Australian Society of Archivists
1999 Conference

Post - Fitzgerald Queensland

Professor Peter Botsman
Executive Director, Brisbane Institute

I

Before moving to consider the main themes I will outline this morning - the idea of a makarratta, "the enabling state' and the need to create new forms of governance at a regional levels - it is important to understand what sort of political and public culture Queensland now has, and how that came to be.⁽¹⁾

Vital to that understanding of course, is the Fitzgerald Inquiry, its subsequent report and the processes that flowed from it.

That report was handed down 10 years ago, and already so much of what it has contributed to public life in this State is taken for granted, although not, it must be said, by those with the experience of living in Queensland before the inquiry.

Those with the "corporate history of injustice, corruption and the debasing of the democratic process in almost every manifestation, and especially those who campaigned in vain and often at high personal cost for change, will never forget.

For those without that direct experience of pre-Fitzgerald Queensland, the easiest and most effective way to gain some understanding of the breadth and depth of the problems it tackled is to read the report of the "Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct' as it was officially known.

Ghost written, as it was by former journalist and now successful author Margaret Simons, it is a compelling read, accessible yet detailed in its diagnosis and prescriptions.

The simplest measure of Fitzgerald’s legacy, the contribution his work has made to healing and strengthening the body politic in this State, may be the fact that we now have in office the fourth Government since the report was handed to Premier Mike Ahern on July 3, 1989.

Three changes of government in a decade in a State that had not been through that process once in the three decades before the Inquiry suggests something has changed radically.

It suggests not just that the structures and processes of government were overhauled and reinvigorated by the inquiry, but that collective consciousness of Queenslanders underwent a cathartic experience - as indeed it did.

The saturation media coverage of the inquiry over its 238 days of public sittings, together with television footage of those who had been the mightiest and most powerful in this part of the land being called to book for their misdeeds, amounted to an education campaign in civics, ethics and the rule of law on a scale unparalleled in Australia’s history.

But that was just the beginning. As Fitzgerald noted in his report: "This commission of Inquiry began by pulling a few threads at the frayed edges of society. To general alarm, sections of the fabric began to unravel”. The report was a pattern by which that fabric could be re-woven.

It was released to bipartisan political support. Premier Ahern previously had undertaken to implement it "lock, stock and barrel”. The report subsequently provided the blueprint, the reform agenda for the Labor Government led by Wayne Goss that came to office after the election on December 2, 1989.

Institutions and practices now taken for granted in Queensland, and long expected and accepted in other jurisdictions, flowed from the reform model laid out in Fitzgerald s report.

Core to its recommendations to address what was described as the "political context' to the corruption the Inquiry uncovered was the fact that Queensland had a unicameral Parliament.

The most well-known post-Fitzgerald institution is the Criminal Justice Commission. But it was envisaged not just as a on-going brake on corruption and a vehicle for reforming the Police Department, but as a body that would provide research data and recommendations to Parliament.

Similarly Fitzgerald recommended the establishment of the now disbanded Electoral and Administrative Review Commission whose most notable achievement was the ending of the notorious electoral gerrymander, introduced by the Labor Government after World War 11 and refined by former Premier Bjelke-Petersen and the late Russ Hinze.

The report ushered in the Parliamentary committee system that previously had been limited to a Standing Orders Committee that concerned itself primarily with the Parliamentary library, refreshments rooms and printing service.

It recommended the introduction of Freedom of Information legislation, the establishment of a pecuniary interests register for politicians, a system of whistleblower protection, increased powers for the Auditor-General, a register for political donations and the re-invigoration of the Law Reform Commission.

After the trauma of the crack down on street marches and the State of Emergency declared for the visit of the Springbok rugby union tour, it reminded Queenslanders of the importance of the right to dissent and to protest publicly.

It took the media to task for its often too cosy relationship with government and pointed out that had other professions, including his own - the law - not aided and abetted both by commission and omission the corrupt practice that flourished, things could not have reached the parlous state they did.

We can and should debate to what extent Fitzgerald got it right. I have no doubt the Commissioner would welcome that. As he noted in his report, “this Commission is not infallible”.

We can and should debate whether more needs to be done, and whether some of the institutions left in the inquiries wake have reached their use-by date, at least in their current form.

But we should never doubt the debt Queensland society as it is today owes to the Commission and the many people who served it.

