Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great humility and pride that I am able to stand here today in this place on what is first nation people's land and always will be first nation people's land to speak on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the 25th anniversary of the Mabo High Court decision.

On 27 May 1967 a federal referendum was held as a result of the hard work, determination and commitment of people like Faith Bandler, Jessie Street and many other white and first nation people. The referendum was a vote on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967, which became law on 10 August 1967 following the results of the referendum. These amendments altered sections 51(xxvi) and 127, having immediate effect to include Aboriginal Australians in the determination of population and also empowered the federal parliament to legislate, specifically, for first nation people. This referendum saw the highest 'yes' vote ever recorded in a federal referendum with 90.77 per cent voting for change in all six states. It is interesting to note that, because the majority of parliamentarians supported the proposed amendment, a 'no' case was never formulated for presentation as part of the referendum campaign.

It has always been a huge disappointment to me that it was only Townsville and Toowoomba that delivered a 'no' vote in the 1967 referendum. However, 25 years on from the referendum, the Mabo High Court decision was delivered, and I like to think our community redeemed ourselves to some degree because the knowledge, work and support of three white men played an instrumental role in working with Eddie Koki Mabo and the plaintiffs to win the momentous High Court decision. They were Professors Henry Reynolds and Noel Loos, who worked at James Cook University where Eddie Koiki Mabo worked, and the Hon. Mike Reynolds, who was the mayor of Townsville at the time.

On 4 June 2017, I was honoured to speak at the Mabo celebration dinner in Townsville with the Hon. Linda Burney MP and at the invitation of Mrs Bonita Mabo and Gail Mabo. The Mabo High Court decision speaks to the resilience and sheer determination of a man, Eddie Koiki Mabo, who simply refused to accept that his people did not own their land. He would not accept the nation of terra nullius, no man's land, as determined by James Cook. As we are now well aware, this land has been inhabited by first nation people for some 60,000 years.

I feel a great personal connection to the Mabo decision as Townsville is my home, and I grew up in Garbutt, where the Mabo family lived and where the planning and hard work was done. I first became aware of the injustices to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders when I was at high school at St Patrick's College on the Strand, where young women from Palm Island, who were boarding at the school, were subjected to the fact that their parents needed to get permission to visit them on the mainland. As a teenager I also remember Professor Gracelyn Smallwood and her many activists, never silent, always out there demanding justice, recognition and a fair go for first nation people.

On 20 May 1982, Eddie Koiki Mabo, Sam Passi, David Passi, Celuia Mapo Salee and James Rice began their legal claim for ownership of their lands on the island of Mer in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea. The High Court required the Supreme Court of Queensland to determine the facts on which the case was based, but while the case was with the Queensland court, the state parliament passed the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act, which stated, 'Any rights that Torres Strait Islanders had to land after the claim of sovereignty in 1879 is hereby extinguished without compensation.' The challenge to this legislation was taken to the High Court, and the decision in this case, known as Mabo 1, was that the act was in conflict with the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and was thus invalid. It was not until 3 June 1992 that Mabo 2 was decided and terra nullius—nobody's land—was extinguished once and for all in law. By then 10 years had passed, and both Celuia Mapo Salee and Eddie Koiki Mabo had passed away. Six of the judges agreed that the Meriam people did have traditional ownership of their land, with Justice Dawson dissenting from the majority judgement. The judges held that British possession had not eliminated their title and that the Meriam people are entitled, as against the whole world, to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray islands.

Following the High Court decision in Mabo 2, the Commonwealth parliament passed the Native Title Act in 1993, enabling Indigenous people throughout Australia to claim traditional rights to unalienated land. The judgements of the High Court in the Mabo case inserted the legal doctrine of native title into Australian law. In recognising the traditional rights of the Meriam people to their islands in the eastern Torres Strait, the court also held that native title existed for all Indigenous people in Australia prior to Cook's instruction and the establishment of the British colony of New South Wales in 1788. This decision altered the foundation of land law in Australia. The new doctrine of native title replaced the 17th century doctrine of terra nullius, nobody's land, on which British claims of possession of Australia were based. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for Eddie Koiki Mabo, Sam Passi, David Passi, Celuia Mapo Salee and James Rice to fight the battle of their lives for 10 long years, and then for Eddie Koiki Mabo and Celuia Mapo Salee not to be alive when that amazing decision was brought down. It does not even bear contemplation. But I am sure that their families held their spirits in their hearts, and when the decision finally came down there was much joy for those plaintiffs and the people of Mer island.

What does Mabo teach us as a community? It teaches us that we can never measure or assess the will of an individual to fight for what they believe in and to succeed against all of the odds. It teaches us that we should never give up. It teaches us that standing up for our rights and the rights of those vulnerable in our society is always the right thing to do. Above all it teaches us that our first-nation people are resilient. They have an inner strength that has seen them survive every attempt by white man to eradicate them in some circumstances. Now is the time for us to all come together as citizens of this great nation to give our first-nation people their rightful place in our society. They deserve no less. We as a nation will all be better off for our work in uniting this great country. Our young people need to know that out of adversity comes not only survival but, most importantly, growth that will flourish into a fair go for all citizens.

