Behrendt, Jason; Cronin, Margie --- "Editorial: The Samuel Griffith Society - A Coven of Constitutional Cronies Worshipping a Sacred Cow?" [1992] AboriginalLawB 41; (1992) 1(58) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 2

• Editorial: The Samuel Griffith Society-A Coven Of Constitutional Cronies Worshipping A Sacred Cow?

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Editorial:

The Samuel Griffith Society -
A Coven of Constitutional Cronies Worshipping a Sacred Cow?

Jason Behrendt and Margie Cronin

In response to a growing movement to rewrite the Australian Constitution to mark the centenary of Federation, a group calling itself the Samuel Griffith Society has formed to, inter alia, "defend the great virtues of the present Constitution against those who would undermine it”.[1]

Sir Harry Gibbs - former Chief Justice of the High Court, and one of the Society's most notable members - states one such 'great virtue' brought about by the Constitution to be that:

'The terrors of civil war or threats of civil war, of savage government oppression, seem to most native born Australians to be beyond comprehension, and certainly beyond the realms of possibility here."[2]

Aboriginal people will no doubt be appalled by this distortion of Australian history. It exhibits complete ignorance of Aboriginal experiences with oppressive Government legislation (ie Protection Board legislation) from which the constitution gave no protection.

According to this view, the Australian Constitution, and its non-recognition of prior indigenous occupation of this land, was not part of the problems faced by Aboriginal people and nor should it be part of the remedy.

Of concern to the Society is the tentative move towards a possible treaty between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal Australians and the suggestion that the indigenous people of Australia should have appropriate recognition in a rewritten Constitution.

Sir Harry Gibbs was quoted as saying that an Aboriginal treaty would "imperil our sovereignty and place the very existence of our nation at risk."[3]

He went on to state that the present generation of non-Aboriginal Australians was "not responsible for the crimes and blunders of the past ... [and] ... should not be racked by guilt".[4]

John Stone, one of the founders of the Samuel Griffith Society, gave some indication of the Society's reactionary response to Australia's recent ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which allows an individual to complain to the Human Rights Committee over continued human rights violations:

"Surely, any Australian who takes some trumped-up complaint of this kind to be adjudicated upon by a bunch of international bureaucrats must be seen as a traitor to this country, and worthy only of total ostracism by all other Australians."[5]

In response to a communication to the Human Rights Committee by a Tasmanian man over that State's refusal to decriminalise homosexuality, John Stone declared:

"Whatever the rights and wrongs of that matter may be (and many Australians might think that this is probably one of the few things Tasmania now has going for it), the view that it should be decided, not by Tasmania's elected representatives, but by some unelected - and totally unrepresentative - frequenters of the international cocktail circuit will be deeply offensive to most Australians."[6]

Many AboriginalLB readers will no doubt find these comments offensive but such views should not be taken lightly and must be addressed front on. Aboriginal people will remember the fate of national land rights legislation in the mid-eighties when the Commonwealth Government did nothing to counter extensive advertising campaigns by the mining industry against the proposed legislation. The views of the Samuel Griffith Society will no doubt wriggle their way into opinion columns and editorials in many of the major newspapers. It will be interesting to see whether the Commonwealth Government is just as complacent about these views as it was to those misrepresenting national land rights legislation. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see how the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation, the purported educator of white Australia on Aboriginal issues, will do to confront such viewpoints.

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[1] Sir Harry Gibbs, "Rewriting the Constitution", Inaugural Address, The Samuel Griffith Society, Melbourne, 24 July 1992, p.17.

[2] Ibid., pp.14-15.

[3] Hull, C., "'No special rights' for blacks", Canberra Times, 25 July 1992.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Stone J., "Keeping power in the people's hands', Financial Review, July 23,1992, p.13.

[6] Ibid.