Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I want to address a few matters in my contribution in the adjournment debate tonight. The first is to respond to some statements raised in an article in the Weekend Australian by an author named William Lines. It is an extract from a recent book that he has put out. He is previously published as a conservationist. The piece that appeared in the Weekend Australian, which the Weekend Australian gave prominence to, in my view is not only extraordinarily offensive in regard to its portrayal of Indigenous Australians but is extremely inaccurate in doing so. Apart from being inaccurate and offensive towards Indigenous Australians I think it does our entire country a disservice in seeking to close our eyes and our minds to real opportunities for greater environmental protection, for a better understanding of the natural environment and for recognition of the lessons that we can learn and the knowledge that is there from Indigenous Australians towards protecting that environment.

It has been a problematic component of aspects of conservationism to portray the natural environment as untouched wilderness. That is something that has been recognised by many people in the Australian conservation movement, which I count myself a part of. The terminology ‘wilderness’ is a problem in that it does imply a landscape untouched by humans. The reality, which is completely denied by this piece by Mr Lines, is that Indigenous people lived, and in some cases continue to live, as part of the natural environment and played a crucial role in maintaining the ecological balance and ensuring the biodiversity was still there when colonisation occurred.

It is a simple fact that the removal of Indigenous people from many parts of Australia and the loss of some of that knowledge in not just managing the landscape in the sense of a gardener or a farmer or something, but being a part of the ecology, is one of the reasons why not only we have had such massive damage to our biodiversity and to the health of the Australian environment in the last couple of hundred years but also we are not doing as good a job as we could at reversing some of that damage and preventing more of it from occurring.

I certainly acknowledge that it is not helpful for people—whether you would call them on the Left or anywhere else on the political spectrum—to adopt the myth of the noble savage living in some sort of preindustrial utopia where all was wonderful and fabulous. I do not think it helps anybody to adopt that sort of mythology. But it certainly is equally unhelpful—in fact, I would say more unhelpful and even more inaccurate—to portray, as Mr Lines does, Indigenous Australians as having had no special connection with the land and that somehow this is just an imagined construct by modern Western conservationists. That is not only a flagrant denial of history; I think it is turning our face away from real opportunities to improve not just our protection of the environment but our understanding of it.

I believe we do need to move away from a notion of the environment as something to be protected or preserved like a nice museum piece in cotton wool that we can all look at and ooh and aah over, to something that people are part of. We are animals as well. Whilst we as modern, industrialised human animals obviously have disconnected ourselves in many ways from the natural environment, I do not think it helps to further that process by continuing to turn our minds away from it and indeed categorically deny the fact that we are still part of the natural environment, albeit in a very altered way.

A group that I think would be very much worth listening to—and I would encourage Mr Lines to take the time to have a talk to them—is the Aboriginal rainforest coalition in far Northern Queensland. That is a group of traditional owners and traditional people from the areas covering the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. They gave some very constructive evidence to the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee inquiry into national parks and protected areas. The viewpoint they put forward is that the Western concept of biodiversity is unnecessarily limiting, to really see and get a better understanding of the natural environment we should see it in terms of maximising biocultural diversity.

Certainly for many of the traditional groups from that part of Far North Queensland—despite everything that was thrown at them, and it would be a very long speech in itself to describe all of the traumas and outrages inflicted on the traditional tribes of Far North Queensland, and despite the dispossession, relocation, killings and death—there is still direct cultural connection, there is still a lot of knowledge there of the local environment and it is still an intrinsic part of the natural environment. That is why I very strongly support moves to recognise that the Wet Tropic World Heritage Area should not be recognised as having world heritage values purely for its ecological benefits but also because of its cultural significance. I certainly support moves to have that recognition occur.

What Mr Lines suggests is that basically there is nothing we can learn from Indigenous Australians with regard to connection with the environment and care for the natural environment. He reinforces the notion of wilderness as untouched. I think this is a real problem, frankly. It is not just some semantic argument. Indeed as recently as June this year the Queensland Labor government, in announcing more money to help buy ecologically significant areas of Cape York—and that is an action I support, I should emphasise—said that there was more money available to buy up ‘untouched wilderness on Cape York’.