This year is also the 60th anniversary of the 1957 Palm Island strike. On 9 June this year I attended a public commemoration in the Perfumed Gardens in Townsville. The stories from the family members of those five men were simply inspirational. This strike came about as a result of a complaint to the superintendent about the shocking living conditions on Palm Island. He did not take any notice of the complaint; in fact, it was complete ignored. Also, Albie Geia was accused of disobeying a foreman and was ordered off the island, but he refused to go. It was at this time that he and six other men took the courageous decision to go on strike. For their action, these men and their families were ordered off the island and sent to other communities in Queensland. They were not paid proper wages, they did not get their entitlements, they did not get superannuation and they had no ability to leave an inheritance to their children, even though they had worked incredibly hard for their working lives. This has impacted on their children and their children's children. However, the 1967 referendum and the 1992 Mabo High Court decision did give hope to our first nation people, and a strike of that nature would never, ever happen again. I am honoured to share this land with the oldest living culture on earth, and it is now our time to bring this nation together in a real and meaningful way.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the 25th anniversary of the High Court's handing down of the Mabo decision is a significant event which will be properly recognised by the nation's parliament. This year, 2017, is a year in which Australia will pay tribute to the forerunners of our Indigenous rights movement, which began a long journey of reconciliation between Australians, the modern nation, and our First Australians. This year we remember those who walked before us on this important journey with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the 25th anniversary of the High Court's decision. The year 2017 is really a nexus between Australia's history of Indigenous rights, our future and the future of our programs to generate opportunities for Indigenous Australians. It brought the Prime Minister to address parliament in the presence of elders of the Indigenous rights movement, those surviving campaigners and family representatives of the 1967 referendum and the Mabo decision, as well as the announcement of the government's $138 million Indigenous education package.

The first of these milestones was the 1967 referendum. On 27 May 1967 Australians walked together and voted for change in a referendum that received unprecedented support—a 90.77 per cent national majority. This overwhelming support is symbolic of the support that existed and still resoundingly remains in the hearts and minds of Australians for reconciliation with Australia's first peoples—recognition of First Australians and the injustice that sat at the heart of the Constitution that needed to be addressed. The referendum entrenched the rule of law for Indigenous Australians, inviting the Commonwealth to legislate specifically for them and allowing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be counted with all Australians in the Census.

Of course, this was not a catch-all referendum for Indigenous issues. We know there's still a very long legacy of challenges about uniting our cultures and uniting our standards of living. In fact, that journey had already begun. In 2017 we celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Indigenous vote of federal elections. However, there was much more to come in the journey for reconciliation, including the advent of the Aboriginal Legal Service across the country in the seventies and the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody in the nineties. In the spirit of continuing commitment, the Prime Minister continued his legacy by announcing the important funding package of $138 million for Indigenous education. To be matched with philanthropic support, this education package provides mentoring scholarships and focuses on building Australia's future professionals in key fields such as science and technology. This includes increasing funding to established organisations such as the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience and the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, which have proven themselves in taking Indigenous students who are in financial need and supporting them to achieve better year 12 completion rates and transition into the workforce so that in the end every Indigenous Australian has the opportunity not just to build a life of dignity but also to be able to go on to be self-supporting and sustaining and to contribute to the continuing story of this great nation.

These organisations are delivering the results we need them to deliver—the highest-calibre Indigenous leaders to take our country's next steps together with all of us—and this package will allow them to broaden the scope of their service. Building upon the inspiring display of national unity at the 1967 campaign, 50 years on, we now have to walk together on the next step of the journey. Of course, we are now looking at the challenges around how we deal with making sure that Indigenous Australians feel a sense of commitment to and understanding of our Constitution, and there's been an ongoing discussion around that.

We recognise the need to find harmony between different key elements in Australian society: firstly, the continent's heritage and culture from Australia's first peoples; the continuation and involvement of our British institutions of state, and in broader society; but, most importantly, pride in our sense of national unity. Only when we focus on these important principles will we be able to make sure that we come up with a pathway that unites all Australians towards a commitment of mutual success. And that's what the government is keen to do: work with Indigenous Australians to deliver change that focuses on the national unity we need so that all Australians walk on the same path.

This year we are also proud to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Mabo decision. While seven famous High Court judgements, the Native Title Act and 387 determinations made under this act may be the tangible legacy of the Mabo name, it is important not to forget the man behind this extraordinary campaign.