It is unlikely that we shall ever see a Minister, when tackled as Russ Hinze was, about conflict of interest because he owned race horses while serving as Racing Minister, or about being a property developer while Minister for Local Government, can contemptuously dismiss such concerns by asserting: 'That’s not a conflict of interest, that's convergence of interest'. And get away with it!

It is unlikely that we will ever see the police force of this State so blatantly politicised that they had virtually become the enforcement agency of the Executive arm of government.

And it is to be hoped that we will never see that same police force corrupted to the core as it was, nor see the Commissioner of Police jailed for his part in those shameful activities - a jail term Terry Lewis is still serving as we gather here today.

II

In the wonderful letters Manning Clark and Kathleen Fitzpatrick wrote to each other I found this little gem, dated 18 September 1989, two months after the release of the Fitzgerald report.⁽²⁾ Clark wrote: ‘Dear Kathleen, ...Have just been to Brisbane. Societies which have bred Evil have a good effect on intellectual and artistic life. The evil surrounding them directs their mind to serious things. They also feel besieged, and that in itself stimulates a fellowship, a compassion for other victims of the power men. I wouldn't be surprised if Brisbane or the Gold Coast bred a writer as well as all the developers who swarm all around'.

I think Clark was aware of the underlying energy that existed in Brisbane and Queensland that was repressed by an era of evil and corruption. I was one of those who did not have the courage to stay in Brisbane and Queensland through the 1970s and 1980s. I have the greatest admiration for those that did stay and win through. Clark was right about an underlying creativity and energy and I think there has been a remarkable renaissance of Brisbane City and Queensland generally after Tony Fitzgerald released the pressure valve.

The question that interests me now is: how creative can we be in developing new modes of governance and new forms of community in Queensland in the post Fitzgerald era? How big is the Queensland political imagination?

The Fitzgerald Report was really about setting an older concept of democracy right. It was about the separation of powers and the necessity of judicial, executive and political checks and balances. The defining right of any citizen is the vote of equal value. That vote cannot be valid unless there is a right to life, to freedom of movement, conscience, speech and organisation. There must also be freedom from economic and social deprivation.⁽³⁾ In 21st century Queensland these challenges remain profound.

III

Queensland should lead the nation in reconciling indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. A settlement document must be brought forward. The risk of not grappling with this issue on the eve of the Australian republic has been well argued by Pat Dodson. He says: "There is a danger of a new constitution being drafted that tries to capture the spirit of a modern Australia, but that denies the spirit of indigenous Australia. Terra nullius may be gone but the old habits of constitutional drafters die hard. The silences and omissions of the past echo loudly in the present.."⁽⁴⁾

The Mabo decision has brought a settlement to traditional Aboriginal landowners.⁽⁵⁾ However, the Mabo decision cannot deal with the multiplicity of issues, problems and challenges confronting the indigenous peoples of Australia. The time has come for all Australian citizens to talk and think about the specific meaning and ongoing form of reconciliation if the good work of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation is not to disappear in a haze of either good will or ignorance.⁽⁶⁾ Nor can we avoid the fact that the constitution itself needs to be re-cast to admit the prior ownership and culture of indigenous Australians and to celebrate their ongoing role in the development of Australia.

We have been through a number of phases of the reconciliation process. Far seeing indigenous and non-indigenous citizens started the process of developing a treaty between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal Australians and we must return to their ideas.⁽⁷⁾ In 1979 the concept of a "treaty within Australia between Australians", or a "Makarrata", a Yolgnu word which signifies the end of a dispute between communities and the resumption of normal relations was first mooted.⁽⁸⁾ The National Aboriginal Conference called on the senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs to negotiate a Makarrata with Australian Aboriginal peoples. This was then followed by a summary of issues to be negotiated as part of a Makarrata submitted to the World Assembly of First Nations at Regina Canada in l982.⁽⁹⁾ In l987 Kevin Gilbert developed the most comprehensive treaty proposal at Alice Springs.⁽¹⁰⁾ Then came the Barunga statement signed by then prime minister Bob Hawke 12 June 1988 which assumed a final written outcome - "there shall be a treaty negotiated between the Aboriginal people and the Government of Australia". The Prime Minister subsequently stressed that it was not what was contained in any "treaty" or compact" that was important, but the attitude, of all Australians.⁽¹¹⁾

