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VALUING CULTURAL HERITAGE SPEECH BY
EVELYN SCOTT CHAIRPERSON COUNCIL FOR ABORIGINAL RECONCILIATION
DIRECTORS OF NURSING ASSOCIATION QUEENSLAND
CARLTON CREST HOTEL BRISBANE
WEDNESDAY 30 AUGUST 2000 Thank you Ladies and gentlemen. May I begin by congratulating the Directors of Nursing Association on reaching the milestone of fifty years of activity in Queensland. Your organisation has been an important contributor to public discussion of many major issues, as well as being a valuable network for your own members. I also want to thank you for inviting me to speak here. By including a paper on cultural heritage in your agenda, you�ve recognised an important element � a crucial element � of the great process of reconciliation that this nation has embarked upon. Speaking of cultural heritage, I�d like to begin by noting that we�re here on the country of the Jagera people, the original owners of this land. In keeping with a tradition of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, I acknowledge the living culture of the Jagera people, and the unique contribution they make to the life of the Brisbane region. Now, ladies and gentlemen, much as I welcome the opportunity to talk to you about our cultural heritage, I confess I had a few nervous moments when I first saw the topic. Any discussion of cultural heritage must, of course, include a look at history. I believe that gaining a true perspective on the shared history of this continent is an absolutely essential part of achieving reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community. But when some of us try to promote this true perspective, we are from time to time accused of "dwelling in the past" or even of adopting a "black armband view of history". So let me say right at the start that I reject outright the type of criticism that I�ve just mentioned. In the reconciliation context, a lack of understanding of our shared history is one of the more serious barriers between us and our goals. Those who do not want us to talk about our Indigenous cultural heritage � or about Indigenous perspectives on the last two centuries � seem to me, to deny our true identity and what it is to be an Australian. To include Indigenous views in our history is an attempt to fill a great gap of historical knowledge that until very recently our education systems had left unfilled. It�s an attempt to counter the effects on our social cohesion of the Euro-centric teaching of Australian history that for so long dominated our schools. We must fully learn the lessons from our history, because there are still those who are ready to exploit the ignorance on which fear and racial prejudice thrive. Therefore, as a way of getting in to my subject, I want to briefly trace how the need arose for reconciliation in Australia. Then I�ll talk about some of the progress I believe we�ve made in these last nine years since the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was established, and how we�ve sought to consolidate that progress and look to the future in our recently released national documents of reconciliation. You can trace the need for the reconciliation process right back to 1788, when the British began the long process of colonising the continent we now call Australia. On the 26th of January 1788, the British claimed sovereignty over the whole of mainland Australia. By doing that, they installed � or purported to install � their own Common Law above the traditional laws and customs of all the Aboriginal peoples, the first peoples of this nation, who occupied the land when they arrived. And in the British claim over this land, they denied the existence of any form of Aboriginal ownership of land � the so-called doctrine of Terra Nullius. That was the original and most basic cause of the need for reconciliation. The need grew stronger � although few new settlers knew it � as the dispossession and disruption of Indigenous communities spread over the continent in the following 150 years of colonisation. The people were taken from their traditional lands, their children were taken from their mothers, they were punished for using their own laws, cultures and languages. Their physical health was devastated by new diseases brought in with the settlers and convicts from another part of the world. First pastoralists, and later miners, foresters and fishermen, went about their commercial business with no regard for Indigenous sacred places and ordinary land usage. This roughshod approach, by the way, meant that virtually everyone in those industries was incapable of learning valuable land management lessons from the traditional custodians of the land. In time, the need for reconciliation took on another dimension. As the British way of doing things began to dominate, it became possible to see just how badly off Indigenous people were, as measured by the British people�s own yardsticks. The effects of settlement on Indigenous health were, of course, apparent from early times. But we�ve known for decades now that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are easily the most disadvantaged group in our society in terms of housing, education and employment as well. And along with all that, we have the indefensible situation where Indigenous people � kids in particular � make contact with the criminal justice system at a level that�s quite simply inexcusable. These injustices, these compounding inequities, made up a real need for something to be done to repair relations between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider society. The original rights of Indigenous peoples had been hijacked, yet they were clearly denied their fair share of the ordinary citizenship rights of other Australians under the imported legal and political system. The sad fact is that until very recently, very few Australians had any idea about the magnitude of these parts of our shared history. The tide possibly began to turn with the success of the 1967 referendum � the one that allowed Indigenous peoples to be counted in the census, and gave the federal parliament power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. At around that time, one or two universities were beginning to take an interest in Indigenous culture and current issues. But our school systems were still years away from changing the old history syllabus. The feats of the early explorers, the history of Britain, the economic development of Australia, Australia at war, and some key events such as Federation and the Great Depression � that still depict a truthful account of our history but not the whole truth of our history as it was taught to our children. Somehow, public attitudes needed to be better