Eddie Koiki Mabo was an extraordinary man, a trailblazer for the Indigenous rights movement from Far North Queensland during the seventies and eighties. He and his wife, Bonita, fought a long battle for land rights, and together they educated an entire nation about the connection between Indigenous Australians and their land. Their efforts culminated in a historic decision by the High Court to acknowledge the traditional land rights of the Meriam people, giving rise to the Native Title Act, which has served as a major vehicle for recasting the relationship between Indigenous Australians and their land.

The 387 determinations made under the act now outnumber the 245 claims lodged, covering approximately 40 per cent of the Australian land mass where Indigenous interests have been formally recognised. It serves as a substantial symbol of the reconciliation commitment to respect the rights of first nations.

On the 25th anniversary of Mabo, the coalition government, in appreciation of the centrality of land rights to Indigenous Australians, is committing a $20 million fund to support better use of Indigenous rights over sea country. The government is committed to working with traditional owners and land councils to ensure this funding can deliver the economic opportunity that land and sea ownership will deliver.

But the aim of Mabo, as much as anything else, was to make sure that people had ownership of their traditional lands and waters, and to educate Australians about the important connection. One of the causes I championed in my former capacity as Australian Human Rights Commissioner was not just that Indigenous Australians continue to have that connection to country; it was also to enable them to use that land as they saw fit—to get past the discussion around land being simply for ceremonial purposes, for cultural purposes and for simple practices, and really see how Indigenous Australians and the title arrangements are necessary to make sure that they can use their land, like the rest of the Australian population, to their own advantage. I understand that work is still ongoing, and it is an important part of the work that should be being led by the Human Rights Commission, I hope, following my departure.

Each one of those steps plays an important part in the continuing story of our reconciliation, because each of these events marks a critical milestone in not only the history of Indigenous Australians but our national history and our continuing national story. As the government of this Commonwealth we hold a duty to enthusiastically learn about the issues that face Indigenous Australians in modern society, to understand the historical context that causes these disadvantages and to collaboratively work with leaders to develop solutions and provide opportunities for the next generation of Indigenous Australians to forge their place in our future. It does not come through conflict; each step of the way, it comes through collaboration and working with people, finding avenues to fully respect their dignity and place. It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the 25th anniversary of the High Court's decision in Mabo.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's with great pleasure that I stand today to pay tribute to those who campaigned and advocated for the constitutional referendum in 1967, and to the team and the community who brought before the High Court, 25 years ago, the matter we now call Mabo.

I start with a recollection from a few weeks ago, when I joined many of my parliamentary colleagues to visit the Captain Reg Saunders Gallery and Courtyard, part of the Australian War Memorial here in Canberra. Reg was a Gunditjmara man from western Victoria. He was the first Aboriginal soldier to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. He enlisted in 1940 and fought in North Africa, Greece, Crete and Papua New Guinea. He wasn't alone; he served with his brother, Harry. Sadly, Harry died fighting for Australia in 1942.

Reg himself was wounded in the knee by Japanese gunfire during one of his engagements. He was treated well by the military and in later life was awarded an MBE. But the fact remained that Reg Saunders had fewer rights than did the men he led into battle. He couldn't vote, and he actually needed a special permit to go and get a beer with his mates at the pub when he got back to Australia. In 1960 Reg told his biographer, Harry Gordon:

I reckon the average Australian has some feeling of sympathy for the black man but he doesn't do anything about it. He needs to be jolted.

Well, in 1967 we got one of those jolts: the referendum. Australians were compelled to consider the constitutional status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. They voted overwhelmingly—90.77 per cent—in favour of the proposition which would ensure that they could be recognised in the reckoning in the Australian Census and that the Commonwealth government, this parliament, could make laws with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Why was there such overwhelming support? There was a lot of agitation, a lot of campaigning, by those who were directly affected—the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—but there was also significant support from the community. In my own area, led by great Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, together with Uncle Fred Moore from the South Coast Trades and Labour Council, they formed the Aboriginal Advancement League, which was instrumental in getting out the voters and getting a very high vote in the 1967 referendum in the Illawarra and South Coast. They also had the support of the major political parties, the media and advocacy groups. But it was not inevitable. In opposition in 1964, Labor changed its platform and changed its policy to ensure that a future Labor government would bring such a constitutional question to the Australian people. It took until 1967 for the coalition government to catch up with Labor and with the sentiment of the population. It sounds familiar—one step in the process, but more to come. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were recognised, in a way, but their ownership of land was not.

In 1975 the Whitlam government famously poured sand into the hands of Vincent Lingiari, symbolically handing back ownership of the Wave Hill station to the Gurindji people, thereby foreshadowing the Aboriginal land rights act. It was a step forward, but there is an irony: the government was giving the land to the Gurindji people—land that they already owned. That's why the Mabo decision in 1992 was so important. On 3 June Australians received another of those big jolts that Reg Saunders thought they needed. The High Court found, in its decision, that terra nullius was a legal fiction—this abhorrent idea that Australia was a vacant land when James Cook planted the first Union Jack in Botany Bay. A continuous culture and settlement had existed in this country lasting back more than 50,000 years. In fact, recent research estimates that it is at least 65,000 years. That is a claim that no other country on earth can make and something that all Australians should rightfully be proud of.

