Treaty Yeah!

UWS Professor Chung-Tong Wu, Gabi Hollows and Richie Ahmat

Let me first pay my respects to the traditional owners of Sydney.

It is important to me, that we all acknowledge the survival of the culture and the traditions of indigenous people from all corners of this country.. and pay particular respect to the women of all our nations. Without our mothers, grandmothers and wives... and their nurturing, our people would not have survived. And so, I ask you reflect on this.

It is my honour to bring the warmest greetings and best wishes from our people in Cape York Peninsula.

Thanks to the organisers of this gathering for the opportunity to participate in proceedings here, to express something of our view from CapeYork.

As the theme of this conference says... "Learning from the past...thinking about the future" well, let me say to you all... it is this very sentiment that drives our organisations in Cape York... and challenges our thinking at every turn. Tomorrow I will be presenting some details of our approach to the challenges we face ...but tonight I wish to turn to the business of a future goal for the whole country and the challenge it presents

"for all of us".

We've all probably used the phrase "we're searching for the Holy Grail", "I found the Holy Grail". Many of us have probably used the phrase to express the search for or achievement of goals a lot less lofty, a lot less chivalrous, a lot less spiritual, than was intended by the saintly people of medieval times.

Until two days ago I too had no clue what the the Holy Grail was. And I've seen as many movies about knights in armour galloping around on horses, as anyone. I've even seen the movie with the knights who gallop around on their own two legs, clapping coconuts together.

To this day I've never known what the Holy Grail was. I just had some vague thought that it was some kind of cloak or robe...or was it King Arthur's sword? Anyway this is the definition that the dictionary on Microsoft Word gives of the Holy Grail:

"according to medieval legend, the cup said to be used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, and by Joseph of Arimathea to collect his blood and sweat at the Crucifixion".

The notion of a treaty between the Indigenous people of Australia and the Commonwealth Government on behalf of the non-indigenous people of Australia, has become something of a Holy Grail to progressive politics in our country.

Let me clarify that I am talking about the concept of a treaty which is founded upon amendment of the Constitution. I am not talking about treaty in the sense of an agreement between two nations, and I am not talking about an agreement that is set out in legislation enacted by the Commonwealth Parliament.

The treaty has become a Holy Grail for a number of reasons:

One reason is that the treaty is seen as the ultimate political destination for the Aboriginal rights movement. It is political heaven. It is the place where the meek inherit the earth and all social and economic ills are a thing of the past.

Another reason is that the treaty represents the legal and political instrument that will put paid to all ambiguity and argument. It will be a final settlement of all political and legal disputation about the place of Aboriginal people in the Australian nation. It will be the mother of all comprehensive settlements, and it will contain every solution to every conceivable problem - including those things that we cannot now conceive of as issues to resolve.

But how come we have been talking about a treaty for nearly three decades now and yet our general understanding of it is not a great deal advanced beyond the concept of some kind of profound agreement between black and white? We are still unclear on basic questions like:

who will be the parties to the treaty?

who will represent the Aboriginal parties?

what authority will the Aboriginal parties have to negotiate the treaty?

Or has the quest for the Holy Grail become more important than actually finding the bloody thing? Will we be psychologically capable of seizing the Grail when we come upon it? Or is our hesitation about reaching such a moment of historical decisiveness - where we have to make a settlement with those who have colonised our people and our country - the thing that makes it more comfortable for us Aboriginal people to float around in a fog of vagueness, rhetoric and mournful hope?

The first reality check that we have to face up to is this: what lessons do we take from the 1967 referendum which finally included Aboriginal people as Australians citizens?

The lessons that we should take from 1967 are as follows:

The Australian Constitution is one of the hardest constitutions in the world to change, so we need 80-90% of the country to support the change.

To get 80-90% of the country to support a referendum, you need bipartisan political support and support from the states and territories as well.

In order to get bipartisan support, you will need a conservative government to propose the amendment.

You need to convince rural, conservative and regional Australia of the need for change.

The Indigenous leadership of the period preceding the 1967 referendum was intelligent, dignified, capable and united. In sharp contrast to our leadership today.