Then came the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1989 that made far-reaching recommendations that were only slowly implemented. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was established in 1990 and, perhaps most significant of all, the 1997 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Report on the Stolen Children, Bringing Them Home suddenly brought the awful truth of how Australian governments’ had treated Aboriginal families and children home to many Australians. As Robert Manne expresses it: “like many non-indigenous Australians, I have come to a serious interest in the question of the maltreatment of the Aborigines far too late. Premature in the sense that I am only now beginning to make up for lost time by trying to discover as much as I can about the particular issue of the stolen children. As I came to write about this topic I was only too aware of how much more I wished I understood about it and almost paralysed by an awareness of how much I still did not understand. But the report on the stolen children and the nature of the government's response to that report seem to me to be the most important public issue of our time”.⁽¹²⁾ With the momentum of these reports and new awareness it's time to take some purposeful steps forward again."⁽¹³⁾

Non-indigenous Australians have a responsibility to work with indigenous peoples to achieve a resolution of these profound problems of our history. As Frank Brennan has argued the recognition of Australia’s indigenous peoples goes hand in hand with the sovereignty of an Australian republic: "All Australians confronting the history of human occupation of the continent have to address the question: Are we denying the past, avoiding our responsibility and condemning Aborigines to a new form of assimilation by urging reconciliation only in the context of Aboriginal "profound social and economic disadvantage" without acknowledging the cultural differences, the distinct justifiable claims to land rights and self-determination, and the differing aspirations and perceptions of history and future?⁽¹⁴⁾

One document will not finalise reconciliation, but if it is properly formed, developed and authorised by the people of Australia it can provide a focal point for ongoing action and for a range of governmental, legislative and community initiatives that take us beyond Mabo to the relationship between all non-indigenous and indigenous Australians.⁽¹⁵⁾ A piece of parchment can be important. As Galarruy Yurupingu has argued: “We need something in whitefella law which is strong and lasting and faithful to our law. The closest whitefella law which can do this is the constitution”.⁽¹⁶⁾

The preferred strategy is for a two step process: the free negotiation of a Makarrata between the Federal Government through a representative working group of non-indigenous Australians and a representative working group of indigenous peoples organisations and communities. The second step is for this agreement to be given statutory and constitutional recognition. The Makarrata should be passed by both houses of parliament and placed alongside the Australia Act of 1985 as a schedule of the constitution. A referendum should be held to authorise the Makarrata and to change the preamble of the constitution along the lines suggested by Frank Brennan in 1991.⁽¹⁷⁾

The task is before us. However as Elliott Johnson has argued: "The process may falter at times; appear to get lost; but it can be pulled up again and survive if we are cool and negotiate with open minds and as with equals. And in the end, perhaps together, ...the situation can be reached where this subtly creative Aboriginal culture exists in friendship alongside the non-Aboriginal culture. Such an achievement would be a matter of pride not only for all Australians but for all humankind."

IV

Another project of great importance involves the development of new modes of govemmentality with a social support strategy that has been called “the enabling state”. Noel Pearson and Mark Latham discussed the idea of creating new social investments in communities last week at the Brisbane Institute.

The idea is to re-design the whole framework of public social support to enhance community capacity and independence. There are three essential principles:

• (1) government remains an important source of social investment;
• (2) communities not bureaucracies have a central role in defining, delivering and managing appropriate forms of social action
• (3) government funding and services should be enabling rather constraining, bureaucracies become servants not masters.

The urgency of the strategies come from a realization that many spheres of government do not enable or empower people, in fact they do the opposite. Central here is the breakdown of the wage earners welfare state for the non-indigenous community and the increasing marginalisation of indigenous Australians from the real economy (most notably in Queensland rural industry) and from their own classical economy.

For non-indigenous Australians the rise of the underclass has been a function of the breakdown of what has been called the wage earners welfare state. When the great liberal Justice H.B. Higgins established the family wage in the early part of this century he was not just setting a wages policy he was laying the foundations of Australian welfare. The basic wage of a working man was supposed to consist of the profit value of labour and a quotient of funds to enable a family to be self sufficient for their shelter, sustenance and general life needs. All wages were built around this benchmark, and in various ways, the award system incorporated this social welfare dimension into wage setting.