But there was a difference between the 1967 campaign and the 1967 referendum, and the changes it wrought, and the Mabo decision. The Mabo decision was a judicial decision, not a legislative one. Many have since pondered whether, if it had been left to this parliament, this parliament would ever have made such a decision. Conservative politicians, vested interests, mining and farmers in particular ran a horrendous scare campaign after the Mabo and subsequent Wik decisions. Voters were told that native title claims could be made over suburban backyards, that the CBD of Sydney was at risk and, in fact, that everyone was at risk. Of course, this was not true. It would have been constitutionally possible for the Keating government to legislate away the native title decision, as Keating was being urged to do from many quarters. To his great credit, the Keating government did not succumb to these pressures, and that's something that I think Australians are all now very, very proud of.

I want to say something about inevitability. The policy response of the Keating government was not inevitable. There was fierce opposition to the Mabo decision, as there was fierce opposition to the subsequent Wik decision. We can all remember that, after the Wik decision, the then Deputy Prime Minister of Australia promised Australians that there would be bucketloads of extinguishment. The passing of the 1967 referendum was not inevitable either; nor were these decisions—these great advances—irreversible. Further progress is not inevitable; we need to work for it. We need to ensure that we can live up to the challenge that has been given to us by the statement from Uluru these past two months. It is time, in the words of Reg Saunders, for us all to be given another jolt and for us to consider once again the status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their place in the Constitution.

The proposition is simple, just as in the 1967 referendum it was simple as well. The proposition is that we amend the Australian Constitution to acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have lived on land and cared for land for millennia—more than 60,000 years. We must acknowledge and accept the true history of Australia, not the whitewashed version of the 19th and 20th centuries. We should also remove the obnoxious and discriminatory provisions that exist within the Constitution, like section 25, which allows people to be disqualified from voting because of their race.

At the Garma Festival over the weekend, the Leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, gave a commitment on behalf of the Labor Party that Labor support a voice for Aboriginal people in our Constitution. We support a declaration by all parliaments, and we support a truth-telling commission. He also set out the challenge for the government—in fact, for this parliament and for all Australians—that we should set a timetable to have a question put before the parliament and for that question to then be referred to the Australian people in a referendum to bring forward this much-needed constitutional change. In 1967, the Australian people rose to the occasion. In 1992, the Keating government rose to the occasion. In 2017, it's time for all of us to rise to the occasion. It's time for the government and for this parliament to focus on what we need to do to set the record straight. It's simply unreasonable for us, as a parliament, to expect that the Australian people will focus on these issues if we're not willing to do so.

Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Time marches on, but issues remain. The opportunity to recognise both these monumental anniversaries only serves as a stark reminder that we are still debating and dealing with so many issues that disadvantage our Indigenous people. In 1967, after 10 years of campaigning, a referendum was held to change the Australian Constitution. Two negative references to Aboriginal Australians were removed, giving the Commonwealth the power to legislate for them as a group. This change was seen by many as a recognition of Aboriginal people as full Australian citizens. This referendum campaign effectively focused public attention on the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were second-class citizens, with all sorts of limitations, legislative and social—including our very own Linda Burney.

This decade-long campaign to change the Constitution came to symbolise the broader struggle for justice being fought during these years. Activists presented their case for a Commonwealth government which would be prepared for the very first time to take responsibility for Indigenous citizens wherever they lived. Twenty-five years later, the Mabo decision challenged the legal standing that his family's land was owned by the Crown. The High Court's landmark decision overthrew that standing and paved the way for native title. Native title is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs. Colleen Wall, the chairperson of the Queensland South Native Titles Services, put it correctly when she said:

We have responsibility for our country, we have recognition that we are the traditional owners of the country and we can take that bundle of rights into the future to protect our land, and that our children have the right to carry on processes on country.

It is also important that we recognise the determination of all the people who work behind native title. We have to recognise the amount of years collectively that has gone past to get to where we are now, so that’s 25 years of lots and lots of tears and joy and hard work and miles travelled to get where we are now.

Our legacy and the way we go forward from Mabo, is taking that tenacity and taking that dedication and taking that strong mindedness into the future to make sure that we have honoured what Eddie [Mabo] did.

These anniversaries are a proud and a rightly proud part of the history that we can build on today.

We have to act, and my observations around NAIDOC Week and a recent visit to Alice Springs highlight that. The NAIDOC Week celebrations, which we have just had, are an important opportunity to learn more about Aboriginal culture. In many of my school visits, I was able to speak about the anniversaries which we are recognising here today. Our theme this year is 'Our language matters'. This highlights the protection and needed regeneration of Aboriginal languages. It is an important theme and it continues to be an important theme because it celebrates the unique and essential role that Aboriginal languages play in cultural identity. Language links people to their land and water in the communication of history, spirituality and rituals through stories and songs. Language is vitally important.

