Transcript of speech given at the closing plenary session of the Now We The People conference, 24.8.03 University of Technology, Sydney

Pat O'Shane

Time is very limited and I have quite a bit I want to say; I actually wrote out a speech, a presentation, but in fact I've listened to the last two speakers and there's something else I think we have to acknowledge, and that is, a bit of honesty.

So we have to acknowledge first of all that there is evil in the world, and that it is embodied in very particular personalities including George Bush, and I don't care where you draw the lines or whatever sand you draw the lines in, there is no way that th likes of George Bush - who is intent on dismantling our communities - is going to find common ground with us, and Howard is in the same camp. These people have worked deliberately - as we would say in my profession, with malice aforethought - with very careful control of the media.

They have used differences, our differences, the very same differences that have been identified up here this afternoon - and no doubt throughout the entire course of this conference - differences between people to generate fear in our communities, fear which makes each one of us turn around and look at each other and say 'you are my enemy'. And then they play that out on the grand scale, on a world scale, with their bombs, with their deadly chemical warfare, and they are using it as we speak.

There is evil in the world and we must reject it. We do not seek to work with evil. And we have to be very clear that our Australian governments at the federal level and at the state level have worked to ensure that expediency will rule the day to ensure that they are returned to office whether they are Liberal governments or whether they are Labor governments. And they have worked to divide the community.

They have generated that fear, and it has divided us such that it is true - as it was said just a moment ago - that people no longer read the papers, they no longer engage in the political process. The fact of the matter is that they no longer have communities to relate to. Their communities have been destroyed by very deliberate economic policies implemented by governments in this country at the behest of big capital, international capital, to destroy our workforces, to move the workers and their families, and all the infrastructure that supported those communities, from one location to another. It left them adrift. There has been an emphasis on individualism which has destroyed our communities.

Let's not make any mistake about it: there are very clear lines of responsibility for the sorts of things that we've been discussing - that you've been discussing, I haven't been participating, but believe you me, I'm out there doing my but every day, I'm challenging these sorts of things, and no doubt like all of you are too. But let's be very clear where we do draw the lines and what it is our campaigns are directed at. Our campaigns are directed at building our communities, not destroying them. Our campaigns are directed at social justice, not pitting one against the other, as the enemy. So we have to be very careful what alliances we form and with whom.

It is true, as Kerry was saying, that there are groups in the community that we can work together with, and we will have differences. But let's be very clear about who they are, where they are, and how they work, and what it is they're working for. And if they're not working for that kind of cohesion, and building social capital, and establishing peace and justice, then that is an alliance we don't want.

I actually think this conference is part of a sea change that I detect is happening in the community, which is starting to reject the gross excesses of unbridled capitalism and I think that has been happening since the truly shocking, absolutely gross, outrageous invasion of Iraq. The seeds for the prevailing for the prevailing geopolitical conditions we're experiencing were already being sown at least two decades ago with the headlong rush into untrammelled market capitalism through deregulation, and it started, you might recollect, under the Hawke Labor government - which also, I will remind you, mounted, or supported, a racist anti-land rights campaign by the then Bourke Labor government of Western Australia, which had a direct consequence in breaking down a lot of the social gains which indigenous Australians had won with the support of numerous other non-indigenous Australians.

Such that today, in the prevailing conditions that you have been discussing, one of the issues that strikes me is the absence of history; the constant revision of history; the disregard for history that is promoted by our governments, media and other institutions - all part of the dismantling of the social fabric of course. It is trite to say there can be no peace without justice, but it certainly remains true and even truer today for indigenous Australians.

Until the early 1980s, Aboriginal affairs policies, whether at the federal or state level, had always had bipartisan support. What that meant was that the people themselves, at community level, were confronted with clear targets in terms of policy changes, whereas the experience prior to 1967 was that of exclusion and disengagement. Following the constitutional change brought about by the successful referendum in 1967, indigenous Australians became much more involved in the socio-political movements of the day. But of course the referendum would not have taken place were it not that it was in large part hugely supported by non-indigenous Australians of all sorts of background, including politicians of both sides in those days. All of which was mounted under the umbrella of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, a community based organisation, and I'd emphasise that again.

