PM seeks another chance

KEVIN Rudd will try to steer a middle course through indigenous affairs, seeking a new consciousness.

IN a masterful fusion of humanity, symbolism and eloquence Kevin Rudd has branded his prime ministership with a historic mission; a mission where each of his recent predecessors has failed to deliver. This week was about national reconciliation, an event orchestrated by Rudd. It is Rudd who enshrined his first parliamentary week with the national apology. It is Rudd who devised the apology as an act of contrition and a new beginning. And it is Rudd who seeks to pressure Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson by offering the hand of bipartisanship on indigenous policy.

By these decisions Rudd has won himself an epic place in the pantheon of Australia's great moments.

He told the crowd in the Great Hall after parliamentary approval of the apology that "today is not about us, the politicians, it's about you, the indigenous peoples of this land".

The media has universally declared this is a transforming week. But that is a premature judgment. It is, rather, a week that unleashes fresh hope and a new spirit with the potential to transform. Such hopes have been regularly smashed over the past 30 years by policy failure. Rudd's task is to do better: to mobilise the goodwill from his national apology behind a new beginning in indigenous affairs.

The evidence, fortunately, is that Rudd and his Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, are more realistic about this challenge than many others. Indeed, much of the media response to this week's apology is plagued by the old ideas and old mindset that Rudd wants to transcend.

When Rudd and Macklin consulted about the apology in mid-December they agreed upon a core strategy: the apology must occur in consultation with indigenous Australians; support from the Australian public was vital so monetary compensation would be rejected; and the apology must use forgiveness about the past to project a new future.

The point is that 2008 is not 1997. The debate over the apology has moved on. The spirit of the Bringing Them Home Report report remains, with its grief and loss, what Rudd called in his speech the "terribly primal" quality of the stories. The apology is demanded by our humanity and respect for fellow human beings in a shared community.

But Rudd rejects the 1997 demand for compensation, rejects the report's accusation of genocide and repudiates the false trail of intergenerational guilt.

The truth is that Rudd and Macklin want to find a middle way in indigenous affairs, though they would not use such words. This middle way recognises the folly of excessive symbolism of former Labor governments and the folly of excessive practicality of the Howard government.

Rudd's speech to parliament has claims to greatness not because he said sorry with eloquence, but because as leader he seeks to move the nation towards a new position, a new consciousness and a new policy.

The radical nature of his speech as a Labor leader is too little grasped. Rudd declared that a "business as usual" approach "is not working". He demanded that the apology not degenerate into an act of sentimentality. He said that "most old approaches are not working". He called for a "new beginning" that can measure the difference between policy success and failure. Above all, he called for a closure on two centuries of settled history and a "new chapter" in which the nation "might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future."

This amounts to a devastating critique of the current and past generation of Liberal and Labor governments. At this point Rudd confronts a new denialism. Just as John Howard was wrong to deny the confessional value of the apology, many Laborites are wrong to deny the abject failures of past generation policies.

Rudd and Nelson know that a new direction is imperative. Speaking in parliament on the afternoon of the apology Nelson summarised the plight of the indigenous peoples: "Generally speaking, life expectancy is 17 years less for an indigenous Australian than it is for a non-indigenous Australian. That equates to countries such as Haiti, Ghana, India and Papua New Guinea. Kidney disease is 10 times more prevalent. Diabetes is three times more prevalent. One in five Aboriginal children at the age of 15 are not in school. One in four currently cannot pass a very basic Year 3 reading benchmark. One in three cannot pass the Year 5 benchmark. Unemployment is running at around 13per cent for indigenous Australians but fortunately it is down from 30 per cent in 1994. More than half of indigenous Australia is currently in receipt of some sort of welfare support.

"Hospitalisation rates are 17 times higher for indigenous Australians. Women are 44 per cent more likely to to hospitalised for assault than non-indigenous Australians. Imprisonment rates are 13 times higher and juvenile Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are 23 times more likely to find themselves in detention."

It is a damning report on the current generation. The question it should raise is whether in another half century there will be another national apology: for the failure of the present generation. As we issue the apology for the past, the present generation should be humble, deeply aware of its moral and policy failings.

Nelson's political achievement this week was substantial. His apology speech was flawed, yet Nelson in the first week of the new parliament delivered the Coalition parties (minus a few MPs) to the apology, reversing a decade of Howardism. His failure to achieve this would have been catastrophic for the nation and more catastrophic for the Liberal Party. Leading a divided team, Nelson has managed to reposition his own side. Rudd and Macklin, by the way, always calculated Nelson would get there.