Today we heard in the chamber an important observation about Dr G Yunupingu. As one of Australia's most prominent musicians, his premature death at age 46 underlines the Aboriginal disadvantage that still continues today. Whilst we proudly celebrate these anniversaries, we still shamefully have such disadvantage. Yunupingu was trapped in a cycle of bad health from contracting hepatitis B as a child, which left him with liver and kidney disease. His death would have been preventable in most circumstances, especially in the circumstance of being a white middle-aged man. Yunupingu represents the soul of the original language and music of Indigenous communities. He played for the likes of Barack Obama and the Queen. He brought the NT to the world. He could play every instrument and he sang like an angel. Yunupingu started in music by playing a guitar upside down, because he was left-handed. His friend Cal Williams was lead guitarist in Yothu Yindi when Dr G Yunupingu played keyboard, guitar and percussion in the band. Mr Williams said:

Yothu Yindi started by filling the gap between white music and Aboriginal music. But he—

Yunupingu—

was the icing on the cake.

His legacy is bringing everyone together and enjoying it for what it was: an amazing sound from an amazing musician who could play every instrument and sing like an angel.

Yunupingu contributed so much to the language, music and culture of not only the Aboriginal community but the broader Australian community. Like many Aboriginal people, he has done a lot for his people and for our country. This should always be treasured and honoured.

An example of how we can be more aware of what we have and what we have lost is when we compare the coverage of Yunupingu's death to that of Linkin Park frontman, Chester Bennington, who died in the same week as Yunupingu, but whose music and sad demise saw much more media attention. While very sad, I do reflect on the fact that Yunupingu's contribution is arguably much deeper and richer to our community. This comparison highlights other measures that we need to fix in our Aboriginal community such as life expectancy, writing and numeracy, attendance rates at school and employment—to name but a few. Our Aboriginal community suffers inequality and disadvantage. As the previous speaker, the member for Whitlam, said, we need to do much more and not just pat ourselves on the back.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak to this very important motion today, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders past, present and future. I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful and beautiful first peoples of my community, the Dja Dja Wurrung, and in my contribution today I would like to speak about some of their journeys and the exciting moment in history that we are in in that we have settlement in our community.

This motion acknowledges that it is 50 years since the Australian people voted by an overwhelming majority for the Australian constitution to be changed to finally acknowledge our first peoples of this nation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, as full citizens. This occurred before I was born, but it is a moment in history that even my parents discuss. They discuss what the debate at the time meant. For many people in this place, like fellow members of parliament, it means so much more. It means that for the first time their families were acknowledged as Australians.

When you share those stories and experiences with school children, they find it really hard to believe that in our country's history we have our first Australians, Aboriginal people, that lived here in a time when they were not even recognised as Australians. It's part of those teachings and learnings that need to continue to ensure that we do never forget and that we continue to move forward in reconciliation. In this motion we also acknowledge the 25th anniversary of the High Court Mabo decision, a decision that changed the direction of our country and made a significant step forward on the path of reconciliation.

But there is still unfinished business for our nation. There is still a lot of work that we need to do. We cannot declare that the job is done whilst it is still more likely that a young Aboriginal man will end up in prison than at university. That is something that we all must take responsibility for. The job is also not done on health—the fact that people who are Aboriginal Australians are more likely to have kidney failure and any number of illnesses—and is still not finished on education, numeracy and literacy, while people in the country and in the regions still do not have access to decent quality health and education.

In this place we still have a job to do. In my own community of Bendigo we have the remarkable BDAC service, the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Co-op, who work collectively and collegiately with a number of health and education services to deliver support to our local Aboriginal people. One of the beautiful things that occurs when they speak at formal events is that, whilst they may live in Bendigo, which is Dja Dja Wurrung country, they acknowledge their ancestors and their birth place. It is not uncommon for their comments to start with 'I am a proud Yorta Yorta woman'—that is just to the north of the Dja Dja Wurrung nation. This is a small way that they acknowledge their history. It's a moment for all of us white folk in the room to remember that so many Aboriginal Australians were displaced.

I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution that in the state of Victoria, in Bendigo, we actually have settlement. A recognition and settlement agreement between the Dja Dja Wurrung clans and the state of Victoria was made in 2013. It was the first settlement of its kind to be made. It meant that the four claims that were before the Federal Court were ceased. It is also a recognition of what our state parliaments can do. Under the leadership of former Attorney-General Rob Hulls the Victorian government became the first government to create this process and opportunity for our first peoples to pursue through state parliament, through negotiation, recognition and settlement agreements. It was one of the first events that I went to as the federal member for Bendigo and I will never forget the tears, the joy and the excitement of the Dja Dja Wurrung elders and their descendants; the look on Rodney Carter's face; the clap and celebration from Aunty Julie when the land was formally handed over with the symbolic moment of passing soil from the state government to themselves.

