Belated apology on Hindmarsh bridge is still warranted

There is a unique and admirable group of Aboriginal women who undoubtedly deserve a public apology.

The words and concepts of apologies and saying sorry are intrinsically linked to indigenous affairs in this nation. There is a unique and admirable group of Aboriginal women who undoubtedly deserve a public apology. For some of them, sadly, it is already too late and for the others, I fear, it is something they will never receive.

On this day 23 years ago, two brave indigenous women trusted me to tell their story and expose a travesty against their Ngarrindjeri culture. It turned out to be the most significant event of my reporting career, had a profound impact on national indigenous affairs, changed the course of many lives and helped seal the fate of Paul Keating’s government.

Dulcie and Dorothy Wilson revealed what they knew about the fabrication of the so-called secret women’s business of Hindmarsh Island. After weeks of research, I interviewed them in Dulcie’s kitchen in the South Australian timber-milling town of Millicent on Tuesday, May 16, 1995, before compiling two initial television reports that aired nationally three days later.

We believed it was an important story but could not have envisaged the national media and political sensation it immediately generated, fuelling a bitter controversy and putting the women at the eye of a monumental power struggle. This was the volatile post-Mabo era and Hindmarsh Island suddenly emerged as a pivotal point of difference between the Labor and Coalition approaches. (Subsequently it has ensured a prudent scepticism about cultural heritage claims.)

This spectacular controversy created turmoil and heartache for Dulcie and Dorothy and other dissident women such as Bertha Gollan, Jenny Grace and Beryl Kropinyeri, who courageously joined their public stand, explaining how anti-development activists had recruited Aboriginal opponents into a battle to stop a bridge and, after they failed, encouraged them to concoct the secret women’s business.

These claims were “assessed” and accepted by Aboriginal affairs minister Robert Tickner, who then used federal Aboriginal heritage laws to ban the bridge.

When we ran that initial story the bridge ban was 10 months old, so Dulcie and Dorothy were exposing a sham, rekindling a controversy, humiliating a federal government and taking on a vast array of special interests from environmental groups to indigenous, political, religious and media organisations. That, of course, was not the way they saw it. They were just exposing what they knew to be lies about their culture.

None of us had any inkling of how this was to become an emblematic battle in indigenous politics. We naively assumed that once the truth was out the mistake would be corrected and we would all move on.

Despite all manner of vilification, threats and intimidation the women stood fast, supported each other, stuck by the facts, maintained their good grace and weathered intense media scrutiny and a royal commission that unambiguously vindicated them.

The saga up-ended the lives of all those involved, and their loved ones. Dulcie, Dorothy, Bertha and their families provided enormous support to me and my family as I continued to investigate and report on the issue against fierce opposition and attacks from Tickner and many others. It was a living hell for these women, who were ostracised by some members of their communities, demonised by some indigenous leaders and ignored by most of the activists and politicians who couldn’t bear to confront their revelations. The dissident women, as they became known, saw this controversy in devastatingly simple terms — they were just telling the truth.

Dulcie, Bertha and Beryl are no longer with us. They endured tough times after the saga ended but were comforted and justly proud of the role they had played. It would be an exaggeration to say Hindmarsh Island cast a shadow over the rest of their days. There certainly were many difficult moments but in the end the memories and fallout seemed more like old war wounds for them; the occasional pangs of pain reminded them not only of the hardships they had endured but also of their most honourable achievements. Besides, they had all done so much more in their lives and had such busy families to be involved with that they were not going to let this episode define them. Their surviving family and friends remain immensely proud of them.

Two months ago some words in this newspaper by my colleague and former Labor cabinet minister Graham Richardson came like a bolt out of the blue. They were simultaneously a belated and refreshing act of clarification, as well as a kick in the guts.

Richo wrote with his usual frankness and clarity about the fraught state of indigenous affairs and the horrible collisions between good intentions and bad outcomes. In a matter-of-fact way, to illustrate his point, he recalled his days in the Keating cabinet. “I also well remember how the cabinet in which I served was hoodwinked over the concept of ‘secret women’s business’,” he wrote. “We were guilty of halting the Hindmarsh Bridge work for the wrong reasons.”

Just like that.

Here was a cabinet minister who was involved in those decisions more than two decades ago, and he was admitting the dissident women were right. Surely only these women and a few of their closest confidants can possibly imagine the trouble and torment they would have been spared if this reality had been declared by government at the time.

The closest they had come previously was in September 1996 after Labor had lost office and Kim Beazley was opposition leader. He announced that Labor was dropping its opposition to the bridge. “There is now no reason why the Hindmarsh Island bridge should not go ahead,” he said. Beazley was asked whether this meant the Keating government’s decisions had been based on incorrect information. “Well, probably on no information basically; that was the point, the previous minister probably could have handled the thing differently.”

To be clear, neither I nor the women ever cared about the bridge. Our interest was in the misuse and manipulation of Ngarrindjeri culture. Richo knows about the cabinet discussions, Tickner’s performance and the political implications of this madness all those years ago. What he doesn’t know, first-hand, is the calibre and character of the dissident women and what they went through. He does, however, agree they are owed an apology.

Dorothy confirmed this week that she has never received an apology, although some members of her community have quiet­ly approached her through the years and told her they knew all along that she was right and others had conspired against her.

But if an apology is owed, who would it come from? Would Keating seek to right this wrong or would Tickner climb down from his high horse and offer a belated apology?

Perhaps this nation that often makes a mess of national awards — honouring politicians, public servants and businesspeople who simply do their jobs — may see its way clear to offer Australia Day recognition to these laudable Australians, including posthumously to Bertha, Dulcie and Beryl. They deserve the recognition, as do their families. These women present a wonderful example of selfless citizens standing up for truth, their culture and country, simply because it was the right thing to do. The broader significance of all this is best outlined in the pithy declaration Beryl made after the royal commission vindicated their stand: “Reconciliation starts with the truth.”

Chris Kenny is the author of It Would Be Nice If There was Some Women’s Business: The Story Behind the Hindmarsh Island Affair.