available under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
NSWALC will continue to focus on working with Local Aboriginal Land Councils to acquire cultural and economically viable land and to ensure the prudent management and development of that land.
We regret the fact that we are being forced into litigation to defend our legal rights to make claims for vacant crown land under the Act.
The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has welcomed the introduction in the State Parliament of the long awaited Aboriginal Land Rights Amendment Bill 2009.
The legislation proposes to amend the Act to establish a new regime for land dealings to provide more transparency and reliability in the land dealings process for Local Aboriginal Land Councils, NSWALC and third parties.
The amendments flow from the last major review of the Aboriginal Land rights Act and complement the first round of amendments which came into operation in 2007.
NSWALC believes the new legislation will considerably improve the workability of the legislation.
It will provide clearer and more certain processes for Aboriginal Land Councils to follow when they deal with, dispose of, or develop land.
NSWALC looks forward to the speedy passage of the legislation.
Debate on the Bill is expected to resume in State Parliament in September.
We in NSWALC face many challenges.
One of them - to highlight but one area is the ownership of houses.
Over 2,600 of them.
They are home for nearly 13,000 of our people.
They are the old homes from the missions and reserves which were transferred to the Local Aboriginal Land Councils.
They were typically run down housing estates with dilapidated and overcrowded housing.
And while we seek to ensure that Aboriginal people in NSW have access to suitable and affordable housing we face serious obstacles in addressing this issue.
The greatest issue that we face today - believe it or not is the Commonwealth Government.
It appears that the Commonwealth Government believes when it comes to housing that Aboriginal people only live in the Northern Territory or remote parts of Australia.
While I can appreciate the genuine need of providing people in remote areas with affordable housing, I will be reminding the Government of the needs of Aboriginal people in NSW.
After all we have the largest Aboriginal population in the country and the needs of all Aboriginal people must be taken into account.
NSWALC will stay at the table to invigorate debate and influence decisions to gain better housing outcomes for our people especially those living along the East Coast of NSW.
NSWALC has a function to protect and promote Aboriginal culture and heritage under the Act.
When he introduced the original land rights legislation Frank Walker noted that it lacked an essential element-the protection and ownership of Aboriginal cultural heritage.
He flagged the introduction of an Aboriginal Heritage Commission Bill.
It has never seen the light of day.
Twenty-five years on, responsibility for this protection and management lies largely with the Department of Environment and Climate Change.
Despite its efforts Aboriginal cultural heritage continues to be destroyed.
The Department has estimated that since 1990 it has approved over 800 permits for the destruction of Aboriginal cultural heritage.
This MUST be stopped.
Let me put it another way.
IF a developer walked into a church in Port Stephens and smashed a demolition ball around the stained glass windows, that person would face a range of criminal and civil penalties.
But if the same developer bulldozed through a thousand-year-old Aboriginal Bora Ring, under existing legislation they could claim ignorance and be excused from penalty.
Legal protection of Aboriginal cultural and spiritual heritage is weak and inferior to legislation protecting white heritage areas.
The proposed new National Parks and Wildlife Amendment Bill (the Omnibus) Bill is seen by Aboriginal people as making their position even worse than it is now.
We are trying to work with the State Government to ensure that the proposed Omnibus Bill at least meets our aspirations.
Protection of our cultural heritage is a sensitive issue and must involve our people.
Aboriginal people have a spiritual, social and customary association with fisheries resources.
Aboriginal people have continued their tradition of fishing consistent with our cultural beliefs.
It is crucial to Aboriginal culture that this connection be maintained for the present and the future generations.
Our Fishing rights have provided us with a staple and healthy diet for thousands of years.
Seafood kept us healthy and fit for generations but now we cannot fish in our traditional areas, or teach our kids, the next generation of our cultural fishing ways because we cannot fish in there.
It has been a long standing concern of our people that cultural fishing has not been adequately recognised by NSW legislation.
I hope it have this rectified during my last two years as Chairperson of NSWALC.
I think the NSWALC has taken some courageous decisions over the past two years.
To mention but a few of them.
We have offered up more than $100 million dollars of NSWALC's hard-earned revenue to jointly fund over the next 25 years a $200 million water and sewerage scheme.
Why?
We sincerely believed if we didn't the shocking water and sewerage standards in so many of our communities would remain unresolved.
We believed then, and now, that was a risk we couldn't take.
This is a project that is paramount to the future well being of every man, woman and child living in the 60 communities that will benefit.
Local Shires responsibility stopped at the land boundary, they had no responsibility then but now they have stepped up to the plate.
For some time the Associations have been calling for a program to improve the poor state of water supply and sewerage provision in remote Aboriginal communities.
The Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW will work in partnership with the Local Land Council to deliver water and sewerage infrastructure upgrades in remote Aboriginal communities over the next 25 years.
The program will help address the social, health, environmental and economic impacts that poor water and sewerage services have on many of these communities.
Previously these communities lack the resources and skills to operate and maintain systems in the long term.
However under the water and sewerage scheme a training and employment component has been added to ensure these communities will be able to maintain their systems.
We have established our own Educational Endowment Fund.
Already, about 250 Aboriginal people around the State have been beneficiaries.
They come from all walks of life.
Some are only primary school children.
Some are mature aged students.
Others are attending TAFE courses.
Others are attending University.
Again this fund is an investment for the good of Aboriginal people throughout the State.
It is a program that encourages our people to continue with their education.
Given the income status of so many of our people it was essential that we had an educational scholarship program that would offer help to those who may never have been helped by mainstream programs.
We have achieved that.
So, as you can see the NSW Aboriginal Land Council and our network of Local Aboriginal Land Councils are working to provide a foundation that will give Aboriginal people both social and economic stability.
There are many programs still in the development stage so I believe there is a growing sense of self determination in many Aboriginal communities.
The NSW Aboriginal land Council is an organisation that has a strong connection to the Aboriginal community.
We are here to ensure that the Aboriginal people of NSW have an effective voice to express their concerns.
Working together we will make a difference.
Thank you