Cabinet papers 1996-97: Pat Dodson recalls so much ‘hatred and viciousness’

The debate over ­native title in John Howard’s first term happened in a climate of ­’hatred and viciousness’, says Pat Dodson.

Former chair of the Reconciliation Council of Australia Pat Dodson. Picture: AAP

The high-stakes debate over ­native title in John Howard’s first term happened in a climate of ­“hatred and viciousness”, according to Patrick Dodson, who was chair of the Reconciliation Council of Australia as the new government worked on amendments that at one point threatened to trigger a race-based election.

As the National Archives today releases cabinet records of decisions in 1996 and 1997 that led to significant changes to the Keating government’s Native Title Act of 1993, Senator Dodson told The Australian: “Twenty years ago, we were shocked that the Senate voted to extinguish native title. We were shocked at the underlying level of hatred and viciousness.”

The records show the Howard government grappling with ways to amend the act before and after the High Court’s landmark Wik ruling of December 1996 that found the rights of pastoralists could coexist with native title.

One of the minutes confirms that Mr Howard, elected in a landslide in March 1996, first addressed his cabinet about Wik in “an oral report” on January 28, 1997, the month after the High Court decision in favour of the five clans of the Wik people of Cape York.

It was clear by then that the ­Coalition was committed to reforming the native title regime. The documents released today show that in May 1996, cabinet authorised the preparation of amending legislation. The objective, according to the documents, was to make the 1993 legislation “workable while respecting the principles of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975”.

The documents acknowledged aspects of the proposed amendments were “likely to be perceived by indigenous interests as representing a serious diminution of the practical negotiating benefits now available”.

In a memorandum presented to cabinet in June 1996, attorney-general Daryl Williams noted that it was the commonwealth’s view that “native title is extinguished by the valid grant of leasehold interests”. Mr Williams conceded “until there is a High Court decision which specifically addresses this issue, legal uncertainty remains”.

When the Wik ruling came, it set off a tumultuous chain of events that resulted in the Howard government’s amendments, a 10-point plan, being sent to the Senate three times.

The public debate was decisive. The National Farmers Federation ran television commercials in which a farmer was shown trying to erect a fence post while blindfolded. “Working the land is tough enough. The High Court’s Wik decision has made it even tougher,” the narrator said. “Farmers want their rights restored.”

The following year the Senate passed a version of Mr Howard’s 10-point plan, after independent senator Brian Harradine struck a deal with the government.

Noel Pearson, who ran the Cape York Land Council at the time, recently told SBS that the ­period between the Wik decision and the amendments to the Native Title Act were “terrible years”.