Letter to the federal parliamentary Labor Party

Graeme Campbell, M.P.

Graeme Campbell, M.H.R., is Labor member for Kalgoorlie, W.A., and a member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.  In this letter of March 28, 1984 to his Parliamentary colleagues, he argues that in certain important respects A.L.P. policy on Aborigines is ill-conceived.  The real needs of Aborigines, he believes, lie not in gaining ownership of minerals but in improved housing, education and welfare.  He also warns of the likelihood of a popular backlash if land rights policy is not modified.

Dear Colleague,

I would like to draw the attention of Caucus Members to an issue which I believe has the potential to cause enormous harm to the interests of the Labor Party if it is not correctly handled.

I refer to the Aboriginal Land Rights issue.  While it is the view of a few that this is an issue that will only arise in country electorates and can therefore be disregarded, I would like to outline a case which will illustrate my view that this is an incorrect appreciation.

The Aboriginal issue is already on the agenda of all working class areas throughout Australia.  It is not issue limited to West Australia and Queensland but one that is germane to all areas where you have a concentration of people in the lower socio-economic group.  There is no greater breeding ground for racism than poverty and people in the lower socio-economic strata -- people that we in the Labor Party have or should have a regard for -- that feel very strongly about what they see, what they perceive to be, an advantage given to any other group.  They perceive other groups, particularly minority groups, as a threat to their immediate position.  Even if their assessment is not correct it is very understandable and will be ignored us at our peril.

The issue of land to use and the ownership of minerals are separate issues and should be treated as such.  Article 3 of our Federal Policy objectives states that we believe in the democratic control and strategic social ownership of Australia's natural resources for the benefit of all Australians.  This can only mean ownership by the Crown.

While this is clearly at odds with sections of our policy on Aboriginal Affairs it is in line with a socialist policy and should be applauded and upheld by all members off the Australian Labor Party.  Because of the ultra democratic nature of the A.L.P. structure it is always possible and frequently occurs that one-issue zealots are able to write into our policy resolutions that are anathema to a socialist philosophy.  This often happens in the dying days of conferences where general interest has waned.

I have always supported the idea of land rights.  It is essential to understand what is meant by this rather emotive White term.  If it means the granting to Aboriginals of inalienable freehold title to unalienated Crown Land, it means Aboriginal groups will have title to land not being used by anyone else but will not be able to sell it, to borrow upon it or to deed it.  For those Aboriginal people who merely require land to use this is a perfectly adequate title.  This demand could and should have been fulfilled years ago if successive Liberal/National Party State Governments had made pastoral leases or similar title more available.

In discussing Aboriginal Affairs it should be realised that there are in fact two problems, namely tribal community and urban Aboriginals.  While there is an element of overlapping in the fringe dwelling area, they are in the main two separate problems that will not be resolved by a common approach.  Of these two dilemmas the tribal is by far the easier to deal with.  The demands of these communities are pressing, equitable and in many cases long, long overdue.  They are also easily met with the application of relatively modest amounts of money.  Their demand is for better health, schooling, land to use, better accommodation, a future for their children, transport and communications and in some cases relief from the presence of alcohol.

There are more Aboriginal people in my electorate than in any other except perhaps the Northern Territory.  While I get constant demands for the foregoing I never have any demand for mineral rights from this group unless fulminated by White zealots or in some cases, urban part-Aboriginals.  The urban Aboriginal problem is far more complex -- it is complicated by the cultural wilderness and generally hopeless economic circumstances in which these people live.

This group has a nucleus of educated or semi-educated people who articulate demands such as use of Aboriginal languages in schools and even the acceptance of Aboriginal English as having equal status in schools.  It is interesting that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs has on occasions been harangued by these people but the masses they purport to represent tell us that their needs are more basic and usually revolve around the clear need for greater financial resources especially for those engaged in second chance or adult secondary or tertiary studies.  From tribal communities the demand is always for English and arithmetic.  Where bilingual education is asked for it is usually at the behest of the White educators or seen as a means of helping with literacy.

There is minimal political awareness among urban Aboriginals and although they are far more numerous they have little or no political clout.  There is a much higher awareness amongst tribal communities.  Although this varies greatly it tends to favour the A.L.P.  This is not the case where fundamentalist Christian churches are strong or where individuals are perceived as being friendly.

Our record of delivery of service to the tribal community is very patchy and often services provided are not appropriate or wanted.  I find it rather incongruous that Ayers Rock is given to a limited community in the Northern Territory while neighbouring communities have over 50 houses built but there is no water or power available for them and this situation has been known for at least two years.  Other communities I know of still have no potable water or even basic housing.  Health standards are abysmal, education beyond primary level almost non-existent, and job opportunities zero.  The recipients of Ayers Rock achieved absolutely nothing tangible and incur for all Aboriginals the unnecessary hostility of the great mass of the population.  It is in fact an example of extreme tokenism.  In the historical sense it is an irrefutable fact of history that Aboriginals were taken over by a more aggressive culture -- one can argue whether that culture was more advanced or more enlightened but there is no doubt it was more aggressive and if that culture feels itself sufficiently threatened it will do it again and no political party of any persuasion will be able to stand against it.  There are many thinking Aboriginals who already sense the backlash and as a politician representing a large number of Aboriginals I know the backlash is there and I am concerned to see that it does not become an irresistible ground swell.

There are, no doubt, some Aboriginals and activists who revel in the animosity of the general population.  They are invariably those with good jobs or some form of group protection.  Overwhelmingly Aboriginal people do not want to relish the opprobrium of the general public.  Most Aboriginal people realise or sense that as they represent only 1.5% of the population any advancements long overdue to them must be obtained with the consent of the vast majority.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs it is quite apparent to me that the problems of the urban Aboriginal must be seen in socio-economic terms and not in cultural terms.  We need a policy that addresses this need and not a policy hat seeks to salve the conscience of the guilt-ridden middle class.  Such a policy should be delivering real benefits to the Aboriginal people, greater funding for second chance education, provision of more counsellors and a career structure within which counsellors can get support and service training, more teacher aides with career prospects and permanency within the system, more emphasis an curriculum development particularly in the field of standard English, more homemaking services and the provision of more and better housing.  Only when these needs have been met can we begin to tackle the problems of job opportunity.  Such initiatives are not as expensive as they sound as most of the money could be obtained from a restructuring of the present expenditure.  A continuation of the tokenism will simply engender a backlash that will be devastating for Aboriginal people and give us enormous problems at the polls.  Land rights has a place in the development of tribal community but has no relevance for urban Aborigines.  Mineral rights are total anathema to a socialist philosophy and in any case will not redress the past years of wrongs.

The Northern Territory is a living example of this and while Mr Bjelke-Petersen obviously overstates the case when he says that mineral rights in the Northern Territory have created a class of black sheiks there is enough substance in the allegation to be uncomfortable.  Mr Bjelke-Petersen could also have alluded to the many mediocre white lawyers who have grown fat on land rights.  In the long run mineral rights will have to be clawed back from the Aboriginals in the Territory and I believe that this move will have the support of all those Aboriginal people who do not have any minerals on their land.

What is needed is a policy of low key consolidation where real problems are redressed -- a recognition that women have an especially significant part to play in urban Aboriginal advancement, and that the already dangerous White backlash is not further excited.  The paper does not purport to be the last word on the issue.  I am conscious of the generalisations in my arguments.  However, it is a subject that the Party should be facing and it should be making informed decisions after rational debate.  The hot-house conditions of Federal conferences do not lend themselves to this end.

Land rights should be equal rights

The Chamber of Mines of Western Australia

This article, an extract from a paper released in June, 1984, and slightly revised in February 1985, examines the economic implications of land rights for both the mining industry and the wider community.  It argues that justice would best be served by a policy affording the same rights to Aborigines as are available to non-Aboriginal Australians.

The Chamber of Mines shares with other sections of the community a recognition of the need to provide Aboriginal people, many of whom are disadvantaged, with special forms of assistance and with security for significant sacred sites.  The Chamber does not oppose the concept of land being granted to Aborigines but maintains that the national debate on land rights should be directed to the question of the nature of the rights which accompany the granted land tenure.

The Chamber's basis position is that land rights for all Australians, including the Aboriginal people, should be provided on a basis of equality.

This is a view supported by 87 per cent of the Western Australian population, according to an independent survey commissioned by the Chamber.

The implications of State land rights legislation and/or of uniform Federal legislation which could override State law is of vital national concern for the following reasons:

RESOURCES BELONG TO ALL

Originally both the State Government and the Federal Government foreshadowed legislation which would have transferred from elected Government the control of mineral resources on Aboriginal land to Aboriginal land owners.

In W.A. as a fundamental principle the mineral resources of the State belong to the people collectively through the concept of Crown ownership of minerals.

This principle of "Crown Ownership" has been a major factor in attracting exploration and resource development to the State.

The Chamber maintains that no single section of the community should have the right or power to prevent the discovery and use of natural resources which are the property of the whole community.

Fortunately the State Government has recognised the errors in its original policy and in the framing of its legislation proposes to retain control over access for exploration and mining.  Unfortunately, the Federal government proposals are still directed at taking away that control from state government and allowing Aborigines control and hence de facto ownership over minerals that collectively belong to all residents of the State.

THE NORTHERN TERRITORY EXPERIENCE

The mining industry's concern about the potential impact of Aboriginal land rights in Western Australia, and the flow-on effect for all Australia, is highlighted by the industry's experience of land rights legislation in the Northern Territory and South Australia.

Since the promulgation of the Land Rights Act in 1976, the industry has been faced with ever-increasing and costly delays and additional financial imposts.  The result has been an impasse on exploration and mining due to the failure of the Act to distinguish between reconnaissance exploration and development and mining.

These delays have led to a termination of exploration activities on Aboriginal land by many companies, some of whom have withdrawn their interests totally from the Territory.

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES

Mining has been for a long time, but more especially since the 1960's, a major element in Australia's economic strength.  It is particularly important in Western Australia where it has been the generative force in the State's growth over the past 20 years.

