Now's our chance, urges Yunupingu

IT'S been three decades since a young Galarrwuy Yunupingu first took the voice of Aboriginal people to Canberra.

IT'S been three decades since a young Galarrwuy Yunupingu first took the voice of Aboriginal people to Canberra.

Changes were coming fast - uranium mining at Kakadu, the Land Rights Act, an Aboriginal work-for-the dole scheme - and the former chairman of the Northern Land Council stepped up to the challenge.

One of the nation's most influential Aboriginal leaders, he remembers how Australia was shifting from a policy of assimilation to one of self-determination.

The struggle for land rights, he says, was one step along that road.

"I've always remembered that the battle my father and the leaders of the great east Arnhem families started was not about land rights alone," he says.

"Land rights were just one piece of the puzzle."

The 1970s, when Mr Yunupingu started making himself heard, were a time of upheaval in Aboriginal affairs.

Mr Yunupingu is still there. Despite stepping down as head of the NLC in 2004, he has since returned to the national stage to "advance the discussions in a positive way".

Writing in The Australian today, Mr Yunupingu, now 59, laments the lack of progress in Aboriginal affairs since the 1970s. Along with the fight for land rights, by now he expected his people to have the same access to education, housing and health resources as other Australians.

"And we expected a fair day's pay for a full day's work, not a welfare cheque for a half-day's work," he says.

Cabinet documents from 1977 show how the Community Development Employment Projects, or indigenous work-for-the dole scheme, was introduced by the Fraser government to overcome high Aboriginal unemployment.

The government noted more than one-third of the Aboriginal workforce was unemployed. Problems associated with unemployment, health, housing, education and community development were "severely undermining" the progress made since the 1967 referendum, when an overwhelming majority voted in favour of counting Aborigines as part of the population.

"Cabinet decided that in remote areas, community development projects would become an alternative to unemployment benefits, supported by education and training programs," the documents say.

An April 1977 cabinet submission details the government's policy for a "national and co-ordinated employment strategy for Aboriginals".

At a cost of $6.7 million, the program would provide community development employment projects in remote areas as an alternative to welfare, along with supporting educational and training programs. For Aboriginal people who lived in or moved to areas where established labour markets existed, the government would push for wider employment opportunities, plus training and education programs.

"Cabinet is aware of increasing concern in the Australian community and internationally for the social and economic welfare of Aboriginals," the submission says.

"While unemployment cannot be isolated from all of the other problems facing them, it is one of the most important, and there can be no doubt that in employment terms, Aboriginals are the most disadvantaged group in Australia."

Thirty years on, despite the policies of the Whitlam and Fraser governments, many of the problems remain. Under the Howard intervention, the CDEP program was scrapped, but a redesigned program will be reintroduced by Labor.

John Howard's intervention in the Northern Territory, broadly supported by Kevin Rudd, is seen by Mr Yunupingu as a "necessary measure". Now, he says, local voices must be heard to make the emergency reforms work.

"It's time to link the symbolic with the practical in a new settlement that sets this nation above all others," he says.

One of the most enduring symbols in recent indigenous history had an urgent and practical message. In 1963, elders from Mr Yunupingu's community of Yirrkala sent two bark petitions to the federal government, objecting to the imposition of a mining lease over their land.

"These petitions were recognised by the commonwealth parliament, and played a role in awakening Australia to the depth and strength of Aboriginal law and culture," he writes.

In 1977, he presented the bark petitions to the then indigenous affairs minister, Ian Viner, before they were went on display at Old Parliament House in Canberra.

The Arnhem Land leader had already come to prominence as an interpreter in the first land rights case. After judge Richard Blackburn invoked the now-discredited notion of terra nullius, Mr Yunupingu joined subsequent negotiations with the government in a process that eventually led to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. These laws - described by Mr Yunupingu as the "best and strongest piece of legislation for Aboriginal people" - came into force in early 1977.

At the time, the government was in negotiations over the creation of the Ranger uranium mine at Kakadu National Park, which began operating in 1980. Mr Yunupingu, as head of the organisation representing traditional landowners in the Top End, was a central figure in the debate. For his efforts, he was named Australian of the Year in 1978.

Mr Viner says: "We had some quite vigorous discussions and then Galarrwuy came to his own decisions, supported by the Northern Land Council, to agree to uranium mining. So he very early showed those leadership qualities and an ability to debate and argue - and articulate - the Aboriginal interests."

For Mr Viner, the uranium mining agreement at Kakadu was the first real test of the new legislation, and the NLC had to be given "all the room possible" to develop its approach. "That's where Galarrwuy's leadership really came through," he says, recalling a man with a political maturity beyond his years.

"He was immediately a standout leader. Very strong rapport with his own people, a very good rapport with me. He and I got on very well because we essentially respected each other's position."

But when it comes to the intervention, Mr Viner and Mr Yunupingu part ways.

Mr Viner is critical of the "authoritarian basis" of the intervention, and urges the Rudd Government to make major changes when it reviews the reforms in the middle of the year. He calls for policies to be developed with the "full participation and leadership of Aboriginal people themselves".

He defends the CDEP program, saying the scheme lost its "policy direction and targeting" when it was expanded outside the Territory under successive federal governments. "I'm sure it worked at the time," Mr Viner says.

"It was particularly targeted at remote Northern Territory communities. CDEP was then extended by the Hawke and Keating governments beyond the NT as a much wider employment support program.

"That may be where it needed reform and fresh targeting."

Mr Yunupingu agrees with the need for consultation with local people, but believes the intervention presents an opportunity, not a threat. And while he does have concerns about the quarantining of welfare, he supports the general thrust of the reforms.

He retired as NLC chairman four years ago, but re-entered public debate after the intervention was launched last June. He has promised to "light a fire" under the bipartisan support for a constitutional change that would recognise the special place in the nation of Aboriginal people.

Mr Yunupingu says he did not expect successive governments would fail to provide the "basics of life" and look "the other way until urgent action was required".

"I consider the commonwealth's intervention in the Northern Territory as a necessary measure - a special measure, that was required to address the incredible need in our community and to forge a new future for our children," he says.

"I have committed to negotiate a 99-year lease over my land, and I expect to obtain the guarantees for services and infrastructure that were absent from the negotiations 30 years ago."

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