It really should not take that much imagination to recognise how offensive language like that—although I am sure it was inadvertent—is to people who have lived in, on, with and as a part of Cape York and who are a key reason why it is land that is still worth buying and protecting. The traditional owners of that land have been there for tens of thousands of years. They have been the custodians and are still the custodians of that land to such good effect that it is something that state governments want to spend money on to help keep in good condition. To do that and say that it is untouched is extraordinarily offensive.

It is bad enough, frankly, that we have so-called historians like Keith Windschuttle wanting to deny the reality of the history of the last couple of hundred years and deny some of the disgraceful atrocities that were committed on Indigenous Australians. But in some ways it is even worse when we have people trying to deny the history of 10,000 years before. They are not denying that Indigenous people were here but they are trying to deny that there is any significance or any special, unique contribution that they have brought to Australia as part of that role. I think it is extraordinarily offensive, incredibly inaccurate and very, very damaging and dangerous.

It frustrates me immensely because, in some ways, it almost feels greedy to acknowledge that we need to try to grasp that contribution for the wider community, that we can get from properly recognising and involving the knowledge and cultures of traditional Australians. The benefits to our nation as a whole if we can manage to properly incorporate the Indigenous heritage of the nation that we are now part of into our future is far greater for the non-Indigenous community than it is for the Indigenous community. As I say, one almost feels greedy in trying to grasp more because we have already taken so much from Indigenous Australians as part of colonising this land, but that is a simple fact.

At least this would be something where there would be benefit gained for Indigenous Australians as well—a way for their cultures, knowledge, spirituality and beliefs, skills, ability and potential to be maintained and developed in harmony with, as part of and in connection with the wider Australian community and the future of our nation. We are denying ourselves our own potential as a nation by continuing to refuse to have this amazing history—this extraordinary and unique history—and these cultures be part of all of our futures. It is an incredible conceit that is denying ourselves potential and opportunity.

I think that the views and arguments that are put forward in this article—although obviously anybody has the right to put forward any views at all—are very dangerous and damaging. They are doubly dangerous and damaging because they are portrayed from the perspective of somebody who calls themselves a conservationist, who has a history in the conservation movement and yet who seeks to negate some of the very strong work that some people have done.

I use the example of the Wilderness Society campaigners in my own state of Queensland who have done a lot of work and continue to do a lot of work in exploring opportunities for better management of land so that the health of our natural environment can be improved through incorporating the knowledge and skills that the traditional owners and Indigenous people who live in those areas already have. There is potential there in all of those regions for economic development that will benefit our entire country, including the Indigenous people in those regions. I know a number of people in the Wilderness Society who have been quite creative and who have worked quite hard over a number of years in trying to develop those potentials.

That does not mean that there have not been problems along the way, but it is particularly problematic when other sections of the Wilderness Society are prepared and willing to promote the book that Mr Lines has just written and which this article has extracts from, particularly given the way he portrays the description of wilderness and attacks those in the conservation movement who seek to recognise that wilderness is not something that is untouched or has not been positively affected by the role of Indigenous Australians over tens of thousands of years. That is an incredibly narrow perspective.

It reminds me of the approach that was taken by the Tasmanian component of the Wilderness Society before the last election in assessing the environmental credentials of various parties. I recall the Democrats being marked down on our response because we expressed the view that in developing solutions for the better protection of the forests in Tasmania we needed to ensure that there was adequate consultation with local Aboriginal people beforehand—that was seen as a negative by the Wilderness Society at that time. I certainly have not forgotten, and I do not intend to ever forget, that they saw that as a negative sufficient to actually mark us down. I am sure that they may well have found some other excuse to mark us down in any case, but the fact that they chose that one to grasp on to said a lot to me. I know the views of Tasmanian forest campaigners do not necessarily match the views of people elsewhere in the country.