The industry is an important contributor to public revenues, paying on average more than 65 per cent of its operating profits in taxes plus large sums -- more than $600 million in 1982/83 for example -- for the use of Government services.

As the world economy recovers and a pick-up in demand occurs for minerals, and as increased domestic processing of minerals takes place before export, mining will maintain and increase its contribution to Australia's economic growth.

It is essential, in the nation's economic interests, that explorers for minerals have reasonable access to land.  Exploration must be carried on at a consistently high level to ensure that Australia's resources are located and measured as the basis of a continuing mining industry.

The mining industry is not so self-opinionated as to suggest that its operations are carried on only to support the national interest.  Companies make large investments of time, skill and money in the hope of getting a reward, and it is that incentive that has been a major factor in Australia's growth.

But in seeking this reward -- which in recent years has been very poor -- mining does bring real benefits to the community and the nation by providing jobs, by major contributions to State and Federal Government revenue, by earning foreign exchange to pay for the community's imports, by providing orders for large sections of Australian industry which equip and service the mining industry, and by opening up parts of Australia which otherwise would have remained unused.  In doing these things, mining very clearly and significantly serves the national interest.

When the mining industry raised fears ten years ago the extent of land in the Northern Territory that would be claimed by Aboriginal groups, the (Fraser) Federal Government of the day dismissed these fears as excessive.  History has proven otherwise.

Aborigines in the Northern Territory have already been granted almost 30 per cent of the region and have a further 18 per cent under claim.

In Western Australia, the Seaman Inquiry Discussion Paper has suggested that all the unalienated Crown land (about 40 per cent of the total land area of the State) be available for Aboriginal claim.  Together with the eight per cent land area already reserved for Aboriginal use in Western Australia, this could ultimately put half of Australia's largest state under Aboriginal inalienable freehold title.

The introduction of Federal uniform land rights could potentially have the same effect.  Taking the impact of W.A. alone, some one-sixth of Australia's total land mass could be subject to Aboriginal claim by about one per cent of the total Australian population.

It must be remembered that this land is prospective for future mineral development which is vital for the nation's continuing economic growth.

The Chamber of Mines of W.A. policy on Aboriginal land rights is as follows:

• The mining industry firmly maintains that any government initiatives designed to provide Aborigines with access and title to their traditional lands should not undermine the principle that where minerals are owned by the Crown their development is controlled only by State Government on behalf of all West Australians.  That is, State Government must retain the overall to grant or deny access for exploration and resource development in all parts of Western Australia.  To do otherwise is for the Government to abrogate its authority and responsibility to the people of Western Australia.
• The mining industry maintains that State and Governments must maintain a policy whereby mineral royalties and other payments related to mineral value be set by elected Government and paid by mining companies only to Government for subsequent allocation by Government as it so determines.
• The mining industry maintains that consistent with the fact that all minerals are owned by the Crown, no additional royalties should be imposed as a consequence of the nature of the title to or occupation of any particular land.
• The mining industry believes that State and Federal Governments must maintain the policy whereby computation of financial compensation in respect of all land included in mining tenements be solely on the basis of actual damage suffered by disturbance of that land -- that is, compensation is not related to the value of the minerals being mined.

This policy on Aboriginal land rights is consistent with industry policy with respect to exploration and resource development on land to which title is held by non-Aborigines.

The mining industry sees real danger in legislation at both State and Federal levels which falls short of meeting excessive Aboriginal demands while still leaving the mining and pastoral industries wrapped in bureaucratic and administrative tangles which will effectively deter investor confidence and industry operations.

Concern in this respect is being voiced not only within the industries most directly affected, but also from within ALP ranks and from Aborigines themselves.

It is recognised, for instance, that State and Federal legislation will retain ownership to the Crown of minerals.  However, in practical terms, Aboriginal control of access to land and of the right to mine will effectively give them the power to act as the owners of the minerals.

Again, the industry points to the Northern Territory experience where Crown ownership of minerals has been retained but where control has passed from Government to Aboriginal landowners.

Exploration and development has been drastically reduced in the Northern Territory, not only because of negotiating delays with the owners of Aboriginal land, but because explorers are reluctant to commit large funds to work on land which may later be claimed by the Aboriginal people.

There is a similar reluctance to spend perhaps $30 million or $40 million to find and prove a mineral deposit on Aboriginal land when the owners may then veto mining of the deposit.

The real owners of the mineral wealth of Australia -- all Australians -- should be able to exercise that control through their respective elected State Governments.  In practical terms, the powers of control are more important than those of ownership.  It does not matter who owns a resource if someone else has the powers of control over its use.

Mr. Justice Woodward said in his second report on Aboriginal Land Rights in the Northern Territory, that to deny the Aboriginal people the right to prevent mining on their land was to deny the reality of their land rights.  The Australian Government's policy that the Aboriginal people should control mining on their land, and have access to mining royalty equivalents, reflects that view.

This is, however, a view which sees the Aboriginal people having more rights and powers than other Australians.

In general Australian landowners have title and rights only to the surface, and not what is below.

Flowing from the Chamber's concern about these questions of ownership and control of minerals is a consequential concern about the economic effects of the payment of mining royalty equivalents to the Aboriginal owners of land rather than, as is customary, to the Crown, and about the powers which might be given to the Aboriginal people to fix these and other payments at levels which would act as a strong disincentive to mining.

Australia, and all Australians, have a legitimate interest in the discovery and proving of whatever minerals are to be found, and in their extraction.  The nation and its people are not so well off that they can afford to lock up these resources.

Neither is the mining industry so well placed in terms of its international competitiveness, and its profitability, as to be able to ignore the consequences of replacing the rights which Governments traditionally have exercised in fixing royalties on minerals with a system which would allow the new owners of land, if they felt so disposed, to bid up the cost of mining by demanding inappropriately high compensation from the mining industry.

PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED

The mining industry believes that, with goodwill and common sense, the interests of all can be fairly and appropriately safeguarded.

The mining industry is not unaware or dismissive of the desire of the Aboriginal people to improve their circumstances and protect their culture.  This should be a real community goal.

Objections from the mining industry, supported by organised farming and pastoral interests, to the Federal Government's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage (Interim Protection) Bill 1984 were consistent with this policy.

While supporting the protection of Aboriginal culture and of sacred sites, the industry maintains that the Bill goes much further to allow wide and unfettered Ministerial discretion to interfere in what should properly be the realm of State legislation.  In Western Australia, the Chamber of Mines was in agreement with the State Government that the Heritage Bill was ill-defined, hastily conceived legislation that was an unnecessary duplication of existing and effective State legislation.

The introduction of such legislation at Federal level, incorporating as it does powers to override State legislation and widely condemned by State Governments and industry groups for a total lack of adequate consultation, has served only to sharpen mining industry fears that land rights legislation can follow without due regard to the need for balance in the interests of the wider community.

Miners have more contact with the Aboriginal people than do most Australians.  Mining has more potential than any other industry to provide employment for the Aboriginal people, and to provide it in regions where most Aboriginal people live.  In giving employment and training, the industry can provide the experience that will enable the Aboriginal people to take their places confidently and successfully in the wider community, should they so choose.

The rights of indigenous populations

Rob Riley

Rob Riley is chairman of the National Aboriginal Conference.  This is the statement he delivered to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations held in Geneva on July 31 and August 1, 1984.  Rob Riley's view is that sovereignty over land in Australia must be removed from the Crown and Parliaments and returned to the original occupants, as the basis of Aboriginal self-determination.

LAND RIGHTS & SOVEREIGNTY

In considering the matter of the evolution of standards concerning the rights of indigenous peoples we wish to draw attention to the crucial matter of Aboriginal land rights.

The basis of Aboriginal rights to land in Australia is the original ownership and occupation of the entire continent by the Aboriginal people.  It is on that basis also that the Torres Strait Islanders claim rights to land in the islands of the Torres Strait separating Australia from New Guinea.

Aboriginal people occupied Australia without challenge for at least fifty thousand years prior to British settlement in 1788.  That occupation is aptly described in the terms of the law of nations as the exercise of Aboriginal sovereignty over Australia.  Sovereignty was exercised by up to five hundred tribal governments throughout the continent.  Each self-governing unit had a defined territory and population and had developed laws governing the relations between tribes and between the tribes and other peoples.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia assert that the failure of the British and successive Australian governments to recognise Aboriginal sovereignty does not diminish original sovereignty as the source of Aboriginal land rights.  We do not accept that Aboriginal rights in land are merely those which the Crown may choose to grant under the feudal doctrine that the root of title to all land in England and its colonies is held by the Crown.

Land titles which recognise merely possessory or usufructuary rights do not accord with the Aboriginal reality of land as the source of all being, law and religion.

RESOLUTION

The present Australian Labor Government has also explicitly and firmly rejected Aboriginal claims to sovereignty.  Speaking to a resolution which he moved in the Australian Parliament in December 1983 the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr. Clyde Holding, stressed that the issue of Aboriginal sovereignty was not negotiable;  "Sovereignty is vested in the Crown and Parliaments, for a single people united in the Commonwealth."

There is no recognition in Australia that Aboriginal people have been denied the right to real and effective self-determination, a fundamental human right guaranteed in numerous instruments of the United Nations.  Aboriginal people have not been accorded the right to decide if there is to be in fact "a single people" in Australia.  Without recognition of Aboriginal land rights there can be no possibility of Aboriginal people exercising freely the right of self-determination.

Whilst the Australian Government and some State Governments have legislated for the return of some lands to the Aboriginal people, this has not been done in recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty or as a basis for the exercise of Aboriginal self-determination under international law.  At best, legislative schemes have been adopted in theory as a recognition of prior occupation and ownership of territory in Australia.  The resolution introduced but not voted on in the Australian Parliament last December acknowledged original Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ownership of Australia and the subsequent total disregard of indigenous rights upon colonisation.  It recognised that one of the special measures which must be taken to rectify the injustice is Parliamentary recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's rights to land, in accordance with five stated principles as outlined by the Minister yesterday.

