Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise at the conclusion of the debate to express my grave concern about the government’s decision to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act as it pertains to the areas in the Northern Territory that have been designated by this legislation. Mick Dodson said in 2006:

There are abundant statistics that speak to the desperate living conditions endured in so many remote Indigenous communities. We are convinced of the need for real, sustainable economic development, access to clean water, sewage, roads, housing, education, medical care, and all of the basic human rights that most other Australians are able to take for granted.

But he went on to say:

It is salutary to remember in this context the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody which concluded that:

dispossession and removal of Aboriginal people from their land has had the most profound impact on Aboriginal society and continues to determine the economic and cultural wellbeing of Aboriginal people.

That is what is so fundamentally wrong with the government’s approach to this legislation. The Greens have argued for more than a decade—for years!—that we should be putting a lot more financial assistance into Indigenous health and Indigenous education. We certainly support the maintenance of Indigenous culture and language. We do not share the view that was expressed by former Minister Vanstone, when she talked about remote communities being cultural museums.

We believe in the maintenance of Indigenous language and Indigenous culture. The problem with this legislation is that it has come at the end of a decade of dismantling Indigenous culture and Indigenous land rights. We all know that land, language and culture are intertwined in a way that is absolutely fundamental to the maintenance of Indigenous culture and community, and Indigenous people’s wellbeing. As a nation, we are failing to recognise that in 1996 the Howard government first took $400 million out of Indigenous programs and has systematically since that time dismantled land rights.

As I mentioned, the former Senator Vanstone talked about a quiet revolution and a total reshaping of Indigenous communities, and she went about doing that in an administrative way, particularly undermining the Aboriginal land rights act. Now we have an end to what people have campaigned for decades for—Aboriginal land rights, self-determination for Aboriginal communities and reconciliation. That is why this is such a profoundly sad moment for people in Australia.

Absolutely nobody wants to see child abuse continue. No-one wants to see the levels of homelessness, poverty, illness and so on continue in Indigenous communities, but we do not have to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act in order to spend money on those programs—on sewerage and so on. We can do all of that without getting rid of Aboriginal self-determination and respect by virtue of the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act.

This is treating the symptoms whilst worsening the underlying cause of the illness, because the underlying cause of the illness is the profound sadness and dislocation of Indigenous people at having their culture so seriously undermined. If you take away their land, culture, dignity and self-respect you will leave them as people with a lost identity. The journalist Nicolas Rothwell said recently:

Many of the observers of this other Australia—

referring to the remote communities—

have come to the conclusion that its problems lie much deeper than economics and education, and relate more to loss of hope and purpose, to an almost subterranean ailment of the spirit that besets many small cultures overwhelmed by the outside world; an affliction that may require as much care and compassion as administrative guidance and financial transfusion.

The government is rushing in at the last minute before an election, having taken away funding for so many years, and putting a huge amount of money in, but without looking at the other side. You cannot come rushing in with money to deal with education and health if you do not consult with Indigenous people, because you need the consultation and collaborative work.

As Senator Crossin said earlier in relation to education, rather than having a punitive taking away of people’s social security we should be injecting into schools the capacity for cultural officers to be there and for maintenance of language. Those are the things that will increase attendance, not punitively forcing people into schools which are not providing what Indigenous people value—that is, language and culture. It is an entirely different way of looking at things. If you take away the connection between Indigenous people and their land—their country—then no amount of money for health or education is going to heal the spirit.

That is the problem here. If anyone goes to a doctor and they just get treatment for the symptoms, they will have to keep going back. It is the underlying cause that is the problem, and that is why so many of us committed so strongly to reconciliation with Indigenous people and self-determination for Indigenous people. That is why we did it. That is why we so strongly adhere to the principle that there is no place for racial discrimination in Australia and no reason to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act in order to treat Indigenous people in this way.

That is why at the heart of the Little children are sacred report the very first recommendation said you have to consult with Indigenous people, you have to do this with Indigenous people, you do not do it to and impose it upon individual people and their communities. I would argue that it is the lack of respect by this legislation for culture, land rights and language that is hurting Indigenous people so much. As Senator Bartlett said earlier, it is so unnecessary. If you had come in here with a budget bill to allocate $560 million or whatever the specific figure is to Indigenous communities for health, education and so on in collaboration and consultation with those communities, everyone would have been delighted. But the fact is you have come in here arguing it is about child abuse whilst at the same time undermining land rights and undermining the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act. That is what will also devastate Indigenous communities. They have a right, like all the rest of us, to clean water, sanitation, education and health. They have that right; they do not have to give up things. Which other Australian community is forced to give up any of its cultural context in order to have things that everybody else gets as of right? It is ethically and morally wrong to undermine a culture, to go in and say: ‘We know what’s good for you and you are going to have it imposed on you. By the way, the cost to you is something fundamental to who you are as people and who you are in terms of your identity.’

That is what I feel is so gravely wrong about this. That is why I feel so profoundly sad when I see someone like Mick Dodson, who has spent his whole life on this, saying: ‘I’m at a loss as to what to do. I’ve been fighting racial discrimination all my life. I’ve run out of ideas.’ I would be devastated if I had done that to somebody who had given their life to improve the situation of Indigenous people in Australia. You need to listen to what Indigenous people say. As you know yourself, if you feel good about yourself and if you feel good about your culture—so if you feel strongly about those things—then you can address other things. But if your identity is taken away and if you have this ailment of the spirit, then no amount of medicine is going to fix that. It is about self-respect and identify. It is about cultural integrity and the continuance of that Indigenous culture.

Whilst this is an assault on land rights, self-determination and reconciliation, I do not believe that we cannot get back on track once this government leaves office, when, hopefully, we can spend the money in those communities but get rid of the draconian aspects of this bill. I hope that this will be the last time ever we see the Racial Discrimination Act in Australia suspended and gotten around in the way that this government has done, because there is no place and there is no justification for that. You can never set aside the principle that is entrenched here and you have to recognise that it is an absolute basic principle of the rule of law—and I for one will be campaigning for a bill of rights, as I have for a long time. Central to that bill of rights of Australia will be that you cannot discriminate against people on the basis of race. It is to Australia’s enduring shame that we still do not have that. We need to have that entrenched in our Constitution. I conclude by saying that we have not really come very far from the time 40 years ago when WEH Stanner said:

There are immense pressures of expediency we all understand. But they do not answer the ethical questions. The principles are clear. Is this use of power arbitrary? Is the decision just? And is it good neighbourly? Rigorously asked, and candidly answered, (the answers) will leave many people feeling uncomfortable ... There are positive requirements which compel the Aborigine to give up his own choice of life in order to gain things otherwise conceded to be his of right. The ethics of the policy thus seem very dubious.

That is why we do not support what the government is doing with this legislation.