Shrugging aside reconciliation
A GIANT stride towards reconciliation has been left to wither on the vine with the Federal Government’s dismissal of indigenous constitutional recognition.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s decision was not unexpected, with little understanding in the wider, and whiter, community about what the plan actually entailed.
Far from its popular portrait as some kind of revolutionary manifesto, it was a decidedly conservative proposal born of compromise and logical thought about what could and should be accepted by Australia as a whole.
There was no mandate for a minimum number of indigenous members of parliament, no special reservation of seats, and no blackfella ominously wielding a rubber stamp to replace the Queen’s royal assent – although having our first Aboriginal governorgeneral may come down the track.
It was about having an elected indigenous advisory body enshrined in the Constitution to replace the informal hand-picked group currently in play.
It was not a “third chamber” as depicted by opponents.
The configuration of the body would be left up to parliament to decide, and although its advice would be non-binding, it would hold weight.
It would be more than a tokenistic nod towards change unlike so many “welcome to country” dirges mumbled throughout political spheres as ritual rather than respect.
The unceremonious nature of the announcement of the plan’s rejection – a Cabinet leak to a newspaper – rubs salt in raw wounds.
A cynic might be suspicious of the timing, conveniently coinciding with Senator Michaelia Cash landing in hot water over a staffer leaking information about raids on the Australian Workers’ Union headquarters, and the High Court’s ruling on the sodubbed Citizenship Seven. A cynic would be mad not to. In any other year this would have been at the top of the news cycle but in 2017 it has played second fiddle to the marriage equality debate.
To be fair to the Prime Minister, if a referendum were held tomorrow it would surely fail.
People are too busy patting themselves on the back for their progressive stance on gay marriage, or otherwise, and to throw this into the mix would be a mammoth stretch.
But nobody was calling for a referendum tomorrow.
This compromise gained a surprising consensus at a constitutional convention of 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders in at Uluru in May, and was backed by Labor.
It was framed not to further divide a fractured national identity but to fix a legal document that should never have been created without Aboriginal input in the first place.
It was an opportunity to show more than mere lip service to righting the diverse and distinct problems facing black Australia.
One fallacy often bandied about is that you cannot make law for race.
Eddie Mabo proved this to be false in 1992 and we now have native title.
The Constitution itself still contains two outdated references to ethnicity – one referring to cutting the number of seats in the House of Representatives if “by the law of any state all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections”.
It should not be taken lightly, but it should be seen as a fluid document that fits the views of the people.
There have been 44 referendums with eight successful, including Aboriginal people getting the right to vote in 1962 and being recognised on the Census in 1967.
Now talk will return on one hand to more symbolic gestures, which will undoubtedly be rejected by indigenous people, and a treaty, which is just as unlikely to be accepted by Australians at large.
Advocates should not stop fighting and telling their story, however.
Constitutional recognition is not dead – it is in hibernation.
IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW MORE THAN MERE LIP SERVICE TO RIGHTING THE DIVERSE AND DISTINCT PROBLEMS FACING BLACK AUSTRALIA.