However, already there are indications that the Commonwealth Government will follow the States in not giving full effect to general principles.  State legislation has been passed "in recognition of prior Aboriginal ownership" but allowing only for Aboriginal communities to claim unalienated Crown land not required for other public purposes and without a guaranteed source of funds in the form of compensation or reparation to enable economic and social development.

Similarly, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has indicated that Aboriginal communities will need to persuade a judicial Claims Tribunal that they traditionally own or have long occupied certain categories of land before a claim can be established.  This will disentitle many communities where dispossession and dispersal have been greatest.  If past legislative practice is followed it will also entail Aboriginal land rights being dependent upon the ability of lawyers and anthropologists to persuade other white professionals that Aboriginal interests in land should outweigh competing commercial interests.  The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has responded to the anti land rights lobby of mining companies and pastoralists by giving assurances that so called "private" land will not be claimable under Federal land rights legislation.  The Federal Government's concern to accommodate the different state legislative and administrative structures poses the threat that Aboriginal people in different parts of the country will receive different forms of title to their lands and that not all will receive the inalienable title which is demanded by Aboriginal people.

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

The National Aboriginal Conference supports the purposes of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations and states that the attainment of indigenous rights for populations such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia will only be achievable if international standards are defined, and if non-indigenous governments remain under scrutiny in terms of their domestic and foreign dealings with indigenous peoples.

The National Aboriginal Conference is anxious to see the Working Group proceed with the task of the drafting of international standards concerning the rights of indigenous peoples.  We believe that the only fair and just principle to be adopted in relation to indigenous land rights is one which recognises the inherent right of indigenous peoples to what white legal systems interpret as the ownership of our lands;  a right which is not dependent upon grants from colonising governments.  The system under which those lands are to be held will vary according to the traditions of the many indigenous peoples of the world, but land rights must encompass the right to own and control the natural resources of the land.

Our experience in Australia demonstrates the consequences which follow from the absence of international standards, and highlights the need for effective machinery to oversee the implementation of the standards which are to be developed.

OPPOSITION

In Australia, legislative schemes now in existence and those which are proposed, are under attack from elements which regard Aboriginal rights as an electoral liability.  At the national level, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party has stated as recently as one week ago that if his party wins at the next election, it will repeal any national land rights legislation which the current Labor Government may introduce.  This threat to Aboriginal interests comes from a political party which under the previous leadership of then Prime Minister Mr. Malcolm Fraser presented itself to the world as the champion of human rights in South Africa and as the supporter of liberation movements in places such as what is now Zimbabwe where other black peoples were seeking to throw off the yoke of colonialist oppression.

ENFORCEMENT OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

Aboriginal people in Australia currently have no avenue through which to seek redress against such violations.  There is no constitutional guarantee of indigenous rights in Australia.  In fact, they have never been defined by Government.  Nor do we have access to the International Court of Justice.  The current proposal by the Labor Government for a legislative Bill of Rights does not include provision for the protection of collective indigenous rights.

We look to this Working Group to begin the process of drafting international standards on the rights of indigenous peoples so that the international community will have a yardstick against which to measure the actions of successive Australian Governments in their relations with the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and our indigenous brothers and sisters specifically in East Timor, West Papua, and the Pacific region, and more generally throughout the world.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL

There are also some matters which are relevant to the consideration of the review of developments which I wish to report to the Working Group.

The first is to report upon the continuing and oppressive control which is maintained by the Australian Government and its agencies over Aboriginal organisations in Australia.  Most Aboriginal organisations are dependent upon Government for funding and it is through the manipulation of funding arrangements that Governments attempt to direct the activities and policies of Aboriginal organisations and communities.  Internal self-determination is impossible under such circumstances.

QUEENSLAND'S APARTHEID

The second matter is the continuing practice of apartheid and enforced segregation in the State of Queensland.  Aboriginal reserve communities have still not been issued with title to their lands but the recently enacted Community Services legislation in that State deprives reserve residents of the franchise in local government elections.  This is in blatant violation of Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 5 (c) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.  The Federal Government has remained silent on this matter.

In fact, the Federal Government is adding to the oppression of Queensland Aborigines through its Community Development Employment Program.  Under this Program, Aborigines are denied the right to unemployment benefits which is accorded to all other Australian citizens.  An amount equal to the unemployment benefit is paid to the community council for employment programs but the residents do not have the choice of participating in the program -- they are forced to do so.  Additionally, many Aboriginal people who are employed on Queensland reserves are not paid the award wage for their particular industry.

Land rights, Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the M.C.G.

Charles Perkins

Charles Perkins is Chairman of the Aboriginal Development Commission and Secretary to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.  This is the Australia Day Address delivered in January 1984, to the Rotary Club of Melbourne.  Charles Perkins argues that critics of land rights are over-reacting and that enacting the five principles adopted by the Federal Government is an essential step in rectifying injustices done to the Aboriginal people.

Tomorrow we celebrate Australia Day, but what does Australia Day mean to Australians?

To some it is an excuse for a holiday.  To many others it is another meaningful move towards nationhood and, possibly, a republic.

It becomes a time to reflect on our traditions, history and national consciousness.

The message for all is national pride and achievement.

There is no doubt much has been achieved in Australia, but for whom? Australia is a healthy, prosperous country with a stable political system, a low inflation rate and a huge Gross National Product.

There is no doubt Australia has made it.  Australians can be justifiably proud.

However, this is only one side of the coin.

The other side is the dark side.

This is the turbulent, unhappy and embarrassing side of the Australian national scene.

THE FACE OF INJUSTICE

This is the side which reveals the 200-year history of white/black relations in this country.  It began with Captain Cook's arrival and it continues today.

I am a descendant of a once proud tribe from Central Australia -- the Arunta people.

Today we number very few and own nothing.

We live on the fringes of Alice Springs and on the outer limits of the white person's consciousness.

Aboriginal lifestyle in Australia is in the main one of dependency

We depend on governments.  We depend on missions.  We depend on the goodwill of the white people in authority.

We cringe (like dogs) at the prospects of the "white backlash".

We pray eternally that the white authority structure will not turn on us and impede what little progress we have made.

We ask for Land Rights with tongue in cheek knowing full well in our hearts that the country belonged to us in the first instance.

We stress through the media and other avenues the need for good health for ourselves and our children and are grateful for the crumbs of programs which do not even touch the periphery of the problem.

We stagger and stumble into each other in confusion when our identity as urban Aborigines or Aborigines per se is contested and thus allow ourselves to be psychologically moulded by others.

We then accept the debasement of the living stereotype.

We huddle on degrading missions and reserves to satisfy the greedy desires of governments and mining companies.

The urban ghetto becomes another mission in another age.

The story is still the same:  we are running on the spot and going nowhere quickly.

Aboriginal affairs in this country is a national and international disgrace.

Everyone with any intelligence in this country knows this to be true and yet what is the climate of opinion?

In a recent opinion poll more than 60 per cent of Australians stated that governments are doing enough or even too much for Aboriginal people.

But what is the true story.  Let me give you the Aboriginal perspective.

We have 2000 black lepers.  We have triple or more the white infant mortality rate and mortality rate, ten times the prison incarceration rate and 60 per cent of our housing is slum, shanty or car body dwellings.

We have, in some areas, 98 per cent of our workforce unskilled or unemployable.

Our land, our pride and our future has been taken from us and our people buried in unmarked graves.

We wander through Australian society as beggars.

We live off the crumbs of the white Australian table and are told to be grateful.

This is what Australia Day means to Aboriginal Australians.

We celebrate with you, but there is much sadness in our joy.  It is like dancing on your Mother's grave.

We know we cannot live in the past but the past lives with us.

Every day most Aborigines reflect on their position vis a vis White Australians.  The present and future have no meaning if the past is not recognised for what it was.

So what can we do about it?

We are all Australians, black and white.  We must live with each other so let us try in this decade to bury or to learn from the past forever.

Let us try to understand and co-operate with each other.

This decade gives some basis upon which we can consider the future of Aboriginal people.

The time for paternalism and ignorance of the facts is over.

Aborigines ask no more for sympathy and prayers.

We will play our role if given a real chance.

We are not your enemy.

We do not intend, despite the stupidity of sections of the media, like "The Australian" of recent times, to steal national parks, buildings, ovals or your homes.

REPARATIONS

We demand our rightful place in Australian society and central to all of this is Land Rights.

Land Rights is really the key.

This year and this decade, hopefully, will be one of the most significant years and decades in Aboriginal history.

This is a year which promises to see the passage of Federal Legislation which will at long last provide the legal grounds for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people to achieve social and economic justice.

The Federal Government, through the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Clyde Holding, has made clear its intentions to introduce Uniform Land Rights and Sacred Sites Legislation into the Federal Parliament in the Budget Session and to have it enacted.

With the granting of Land Rights, much of the massive social and economic disadvantages suffered by Aboriginal people can be overcome.

Land provides not just a base for the economic development of Aboriginal communities and individuals.  It provides a base for the restoration of Aboriginal society.

Aboriginal society was, and can be again, a spiritually, culturally and politically rich society.  Given the opportunity, Aboriginal people will make a positive contribution to Australia.

People often underestimate Aboriginal people's contribution to the Australian social and cultural lifestyle.

Our contributions in sport are well known.  Also, we produce what is internationally and nationally fast becoming recognised as the finest abstract and symbolic art in the world.

We have preserved with great care the world's oldest cave paintings.

Recent research, at Lake Mungo in western New South Wales, shows that Aboriginal culture is the oldest in the world, the very oldest by far.

Aboriginal religion is older by about 16,000 years than Egyptian religion and culture -- previously regarded as the oldest known organised religion.

In our long history we were, above all, responsible for the preservation of the Australian environment.  We are not latter day Harry Butlers, thank God.

The land and its flora and fauna were -- and still are by a great many of our people -- regarded with reverence.

The destruction of the environment was unknown.  Soil erosion, floods caused by man-made developments and disease and pest plagues were unknown.

All these damaging phenomena were introduced by European settlers.