Nearly a century of trade union activity combined with the active support of the Australian Labor Party and, until recently, the passive acquiescence of the Liberal and National Party, enshrined wage based welfare into the very fabric of our society. This explains, amongst other things, Australians sensitivity towards international competition and wages benchmarking, the success of a passive, court-based unionism and, when compared with Europeans, our traditional intolerance of taxation.

State-based social welfare was designed around the concept that every Australian was employed and had a welfare payment built into his (it was for many years the male wage earner that was central) weekly pay packet. The dole was meant to help workers who were temporarily out of work. Historically Australia provided generous assistance for those who had retired, could not work or were permanently injured and could not work. But welfare was synonymous with work and wages.

More than any other advanced Western country, Australia’s concept of social egalitarianism was premised on full employment and wage based welfare. The persistently high unemployment rates of 5% since the 1970s have meant that what I would call the add-on bits of non-wage based welfare became the whole basis of support for three generations of Australians who are living on the outskirts of our cities and in some of our regional areas.

We now have a situation where grandparents, parents, children will spend, in these regions, most of their adult life without work and dependent on forms of welfare that were never meant to constitute a living wage.

In short what was designed to be forms of short term or limited assistance became an inadequate and badly designed system of support for three generations. General forms of social assistance were not the subject of union review and were only very reluctantly increased by governments, and welfare and disability tests were designed to ensure that incapacity not activism was the criteria for receiving payments and services.

In the breakdown of the wage earners welfare state lies the social engineering of an entire underclass of Australians who have become coached and encouraged to be inactive and incapable. The question is: whose fault was this creation? One frequently sees blame sheeted home to individual recipients. But I think we all share some of the blame for going along with a bad system of disabling payments that have robbed three generations of people on the outskirts of our cities of their capacity to act for themselves. The conservative answer of doing away with all welfare payments is equally ignorant of the real conditions and problems that we face now. The fact is that each sphere of the social wage needs to be carefully reconstructed in a way that remedies the problems of dependency and deprivation that are all around us and which confront all social and economic institutions.

V

In coming to terms with these problems one of the central realisations is that parliamentary democracy and the paternalistic state are not readily able to solve or even comprehend the problems of specific communities. This requires going on to a level which makes the Fitzgerald Inquiry look quick and easy, for the task is to reform the whole of government to bring resources back to local and community level control and empowerment. As Mark Latham argued in his speech on Monday, we have a situation where politicians and bureaucrats are organised around silo like government programs that are administered by bureaucrats who with all the will in the world are incapable of making lateral, entrepeneurial,

and sound and productive community investments. In fact, on many occasions the problems are exacerbated by politicians and bureaucrats.

The Beattie government’s community cabinet process is, in this respect, a potential stepping stone towards a more interesting strategy of reaching into communities and working across government departments. Paul Hirst has argued that we need to combine associational democracy with a new form of government expenditure based on a minimum income for each person. The idea is that each citizen is guaranteed a minimum income provided they are linked to an approved community association or mutual.

At the moment we are putting together the jig-saw of how all this could work. The breakthrough comes from the idea of community empowerment and ownership, of in Latham’s words, organisations that work from inside the community and then outwards. He calls it working inside-out. We have several successful models of how this process can be applied to community associations or mutuals. These organisations can transform dead end welfare payments and create economic and social opportunities. One organisation that I like to model my thinking on is the Wise Group in Glasgow.

Will Hutton has described this new stakeholder organisation as follows:

“... there has to be intervention to change markets 'natural' pattern of incentives and re-empower the long term unemployed... an entrepreneurial company in Glasgow is exploiting this market failure successfully. The Wise Group, specialising in the training and employment of the long-term jobless, is now one of Glasgow's 40 largest employers. It bids for public contracts in environmental and infrastructure improvement, which it undertakes solely by hiring the long-term unemployed to whom it pays low but market rates of pay... every year around 2.5 percent of Glasgow's 18,000 long-term unemployed pass through its books. The jobs they do would not exist but for the Wise Group, nor would their new-found employability." (The Guardian, 25/9/1995)

In other words the Wise Group is about the creation of an intermediate Labour market. What is an Intermediate Labour Market? The WISE Group of companies sets up training, work experience on socially useful projects and a living wage in order to re-connect unemployed people to the job market. Its companies - Heatwise (insulation, energy advice, energy auditing, external cladding, home security and safety), Landwise (landscaping, horticulture, general maintenance, tree planting and recycling), Wisestart (customised recruitment, landscaping, environmental management) and Newhamwise (insulation) provide work and training pathways that result in 63% job placement success.