Since settlement, we have seen a number of achievements and a number of milestones. It was an important milestone for the Dja Dja Wurrung people and for the Victorian government. It recognised them as the traditional owners of this country and acknowledged the history of dispossession and how that had affected their people. These are some of the comments that the elders made at that time:

Our Agreement allows for continued recognition, through protocols and acknowledgements and Welcomes to Country …

It also provides us with some legal rights to practice culture and access and use our land and resources, and to have a say in what happens on our Country. The Agreement gives us Aboriginal title of some of our traditional lands, including the right to actively managing Country.

It includes several state parks that they are now responsible for managing. There have been so many wonderful things that they have been able to do since settlement, but there are some I wish to highlight, like the Ulumbarra Theatre. 'Ulumbarra' is a Dja Dja Wurrung word that means 'gather together'. That is the name of the new Bendigo theatre, funded by the former Labor government and state government. It was symbolic that it be named Ulumbarra straight after settlement. It is also home to scarred trees, in recognition. These were saved from the redevelopment of the Ravenswood interchange. The first performance at Ulumbarra was actually a work commissioned by the City of Greater Bendigo, performed to tell the Dja Dja Wurrung story. One of the saddest points of the night was when many locals in Bendigo said, 'This is the first time that I have seen, learnt and heard about the local Dja Dja Wurrung story.' I say it is sad because many of them were in their 40s, their 50s and their 60s. It was a lesson to all of us that we needed to do more to learn more about our first peoples' stories.

More recently, we launched the Dja Dja Wurrung tram. Whilst this tram will not help fix literacy levels and will not help improve the shocking rates of health and disease that we have amongst our Aboriginal people, it is symbolic because it helps our local Dja Dja Wurrung tell their story of what happened when our town—a mining town—was mined for gold. As we sat on the tram and it travelled through Bendigo, local Dja Dja Wurrung elders could talk about what happened to their country when it was mined for gold. A local Dja Dja Wurrung artist was commissioned to paint the tram and to help tell the local story.

There's so much that I could talk about, and I don't feel like this speech has done justice to the amazing work that has been achieved by our Dja Dja Wurrung nation and their elders. But in my final comments I will include a few words from Aunty Julie. Aunty Julie was the Citizen of the Year in 2017 for Mount Alexander. She said in her speech:

The true invaders, I believe, were the landed gentry, the squatters and the pastoralists. Often the term 'settlers' is used to describe these people but I see them as the true invaders … Then came disease, massacres, poisoning, and dispossession of our land. Of the whole Dja Dja Wurrung nation in the Mount Alexander Shire, which numbered around 2,000 before invasion, only 70 were left on Country by 1863. In less than 30 years nearly a whole nation of proud people was decimated by greed. This is part of the history which must be understood, not dwelled on, but understood, so that we as a people can understand and move forward.

And she invited all of us to share that journey with her.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we stand here reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the 25th anniversary of the High Court's Mabo decision, it is appropriate that I open with an acknowledgement that this parliament was built on what is, was and always will be Aboriginal land. I acknowledge the traditional owners, the Ngunawal and Ngambri people, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and also to the elders of the Kulin nation, the Boonwurrung and the Wurundjeri people, in my bit of Melbourne.

As we reflect on these significant anniversaries it's hard to believe, for those of us here, just how contemporary these momentous changes are. Most Australians either were alive when the referendum took place or have a parent or grandparent who was. And for many, especially young people, there's a feeling that now we're in politically stagnant times, that there is disengagement of people from politics and the effects it has on their lives, and it is a time of fractious parliaments and lessening trust in MPs and institutions. We've had 18 years now without any referendum being put to the people of Australia. I understand that that's the longest gap since Federation in 1901. But it would be sad if this leads us to believe that momentous change is something from a bygone era. The challenges handed to us only in recent weeks by the Referendum Council's National Convention at Uluru, the final report of the Referendum Council, remind us there are momentous changes that we still must confront.

There are dangers, of course, in constitutional change. The failed republic referendum, despite majority support for a republic, stands as an example. But real change requires leadership. To borrow Paul Keating's formula, that is imagination and courage—not, may I say, Prime Minister Howard's pathetic vision for a nation as being relaxed and comfortable, or Prime Minister Abbott's aggression and mindset of political gain at all costs, or the weak, pathetic nothingness of the current Prime Minister, who turned up to the Garma Festival and waffled, frozen, unable to make any commitment or lead his party, let alone the nation. So it's especially important and inspiring to remember what is possible when politicians and society come together to address injustices in the cause of equality and progressive change.