informed if we were to reach a more enlightened appreciation of our own history. Fortunately, a number of things did happen to create momentum for the required change. There was the rise of the Aboriginal Land Rights movement in the 1960s and 70s, for example. The Northern Territory Land Rights legislation of 1976 started some people wondering what the issues might be that made such a law necessary. A decade ago, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made an enormous contribution by looking beyond these tragic and unnecessary deaths to analyse the social and cultural causes. It�s report in 1991 raised public awareness another notch � and of course it led to a unanimous vote by Federal Parliament to set up the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. The work of the Council has steadily continued to build cross-cultural awareness over the last decade. It was helped in a big way by two highly significant events outside the Council�s control. One was the High Court�s momentous decision that the doctrine of terra nullius, that lay behind the British claim to sovereignty over this land, was a legal fiction. The political ramifications of the Court�s decision were, of course enormous, and they�re still being debated today. But whatever your view about how our political system has handled native title, the fact is that the public debate about it raised public awareness of Indigenous issues another notch. The other great influence on public awareness was the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission�s 1997 report "Bringing Them Home". As you know, that report, with its detailed descriptions of the trauma and hurt of the Stolen Generations of Indigenous children, shocked the nation. For my purposes today, the fact that it did so shock the nation merely reinforces my point about the way our society�s institutions, including the political system as well as the education system, had sold us short for so long in the history department. We could not properly value our cultural heritage because we only knew parts of it. Ignorance is a breeding ground for prejudice and fear, and even at the time the Stolen Generations report was brought down, we saw that there were still some Australians who were prepared to exploit that situation to their own political advantage. At the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation we�ve seen the job of promoting knowledge and understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians as a key part of our mission. We�ve tackled it in a number of ways. One very effective method has been the creation and support of the People�s Movement for Reconciliation. This has allowed ordinary people in hundreds of communities around Australia to come together, share their stories, and learn to understand and respect each other�s cultures and values. We�ve had strong support from many of Australia�s local government authorities, and a variety of formal agreements between councils, representing the wider community, and local Indigenous bodies are now in place. The agreements typically promote awareness and understanding of local Indigenous culture, offer protection for sacred sites and meeting places, and provide guidelines for tackling specific local problem areas. They�re doing their bit to eliminate the dangers that ignorance can create. We�ve also encouraged the formation of partnerships between Indigenous groups and the institutional parts of our society, ranging from health, education and housing bureaucracies to major employer and community sector peaks and individual companies in key industries such as mining. These partnerships are building cross-cultural awareness and trust, as well as creating opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to take greater control of their economic and social fortunes. Lastly, and very importantly for the longer term health of this nation, we�ve strongly encouraged reforms in our formal education sector. Now, at long last, the teaching of Australian history in our schools is beginning to include Indigenous perspectives, including the many thousands of years of cultural development before 1788 as well as a more balanced appreciation of our shared history since that year. The full effects of these reforms are yet to be felt. But every major school system in Australia has made a commitment to pursue the goal of a properly balanced history curriculum. There�s some evidence to suggest that the education reforms are already starting to bear fruit. It came out in some research the Council commissioned late last year, as part of our preparation of the final documents of reconciliation. Our pollsters found a noticeable trend among young people � those in the 18-to-24 year age group, and therefore those who had all left school in the last six or seven years or so. These young people tended to be better informed about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage issues than their older counterparts. They were also clearly more positive towards the major issues of reconciliation. They were better able, for instance, to see the link between injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples in the past and the social and economic disadvantages they suffer today. I think those results offer us more than a glimmer of hope. The up-and-coming generation is more able to value our past, in the sense that I mentioned earlier, largely because our young people are more informed. As the resources improve and teacher expertise expands, these reforms will, I believe, make a major contribution to genuine reconciliation. They�ll ultimately have a profound positive impact on Australia�s identity as a nation. As senior health professionals, you people would know that similar important developments are taking place in the area of Indigenous health. Certainly, improvements in outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are painfully slow in coming through. But new approaches have started to emerge over the last decade or so and, provided the resources are there to allow them to work, I think they hold out a lot of promise. You know the detail better than I do, especially in terms of some recent positive moves by the State Government here in Queensland. Broadly though, I think the key is the recognition that Indigenous communities themselves must be involved at all stages of the effort to address their own health needs. It was my predecessor in the chair at the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Patrick Dodson, who raised this issue in blunt terms some five years ago. Patrick took the view that governments were wasting their money if they went on trying to impose solutions on Indigenous communities. The solutions must