The WISE Group began in 1983 with a 10,000-pound council grant, it now employs 220 permanent staff, about 1,000 trainees pass through the Intermediate Labour Market programme with a further 1,185 involved in short term activities. It turns over 12 million pounds a year and makes a modest surplus of 380,000 pounds. In a typical year the WISE group also insulates 4,514 houses, makes 2,622 homes safer, provides safety advice to 10,356 homeholders, prepares 80 communal gardens, plants 70,000 trees and recycles 2,446 tonnes of grass. In addition 9 out of 10 people who complete the WISE Group training programme find a job.

The WISE group is not the solution to unemployment, but it is an inspiring example of what can be done by dedicated and hard working "social entrepreneurs". As CEO Alan Sinclair writes: "At his stage you could give up the ghost and revert to cynicism or have a go and five with imperfection."

Beehive Industries an older peoples business co-operative based in Darlinghurst, Sydney is another successful example. Beehive is owned and operated by its members and managed by a very dedicated group of professionals headed by Kay Saunderson. I am currently acting as Chairman of the Board that is made up of a range of social welfare professionals. Beehive has been going for 28 years surviving floods, fires and famine. It is an inspirational organisation.

It is basically a mailing and packaging business. It receives $181,000 in government support each year and makes a further $400,000 from its commercial activities. With this income Beehive runs its business, provides two square meals a day for all of its members, provides exercise, health support and leisure programs, excursions and a small daily stipend. The Beehive volunteers work each day from about 9-12. The secret of Beehive lies in the sense of community and self esteem it creates and thrives on. A number of Beehive's members are in the 90s and have been working for the company for all of its twenty-eight years. They readily testify that Beehive keeps them healthy and strong. If you divide up the $181,000 by the one hundred members who work at Beehive daily, each gets government support of $181 a year. Compare this with the average cost of nursing home care $5000 a year, hospital costs $5000 a year and medical costs of $1600 a year for people over 65 and you can start to understand the contribution that Beehive makes to Australian taxpayers. I believe that Beehive saves taxpayers about $1.1 million a year. Or in other words, for an investment of $181 per person the government potentially saves about $11,400 per person. It's a great investment but one that governments can barely understand and comprehend. Whereas Beehive pays for its self 100 fold, politicians and bureaucrats gladly throw away money to dead-end, passifying payments to nursing homes, hostels and hospitals. No-one will ever recover this investment. Just as so few ever walk out the door of a nursing home. Of course these places need to be maintained, and be of the best standards possible, but my fear is that instead of the last resort they are becoming the first resort for elder care.

VI

What does all this mean for governance? Representative democracy and corporate bureaucracy have dominated the 20th century. In the 21st century we will move back to the concept of a more radical democracy in which power and resources are transferred to local cooperatives and voluntary associations. I see this happening in the area of disabilities, in aged care and in employment creation. One of the great challenge will be to adapt our highly centralised Federal structure towards this end. The question is: how can we successly transfer the resources and power that currently exist in the great parliamentary chambers and in the great bureaucratic silos in our capital and in our capital cities to community based associations and mutuals? That is the question that will preoccupy us in the coming months, years and perhaps decades.

At the moment I find that in areas such as disabilities the community is ready, willing and able to take-over. It is simply a matter of finding the right kinds of associational structures to ensure that the transfer takes place. I always start with the disabilities community first because I learned in Campbelltown that in many respects they are the most courageous community stakeholders you can find in disadvantages communities.

In this state people with disabilities have been starved of funds and dominated by stupid central administrative rules, many have been surviving against the odds for years, as a result, invariably this community can turn each dollar which it gets into a powerful investment.

They have had to be resourceful and creative to survive. For years they have been trying to tell the bureaucrats about alternative funding and investment strategies.

Appendix

The following working draft updates the original concerns and areas of discussion put forward in 1979 by the National Aboriginal Conference and combines the wording of several documents that have been put forward over the past decade.⁽¹⁸⁾

Makarrata

We, the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples of Australia, agree to work together to achieve mutual peace and prosperity.