In looking forward Rudd defined new benchmarks for indigenous progress that will create immense expectations and burdens upon his prime ministership.

He also offered Nelson a "war cabinet" role in new bipartisanship that Nelson, correctly, accepted, but which probably constitutes a poisoned chalice for the Coalition.

Rudd's benchmarks are ambitious. He pledges that over five years every Aboriginal four-year-old in a remote community will attend an early childhood centre; to halve within a decade the gap in literacy, numeracy, job outcomes and infant mortality rates; and within a generation to close the 17-year gap in life expectancy. Such benchmarks demand massive media attention but, sadly, it was not forthcoming.

In achieving these goals Macklin says she will be guided by evidence-based policy. The Government's "firm position" is to maintain and then review the Northern Territory intervention. Macklin has asked Sue Gordon to stay as taskforce chief and she has agreed. Macklin has stressed in public and in private that she wants a bipartisan policy. She has been in dialogue with former Liberal minister and co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, Fred Chaney, on ways to make this viable.

The Government has pledged another 200 school teachers to the NT and it will build three new boarding schools. Health Minister Nicola Roxon says since intervention was announced by Howard there have been nearly 6000 child health checks conducted in 58 communities. She says the aim is to build a healthcare system that lasts into the future. A quarter of a billion dollars is pledged to closing the life expectancy gap.

Macklin says there are more than 5800 people in the territory under income maintenance. There are 24 communities where income maintenance is occurring to ensure welfare is not spent on grog and drugs. Macklin's first executive act was to continue the program. She admits there are problems but says that mothers and grandmothers report the success of the scheme. An extra 66 Australian Federal Police officers will be put in place over the next two years.

According to Macklin, the former government's decision to shut down many community development employment programs was too quickly and poorly implemented. The Rudd Government's approach is to reform CDEP rather than abolish it. Overall, Macklin pledges to work in consultation with the NT Government and indigenous communities.

Rudd's offer to Nelson is a new experiment in Australian governance. Nelson sees the imperative to co-operate. How exactly Rudd and Nelson can co-chair the new commission to devise a fresh housing strategy is far from clear.

To be credible, both leaders should make concessions. But Rudd is PM and bipartisanship will occur largely on his terms. Rudd is calling the shots, a lesson Nelson learned this week. Consider these events: Rudd asked for bipartisanship but gave Nelson no warning of the housing proposal before Rudd's speech to parliament. Nelson felt that even 10 minutes notice would have been nice. The previous day at the "welcome to country" ceremony Rudd only asked Nelson to speak at the actual event. The following day Rudd's staff encouraged the protest against Nelson's speech. And Friday morning Nelson read in the papers that Rudd plans to invite him on a visit to remote communities.

It is true Rudd was keen to keep Nelson in the loop about the apology. But Nelson has plenty of reason to think Rudd's idea of bipartisanship will contain lots of traps along the road. It will demand high political skills from Nelson. It means working with Rudd, yet not abandoning Coalition policy. The prospects, frankly, are not promising.

Shadow indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott declares, in effect, the Coalition will not be played for mugs. Abbott warns that Rudd "won't get bipartisanship from us in watering down the Northern Territory intervention." The Coalition is united on this principle.

Yet Labor is certain to modify and refine the intervention. Indeed, Rudd will face intense pressure as the year advances to scrap many of the Howard initiatives and return to ideological orthodoxy. His entire speech suggests he will resist such pressure, but it will be intense.

Trying to hold the line, Nelson has written to Rudd asking that former minister Mal Brough be involved in the project, an inflammatory idea for most Labor MPs. It testifies to the sheer difficulty of delivery a bipartisan approach where trust between rivals is essential.

More than 30 years ago Gough Whitlam said the world would judge Australia by its treatment of the Aboriginal people. Since then the story of indigenous affairs has been optimism undermined by policy failure. It is uplifting to see the apology renew Australia's spirit and help to purify its soul. This should be a liberation and an occasion for fresh co-operation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

But that depends on whether Rudd's real and tougher message is heeded. For Rudd, the integrity of the apology rests upon "closing the gap". He says, in effect, that its ultimate success depends upon whether the current generation - with Rudd as leader - can rise to the challenge.