Those settlers came to a country with vast tracts of rich lands and many of them, through sheer greed, wrecked huge areas of it.

The Aboriginal people, whose great respect for the land resulted in wealth for many settlers, received nothing and lost much.

Much of Aboriginal culture, religion, social cohesion and lifestyle was destroyed.

It should not be forgotten that the present Federal Government's proposed Land Rights and Sacred Sites Legislation action stems from the 1967 referendum in which 97% of Australians gave the Commonwealth over-riding powers in Aboriginal affairs.  Australia should not now renege on its commitment.

Mr Holding set the scene for this legislation by introducing into the Parliament last month a resolution which defined the basic principles of any government's actions in Aboriginal affairs.

The resolution acknowledges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people owned Australia for many thousands of years before British settlement -- 40,000 years in fact, according to carbon dating and other archeological evidence.

It acknowledges that no agreement was ever made between white settlers and Aboriginal people about ownership of the land, that basic human rights were disregarded, that Aboriginal people were dispossessed of their property and that our society was shattered to the extent that our people are today the single most disadvantaged socio-economic group in Australia.

The resolution recognises that this inequality exists and persists despite the efforts in recent years of Federal, State and Territory Governments.

It then sets out five basic principles that will guide the Government on land rights, thereby allowing Aboriginal people to attain control of their own lives.

The five principles are: --

1. Aboriginal land to be held under inalienable freehold title;
2. protection of Aboriginal sacred sites and sites of significance;
3. Aboriginal control of mining on Aboriginal land;
4. Aboriginal access to mining royalty equivalents;  and
5. compensation for lost land to be negotiated.

These principles are only one part of a series of measures designed to allow Aboriginal people to regain equality.

The other measures embrace the concepts of consultation, of health, education, housing, employment, welfare, of cultural identity, of family unity, customary law and community relations.

The resolution concludes by expressing the view that, and I quote, "The Australian people will be truly free and united only when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of this nation are free of the distress, the poverty and the alienation that has been their lot."

It sets 1988 -- the Bicentennial Year -- as the focus for all Australians to think seriously about our national beginnings.

The resolution is one of the most vital resolutions ever to be laid before the Federal Parliament.

It is vital because it acknowledges history and provides the basis for a secure and productive, lifestyle for Aboriginal people, and thus for Australia.

The greater majority of Aboriginal people do not have at present the same right to life as non-Aboriginal Australians.  Some people would contest this assertion, but ample evidence supports it.

INEQUALITY

As I have said previously, in comparison with the general population, we have a higher mortality rate, a lower education rate, a higher unemployment rate, far less housing, far lower incomes and a far higher rate of imprisonment.

We are not, despite media and mining industry comments, uranium sheiks.

Let me give a few figures.

The national infant mortality rate in 1981 was less than 10 per 1,000 live births.  For Aboriginals, it was just under 20 in South Australia, about 30 in the Northern Territory and almost 35 in Western Australia.

Educationally, only about 0.5% of the Aboriginal population is engaged in tertiary studies compared with 2.2% of the general population.

In housing, more than 6,000 Aboriginal families are on the Aboriginal Development Commission's waiting list alone for assistance in acquiring homes.

The imprisonment rates for Aboriginals are staggering.

In Western Australia the rate is more than 1,400 per 100,000 people compared with less than 100 for the non-Aboriginal population.

In South Australia, the rates are about 1150 and 50 per 100,000.  They are about 820 for Aboriginal people and 30 for non-Aboriginals here in Victoria;  about 690 and 75, respectively, in Queensland;  about 510 and 240, respectively, in the Northern Territory;  about 480 and 60, in New South Wales;  and about 300 and 75 in Tasmania.

No Australian, Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, can be proud of these figures.

These are painful statistics which show two things: --

1. The assistance being provided by governments to help Aboriginal people achieve self-management so we are not a so-called drain on State welfare has not yet achieved its objective;  and
2. That despite the overwhelming influence of western culture in Australia that Aboriginal culture has not been destroyed, is very much part of Australia's partly multi-cultural society, and that it must be given recognition when decisions are taken which affect it.

Let me deal with the first point:

The financial assistance being given to help Aboriginal self-development is not great in comparison with assistance in other areas.  My point is that funds are insufficient to overcome the difficulties Aboriginals encounter.  Let me make this point clear.

The Department of Aboriginal Affairs has been allocated $204 million for Aboriginal affairs in 1983/84.

That amount is to come from a total budget outlay of $56,703 million.

It represents about 0.6% of the total outlay.

Yet Aboriginal people comprise about 1.1% of the population.

To put the figure in a clearer perspective, $1,104 million has been allocated for industry assistance, $5,280 million for defence and $833 million allocated for overseas aid.

A comparison may also be made with the amount of assistance provided by the Federal Government for war veterans.

In 1983/84, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been allocated $2,818 billion and it has about 11,600 people administering its activities.  None of us has any great misgivings about government assistance to those people who have fought to defend Australia.

Those people have often lost the opportunity to develop educationally and professionally, so it is only just that they receive compensation.

Such programs of special assistance are clearly endorsed by the Australian people and yet Aboriginal people have suffered similar disadvantages for almost 200 years.

So criticisms about the amount of assistance given to us carry no weight.  The only valid criticism which can be made about programs of special assistance to Aboriginals, when compared with similar programs, is that nowhere near enough assistance is given to those who desperately require it.

All this provides some idea of why the Federal Government is proposing to act in the way I outlined earlier.

It does not, however, provide the philosophical understanding necessary if the general population is to accept the need for land rights and sacred sites legislation.

This brings me to the second point which I mentioned a few moments ago.

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF LAND

Aboriginal people are of a vastly different culture to non-Aboriginal culture.  Traditional Aboriginal culture is governed by a deep, spiritual affinity with the land.

Land to Aboriginal people is part of their being.  It is not, as it is to non-Aboriginal people, a saleable commodity.

Aboriginal clans come to arrangements regarding mining on sacred sites usually in the face of a fait accompli.

The spirit of Aboriginal people is derived from the land or, more specifically, from the sacred sites of the dreamtime.

There is little difference between this belief and some Christian beliefs about the soul.

If Aboriginal people are dispossessed of their land, they are dispossessed of their spirit, that is, of their reason for being.

And if land is destroyed, the spirit is also destroyed, people are destroyed.

So, when land is taken from Aboriginal people, or even when it is desecrated as in mining or pastoral activities, then the spirit of the people is finished.  The socio-cultural system providing the basis for Aboriginal society disintegrates when this happens and the chain is broken.

I realise that many non-Aboriginal people are generally unable to accept or understand such values.

Western culture views land largely in economic terms.

However I do know some who do have some affinity beyond pure economics.

Malcolm Fraser retained "Nareen" and Tony Street has kept his property despite their heavy involvement in politics.

Doug Anthony kept his farm and, even though Doug is an affable bloke who has done much for Australia and its overseas trade and development, his assistance to Aboriginal affairs makes us delighted that he is returning to farming.  I wish others from the National Party, like Joh Bjelke-Petersen, would follow his fine example.

To Aboriginal people the granting of land rights and the protection of sacred sites is so important.  It is really beyond debate.

How can you debate the return to someone or groups of people something that belonged to them in the first place?

If non-Aboriginal Australians cannot accept these principles, and I urge them to, then there will be two main consequences:

Firstly, Australia will remain an immature nation -- because maturity carries with it the acceptance of other people for what and who they are.

Secondly, Australia must eventually take the degenerate step of smashing every other culture that is not the culture of the dominant group in Australian society.

The important cultural elements of these other groups will go.

There will be no synagogues, and no mosques.  There will be no ethnic organisations -- no Italian, Greek, German or Spanish clubs.

In short, the destruction of Aboriginal culture or the destruction of any other of the various cultures in Australia, would mean a weakening of the rich social fabric that makes Australia a nation with the potential of becoming the world's first truly multi-cultural society.

BASELESS FEARS

I know that many non-Aboriginal Australians may fear the introduction of uniform land rights and sacred sites legislation.

The most common fears are that once we get these rights enacted as laws of the nation that we will block economic development and take over many areas of land which are economically and culturally significant to the nation in general.

Such fears have been deliberately cultivated by newspapers like "The Australian" and other sections of the media, the National Party and vested mining interests, for example, Mr Hugh Morgan, the Executive Director of Western Mining Corporation, whose recent speech to Australian businessmen in London has not gone unnoticed, by us.

Pastoralists and various members of the lunatic right who occasionally speak to R.S.L. gatherings are other offenders.

Let me allay those fears.

Land rights for Aboriginal people were first introduced in Australia in the Northern Territory in 1976.

The legislation was based almost entirely on a report by Mr Justice Woodward who said land rights should be granted to Aboriginal people, and I quote, "as a matter of simple justice".

Incidentally, Mr Justice Woodward is a former head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

His report is lasting proof that, contrary to one view now being widely bandied about, the progress towards land rights is not part of a Communist plot to destroy Australian democracy.

I do not imagine that Mr Justice Woodward or the people who put such faith in him to head A.S.I.O. would do anything but laugh at remarks which link him with Communist plots.  We really should have broken that link a long time ago.

Since the introduction of land rights in the Northern Territory there has been -- despite the fears of many people -- substantial economic development on land which has been returned to its traditional Aboriginal owners.  It should be noted that Aboriginal people have never stopped mining developments in the Northern Territory and that may surprise some people.

In Central Australia alone the three major developments which have begun since 1976 have all been on Aboriginal land.

Those developments are Mereenie and Palm Valley, which are operative, and North Flinders, where work is at a very preliminary stage.

The agreements clearing the way for these vast projects were reached in consultations between the developers and the Aboriginal owners.

Consultation is an integral part of Aboriginal culture.

Decisions are often only made after exhaustive discussion among those people who have the authority to make them.

Developers, particularly mining developers, have come to recognise, albeit begrudgingly in some instances, that when they accept Aboriginal owners' cultural need to consult, so that traditions and sacred sites may be preserved, that the barriers to development are minor.

