Every election we say it – “this is a crucial election for [insert issue here]”.
But given the LNPs slide/tumble/free-fall to the extreme right since the appointment of Peter Dutton as Leader of the Opposition and Jacinta Price as Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs it is true to say that this Federal election is crucial for First Nations people, their Allies, and those in the now 34-year-old ‘reconciliation’ movement
While the disappointment of the Voice Referendum is still raw, this is no time to merely lick our wounds. This Federal Election sees a potential reversal in the reconciliation journey – if not an abandonment – of all those gains for which First Nations leaders, and their allies, have struggled for so long.
Leaving aside whether the word ‘reconciliation’ is the right one to use, it is fair to say that there has been progress in the nation’s self-understanding in the context of the First Nations. Progress has been frustratingly slow and inadequate to the task of equity and justice for First Nations people and honour and integrity for the nation. First Nations leaders have worked hard to get those gains – either through local community controlled organisations, land councils, native title bodies, national peak service and legal organisations and First Nations sovereignty advocacy movements. Welcome to/acknowledgement of country ceremonies, statements, and plaques are common even for our hallowed sporting events; the Close the Gap campaign led to the National Closing the Gap policy and process; the notion of truth telling and treaty-making is/or has been policy in some jurisdictions – although now reversed in Queensland and the Northern Territory; and NGOs and corporates are engaging with First Nations employees and consultants for cross-cultural workshops and policy development.
Uncle Richard Frankland often says – our nation suffers from the legacy of nearly 250 years of racist social engineering of Australian society, believing that before 1788 this land was a cultural wasteland. The lie of ‘terra nullius’ was placed in our heads as early as primary school. I well remember the totally black, pre-European ‘discovery’ map of Australia in my Jacaranda Atlas, with the maps becoming ‘lighter’ as the Europeans progressively ‘discovered’ the continent. Even my children – who are now in their thirties – did units at primary school about this period called ‘Into the Unknown’. I kept telling their teachers, “surely it was known to the people who had lived there for 60 or more millennia!”
I hope those days are over.
For all its failings ‘reconciliation’ has led to greater awareness of the truth of this nation and the richness of First Nations culture and society. But we are yet to reach a real turning point. There was the hope that the referendum would have been that turning point, but, as we so often do, we failed and it was another case of national arrested development.
What has become clear is that, from a First Nations perspective, the key elements of real ‘reconciliation’ are voice/self-determination/sovereignty, truth-telling and listening, treaty-making, and closing the gap.
But there are those who want to trigger the inner racist in some Australians using the word ‘woke’ as an insult with little regard to its origins in raising awareness of the injustice suffered by those who are marginalised by racism, sexism and sexual preference.
During and since the referendum, First Nations people have had a target on their backs. First Nations sports people, leaders, commentators, health workers, priests, community workers, adults, teenagers and children, on-line or in person, have suffered an increase in racial abuse. The negative referendum result has empowered the racists, under the banner of being ‘anti-woke’, and the rise of anti-Indigenous feeling is being co-opted by right wing parties, including the Liberal National Party (LNP), to increase their vote. And a real concern is that the government will be dragged into the moral void caused by the LNP’s anti-woke agenda.
It is clear that a Dutton government would oppose those First Nations aspirations for reconciliation and return the nation to policies of assimilation. The LNP have already reversed truth and treaty processes in the Northern Territory and Queensland, and the Victorian and NSW opposition are also committed to reversing current truth and treaty processes if elected. This is despite the pre-referendum support of treaty processes by the LNP in Queensland and Victoria. Pre-referendum there was some hope in a bi-partisan approach to First Nations affairs.
Dutton and his shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians have attacked the formal use of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, raised questions around funding First Nations services, acknowledgement of/welcome to country ceremonies and identified positions. Even funding to improve breastfeeding rates is being threatened! This represents a return to the 1950s in terms of First Nations policy. These are the politics of envy (of marginalised communities!) and division. The politics of a Temu Trump.
The real division in Australian society is the anti-reconciliation agenda of the current LNP.
Fraser accepted Whitlam’s First Nations agenda. Even Abbott at least pretended to support ideas around treaty and Keating’s Redfern speech, until he ripped half a billion out of the First Nations budget. Turnbull and Morrison (mainly due to the work of former Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt) at least supported greater First Nations control when it came to delivering services, inadequate as those measures were. But Dutton walked out of the Apology, opposed recognition and voice, believes that there are votes in ‘anti-wokism’, and wants to reverse ‘reconciliation’.
Even for those who had issues around the asks of the referendum, when it comes to the ballot box this election we must put LNP behind pro-First Nations independents, the Greens, and the ALP if ‘reconciliation’ is not to be pronounced dead on 3 May 2025. We need to tell the next government that without truth-telling our nationhood will always be a lie, without First Nations treaties we will always be divided, and without real ‘reconciliation’ we will continue to live in a moral vacuum.