As non-indigenous Australians we acknowledge past wrongs when indigenous Australians, were deprived of their land and culture, and subjected to acts of violence, forcible removal and mistreatment. We acknowledge the repercussions of these acts in the present. We recognise the prior occupation of Australia by over 500 different Aboriginal peoples.⁽¹⁹⁾ We also recognise the diversity, sophistication and longevity of non-indigenous culture and its unique spiritual dimensions and connection with Australian land and sea.

As indigenous Australians we recognise the positive dimensions of Western culture and the good will and support of many non-indigenous Australians throughout the troubled history of our social, political and economic inter-relationships and engagements.

We now desire a new beginning.

The natural rights of indigenous Australians as original occupants of Australia.

Land: Indigenous Australians have ownership and spiritual guardianship rights to lands they have continually maintained and occupied. In the absence of a direct lineage to land, indigenous peoples’ have rights to lands originally set aside for the use and benefit of Aboriginals since colonisation. National parks that fall within the traditional territories of Aboriginal people should be placed into the custodial management of the traditional owners. Indigenous Australians shall be entitled to traditional hunting, fishing and gathering rights and all legal and management rights over all minerals, timber, waterways, airspace and other resources on indigenous lands. Aboriginal customary law shall also be respected and recognised on indigenous lands and territories.

Self-Determination: Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination and the right to be consulted on any proposed laws that may affect them.

Indigenous culture and identity: Indigenous Australians have the right to identify themselves, and be recognized, as indigenous. They have the right to maintain and develop their distinct indigenous characteristics. They have the right to use their own names for communities, places and persons. They have the right to teach their children their language and culture.

Parliamentary representation: The indigenous peoples of Australia have the right to elect a representative for each state and Territory to the Commonwealth House of Representatives.

Social & Economic Administration: Indigenous Australians are entitled to elect a representative body which has the right to perform the Commonwealth's administrative functions relating to indigenous people. That body is entitled to adequate finance from the Commonwealth to perform such functions. That body’s rights are subject to them being exercised properly and with full accountability.

Culture: Indigenous Australians have the right to protect their culture, traditions, religion, customs and spiritual beliefs, and the ways in which they appear such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, indigenous art, ceremonies and practices. Indigenous peoples have the right of access to their cultural sites and objects. They have the right to the return of remains for burial in accordance with their traditions. Protection of the confidentiality of secret cultural matters is subject to the disclosure necessary to secure such protection, and to provide natural justice to others.

Social and Economic Reconciliation

Community-based governance: In addition to strengthened political representation, indigenous Australians require resourcing and community based governance to redress the disadvantages they have suffered and continue to suffer. Decisions and resources involving health, housing, social security and infrastructure within Aboriginal communities will be devolved to a representative indigenous community organisations that will work in partnership with their communities to solve practical problems and difficulties. Such organisations will be supported with the best experts, ideas and resources of non-indigenous Australia. Wherever possible funding and resources from Commonwealth and state departments will be pooled in order to take decisive actions to improve well being in indigenous communities. All indigenous Australians shall have access to indigenous education, health and legal services.

Education: All indigenous people shall have access to the highest possible quality of education which provides “a sound knowledge of, and pride in their rich cultural heritage” as well as the “technological and academic skills” of leadership and employment in the future.

Employment: Unemployment in indigenous Australia stems from the historically poor quality of indigenous training and education and the lack of employment opportunities in regional and metropolitan indigenous communities. These problems shall be addressed by pooling the resources of Federal, State and Local government to create community enterprise employment and other work opportunities.

Social Security: Social security payments are premised on the idea of traditional Western compensation mechanisms that are inappropriate in indigenous communities where there is no active labour market. There is now a twenty-year history of using social security payments as community development and employment investments in indigenous communities. In remote and regional communities where there is no freely operating labor market, social security payments should be pooled and invested by community based organisations in cultural, economic and social development activities that create employment and enhance community well being.

Common Aspirations and Responsibilities

The indigenous culture of Australia is of immeasurable value to all Australians and shall entail special measures to preserve, protect and help in the development of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.

AU Australians have the right to freedom from discrimination on the ground of race, colour, ethnic or national origin. This right is not infringed by measures taken to overcome disadvantages arising from race, colour, ethnic or national origin. Neither is it infringed by measures recognising the entitlement to self-determination of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders or protecting their sacred sites, native title, land rights, customary law, or cultural traditions.⁽²⁰⁾

Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians agree to work together for a better Australian future through a deeper understanding of country and land, stronger relationships between our respective communities, the elimination of all sources of disadvantage including reducing indigenous custody levels and creating opportunities for indigenous Australians to control their own destinies.