In other words, what has happened in the Northern Territory is that Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people have come to a mutual acceptance of each other's interests.

It is only the Country Liberal Party Government which fans the flames of racism for political purposes, keeping people apart, and the Territorian white people are silly enough to accept this form of convenient stereotype racism as we saw in the recent N.T. election.

However, with provisions in national land rights legislation which recognise the interests of all parties, I am sure that Aboriginal culture will be preserved alongside economic development.

Another fear is that any time development is planned that the Aboriginal people suddenly find a sacred site and use its existence to stop progress.  That fear can be allayed also.

Virtually all sacred sites are, by definition, secret sites.

Their presence is often known only to a few members of a tribe or clan.

Because they are secret sites, Aboriginal people do not openly discuss their locations.

Only when sites are threatened is their existence revealed.  Simply in a natural effort to protect them.

The route for the proposed Alice Springs-Darwin railway line has been planned in consultation with Aboriginal people with the result that not one sacred site will be disturbed.

That fact alone should indicate that sacred sites are no barrier to development.

NEED FOR NATIONAL LEGISLATION

Uniform land rights will mean, of course, that all State Governments will have to co-operate with the Commonwealth to ensure that justice is done.  Few State Governments have yet acted in any determined way.

The Victorian Government has introduced land rights legislation but has deferred it while consultations are held with community groups, particularly on compensation.

It is not entirely the Government's fault that there has been a delay in the introduction of suitable legislation.

The New South Wales Government has passed legislation that fails to provide the principle and substance which are fundamental to the land rights issue.

In South Australia, the State Government has in its Pitjatjantjara Land Rights Act a basis for justice and rehabilitation of the Aboriginal people.

The Liberal Opposition, however, is thwarting legislation designed to restore homelands to the Maralinga people, despite the fact that the Act was first proposed by Sir Thomas Playford.

In Western Australia, an inquiry is now in progress but the opposition to our just claim is mounting to a point where racism and greed seem to be the dominant elements.

Tasmania has done nothing and Premier Gray intends to keep it that way.  One could not accuse him of being intelligent on Aboriginal issues -- particularly land rights.

In Queensland, the 18th century colonial mentality of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Government reigns on.

Surprisingly, however, the new Queensland Minister for Aboriginal and Islander Affairs, Mr Bob Katter, has introduced amending legislation which could provide some land rights justice to Queensland's black people.

At present, land held by Queensland Aboriginal people can be and has been taken away with the stroke of a pen.

The new legislation provides for Parliament to decide the fate of Aboriginal land.

There is some hope in that -- but it has yet to be tested against the Bjelke-Petersen machine and Queensland's particular brand of parliamentary democracy.

The fear that the granting of uniform land rights will result in Aboriginal people claiming and taking over land which has significance to non-Aboriginal Australians may be allayed also.

I give an assurance here and now that Aboriginal people are not interested in the destruction of non-Aboriginal sacred and culturally significant land and objects.  Nor, despite rumours, in the return of the whole of Australia.  We do not want it back.  It has been ruined anyway.

To seek the ownership of any of Australia's cathedrals, such as St Paul's, or of sacred places such as the Shrine of Remembrance, or of culturally significant sites, such as the M.C.G., is not our intention.

There may be a few Aboriginal people who make such wild claims but I assure you that these do not have widespread support.

So I give you a firm assurance that Aboriginal people are not planning to take over the M.C.G.  It costs too much to maintain anyhow.

Similarly, Aboriginal people are not interested in claiming cathedrals.

And many of our Aboriginal people have fought in wars for Australia -- and that should be remembered -- so places like the Shrine of Remembrance have considerable significance to us.

What we ask, as a right, is that non-Aboriginal Australians have the same respect for places and objects of significance to us.

That respect is not being given.

For example, there was a loud outcry recently when the Federal Government announced that title to Ayers Rock, or Uluru as we call it, was to be handed over to its traditional Aboriginal owners.

The N.T. Government deliberately misled the N.T. people and Australians generally, mainly through the "Australian" newspaper, with its claims of so-called black alienation of a National Park.

Uluru has been a place of sacred significance to Aboriginal people of Central Australia for 40,000 years.  That is quite a deal of time.  It is longer than 200 years.

Yet non-Aboriginal people too often have shown little and even no respect for those parts of Uluru that are sacred.

They have disregarded the interests and rights of the traditional owners.

And yet they cannot understand that Aboriginal people have a responsibility to their race to protect these rights.

Nevertheless, ever since the traditional Aboriginal owners have formally laid claim to Uluru they have made it quite clear that Uluru will remain available to all people.  They will lease it back to the Commonwealth in perpetuity as happened at Kakadu, in Arnhem Land.

The only exceptions will be a few pacts of Uluru which are sacred to the traditional owners to the extent that even some Aboriginal people who are not initiated do not have access to them and these have for some years been protected under a law instituted by Paul Everingham's Government.  So there is a contradiction.

Let me assure you that Uluru is open to the nation and its people.

Let me assure you also that despite what anyone thinks, we will not be moving Ayers Rock --anywhere!  It will stay where it is.

Our powers are somewhat limited!

Much of what I have been saying today relates to Aboriginal people living in traditional circumstances, but most Aboriginal people live in urban areas or on the fringes of country towns.

Non-Aboriginal people often say that these people have no right to land or sacred sites because they have no significance to them any longer.  It should be remembered that this category of Aboriginal people who live mainly in southern Australia and on the eastern seaboard are true descendants of the tribal people who lived before them in areas now occupied by white people.

As Mr Justice Woodward and many politicians of all political persuasions have pointed out, a just case for compensation to be granted, can be made.

The case for compensation can be argued on the grounds of the previous Federal Government's policy that the dispossession and dispersal of Aboriginal people, that is the destruction of much of their society, makes compensatory measures just.

Urban Aboriginal people provide the greatest single difficulty for white Australian society to contend with in terms of land rights, housing, health, employment and such -- in other words the compensatory factor.

White Australians will not accept that programs and projects in Aboriginal affairs are there specifically to overcome disadvantages faced by a group and not, as claimed by some sections of the media and others (for example, Bruce Ruxton of the R.S.L.) to give one group an advantage over another.

This is what a just and democratic society is all about after all.  The aged, infirm and veterans are assisted for this very reason.  So should it be with Aboriginal people.  The facts are there.

However, as I have said before, and according to the Borrie Report, there is no doubt that Aboriginal people today, whether they live in traditional, urban or fringe-dweller locations, are the single most disadvantaged group in Australian society.

Aboriginal socio-economic circumstances are a disgrace in such an affluent country as Australia.

Our plight cannot be ignored.

We do not want to continue to depend on the State for our existence.

The granting of land rights will help provide a base for the restoration of our society, economically and socially.

It will give us a psychological boost, restoring our pride.

It is the first rung on a very long ladder.

From this should follow the re-establishment of a healthy, well-housed, self-managing race of people able and willing to contribute to the harmonious progress of Australia as Australians.

Mr Chairman, with tomorrow being Australia Day 1984, I think it is appropriate for Rotarians to give serious thought to what they can do to assist the restoration of Aboriginal society so that it can make the positive contribution to Australia that we know it can.

We need to ensure that all Australians understand the significance of land and sacred sites to Aboriginal people.

I therefore ask you to spread the message which I have given you today, to help people become aware that Aboriginal people can contribute positively to Australian society, and that we are not opposed to development.

In particular, I ask you to publish, through your organisation, the Bicentennial Report which has been distributed to you today, plus the speech by Minister Clyde Holding.

The Report -- outlining Aboriginal objectives for the Bicentennial -- shows the hopes, desires and needs of our people.  They are hopes, desires and needs which, when met, will enable us to be equal members of Australian society at least by 1988.

If this Report is enacted, and it is not beyond our means to do so, we will then be able to say to the world that Australia is at long last a real nation that is free of racial injustice and conflict, a nation in which all people receive a fair go and hence, a nation in which we all live in security and in harmony.

Let us be proud to be Australians and recognise that we live in a unique society that has at last recognised history and has done something about it in positive terms without embarrassment.

Let us leave a legacy of hope for our children.

We belong to each other and we cannot let the past haunt our present and future.  We must create together the kind of society where differences of culture are accepted, where disadvantage for any section is not acceptable be it women, the aged, ethnic groups or Aborigines.

The future is ours to create.  Let us not live through the trauma of America and England.

Let history teach us something.

Federal government policies and initiatives

The Hon. Clyde Holding, M.P.

Clyde Holding is Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.  This address was made to the Conference on Aborigines and International Law in Canberra in November, 1983.  It sets out the principles on which Federal Government Aboriginal policy is based and outlines the progress made in implementing these principles.

Thank you for the invitation to address this group.

I have always been pleased to note the constant and sustained interest and involvement that people, such as you, have maintained in ensuring that the public, and governments, are constantly reminded of Aboriginal rights -- including those rights supported by international law and convention.

GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES

The Hawke Government, since coming to office in March of this year, has achieved much for Aboriginal Australians.  Although not a comprehensive list, I might remind you of some of these:

• Funds made available to my portfolio for Aboriginal programs were increased this year by 28% (in spite of a time of financial difficulty)
• We have supported increased programs for
  1. Housing (ADC)
  2. Health
  3. Education and Training
  4. Legal Aid
  5. Community Works
• We have established task forces to concentrate on gaining real advances in training, employment and in housing.
• We have supported the Aboriginal Development Commission in its functions.
• The Minister for Housing and Construction recently announced a significant increase in funds earmarked for Aboriginal housing provided to the States under the Commonwealth/State Housing Agreement.

GOVERNMENT POLICIES

The Labor Government has clear policies in relation to land rights.  Unlike the previous government we are not afraid to set down our policies on land rights and to stand by those policies.

The Australian Parliament has clear constitutional powers to make laws for Aboriginal people ("People of Any Race" -- Section 51 (XXVI.) and "External Affairs" -- Section 51 (XXIV.) to name but two.  I believe that these powers were largely confirmed by the High Court decision on the Tasmanian Dams case.