The 1967 referendum reminds us of a universal truth in politics and public life: that progressive change is not inevitable and never easy. It is always hard, and resisted by some, especially at the start, and achieving progressive change is always a struggle. It requires tenacity to stand up to an unfair world, to turn ideals into reality. Back then the campaigners for the yes vote worked tirelessly for over 10 years to put the case for change on the national agenda. There can be no doubt that by the time the Australian people came to a vote in 1967 the campaigners for change had put their issue, their cause, at the centre of the nation's political agenda. By the time the ballot boxes closed on 27 May 1967, these social warriors, if you like, had done all they could to progress their cause.

I asked the Dandenong historical society in my electorate whether they had any news articles from the time of the referendum. Reading the news from back then you can hear, can feel, decades on, the optimism as well as the realism of what the 1967 referendum meant. In a Dandenong Journal article on 31 May 1967, a few days after the vote, Mr Bill Onus, a local entrepreneur, speaking on behalf of '50 Aborigines' said:

I look on it as the biggest milestone in the history of my people … we're overjoyed and feel now we are recognised as part of a nation and not just as 'the other people' … This, for us, is just the beginning of the long road to progress and rehabilitation.

The hope in Mr Onus's words is still palpable today. What a sense of victory the First Australians and the campaigners must have felt. In an earlier interview with the Dandenong Journal, printed on 9 May, a few days before the ballot, Mr Onus spoke to the importance of this constitutional change, saying:

Every head of livestock in Australia is counted—every sheep, every horse, every cow—but there is no true count of aborigines.

He felt that the number varied between 100,000 and 300,000, but no-one really knew.

So, the 1967 referendum, in that context, was Australia's most successful, with 90.8 per cent of Australians voting yes. This is especially remarkable as these were not progressive times in terms of such matters—the White Australia policy was still technically in force—and with a level of bipartisanship that today seems astonishing. The hard work that these social warriors campaigning for change achieved put in place a political climate whereby parliamentarians passed the referendum legislation unanimously. There was no Peter Dutton extremist type failing to show up to the apology—not one. Just like on marriage equality today, the community then was ahead of its leaders.

1967 also reminds us that arbitrary discrimination debases us all. It damages our society. And so does extreme injustice and extreme inequality generally—whether economic, legal or social we see real-world damaging impacts on society. The latest Closing the Gap report showed us that in terms of ridding our nation of inequalities between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and all other Australians, we are still not living up to our commitments. The hope, the promise, of the 1967 referendum, of Mabo, has not been realised despite all the good intentions. The target to halve the gap in child mortality by 2018 will not be met. The goal to close the gap in life expectancy by 2021 will not be achieved. The promise to close the gap on many education and employment measures will not be upheld. Although clearly not enough, 1967 was of some practical positive impact, and Marcia Langton pointed out in her 2012 Boyer Lecture that hard-won legislative and constitutional changes in the 1960s allowed Aboriginal people to enjoy 'the political and economic benefits of citizenship: the social welfare safety net, some aspects of economic development, political representation, support for language and culture, and government policy and funding to improve outcomes in education and sports'.

In the 1990s, judicial decisions, coupled with the legislative actions of the Keating government, abolished the legal fiction of terra nullius and enshrined the native title rights of the First Australians into law. These rights have strengthened the foundations upon which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can engage in the Australian economy. Yet, it's not enough. To truly honour the 50th anniversary of 1967 and the 25th anniversary of Mabo we have to commit, now, this parliament to more action. Fine words are insufficient. We must find our own wisdom and courage to respond to the Referendum Council's report and drive change. In a statement released after the Uluru convention, delegates stated:

In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard.

For our part I am so proud that Labor listened to Uluru, seeking to hear the message. Labor has laid out our response and a pathway for action with the incredible leadership by our Aboriginal members of caucus and the Leader of the Opposition. If we are being honest in our remarks I must say that I have mixed feelings about the Prime Minister's commitment or ability to do anything. He does mouth the right words. We have all sat through them. But there is no sign his heart is really in it and there's a deep hypocrisy in the speeches to this House of government MPs. I have heard some of them. I was listening to them talk in reverential terms about Eddie Mabo. They hint at some magical bipartisanship on Indigenous issues, which is a rewriting and whitewashing of history, as it is not true. Never forget, the Liberals are the party that voted against Mabo. They fuelled the utterly disgraceful nonsense in the popular press and the community that our suburban backyards were under threat. The front pages of the paper were fuelled by the Liberal Party. The Howard government's response to the High Court's Wik case was weak, pathetic and ungenerous in spirit or substance.

