AustLII Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback

Aboriginal Law Bulletin

Aboriginal Law Bulletin (ALB)
You are here:  AustLII >> Databases >> Aboriginal Law Bulletin >> 1996 >> [1996] AboriginalLawB 49

Database Search | Name Search | Recent Articles | Noteup | LawCite | Help

Reynolds, Chris --- "Book Review - A Royal Omission" [1996] AboriginalLawB 49; (1996) 3(82) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 15


Book Review - A Royal Omission

by Greg Mead

Self published

Reviewed by Chris Reynolds

The Royal Commission into the proposed construction of a bridge at Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) will probably best be remembered as a prime example of how not to go about inquiring into Indigenous culture and beliefs. That point comes out overwhelmingly in Adelaide lawyer Greg Mead's book A Royal Omission, which he describes as a 'critical summary' of evidence given to the Royal Commission and an 'alternative Report'.

The much-publicised comings and goings of the Royal Commission in the second half of 1995 became a part of Adelaide life, and the South Australian community (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) were very much polarised on the question of whether the area is in fact the location of secret and sacred beliefs known to some women from the Ngarrindjeri community. Greg Mead believes that it is. A Royal Omission is an analysis of the 18 week course of the Royal Commission, which focuses most critically on the evidence raised to discredit the women's claim. Mead's methods are those of a lawyer creating a case, presenting an argument in favour of the genuineness of the claims, and the book should be read in this light.

But there is more to A Royal Omission than this. It contains very important insights into some of the fundamental difficulties that non-Indigenous Australians have concerning Indigenous sacred beliefs. Firstly, and perhaps centrally, there was the view that questions involving the sacred are amenable to the traditional truth finding exercises of the Royal Commission process. Yet they are not, and a simple analogy shows why. How, for example, might we inquire into Christian doctrines, such as wine becoming blood, virgin births, holy shrines and miraculous places with a view to deciding whether or not they are a fabrication? More particularly, how would Christians respond to such an inquiry into their beliefs? This concern about how we approach Indigenous values and beliefs, how we are to understand them, let alone inquire into them, preoccupies many thoughtful non-Indigenous Australians. By comparison, it did not seem to bother the State government or many who were involved in the Royal Commission itself. Further, as Christians know, truth and belief are relative, not absolute, concepts; not static, but changing to meet the needs and crises of the time. In this context, creating a Commission as a 'truth finding' exercise was profoundly flawed. The badgering of witnesses by senior Counsel in cross-examination was hardly likely to reveal the truth, and emphasised the complete inappropriateness of this kind of inquiry.

Mead's presentation of the evidence given to the Commission often highlights a failure to understand (or to want to understand) the historical and cultural significance of 'being Indigenous' in Australia. For example, there was the implication that since (white male) anthropologists had not heard of the claims, they are not real. In another example, evidence was brought that there was no objection made to the building of barrages which effectively connected Kumarangk to the mainland in 1934. If this was a serious claim, it failed completely to understand the totally sub-servient and powerless positions from which Indigenous Australians have only recently begun to emerge and find their own voices.

Another telling point emerges from Mead's book. Those who doubted the claim went busily searching for the source of the fabrication. Was it the environmentalists opposed to the bridge who put the idea in the women's heads, was it feminists, was it white lawyers? It was as though the women were simply the poor dupes of others, rather than believers in their own right. It was also an echo of the condescending way that white Australians have long approached Indigenous peoples.

Finally, there was, on Mead's reading of the evidence, a very close and disturbing involvement by some prominent members of the Liberal Party in the events leading up to the inquiry. This must make the reader wonder whether the Royal Commission was less of a truth-finding exercise than a political response to the Federal ban imposed by the Labor Minister Robert Tickner.

Many will see A Royal Omission as a frank defence of the women who claimed the beliefs. It constructs an argument that the claims were not disproved by the evidence, and that while many witnesses did not know about the women's business, this does not make it illusory. In doing so it is sharply at odds with the official Report, which stated that the beliefs are a fabrication. Yet, the book does more than this. It exposes the Royal Commission as a shabby and divisive episode in the recent history of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations, never able to reach the 'truth' that it so actively claimed to seek. As Mead concludes: The inquiry was doomed from its inception. It has obviously done great harm and fostered terrible divisions. It is an inquiry that should never have been held.' Yet, the Royal Commission provides a precedent for State governments who might be dissatisfied with a decision to protect a site under Federal heritage legislation and who wish to make some political capital from it. It also dissuades further claims. Most seriously, it may well help to destroy the trust that Indigenous Australians have in the formal mechanisms that investigate claims such as those involving Kumarangk.

The fallout and the lessons from the Royal Commission will continue long into the future. Greg Mead's critical commentary of it deserves a place as a companion to the more theoretical analyses that are beginning to appear. Its modest price stands in sharp contrast to the extraordinarily expensive Royal Commission Report, which alone ensures that it will probably be more widely read than the official version.


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLawB/1996/49.html