It is the responsibility of this Government in accordance with its platform on Aboriginal Affairs, to ensure that positive steps are taken to secure land rights and to protect Aboriginal heritage.

State Governments also have the legal capacity to provide land rights and protect the cultural sites and objects of their Aboriginal citizens.

The extent of their willingness varies -- all States have enacted legislation which protects, to varying degrees, sites and/or objects;  some States have enacted or are preparing to enact legislation to achieve recognition of land rights.  But some have not, and maintain that they will not.

Despite some progress in individual States, none is in a position which satisfies completely our policy objectives.

I have summarised some goals with the following five principles.

1. Aboriginal land to be held under inalienable freehold title;
2. The full legal protection of Aboriginal sites;
3. Aboriginal control in relation to mining on Aboriginal land;
4. Access to mining royalty equivalents;  and
5. Compensation for lost land to be negotiated.

In addition to the principle on sites protection, I have further announced the Government's intention of ensuring that the sale of sacred objects will be prohibited and that sacred objects are returned to their traditional owners.

I do not underestimate the difficulties which confront the Commonwealth Government in pursuit of its objective to achieve a uniform approach on land rights throughout Australia.  It is already evident that the various States, regardless of their political persuasion, are keen to maintain their interest in all developments affecting land administration within their boundaries.  This is not to say that all States will resist the development of uniform land rights.  It is required, however, that consultation take place between the Commonwealth and the various State Governments and that this process will undoubtedly give rise to a variety of issues which will have to be addressed and resolved before the final objective can be reached.  Nevertheless, it is my view that in so far as the Labor States are concerned they, as much as the Commonwealth Government, are bound by the Labor Party policy as it relates to the development of land rights.  It is also the case that the Commonwealth Government takes the firm view that it has a primary constitutional responsibility in the field of Aboriginal affairs.  These two factors combined lead me to believe that we will achieve the objective within the lifetime of the first Hawke administration.

IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICIES

How does the Government intend going about putting its policies into practice?  The first fundamental point is that Aboriginals and, in particular, the National Aboriginal Conference, are to be fully involved in the development of necessary legislation.  The particular initiatives to date are:

• The establishment of a panel of lawyers, working under the direction of a steering committee, to work on drafting legislation and to assist me in negotiating with State Governments.
• The appointment of Mr Justice Toohey, the first Commissioner under the Aboriginal Land Rights (N.T.) Act, to review the N.T. Land Rights Act.
• Measures taken to ensure that adequate legal arrangements are made to excise parts of rural properties, on which Aboriginals live, to guarantee secure tenure.

PANEL OF LAWYERS AND STEERING COMMITTEE

The panel of lawyers, to which I referred, comprises two lawyers engaged by the N.A.C., two lawyers nominated by land councils, a N.A.I.L.S. representative, a nominee from my office, a D.A.A. nominee and a Q.C. appointed by myself.

The panel of lawyers has already met on several occasions and actively seeks guidance and direction from the steering committee.

There is no doubt that any steering committee which is established and which seeks to represent Aboriginal views will be considered by many as inadequate.  It is of course quite impossible to provide individual representation on such a committee for the host of Aboriginal organisations and communities that exist throughout Australia.  The Commonwealth Government has made it clear that the National Aboriginal Conference is considered to be the primary source of advice to the Government on Aboriginal affairs.  It is for this reason that the steering committee is comprised of the Chairman of each State Branch on the N.A.C. along with the National Chairman and the N.A.C. executive spokesman on land rights.  There are also represented four land councils, two of which are from the Northern Territory and which have had practical experience in the administration of their statutory responsibilities under the N.T. Land Rights Legislation.  The other two councils represented are the Kimberley Land Council of Western Australia and the North Queensland Land Council.  These two councils represent Aboriginals from two areas of Australia where significant developments in the field of land rights are about to take place.  The A.D.C. is also represented by its Chairman.

The panel of lawyers will draft national land rights legislation and legislation to protect sites and objects.  As a priority seen by the Aboriginal people themselves, the panel will in the first instance concentrate on the development of national legislation for the protection of Aboriginal sites and portable objects.

As the steering committee has proceeded to consider some of the policy issues associated with the development of national land rights, it is apparent that there are many issues upon which the Aboriginal people have a variety of views.  It is apparent also, however, that on some of the more significant policy issues there is consensus amongst those represented on the steering committee.  Perhaps one concern I have had and which I continue to place before the steering committee is that of time.  On the one hand there is clearly a need for consultation, and the need to gain an understanding of the various issues which are being considered.  On the other hand the constraints and demands of a parliamentary timetable cannot be overlooked.  The proceedings associated with the passage of legislation through the Parliament are such that some considerable lead time is required.  If the timetable for the introduction and passage of legislation on land rights by the budget sittings of 1984 is to be achieved, the legislation will need to be in draft form by early next year.  The strains and the difficulties that this will give rise to may well be significant but I continue to believe that, with the co-operation, not only of the Aboriginal people but of all those directly concerned with the development of this legislation, that timetable can be achieved.

WRECK BAY LAND GRANT

We are, as a related issue, also working on the development of legislation to grant inalienable freehold title to the Aboriginal community at Wreck Bay in the Jervis Bay territory.  It seems incongruous that land rights has not been achieved in an area which has been totally under the control of the Commonwealth -- I would hope that legislation, to grant freehold title to the Wreck Bay community, will also be introduced in the autumn sittings.

EXCISION ARRANGEMENTS

In June this year I made clear the Government's commitment to secure excisions for Aboriginal people resident on pastoral leases and for people living in fringe-camps near towns but having past residential attachments to land on those leases.

I have said on a number of occasions that the Hawke Government will in no way support or endorse the view that the Aboriginal people resident on pastoral properties anywhere in Australia should be offered less rights than the cattle or other live stock on those pastoral properties.

Any of you who have had the experience of visiting pastoral properties particularly in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, will be aware that it is no exaggeration to describe some of these communities as living in conditions equal to the worst conditions applicable in third world countries.  You will also know that there are those who believe that when it comes to a competition between the interests of the Aboriginal people and cattle in respect of waterholes, for example, the view is held that the cattle should override the interests of the Aboriginal people.  It was in this context that I wrote to the pastoralists in the Northern Territory seeking their co-operation to negotiate on a voluntary basis excisions for the Aboriginal people on pastoral properties.

I am happy to say that of the 24 pastoralists who were approached, some 19 have responded positively and negotiations and/or dialogues have now commenced which I am confident will result in property excisions being granted.  There have been one or two negative responses and without identifying those concerned perhaps I can demonstrate the sort of attitudes which are expressed by some property owners, more particularly in this case a foreign-based owner of a pastoral property in the Northern Territory.  Let me quote from a letter which he sent to the Minister for Community Development in the Northern Territory just recently --

"While we respect your desire to accommodate the Aboriginal group at ...;  we are obligated to our stock-holders to operate the cattle station in the most efficient manner possible.  We expect to have need for the water-point for the cattle operation during the upcoming drought.

"However, be will allow this group to remain on the station at their present location provided the Northern Territory Government fill guarantee the following:

1. That the group will be removed from ... station within two years after official notice is given by the company that the area occupied by the ... group is required for our cattle operation.
2. That the group will not be enlarged beyond a total of 40 individuals.
3. That the group will not kill or molest our cattle or horses in the vicinity of their encampment.
4. That the group will not allow their members to wander about outside their present encampment area or in any way interfere with cattle operation.
5. That the Territory Government will remove any facilities which it has or will install within two years after notification for the removal of the group and that it will restore the area to its original appearance.
6. That the group will agree to the above conditions in writing.
7. That the group will agree to pay a token rental for this location of $1.00 per year.
8. That the group will agree in writing that it has no Aboriginal claims to this or other company property."

As you would expect, the gentleman concerned received a letter from me in which I, in fairly succinct terms, pointed out certain facts as they now apply here in Australia, and invited him to reconsider his position and to negotiate an excision with the Aboriginal people concerned.

I am happy to say that I have now received a response from that company in which it has indicated a willingness to reconsider its position and I am confident discussion regarding excisions will soon proceed.

I have also asked Mr Justice Toohey, in his examination of the Aboriginal Land Rights (N.T.) Act, to examine methods of achieving excisions.

In Western Australia, there have been only three excisions on pastoral properties despite a number of outstanding requests.  The Western Australian Labor Government is now acting to rectify this situation and as a result 15 outstanding requests are now being accelerated.  Resolution of the applications is expected in most cases within three months.

REVIEW OF THE ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS (N.T.) ACT

Our predecessors had been discussing and negotiating what became known as a 10-point package with the Northern Territory Government which had as its aim the amendment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in the Northern Territory.  This became a fairly heated political exercise which led to no resolution of the issues involved and would appear to me to have alienated the Aboriginal people in the process.

It was clear to me that a similar exercise would not have been desirable and yet there was a need to consider a number of issues relating to the operation of the Land Rights Act.  I held the view that it would be more appropriate to appoint a person who is held in esteem by both Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals, particularly in the Northern Territory, who could independently inquire into and report upon those aspects of the legislation which were said to be causing some difficulties for various individuals and interest groups in the Northern Territory.

Mr Justice Toohey, first Aboriginal Land Commissioner, was such a person and I appointed him to examine and report upon the many matters which had been brought to my attention and upon which I required advice.  Mr Justice Toohey has recently returned from the Northern Territory where he has spoken with a very large number of people both black and white and who represent the whole spectrum of opinion on Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory.  I am expecting his report by the end of this month and that report will be made public so that people may respond to the recommendations which are contained within that report.  The Government will then consider what amendments, if any, should be made to that legislation.

I have also asked Mr Justice Toohey to report and recommend amendments where appropriate with respect to:

1. Meeting the needs of Aboriginals who are unable to claim land under the Act for sufficient land for community living areas;
2. Resolving administrative and procedural difficulties arising from the operation of the Act;
3. Reducing any detriment to Aboriginals which might result from the provisions and operation of the Act;
4. Reducing any areas of conflict or inconsistency between the administration of the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978 and the Act;
5. The extent and type of land available for claim by Aboriginals.