One of the greatest effects to flow therefrom was indigenous Australia finding its voice, not only in relation to the ongoing denial of socio-political, economic and political rights; then after that came the establishment of anti-discrimination legislation and consequent institutions to monitor the implementation and practice of the legislation, and that voice was able to grow stronger.

And although any social justice movement has its genesis in a number of different conditions, another important outcome of the 1967 referendum was that land rights movement I spoke about - the recognition of land rights, and the legislation of the Land Rights Act in various states and federal jurisdictions - the first, of course, being at the federal level under the then Liberal government of Malcolm Fraser. Prior to 1967, nothwithstanding the campaigns of the Gurindji people at Wave Hill in the Northern Territory (they've just celebrated the anniversary of it this weekend), that of the people in Gove and in the Western Gulf of Carpentaria - there is no doubt that had the events of 1967 not occurred the subsequent land rights movement likewise would not have had the widespread non-indigenous and political support that it eventually garnered.

With the gaining of land rights, a justice long overdue, much peace settled into the Aboriginal community. They were no longer at the push and shove of either the governments or the missionaries in the established churches, forces which were, as history tells us, also at the behest of big capital, especially pastoral and mining interests. Since those gains were won, governments have allocated more actual dollar resources to indigenous affairs, especially in education. Nevertheless, the social indicators have always shown that indigenous Australians suffer the worst circumstances of any Australian cohort. They are the least educated, the least employed, the worst housed, and suffer the worst health problems.

No Australian government, and I can say this without fear of contradiction, of whatever persuasion, has developed policies which are specifically aimed at eliminating the worst aspects of the colonial legacies. Almost without exceptions those very same authorities have been more than ready to simply wash their hand of having to tackle the hard issues, leaving those to the people themselves to deal with.

There are lessons in our history, lessons which I believe we can analyse or translate or adapt for use in forging new alliances for peace and justice today and into the future. But before we get to those issues we must acknowledge as the conference statement does, that indigenous Australians have had the doors slammed tightly shut on their rights. So that just in the past week, we have heard more depressing and demoralising statistics about the continuing health problems of "glue ear" amongst indigenous kids - otitis media, ostensibly cause by overcrowded, impoverished living conditions. That is a topic that I remember very clearly bringing to the attention of teachers at a national conference held here in Sydney University over 40 years ago. That the problems have continued, and have reached the proportions that are reported in our media only a few days ago, is absolutely scandalous.

A few weeks prior to that it was reported in that in the Northern Territory indigenous housing "is the longest running, least highlighted disaster in indigenous affairs. It is an absurdist nightmare of overlapping bureaucracies, benign intentions and worsening statistics" - as reported by Nicholas Rothwell in the Weekend Australian of July 12-13.

Rothwell optimistically and, as it transpires, erroneously, continues to say that not there is a glimmer of hope for the long-term future. Nothing could be further from the truth. What the Northern Territory government is proposing to do is lease the land for set terms to mining companies, agribusiness, or tourism operators and borrow capital, beginning a market economy and funding construction of housing that way. That is a proposal founded on US practices, and it signifies a further round of dispossession and disempowerment, while being paraded under the guise of self-determination. Even worse, the federal government allows the Northern Territory government, along with the Federal government, to absolve themselves of any responsibility for providing necessary infrastructure for these communities, as they would have to provide were those communities were comprised of people other than indigenous Australians. And the Northern Territory government, let us remind ourselves, is a Labor government.

The conference statement calls for a new compact between the original owners of the land and the Australian government, but there can be no expectation from the present Australian government of them entering in to such a compact without a very strong unremitting pressure from the entire Australian electorate, and even then the prospects are gloomy. We saw what they did against the will of the power in the movement against the Iraq war.
How does the electorate pressure the government? Personally, I doubt that a campaign addressing simply indigenous issues outside larger political campaigns to rid us of the scourge of neo-conservatism would even start to create a blip on the horizon. I certainly endorse the proposals that are set out at the end of the conference statement, as to the sorts of alliances that we need to forge.

The where, and the how, are here and now. That's what we've just been discussing. The when - it's now.

Pat O'Shane is a New South Wales Magistrate

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