Statement at the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee Reconciliation Inquiry Media Conference
by Senator Aden Ridgeway, 28th August 2002
I would like to welcome you all to Parliament House this morning and thank you for coming along. I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on Ngunnawal land, and I pay my respects to the Ngunnawal People as represented here by Matilda House.
I also thank Dr Bill Jonas and Dr Carmen Lawrence for their attendance, their hard work on reconciliation, and in particular what they have done to bring about this new Senate Inquiry.
I acknowledge the many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who have been able to attend this morning and pay tribute to their efforts to progress reconciliation.
It is wonderful to see them all back in the halls of parliament house and putting their support behind this initiative of the Senate. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the presence of Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue, former ATSIC Commissioner and a stalwart in terms of her commitment to the reconciliation process.
Reconciliation is one of the few political issues that has enjoyed cross-party political support over a significant period of time, is reconciliation.
We saw it back in 1991 when the entire parliament spoke with one voice and established the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and thereby launched a decade-long national discussion and learning curve about how we could improve relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Now we are seeing the Senate agree that we need to keep the focus on reconciliation, and most importantly, we need to hold the government of the day accountable in terms of what it is doing to deliver on reconciliation.
We've had ten years of grassroots work on reconciliation which was kicked of by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
We've had the presentation of the Documents for Reconciliation by CAR, and the release of the 6 recommendations from CAR to the Parliament.
The Democrats have tabled a private members bill to give effect to the Council's draft legislation to bring about discussions on a national agreement or treaty.
We've had the Senate Inquiry into the stolen generations in 2000.
We've had the Commonwealth Grants Commission Report into Indigenous funding.
And we've had successive years of reports from the Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner.
And what has the Government's response been?
We've heard a lot about the importance of practical reconciliation, and how we have to focus on meeting the basic citizenship rights of Indigenous Australians - like health, housing, education and employment. Dr Jonas is going to talk more about some of his concerns with this 'practical' agenda.
But we are yet to receive a formal response from the Government to the documents for reconciliation or the Final Report from CAR.
Whilst we all know the strength of their resistance to a national agreement or treaty to deal with the unfinished business - and Minister Ruddock reminded us of this again yesterday at the opening of the Treaty Conference - we don't really know what the Government thinks about the detailed National Strategies to address Indigenous disadvantage, or to achieve Economic Independence for Indigenous Australians - to mention just a few.
So how can we say with any confidence that we know what is happening out there in Indigenous people's everyday lives?
Can we measure the government's record on the implementation of the recommendations from this collection of reports?
What benchmarks can we look to - we don't know what benchmarks COAG and some of the Ministerial Councils might be working on, because the Government has not released them.
Nor can we say with any confidence where progress been made and what is working well, because there is no comprehensive monitoring of government responses.
But we have a responsibility to capitalise on the good will of all those Australians who took part in the bridge walks in 2000 and very graphically showed their support for the goal of lasting reconciliation.
That is why the Senate has initiated this Inquiry - not to go over old ground and come up with more strategies for achieving reconciliation - but to gather together the evidence of what progress the Government has achieved to date.
We need to know what benchmarks the Government will set to measure its own progress to address Indigenous disadvantage and promote reconciliation. We need to be able to monitor that progress and then all Australians are entitled to judge the government on its record of achievement.
The Inquiry will examine:
- whether processes have been developed to enable and require government agencies to review their policies and programs against the documents like the National Strategies to Advance Reconciliation.
- effective ways of implementing the recommendations contained in the many recommendations that have been made to government on reconciliation.
- the adequacy and effectiveness of any targets, benchmarks, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms that have been put in place to address Indigenous disadvantage and promote reconciliation.
- How the Government's responses compare to the recommendations that have been made, and the extent to which these responses match up with the needs and aspirations of Indigenous Australians.
The political leadership of this country has allowed opportunities like reconciliation and those opened up by the Mabo and Wik decisions, to be squandered.
The Senate is now stepping in to ensure that we keep the reconciliation process moving forward, and do not allow the excellent work that has been done to date to gather dust.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, we need to remind ourselves that there are only 410,000 Indigenous Australians - in a population of 19.5 million. We are living in the fastest growing Western economy.
410,000 people is quite a manageable number to deal with. Yet, many Australians are still prepared to accept the stereotype of Indigenous affairs as being a terminal case of public policy failure.
How is it possible that 410,000 people should overwhelm our imagination? To say that the problems confronting Indigenous communities are insurmountable and beyond the resources of Government is just a cop-out.
It's now time for some accountability, honesty and transparency in this area. It's time for government to respond and act on the very considered and reasonable recommendations that it has been presented with from so many quarters.
For too long, the Government has taken the easy road and chosen to sit on its hands in relation to the reconciliation process. After having spent a great deal of taxpayers' money over the last decade to develop a strategy to move forward and bring us closer to being a reconciled nation, there has been no Government response and very little real action.
All Australians are entitled to measure what progress has been made after 10 years, and to have a process whereby the Government reports back on an issue that is fundamental to the future of this country.
If Government won't show leadership on such an important issue, then the Senate will.
I'd now like to hand over to Dr Jonas.
Thank you
Last updated 29 August 2002.