SUMMARY OF GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES

I believe that these initiatives clearly establish our commitment to Aboriginal land rights, and to the protection of Aboriginal culture.

We believe we have the constitutional authority and the parliamentary responsibility to achieve our policies.

SOVEREIGNTY

One of the central themes of this conference has been the issue of sovereignty as it applies in relation to the Aboriginal people of this nation.

I appreciate the feelings which underlie the Aboriginal requests and demands that Aboriginal sovereignty be recognised.  I feel bound to say, however, that as a practising politician of many years standing, that the question of sovereignty is one which will attract only minimal support from any Parliament of Australia.  I have said to Aboriginal groups in the bluntest terms on a variety of occasions throughout this country that the issue of sovereignty is not an issue with any prospect of success.  Those who support the Aboriginal cause in relation to this matter do so for the very best reasons and I respect the dedication of their advocacy.  But they are more likely to help win the struggle for justice for Aboriginal people by working for the achievement of Aboriginal land rights across Australia.  There is a real risk that the pursuit of the concept of a separate sovereignty for the Aboriginal community will only give aid and support to those in and out of Government who oppose any real progress for Aboriginal interests.

I do not consider the sovereignty issue a politically achievable objective.

That is not to say that the Parliament of this country, on behalf of the citizens of this country, cannot recognise the prior ownership by the Aboriginal people of the continent.  Nor do I suggest that the conquest of this continent by non-Aboriginal forces should be ignored or disguised as peaceful settlement.  Quite the contrary.  I hold the strong personal view that unless and until those matters are recognised both on a community basis and by way of formal recognition in the Parliament of Australia, this nation will lack integrity and credibility in the field of human rights in the eyes of its own citizens as well as of the international community.

All the policies which my Government is currently pursuing are based firmly in the recognition and acknowledgement of Aboriginal prior ownership and their dispersal and dispossession.

But let there be no doubt at all.  Aboriginal and Islander people are Australian citizens.  Their status is not in question.  Nothing will change that.  Aborigines are subject to the same laws, enjoy the same rights and have to meet the same responsibilities under the law.  That there has been an uneven and unfair application of the law in the past, and although in some respects there still is at present, provides all of us with a challenge more urgent and more capable of practical improvement, than any amount of discussion of questions of sovereignty.

CONCLUSION

This Government has set itself significant objectives in the field of Aboriginal affairs.  We can achieve our objectives with the co-operation of the States, the Aboriginal community and the community at large.  We must accept the possibility, however, that our actions will be challenged by some.

However, we are committed as a Government to land rights and cultural protection and we have a timetable in place to achieve our objectives.

It is for these reasons that I prefer not to discuss the details of Commonwealth land rights legislation, but would prefer to keep our options open as we progress towards the budget sittings 1984.

We recognise the fundamental importance to Aboriginals of land rights.  The restoration of land to Aboriginals is not only possible but a necessity.

We have an obligation, supported by international conventions, to guarantee the rights of Aboriginals and to provide the means so that they can equally establish their place as Australian citizens.

The state of the debate

CONTENTS

Introduction

The state of the debate
Dr. Tim Duncan

Federal government policies and initiatives
The Hon. Clyde Holding, M.P.

Land rights, Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the M.C.G.
Charles Perkins

The rights of indigenous populations
Rob Riley

Land rights should be equal rights
The Chamber of Mines of Western Australia

Letter to the federal parliamentary Labor Party
Graeme Campbell, M.P.

Religious traditions, mining and land rights
Hugh Morgan

T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal customary laws
The Hon. Mr. Justice M.D. Kirby, C.M.G.

Select Bibliography

Appendix 1: Aboriginal land in Australia

Appendix 2: Aboriginal land tenure and population

Appendix 3: Expenditure on Aboriginal programmes*

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INTRODUCTION

Aboriginal land rights have emerged as a source of uncertainty and division in Australia.  In publishing this collection of articles, speeches and letters the author's aim is to help clarify the central issues in this increasingly important debate.  This booklet brings together the views of prominent spokesmen in government, the land rights movement, the mining industry, the legal profession and other sections of the community in order to present a range of information and opinion relevant to the land rights issue.

Tim Duncan provides an overview of the recent background to the debate.

The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Clyde Holding, outlines Federal Government policy on land rights, although, as Tim Duncan notes, recent events have forced modifications to this policy.

Charles Perkins and Rob Riley, both leading spokesmen for land rights, present their versions of the Aboriginal perspective.  Rob Riley's speech was delivered at an important international forum.

Hugh Morgan's speech, which produced a substantial media reaction when delivered in May 1984, represents an unusually forthright statement of the case against land rights from the mining industry.  The Chamber of Mines of Western Australia sets out other principles it believes are at stake in land rights legislation.

Government policy on land rights has aroused uneasiness and division even in the ranks of the Labor Party.  The letter by Graeme Campbell, MP., is included as an indication of this.

Granting special land rights to Aborigines depends, in part, on modern Australian law accepting the legitimacy of traditional Aboriginal law.  In the final article Justice Michael Kirby, former Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission, discusses the contradictions and problems the Australian legal system would encounter in recognising Aboriginal spiritual authority and incorporating Aboriginal law.

AN OVERVIEW

In December 1983 the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Clyde Holding, outlined the five principles on which the Hawke Government intended to base national land rights legislation.  These principles are:

• Aboriginal land to be held under inalienable freehold title
• Aboriginal control in relation to mining on Aboriginal land
• Protection of sacred sites
• Access to mining royalty equivalents
• Compensation for lost land to be negotiated

As Tim Duncan points out, the past year has seen the breakdown of bipartisan support for these principles and the emergence of divisions between the major parties (and within parties), between Federal and State Governments and in the community.  Many of the doubts that have arisen regarding land rights are based on perceived conflicts between the principles outlined by Mr. Holding and principles embodied in Australian law and convention.  These doubts cannot easily be summarised, but seven points of .conflict, distilled from several of the contributions that follow, can briefly be noted here:

• the conflict between the granting of inalienable freehold title to Aborigines, a title granted to no other Australians, and the principle of equality before the law of all Australians;
• the conflict between Aboriginal control over mining and the law applying to other citizens of the nation that landowners have title and rights only to the surface of the land and not to the minerals that lie beneath;
• the conflict between the payment of mining royalties directly to groups of Aboriginal landowners and the traditional payment of mining royalties to the Crown to be distributed throughout the whole community;
• the extent to which incorporating recognition of sacred sites into Australian law necessitates incorporating the whole package of Aboriginal customary laws, many of which appear to be incompatible with established principles in the Australian legal system;
• the conflict between the ethical basis of land grants in terms of compensation for past wrongs done to Aborigines and the principle of individual responsibility:  that guilt and culpability should only be attributable to individuals and not to collectives and that the living are not culpable for the crimes of their ancestors.  Does compensation challenge the legitimacy of European settlement and inherited institutions?
• the conflict between the protection of sacred sites and the economic losses to Australia resulting from the restrictions and delays to mining activity generated by land rights legislation;
• the conflict between uniform national legislation and States' rights.

JUSTICE AND COMPASSION

Whatever the merits of the respective cases, it should be noted that these conflicts have arisen not primarily from the granting of land to Aborigines, but from the special, even exceptional, conditions and assumptions under which land is given.  No party to the dispute should deny the need for compassion and justice in dealing with the Aboriginal issue.  The problem is to weigh up the various claims to justice and decide which policies would best serve these values.  This booklet is published as a contribution to resolving this problem.

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THE STATE OF THE DEBATE

Dr. Tim Duncan

Tim Duncan is Melbourne correspondent for The Bulletin and has written extensively on the land rights issue. In this article he examines the recent political history of the debate and discusses the causes of rising dissension over land rights legislation.

The Australian Labor party defeated the Fraser Government in March 1983 with its land rights and Aboriginal heritage platform hardly mentioned during the preceding campaign.  This came as no surprise for the parties did not fundamentally disagree.

In December 1983 the Labor Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Clyde Holding, delivered a statement of intentions to Parliament.  He summarised the approach of the Hawke government to the rights of Aboriginals to land as that which would conform to five principles (listed in the Introduction).

These principles were neither new nor controversial for the parliamentarians on both sides of the House who listened to the Minister.  All that was new was the government's declared intention to extend to the whole of Australia the spirit of the Aborigines Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, introduced by the Fraser government in 1976 on the basis of recommendations made in the Woodward Report of 1974.  This inquiry in turn was the product of the ALP policy platform which the Whitlam government took with it into power in 1972.

BREAKDOWN OF SUPPORT

Yet within six months of Holding's December speech to Parliament, the bipartisan approach appeared to have broken down.  After nearly eight years, despite the characteristic opportunism of Federal Parliamentary politics, the Federal Opposition and some State Governments were having second thoughts about the political wisdom of the Woodward approach.

What happened?  Broadly, controversy over Aboriginal land rights got closer to the homes of those who vote.  The debate was no longer restricted to an exotic argument between distant miners and Aboriginals over the control of apparently worthless desert.

It would be a mistake to think that the extension of the Woodward approach to South Australia, through South Australia's Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act of 1981, led to the breakdown of bipartisanship.  On the contrary, the South Australian legislation probably represented the high water-mark for the bipartisan approach.  The Act was brought down by a Liberal government, acting in then orthodox fashion on behalf of a small but very well organised desert community.  Bipartisanship survived while the States developed their positions in isolation, and while the Federal Government left all but the Northern Territory alone.  It broke down at the moment when a Labor Federal Minister made it clear that land rights was to become a national issue, and that Canberra would attempt to impose over each State uniform land rights and Aboriginal heritage legislation.  The simple reality was that national legislation would inevitably affect more people, and where the interests of more people were involved, more people would find their situations threatened by change.  Indeed, it now seems clear that bipartisanship survived for as long as it did mainly because only the mining industry stood to lose, and the mining industry lacked significant electoral clout.

