One people - a hole lot of failed policies

FORTY years ago, an overwhelming majority of Australians celebrated the results of the referendum - conclusively carried by 90.8 per cent of the vote - which enabled Aboriginal Australians to be included in the national census and enabled the Federal Government to give them legal protection.

A lot has been lost since then, not least the facts surrounding the referendum, which was the initiative of the then Liberal Party prime minister Harold Holt.

Looking back at the coverage of that referendum, which took place on May 27, 1967, something else sticks out like the proverbial canine's testes: the apparent desire of almost every Aboriginal Australian whose image was captured on film or still photograph to become a full member of the Australian people, not an adjunct, not a hyphenated Australian but a plain, ordinary, common-or-garden Aussie.

That's what the placards say: "One people. We want to be Australians." That is, they wanted to be included, not only in the census but in the spirit of the nation, a choice most people would recognise as assimilation.

Assimilation today, however, is a dirty word. It is the sort of epithet ALP extremists spit at each other at party conferences. Back then, though, it was seen as a beacon of hope.

But back then, Aboriginal Australians were healthier, more literate and more employable, though that was to change rapidly as soon as Gough Whitlam and his team of Labor visionaries began dismantling the loose network of missions and out-stations which provided services to Aboriginal Australians and provided them, in turn, with a structure which gave them the opportunity to play a constructive role in society.

The principal architect of the politically correct apartheid ushered in under Labor was H.C. "Nugget" Coombs, who had been responsible for the department of post-war reconstruction.

Coombs and his band of supporters believed Aboriginal Australians would be better served if they were isolated in remote areas and forced to reinvent the hunter-gatherer lifestyle they had begun drifting away from with the arrival of European settlers, domesticated animals, farmed crops and a monetary system.

Though the referendum was seen generally as delivering equality to Aboriginal Australians, it rapidly became the starting point for Labor to sequestrate them and, at Coombs' instigation, provide them with a separate body, the Council for Aboriginal Affairs, to handle their issues.

It is easy, particularly in hindsight, to see how things began to deteriorate from that period as the missions were denigrated then removed from the equation, European education was dismissed as a form of colonial oppression, some remnants of Aboriginal lore were reconstituted to provide justification for the abuse of women and children, and bodies such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and numerous Aboriginal Land Councils across the nation subsided into mires of conflict, often rife with corruption, frequently fuelled by familial ties.

The development of the flawed Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, with its bias toward the protection of the rights of members of minorities, not the equal rights of all Australians, was a flow-on of Coombs' Marxist philosophy, as the notorious Brandy case demonstrated.

In that instance, Race Discrimination Commissioner Irene Moss, who had the responsibility to investigate claims of racial discrimination, refused to act in a case brought by a white employee of ATSIC against an Aboriginal employee.

It was eventually exposed through a public hearing and appeals in the Federal Court.

A High Court constitutional challenge to the legislative enforcement powers of HREOC itself was only resolved in bitter circumstances after a disputed agreement with one respondent after a five-year battle. No one from HREOC appears to have said "sorry".

"Sorry" came to the fore during the referendum anniversary celebrations in Canberra at the weekend, with the usual calls from the muddled for someone to say "sorry" to Aboriginal Australians for something that no one seemed sure of.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, always the opportunist, immediately pledged that the ALP would pick up the banner on behalf of the "sorry" generation, not withstanding the reality that a decade ago, each state and territory government, the bodies which were actually responsible for all laws relating to Aboriginal Australians, including those relating to child welfare, delivered blanket apologies.

It must be noted that since then there has been a recognition by a handful of people, Cape York leader Noel Pearson and former ALP national president Warren Mundine foremost among them, that the policy which appears to work best is directed towards giving indigent Aboriginal Australians a "hand up, not a hand-out".

This policy has been bravely and forcefully espoused by current Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough who believes that one-size-fits-all policies, such as those advocated by the ALP, do not work because each community has very specific needs which require tailored solutions.

That some Aboriginal Australians associated with ATSIC's failed policies, like Lowitja (formerly Lois) O'Donoghue, or once with HREOC like Mick Dodson, or known for their violent radicalism like Gary Foley, oppose this progress should come as no surprise. Forty years ago, all Australians saw one people and one future for this nation.

Those who have fought against this noble goal should apologise.