I have spoken a number of times before about the fact that we need to recognise the immense biodiversity of other parts of Australia that are actually under greater threat and of greater significance. Expressing such comments also leaves one open to being misrepresented as saying that Tasmanian forests do not matter, which certainly is not my view. But I point to the areas of the wet tropics in my own state of Queensland where you have not only extraordinary biodiversity and a huge number of endemic species—a biodiversity hotspot on a global scale—but also ongoing, continual and very vibrant important cultural connections with the land by many traditional Indigenous tribes. That presents an immense opportunity, and an immense economic opportunity as well—in tourism in particular.

While this person obviously has the right to say what they want, it is very important that such views be categorically dismissed by people in the conservation movement as unfounded—perhaps from good intent; I do not know—very ignorant, dangerous, offensive and, frankly, racist. In those circumstances, it is very important for those in the conservation movement to make very clear that they do not align themselves with those views. I listened to an interview that Mr Lines did on the Phillip Adams program, and he likes to see himself as a bit of a provocateur; a bit of a stirrer. That is fine; there is always a bit of a role for a devil’s advocate and somebody to tilt against the windmills or kick against things. But it is not very helpful if it is done in a way which is inflammatory, offensive and racist. It is extremely unhelpful, particularly if it is flagrantly ignorant.

The article quotes a few Queensland based members of conservation groups—and, being from Queensland, I have of course heard these views a number of times—who complain about Indigenous Australians being able to continue to engage in their traditional right to hunt. That is a view that I completely reject and it is again based on complete misunderstanding and ignorance. But, when it follows through into a wish to prevent traditional owners from being involved in the ongoing management of protected areas or areas of high conservation significance, it becomes doubly problematic.

It is a simple fact—and I speak particularly from my knowledge of Queensland; I cannot speak as definitively about other states—that in some cases in Queensland national parks have been used quite consciously by former governments as a deliberate mechanism for dispossession. It is a clear fact that that is an effect that can still occur as a result of declarations of national parks and various other forms of protected areas. I do not say that it is a deliberate consequence these days—although when views like this, which are seen to be part of the conservation movement, get expressed then you cannot blame people for thinking so.

It was made very clear by the Cape York Land Council, in evidence that they gave to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, that in some cases a declaration of a national park and the ongoing management of national parks on their traditional lands is to them just another form of dispossession—and in some ways a worse form of dispossession. At least when some of those areas were run by pastoralists, they were allowed free movement on their own country and were allowed to practise their traditional activities on their own country. If it was suddenly declared to be a national park, then basically they were kicked off and allowed back on far more grudgingly and with far more restrictions.

That is simply unsatisfactory. It is arrogant, it is conceited and it is very destructive to the long-term opportunities for the people of that region. There is a lot of room for improvement in enabling greater involvement of traditional owners in the management of protected areas. We have gone some way down the track in some parts of Australia—Uluru-KataTjutu National Park is one where we have moved some distance—but there is clearly a lot more that can be done. When there is just straightforward philosophical resistance and the idea that there is nothing we can learn from Indigenous Australians, we have a real problem. Articles like this one reinforce that.

The article makes the quite extraordinary assertion that there is no ‘them and us’ when it comes to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, so there is nothing unique that we can learn from them. Certainly there should be no them and us when it comes to equality of opportunity, but I have no doubt that Indigenous Australians very much felt like they were ‘them’ and not ‘us’ when they were being pushed off their lands and killed and relocated in such ferocious ways throughout much of Queensland’s history. To come along at the end of it all and say, ‘There is no them and us, there’s nothing that we can learn from Indigenous Australians and they never had any special connection with the land,’ adds grievous insult to what is already grievous injury.

I think it is an extremely damaging, destructive and ignorant approach. It is one that I certainly categorically reject, as do the Democrats, but I would very much urge other people within the conservation movement to do the same; otherwise it will damage the ability of those two groups to work together. (Time expired)