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

National heritage and land rights legislation, as foreshadowed by Mr Holding in his December address, involved both religious and economic principles.  The latter most obviously concerned the controls over mining together with rents and compensations deriving from such controls.  Implicit in the economic principles were two forms of discrimination:  the first, positive discrimination in favour of Aboriginals acknowledging inter alia prior occupation of land and special circumstances of social deprivation consequent upon the experience of European settlement;  the second, negative discrimination against the Crown whose normal rights to distribute mining royalty equivalents and to make decisions on the mining of Crown mineral resources were to be over-ridden.  As national legislation was now contemplated, these forms of discrimination mostly met with the approval of Aboriginal representatives.  But they loomed large over the future of the mining industry as a whole, not just the elements of it intending to explore the Northern Territory or the northwest of South Australia.

Despite the discrimination evident in the Woodward principles that Mr Holding re-affirmed, those that touched mainly on the economic sphere remained very much within the Australian political tradition.  At risk in general was Australia's relatively benign climate for mineral exploration, although in particular there was the possibility that miners would be unable to explore some areas altogether.  How much land miners might be able to explore was unknowable for the reason that access would be determined by negotiation at the local level.  Following the Woodward approach there was a built-in incentive for the granting of access, since it was envisaged that mining royalties would finance both the operation of land councils and the investment needs of local Aboriginal landowners.  But incentives to grant access by no means compare with automatic access, and Northern Territory experience had shown that access negotiations had become intolerably lengthy, costly, and open-ended.  If Northern Territory arrangements were to be extended throughout Australia then at risk to some degree was Australia's international reputation as a good bet for explorers.  Consequent upon this was the possibility that the contribution of mineral production to Australia's balance of payments might be circumscribed, thus eventually affecting the value of Australia's currency, and the standard of living of all of its population, Aboriginal or otherwise.  This part of the Woodward approach to national land rights was entirely orthodox politically, and it ranked with Australia's protection regime, its arbitration system and indeed all of the domestic redistributive institutions that bear upon Australia's export capacity and standard of living.

Due to the collapse of international mineral prices the Woodward approach was bound to come under pressure for its economic implications, although Mr Holding's announcement on the forthcoming national application of Woodward increased that source of pressure immediately.  This in turn contributed to the breakdown of bipartisanship.

RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES

Equally important for the politics of land rights in 1984 were the essentially religious principles implicit in the Woodward approach.  The principles of inalienability of land and the observance of the sacredness of some land departed from the Australian tradition in the sense that they recalled pre-capitalist limits to the penetration of the market, in this case the land market.  Inalienability prohibited the market valuation of property, denying the possibility that such property might be defined as an asset.  This in turn precluded the conversion of such an asset to wealth, or indeed the investment of wealth through the acquisition of new assets.  Some standard functions of the ownership of land -- that it produce a return, that it represent wealth measurable in money terms -- disappear with inalienability.  Whoever possesses inalienable land possesses a potential for production circumscribed by an inability to raise loans on mortgage security.  On the other hand, the inalienable landowner possesses surface, space and the spiritual constructs that relate to them.

In this sense, the principle that sacred sites should be protected is simply a more precise restatement of the implications contained in the notion of inalienable land.  Yet sacred site protection is politically more volatile because it dives head first into themes that recall some of Australia's most divisive and long-lived debates over the separation or otherwise of church and state.  An apprehension that Aboriginals might somehow be granted divine title to land (divine in the sense that Aboriginal land be removed from the market or from common use for all time), and that the state has lent its authority to ancient conceptions of divinity through allowing the sacredness of sites to over-ride market determined property relations or principles of common use has contributed to the pressure on Woodward.  In some respects, National Trust or National Parks legislation removes land from the market in the same way, and imposes similarly alien values over the concerns of property holders.  But these latter market interventions preserve Crown ownership and consequent public use.  In contrast, Aboriginal land ownership precludes public access, asserts Aboriginal control and blesses with state authority religious definitions of what land is for.

CHALLENGES FROM THE STATES

What happened in the first six months of 1984 was the first testing of two positions to which Holding's five principles reduce:  that Australia can afford the long-run risks in granting land rights that are tied financially to the mining industry;  and that non-Aboriginal Australia can accommodate spiritual conceptions of land ownership.  Not surprisingly, the challenge to the first position has been made in Western Australia, the State most heavily dependent for its economic future on mining.  The greatest challenge to the second position has come about in Victoria, whose high concentration of rural population makes cultural clashes with Aborigines almost inevitable.  In both cases, spiritual and economic objections are involved.

The politics of Aboriginal land rights became increasingly volatile during 1984.  In part the tension came about as both state and federal governments foreshadowed their intentions with sympathetic draft legislation, position papers and public statements designed first of all to accommodate the aspirations of Aborigines and their representatives.  In Victoria, for instance, a draft State land claims bill allowed the possibility that all Crown land in the state could be subject to claim.  As the rural population digested the implications of this possibility, a soldier settlement farm faced compulsory acquisition for use as .an Aboriginal museum.  Mr Holding was at this time suggesting that state legislation, if delayed or not effective, might soon be over-ridden by stronger federal laws.  It may well be that the state and federal initiatives of late 1983 and early 1984 were never designed to actually become law, but rather to provide initial frameworks for debate, as sympathetic to the Woodward approach as possible, from which governments would later retreat.  But the effect of these tactics was to sow the ground for fear as rural communities began to wonder whether their own property might, if things continued, be at risk.  A powerful, negative reaction to the ALP land rights approach began to develop in Victoria from the local government level, and it contained a sharp measure of intolerance of both sacred site and general land claims.  This contributed to delays to the introduction of land claims legislation in Victoria.

At roughly the same time that problems in Victoria developed, in Western Australia the land rights controversy took an unexpected twist.  The Burke government had won power on a platform that included the granting of land rights and moved quickly to establish an inquiry as to how to go about providing them.  But this time the mining industry took its case directly to the W.A. public, advertising the "Equal Rights" slogan.  Opinion shifted so quickly that the Burke Government, fearing that the land rights issue might affect its chances of re-election, soon found itself opposing the Holding position on uniform national land rights.  The turnabout in W.A. matched a change in South Australia, whose Upper House amended the Maralinga Land Rights Bill so as to depart from the high mark "Pitjantjatjara model" of effective Aboriginal control over mining and exploration.  Queensland, meanwhile continued to go its own way, preferring a concept of trust control over Aboriginal reserves, and refusing to contemplate the granting of inalienable title.  For its part the Northern Territory government sniffed the wind until mid-1984, when it came out opposed to the 1976 Act on the ground that it had resulted in a ten year mineral exploration freeze.  Once this step was made, the Territory government moved quickly from the economic to the spiritual, and began to uproot signs warning of fines to be imposed on those trespassing on Aboriginal sacred sites.

The Federal Government was at last forced to confront the reality of the States' disenchantment with the Woodward approach in September.  Strangely, the trigger was the release of the long-awaited Seaman Report on land rights in Western Australia.  The report amounted to the strongest statement written in recent times favouring the extension of the Woodward approach, and in particular it bluntly reaffirmed the principle that Aboriginals should control mining activity on their land.  Equally bluntly, Premier Burke in Western Australia released the report with a statement contradicting Seaman's view on Aboriginal control.  This in turn forced the hand of the Federal Government -- for to have continued as before would have left Burke and Holding in open confrontation with Burke's views clearly in line with public opinion.  At this time discussions were held between miners, pastoralists and the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke.  After some weeks of confusion in Canberra, it emerged that Holding would no longer be able to sustain his argument for the extension of the Woodward principles throughout Australia.  By October, Hawke indicated that the Burke approach, which affirmed Crown control over mineral activities on Aboriginal land before Aboriginal control, would prevail.  The Woodward approach, in effect, had been taken to a further stage in the Seaman Report, and in the cold light of political and economic reality it did not stand up.

In Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and the Northern Territory the political swell that began with Woodward seemed either absorbed or neutralised by varieties of local countervailing forces.  Much of the energy in Canberra was directed towards Heritage legislation, which the government successfully introduced.  But its weaknesses very quickly became apparent.  The first three applications for ministerial intervention under the Interim Heritage Act were refused -- one, the Harding River Dam case was in the event 75 per cent built, while the other two, North Stradbroke Island and the Daintree road, were mainly the concern of conservationist more than Aboriginal interests.  It was predicted at the time that the Interim Heritage Act became law that it could easily serve as a means to stop developments, rather than to protect sacred sites, and the nature of the first three applications confirmed that these fears were well-founded.  In any case the Heritage legislation was designed to be replaced by a more general code of national land rights legislation.  Since it is now likely that the States will have the primary say on these broader questions, the future of national Heritage legislation is at present unclear.

Does this mean that land rights, as conceived by Woodward and re-affirmed for national application by Holding ten years later, amount to a massive misdirection of bureaucratic and political energy?  If the current gulf between the critics and the advocates of national uniform land rights legislation continues to widen at the rate that it widened in 1984, one might conclude that the flaws in the approach are overwhelming.  Nevertheless, the way in which the Woodward approach has been handled by governments might have been as important in fuelling controversy as the approach itself.  In Victoria the State Government was almost unbelievably ignorant of the implications of its initial bill.  One suspects that the W.A. Government had not thought hard about the role of mining in the state economy before it committed itself to land rights in its party platform.  In Canberra, the view that the mining industry could easily absorb the added costs of land rights was based on ignorance of the returns to mining investments.

More importantly, few governments thought hard about what the Woodward approach might mean for the electorate.  Nearly all governments which have taken on the approach have been unwilling to state precisely their views of what the legislation might bring.  How much land would be involved?  Could Aboriginal stewardship of public land be reconciled with any forms of public access?  What do the facts of prior occupation of Australia really mean?  To what degree does acknowledgement of prior occupation somehow cast shadows over the legitimacy of subsequent settlement?  Because none of these questions have been seriously addressed, doubts have spread and rumours have been believed, providing the fuel for the reaction to the land rights cause.  At the root of the reaction has been pervasive insecurity at the prospect of national uniform legislation.