At last an Australian Prime Minister has recognised who was responsible for the act of dispossession of the Aboriginal people. The statement by Paul Keating this week was a leap not taken by the two of his predecessors who did more than other Prime Ministers for Aboriginal people: Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser. Whitlam recognised the appalling plight of Aborigines in Australia: their lower standards of health, education and housing. He poured money in to rectify it, but with sadly little effect. Fraser recognised the need for Aboriginal possession of land and passed the Land Rights Act. Sadly, it was restricted to the Northern Territory.
Me Keating has gone a leap further in recognising who did the dispossessing and the destruction of traditional lifestyle and therefore who has the moral responsibility to do the repairing. He said, “”We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murder. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.” Mr Keating quite rightly cautioned against the destructive emotion of guilt.
It is not a question of blame. The present generation of non-Aboriginal Australians had nothing personally to do with the murders and dispossession. None the less, the present generation still has a moral responsibility (not for those events) but to repair the damage that resulted from them. The responsibility arises out of inheritance. The wealth enjoyed by modern white Australia was only possible because of the dispossession. Obviously, the pioneer settlers worked, risked and invested, but that would not have been possible without the original act of dispossession. The wealth of non-Aboriginal Australians arises out of both the dispossession and their enormous ingenuity and hard work. There are two elements to it; neither should be forgotten.
What is to be done? There are no simple solutions, and much can go wrong even when detailed and complex solutions are proposed. The Whitlam method of directing Federal help, while an important step, had some very misguided elements. Much money went to white bureaucrats. Resentment and bitterness continued. Even with land rights and a large degree of self-determination on Aboriginal land, resentment continues in the Northern Territory. The call continued for non-Aboriginal people to understand the injustices of the past. That is what Mr Keating did, on behalf of the nation, this week. Only miserable and foolish elements in non-Aboriginal society would disagree with his statement. He was right in saying, “”What we need to do is open our hearts a bit, all of us.”
The Fraser and Hawke Governments shied away from national land-rights legislation. It has taken the High Court in the Mabo case to recognise indigenous title to land not otherwise alienated since white settlement. Next week the Federal Government is to hold a national meeting on the implications of the Mabo decision. It is a time to open our hearts. It is not a time for alarmist claims about Aborigines taking certain percentages of the land mass of Australia, nor for radical demands for a separate Aboriginal government and nation. Certainly, a whole series of destructive court disputes over land claims must be avoided. Australians must work out amicably over whom and the geographical areas in which Aboriginal law, custom and decision-making apply. It must be wider than at present. In that process Australians must recognise that without wealth generation from uses on the land, Aboriginal people are less likely to attain the education, health and housing standards they have a right to expect as members of the Australian community.
This process is bound to give rise to conflicts of view and conflicts of interest. The important point is that with Mr Keating’s statement, there is a greater chance that people will negotiate their differences with greater understanding, more good faith and with open hearts.
More’s the pity Princess Anne is not older than Prince Charles. Given Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act, there would be a could case for arguing that Princess Anne would then have to become Queen of Australia and Prince Charles King of Great Britain. There would be a divergence in the royal house, and a separate Australian constitutional monarchy could evolve. Unlike some European states, the British Parliament seems unlikely to pass a law saying the first born (of whatever sex) inherits the throne. Britain’s line of inheritance puts the monarch’s male children before the female children. One day the British and Australian line will diverge. But Australians might not want to wait that many generations. Perhaps we should seize the present opportunity. If we can’t settle upon a compromise for the selection of a President, Princess Anne, with her commendable work for charities, her newly married state and the more dignified way in which she handled her marriage break-up, would make a better candidate to start a new constitutional monarchy for Australia.