Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. And the one on the far side from me is made in Australia; it is a genuine artefact. If you are selling souvenir rubbish, you will get paid a couple of dollars. If you are selling a genuine Australian artefact from the oldest culture on earth—as you will find it says on arrival at Cairns airport—then you deserve a hell of a lot more than 10 bucks for a bit of rubbish churned out by a manufacturer in China, Indonesia, India or wherever.

When I was minister with these responsibilities for the Queensland government, as I was for a number of years, it came almost within two months of me being appointed to the position that the first problem we had was on the 21 per cent of Australia. We first First Australians—and excuse me for identifying, as I often do, as a First Australian—are supposed to own 21 per cent of Australia but since we cannot get a title deed, we do not actually own anything. That 21 per cent of Australia is just a glorified national park. I have case after case in my office where people have applied for a title deed—sometimes it is possible; some governments move some legislation and make it possible—but it is so difficult that it just does not happen. I do not want to go sideways on the issue of land, but land and culture are inexplicably tied together.

In the case of land—magnificent work which should have got a Nobel Prize, and it was very controversial when Hernando de Soto did not get the Nobel Prize—Hernando de Soto wrote a book on why Peru, the Philippines and Egypt, three countries on three different continents, live in grinding poverty and why similar places like Japan are flying forward at 100 miles an hour. The difference is you cannot get a title deed. It is possible in those three countries to get a title deed. The average time period is 6½ years and you go through 237 processes, most of which require a lawyer. Needless to say, there are not too many title deeds being issued. So if we cannot make money from the land—and you say to newcomers to Australia that you own the water and you own the land, that you are the Crown—I remind you, Mr European, that you come from England. We stood up in 1215, we Englishmen, and told the king that we own the land not you, Mr King. When the king disagreed, we had a very good habit of cutting his head off.

We are here today to talk about our culture and the theft of our culture by a government that has sat idly by and done absolutely nothing about this. In fairness to Minister Scullion, he has shown a very positive response, but we would hope that this legislation is taken up by the minister and taken forward by the government. I think the member for Mayo would agree with me on this.

If you want to have a look, I am going to demonstrate the difference. I am sick of buying for the kids clap sticks that do not clap, bullroarers that do not roar, boomerangs that do not come back and woomeras that will not mount a spear. I ask the House to listen to the sound here. This is from Indonesia or China; I cannot remember which.

The instrument was then play ed—

That is imported. This is the genuine article.

The instrument was then play ed—

The poem that we were taught at school when I went to school in Queensland was: 'Didjeridu, didjeridu, blackfella blows through a length of bamboo; to the regular beat of an ironwood stick, click-click, click-click, click-click; and the sound of his breath is the ghost of a drum with the madness of apathy muffling its thrum; and all that the world ever wanted or knew is dark while you hark to the didjeridu.' With a didjeridu today, made in China, we do not listen to the muffled thrum; we listen to an entirely different sound.

In Cairns, in Alice Springs, in Darwin, in Brisbane and in Sydney the vast bulk, 90 per cent, of the stuff being sold is rubbish which our First Australians get nothing out of. In fact, today, the organisations that are represented here today—God bless them—and that we are moving this legislation for pointed out that the kangaroo on all of these artefacts is the same one that was on the Qantas aeroplane. They just got a picture and put it on everything and then said it was Australian. If there be one thing that we First Australians be allowed to keep and own, it is our own culture.

There are just some technical issues that I would like to address. The dancing hats, I am told, are not being made on Mornington Island. There are supposed to be two places in the Northern Territory where they are being made, but I cannot establish where they are. So it may be that dancing hats are no longer made in Australia. They are highly technical—you would have all seen the big pyramid-type hat—and very complicated to make. The ones that I have purchased are made out of emu rope, made from emu feathers—part of them is made from emu feathers. But there are none on sale on Mornington Island, and it was the only place selling them. I am told that there are two other places.

What is happening is that our cultural inheritance is vanishing. It is vanishing as we speak. I can point out to you the benefits that accrue. The paintings of the Kaiadilt ladies—we know them as the Bentinck Island ladies, but their technical name is the Kaiadilt ladies—were selling, and I think they still are, for $8,000 wholesale. Those six or seven ladies are getting very, very old now. They have made a huge reputation for themselves, and deservedly so, for their world-standard art. They bring maybe $1 million a year into the economy of little tiny Mornington Island. It is the only export earnings that we have. Please do not take it away from us.

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