Opinion: Like NZ, we should swap division for partnership with Indigenous

As the New Zealand experience has shown, Indigenous policies that divide rather than unite achieve nothing, writes Mike O’Connor.

New Zealand Minister for Regulation David Seymour

As a nation we reckon there’s not much we can learn from our Kiwi cousins across the Tasman.

They make some reasonable wines – nowhere near as good as ours, of course – and New Zealand is a nice place to go for a holiday, and they are really good at rugby union, but apart from being the butt of endless jokes involving sheep, that’s about it.

It would be to our detriment, however, in the light of the Queensland election result, if we were not to take heed of the remarks made by New Zealand Minister for Regulation David Seymour during a recent visit to Australia.

Mr Seymour’s ACT party governs with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s National Party and Winston Peters’ New Zealand First, and is part of the coalition which relegated the government of left-wing darling Jacinda Ardern to the footnotes of history in 2023.

His country’s Indigenous treaty experiment, he said, had failed to deliver better outcomes for the Maori people and had not improved their way of life.

He is in the process of dismantling many of the policies that were dedicated only to people identifying as Maori, and said the use of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi to divide the country between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, the employment of which had been increasing since the 1970s, had proved to be inherently divisive.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss

“One thing that is clear is that we haven’t made major progress in improving outcomes for Maori by going down that divisive path,” he said.

“Even if you were someone who said, ‘OK, I don’t like dividing people by race, but I think it might be worth it if it works out,’ well, the answer is it hasn’t.

“As soon as you say people could have different political rights based on their ancestry, then you go to a very bad place. New Zealand’s been on that path for 50 years.”

Mr Seymour’s stand reinforces that taken by Premier David Crisafulli in terminating, as promised during the election campaign, the hearings of the First Nations Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss has described the termination as disrespectful and harmful, and the Australian Human Rights Commission has described it as divisive. It is none of these things.

Truth telling cuts both ways, and the truth is that treaties, inquiries, accusations of historic wrongdoing, baseless claims of sovereignty and the endless attempts to burden today’s Australians with guilt for the past have achieved nothing, apart from providing a comfortable life for those people who have attached themselves to what has become a guilt industry.

Instead, the Premier has said his government will focus its attentions of home ownership and education.

“We will give them the opportunity to own their home one day, we’re got to improve the education for their kids, improve safety in their community and health outcomes,” he said.

Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry chair Joshua Creamer

The chairman of the Truth Telling Inquiry, Joshua Creamer, in denouncing the decision to end it, claimed the move was part of 165 years of policy failure.

He would be better advised to reach out to Premier Crisafulli, give his support to the new government’s policies and offer to assist in any way he can.

That’s the way ahead. A new government represents an opportunity to enact policies that will genuinely improve the lot of Indigenous people, and to hold that new government accountable for the promises it has made and the assurances that it has given.

It’s easy to take a fistful of government dollars and sit around creating a self-serving version of history.

Getting stuck in, grasping the opportunity being offered by Mr Crisafulli and using it to create a future for your children is much harder.

Mr Crisafulli should also overturn the decision by the Miles government to refuse to release details of the number and location of Aboriginal freehold land claims that have been made on Queensland towns.

This followed a Right to Information application by The Courier-Mail for documents relating to expressions of interest by Indigenous corporations and groups for freehold transfers of state land across Queensland, such as the those that have occurred at Eurong and Happy Valley on K’gari (Fraser Island) and Toobeah near Goondiwindi.

The land belongs to the people of Queensland. They have every right to know who seeks to control it and why.