Those who think that the treaty is somehow a "radical" cause, need to think again. Do you really think that conservative and regional Australia are going to say "YES" to something that is sold to them as a radical cause? How do we get 80-90% of the country to support a treaty?

My Cape York Peninsula colleague, Noel Pearson has talked about the difference between what he calls 51% and 80-90% strategies.

51% strategies are strategies that we use when we need:

the government of the day to make some policy or administrative decision that we want, or

we need the government of the day to get legislation passed by the Commonwealth Parliament

51% strategies start from the left and moves to the right. We only need to convince the left side of politics to champion a particular issue.

But 51% strategies won't work if we are talking about a treaty and constitutional change.

80-90% strategies are fundamentally different from 51% strategies.

Firstly, if you want 80-90% of the electorate to support our cause, we have to work from the right to the left. We have to convince the National Party's regional and conservative constituency.

Secondly, the people on the furthest right must be made the primary owners and the primary advocates of a treaty deal with our people.

Thirdly, the more we push the treaty through 51% strategies the greater the likelihood that the right will oppose it. The bridge walkers, the reconciliation movement and so on - these are 51% strategies.

So the big political question facing those who advocate a treaty is whether it is at all imaginable that we could find common ground with conservative and regional Australia.

The treaty must start in the bush and then move to the cities. If we develop the treaty in the cities and try to take it out into the bush, the bush will kill it.

One last lesson that we should take from 1967. White Australia was not being asked to give anything substantial to blackfellas in 1967.

A treaty is aimed at settling questions to do with the rights of our people and dealing with contentious questions of land rights, economic development and governance. The constitutional change needed to underpin a treaty is a much harder and a much more complicated question.

The question of self determination and governance will be central questions for a treaty.

Our view from Cape York is that we must show that self determination can work in practice. The problem is that the levels of division jealousy, infighting, powerplays and mistrust are very high amongst our people.

There is a breakdown of Aboriginal Law and authority, and as a result our families and communities are falling apart with no law and order. Our social problems are in no small part due to the breakdown of governance within our own communities.

If we won all of the necessary legal and political victories tomorrow, it would not mean much in reality. It would not mean much because self-determination is about practice, it is about taking responsibility, because nobody else will take responsibility for our families.

There are three main levels of Aboriginal community - national, regional and local. Our view from Cape York Peninsula is that the regional level of governance needs to be developed. We now have Cape York Partnerships as an interface for partnerships with government and external non-government sectors.

It is at the regional level that our people can have the political organisation and capacity, to deal with governments and the outside world. It is also the level that our people need to develop economically and to carve out a place in the wider regional economies.

We are also conscious that if a national agreement in the form of a treaty is to be reached, agreements at the regional level will be necessary.

Any future treaty is likely to set a framework and general principles, whilst the agreements of substance are negotiated and settled at the regional level. The concept of regional agreements - which has disappeared from discussion in this country in recent years - are probably going to be the only way treaties can be implemented in practice.

Let me very briefly summarise the ingredients necessary to bring a Treaty into existence.

5% involves legal and political theory

5% involves developing and deciding on the constitutional mechanism.

90% of the challenge involves political strategy and prosecution of the strategy, and Aboriginal people taking responsibility for regional agreements.

This is the hard work. This is about lining all of the planets up. This is about herding a million feral cats dispersed throughout bushlands all over the continent. This about lining up all of the thousands of ducks in the Kakadu wetlands into one orderly line. This is the truly hard business.

In conclusion, let me say that it is our belief from Cape York Peninsula that the achievement of a treaty between the Indigenous peoples of Australia and the Commonwealth on behalf of the non-indigenous peoples of Australia is a conceivable reality.

There has never been a better time for us to move to a treaty, than now. Will we have the unity and will we be clever enough to recognise the opportunity and make the plans and strategies so that we can reach the Holy Grail?

(ENDS)

Towards a Treaty that is Acceptable to All and Beneficial for Indigenous Australia

Richard Ahmat
Executive Director
Cape York Land Council

"Learning from the past, thinking about the future"
Hollows Foundation, Reconciliation Australia, The Whitlam Institute
Sydney

Monday 8th July 2002