come from the communities themselves. Here again it�s a case of valuing the past, this time by accepting the validity of traditional cultural practices that still guide the day-to-day lives of Indigenous communities. The validity of these traditional practices have certainly not been recognised in the past. Even after the federal government became actively involved in programs for Indigenous people in the 1970s, the mainstream assumption was that Western medicine, Western public health policies and Western delivery methods were appropriate � and would be effective � in addressing Indigenous health issues. We know now, if only because of the stubborn lack of movement in so many statistical health indicators, that these assumptions were faulty. But we also know about the emergence of the Aboriginal community controlled health sector over the last few years. We know that the important role of that sector was recognised in the Health Framework Agreements negotiated between all Australian governments some three years ago. And we know its becoming increasingly routine for Indigenous cultural awareness issues to be built in to the training of health professionals. These are positive developments. What remains is to ensure the momentum is maintained. The Framework Agreements must be fully implemented, and they and the continuing health education initiatives must be adequately resourced. I know there are many specific clinical issues out there to challenge everyone working in the field of Indigenous health. But in a discussion about valuing our heritage, I wanted to raise these broad background matters as worthy of your continuing attention and commitment. Your positions of responsibility mean you can make a significant contribution to the spread of cultural sensitivity in the health services sector. No doubt many of you are already doing so, and I know it�s not always easy to work through the important cross-cultural principles in every situation that confronts you. By making the attempt, however, and achieving any small breakthroughs on the ground, you�re doing your bit not only for improved Indigenous health outcomes, but also for the wider goal of reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the rest of Australian society. This brings me to the final part of my remarks, where I�d like to share some thoughts on the significance and function of the reconciliation documents my Council presented to the nation at Corroboree 2000. I must say that Corroboree 2000 itself was a highly significant moment in our history. It demonstrated in a most dramatic way that the People�s Movement for Reconciliation is now a powerful force within Australian society � that the spirit of reconciliation is strong in our land. A quarter of a million people in Sydney, 70,000 here in Brisbane, 40,000 in Adelaide, 20,000 or more in Hobart ... so it went on in cities and towns all over the country. All those people who supported Corroboree 2000 were no doubt making a general statement of commitment. But they also knew in advance what the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was proposing in its Declaration Towards Reconciliation and the associated Roadmap for Reconciliation. The idea of a formal document or documents was an option that Parliament specifically asked the Council to look at back in 1991. We looked at it. We concluded that reconciliation documents could truly uplift and unify the nation, and at the same time lay down an agenda for what still needs to be done to complete the journey to lasting reconciliation. We spent several years talking to the Australian people about what might be in such a document, and many months of hard, careful thought have gone into its form and its wording. When we produced draft documents in June last year, we subjected them to probably the biggest round of public consultation ever attempted in this country. Guided by a huge amount of feedback from the consultations, we produced the final documents that were formally presented to the nation at Corroboree 2000. The people knew what was in our documents � we deliberately published the text some weeks before the event. They also knew the difficult political climate in which we produced the final documents. Yet they turned out in their hundreds of thousands to support our documents as well as the ultimate goal of reconciliation itself. I imagine most of you are familiar with our first document, the Declaration Towards Reconciliation. It�s the short, inspirational statement designed to help unify and uplift the nation as we complete the journey towards reconciliation. But I�d urge you to have a closer look at our second document, which we called the Roadmap for Reconciliation. This document sets an agenda for what still needs to be done, by all sections of our society including governments. It�s strategies dealing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage are naturally relevant to the work of health professionals like yourselves. I�d ask you, however, to look at the other strategies, dealing with Indigenous rights, economic independence and ways of sustaining the People�s Movement for Reconciliation. They raise important issues that are still to be resolved. How, for example, should we define and legislate for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within our national political structure? Do we need a Bill of Rights, as Malcolm Fraser suggested a few days ago? How do we recognise the place of traditional or customary law within our mainstream legal framework? I believe such issues must be addressed. Until we tackle them seriously, we won�t arrive at a full evaluation of our cultural heritage � and we won�t take the final steps on the journey to genuine reconciliation. Ladies and gentlemen, the success of Corroboree 2000 was a triumph for tolerance over racism, for understanding and respect over mistrust. It was also a triumph for knowledge over ignorance. That, I believe, is one of the most significant achievements of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation � and Australian society � in this past decade. Those hundreds of thousands of people showed the world that Australians do want to value their cultural heritage. They want to value all of it. Not just the British culture that dominated from the early 1800s until the 1960s. Not just the rich diversity that the great multicultural adventure has brought us since then. There is a proud and rightful place in our total heritage for the First People�s of this continent. The unique contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to our national identity should be acknowledged � and celebrated � by all Australians. Thank you.
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