Endnotes

(1) Special thanks to Wayne Sanderson for the section 1 research and backgrounder on the Fitzgerald Report.

(2) Special thanks to Elaine Henry for lending me her copy of Dear Kathleen, Dear Manning: The Correspondence of Manning Clark and Kathleen Fitzpatrick 1949-1990, edited by Susan Davies, Melbourne University Press, 1996, p. 152.

(3) Davidson, From Subject to Citizenship, p. 143.

(4) Pat Dodson, Welcome Speech, Conference on the Position of Indigenous People in National Constitutions, 4 June 1993.

(5) For a critical assessment of the Mabo decision see Ian Hunter, "Native Title acts of state and Rule of Law" in Murray Goot & Tim Rowse (eds) Make a Better Offer The Politics of Mabo, Pluto Press, 1994, pp. 97-1 11.

(6) As one of its 339 recommendations, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody National Report 199 1 found: "That all political leaders and their parties recognise that reconciliation between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities must be achieved if community division, discord and injustice to Aboriginal people are to be avoided. To this end the Commission recommends that political leaders use their best endeavours to ensure bipartisan public support for the process of reconciliation and that the urgency and necessity of the process be acknowledged." Commissioner Johnson regarded four essential parts of the reconciliation process: - concrete measures to tackle disadvantage and establish self-determination; - any reconciliation must involve a sizeable majority of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal population; - the approach should concentrate on the process and not the instrument of reconciliation; and - the approach should be open-ended in the sense that neither side sets preconditions in advance.

(7) Judith Wright, We Call for a Treaty, Fontana, 1985.

(8) Bain Attwood & Andrew Markus', superb The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights A Documentary History, Allen & Unwin, 1999 provides a great insight into the longevity of the Aboriginal struggle for rights. There were probably numerous unofficial agreements reached between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians over the past two hundred years. The first recorded Aboriginal political activity and negotiation occurred on Flinders Island in the late 1830s. The contemporary call for a treaty came from the National Aboriginal Conference, which first proposed the concept of a "makarrata" in 1979.

(9) Attwood & Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 294.

(10) Kevin Gilbert Aboriginal Sovereignty: Justice, the Law and Land Draft written in consultation with Aboriginal Members of the Sovereign Aboriginal Coalition at Alice Springs on 19-21 June 1987. In Attwood & Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 310.

(11) During the bicentenary in 1988, the then prime minister, Bob Hawke, raised the question of a formal agreement between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Hawke signed the "Barunga statement" on 12 June 1988, which assumed a final written outcome -"there shall be a treaty negotiated between the Aboriginal people and the Government of Australia". The Prime Minister subsequently stressed that it was not what was contained in any "treaty" or "compact" that was important, but the attitude, of all Australians.

(12) Robert Manne, The Way we Live Now: The Controversies of the Nineties, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1998, p. 17.

(13) In 1990, the then Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, and the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Mr Tickner, announced the Government's in-principle support for a reconciliation initiative. Mr Tickner released a discussion paper, which focussed on the process as much as any outcome. A 10 year period was suggested. Consultation was to be a crucial part of the process, with the issue of a formal document or documents of reconciliation as an essential point for these consultations. Carriage of the process was to be placed in the hands of a council.

(14) Frank Brennan, "The Need for Constitutional Recognition", unpublished paper.

(15) See also Frank Brennan, Sharing the Country: The Case for an Agreement Between Black and White Australians, Penguin, 199 1, p. 149.

(16) Attwood & Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 356.

(17) Attwood & Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p.161.

(18) The following is a draft amalgamating Steve Palyga's "Unity Makarrata", ideas from the original 1979 National Aboriginal Conference proposal, the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation's The Key Issues of Reconciliation 1994, p. 339 and some thoughts and clauses from a non-indigenous Australian perspective.

(19) Neville Bonner, in Mabo Papers, Parliamentary Research Service, Subject Collection no. 1, AGPS, 1994, p. vii put it as follows: "When Joshua stormed the Walls of Jericho, my forebears were at home on their vast continent. I accept that these same forebears were divided into roughly 500 tribal groups, with again roughly 300 languages".

(20) This clause is adapted from Frank Brennan, Sharing the Country, p. 149.