Federal election 2016: ‘Be brave’ on indigenous treaty

Aboriginal educator Chris Sarra has laid down a blunt challenge to Malcolm Turnbull on treaty talks.

Aboriginal educator Chris Sarra has laid down a blunt challenge to Malcolm Turnbull on treaty talks, telling a packed awards ball that indigenous Australia is ready to begin discussions if the Prime Minister and other leaders have the “courage” for it.

Receiving the annual ­NAIDOC person of the year award in Darwin, Bundaberg-based Professor Sarra lamented the “damage and privations” ­suffered by indigenous Aus­tralians that “continue for many today”.

He said the “battle for equal ­futures has a frustratingly long way to go” with “plenty of people” still required to play a part.

And he said he had “a message for Jack Dempsey, Mayor of Bundaberg, to Annastacia Palaszczuk, Premier of Queensland, and to Malcolm Turnbull … when you are ready, and when you have the courage and you are prepared to be bold enough, I am ready on behalf of my people, and my ­people are ready to speak with you, about a treaty”.

Last month’s indigenous consultations in Broome on the question of constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander Australians will be followed by more meetings on Thursday Island and in Melbourne. Talks will end at a major forum at Uluru.

The 16-member referendum council co-convened by the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader is then due to make recommen­dations on next moves, including the possibility of a referendum next year to mark the 50th anniversary of the vote that saw indigenous Australians included in the census.

The waters have been muddied by a continuing lack of a referendum question, and by a growing refrain preferring a treaty settlement. The Victorian government has begun state-level treaty talks.

The Prime Minister rebuked Bill Shorten during the election campaign for raising the possibility of going “beyond just constitutional recognition”, saying such talk could endanger the support of “an overwhelming consensus of Australians” in a referendum.

Professor Sarra alluded to what a treaty might cover when he ­detailed the “tens of thousands of years (in which) our sovereign ­nations shared borders, trade and travel” and yet “in the blink of an historical eye we were banished to the edges of the very worlds we’d governed for eons”.

He also said the challenges facing indigenous Australians “do not define us” and that “healing ­cannot happen while ever we ­believe the lies that we are a weak, des­perate people, devoid of ­humanity and incapable of helping ­ourselves”.

Professor Sarra founded the Stronger Smarter Institute, which aims to lift educational results for indigenous children.

Other NAIDOC award-winners on Friday night included performer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, former Socceroo Jade North and Bangarra Dance Theatre founder Stephen Page.