Few here may remember the 1997 Bringing them home report into the stolen generations. I do, though. I was a staffer here and it was the most emotional week I can remember in this building in the five years I worked here last century. Every Labor member of parliament spoke from the heart about that report. The Aboriginal community from across Australia turned up to this building, their national parliament, to tell their stories and to bear witness to the parliament's work. Yet the Howard government's response was useless. It could have been a much better moment of national reflection and healing. And Howard was the Prime Minister who then refused for his remaining 10 years in office, in that wasted decade, to issue a simple apology to the Aboriginal people, whose time had clearly come. The Minister for Immigration, a pretender to the throne, was so weak he did not even turn up to the apology. We saw Prime Minister Abbott's gaps between actions and words—he professed to care yet cut $500 million. Despite the PM's fine words, that continues today. The Deputy Prime Minister's first response is not to listen, not to understand. Let's hope the government can find some imagination, heart and courage, perhaps inspired by the spirit of 1967. I am hopeful, not optimistic—they may, but time will tell.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great honour to be able to stand in the Australian parliament to pay tribute today to both the life and the work of Mr Mabo and indeed to the High Court decision in the case involving Mabo and the plaintiffs, which changed the legal story of this nation. I also pay tribute today to the most remarkable of anniversaries, that being the 1967 referendum, where our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia were finally granted the right not simply to be counted in our census but also to be counted in our history books and in the narrative of our nation and to get a say in contesting the space of colonial history that Australia was, for a long time, steeped in.

Those two events—the Mabo High Court decision and the 1967 referendum—are matters that this parliament should celebrate wholeheartedly, because these were extraordinarily hard-fought victories. They were campaigns that were long and arduous for all of the peoples involved. We really give thanks to Mr Mabo and to his family. We had the privilege of having his daughter, Gail, present in parliament on the day when this motion first came before the House. I reflected on that day, when I met not only Gail Mabo but the sons of other plaintiffs involved in the Mabo case, just what an extraordinary sacrifice those families made in sharing their fathers with this nation for decades in actively engaging in trying to reshape the history of this nation. And what a remarkable job they did.

Mr Mabo's life was full of extraordinary struggles and challenges. Regretfully, despite the 10 years which he dedicated to pursuing these legal actions, he never lived to see the outcome of his High Court challenge. Yet, there are few people in Australia who would not know his name and who would not understand the dramatic ramifications of the actions taken by that man from the island of Mer, who took on the Australian legal system in order to get justice. He asserted his continuing native title rights to the island of Mer, challenged the Australian notions of property rights and indeed challenged all of us to rethink what we had learnt about the founding stories of our nation. Forevermore, the contestability of those founding stories will ring loud in this chamber, in our courts and in the history books of this nation. And thank goodness, because I do not think we should be under any illusion that these victories came easy in Australia. These were hard-fought campaigns, with great personal cost to the people involved. That's why I paid special tribute to the families of Mr Mabo and all of those 1967 activists.

These were hard-fought gains. This was not an easy transition in Australia's history. I was working with remote Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley region when these decisions were coming down and there was great excitement in the Kimberley. The state of Western Australia, you might recall, has never had any form of land rights legislation. So prior to the title decision there was no capacity for the Indigenous people of Western Australia to ever exercise their rights as traditional owners of these lands and waters for 60,000 years-plus in this nation.

That was a shameful state of affairs. The hard work did not stop after the High Court decision. In seeking to implement changes to our laws to ensure that we recognised native title and afforded some protection, there were many members of this House who sought to extinguish native title at the first opportunity. Whether through ignorance at the time or a simple misunderstanding, they did not do this House proud. It is to their great credit that Indigenous people persevered with their negotiations with the Australian government. The then Keating government was able to formulate a native title act that was, for many people, already filled with compromises but also with lots of promise for the future.

It has been a continuing struggle to prevent perverse extinguishment of native title in legislation in this House. We recently had matters in this House where the government sought to overreach, again, when it came to dealing with the Macleay court decision and the implications that had for Indigenous land use agreements in Australia. We need to learn from those errors and not trash the legacy of those who came before us, like Mr Mabo, like the 1967 referendum heroes and heroines. These were people who stared racism, intolerance and wilful ignorance right in the face—and yet remained utterly determined to render change in this country, to ask Australians to face squarely our colonial history, to face squarely our 19th century obsession with racial discourse in this country and to face squarely the ongoing legacies of past injustices.

I know my colleagues before me have spoken of the moving ceremonies here in the House where the apology was given to the stolen generations. That remains with me one of the most profound days in my life: the honour of being able to witness that apology in this House, to witness the impact that had for the men and women who had been unlawfully stolen from their families at that time. There are lessons for us to remember now. There are more Indigenous children now living in out-of-home care, in Australia, than ever before. So it seems to me that our parliaments, collectively, around the country still have many important lessons to learn.

I do, however, give thanks to the extraordinary sacrifice of the men and women who fought so valiantly for their rights, and for the correction of that bloody and vicious colonial history on which the country was founded, through exercising their rights in the court when this parliament failed to do so. Let's learn from those mistakes. Let's not let that happen again. People should not have to go to court in order to exercise their rights. This parliament should be a generous partner with our Indigenous men and women in Australia to get this right in the future, and that's why I'm pleased that we have supported the constitutional recognition of their voices in this parliament.

Debate adjourned.