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Vision is easy with 20-20 hindsight
Issue 75 - 03 Mar 2005
Dateline: Canberra July 1, 2020
Today the newly re-elected Prime Minister and leader of the Australian Greens, Dr Roberto Bruno, dropped a bombshell. He announced what he called ‘handover arrangements for the transition of executive power to Aboriginal Australia’.
Speaking in the House of Representatives on the first sitting day since the Greens were swept back into office with increased majorities in both houses, Dr Bruno said that he was fulfilling a core election commitment.
‘The political culture of this country has undergone a fundamental change’ he told the House. ‘The Greens are now the natural party of government in Australia.’
It’s only the ‘Tassie Tiger’ (Marxist) Party in our island state that stands between the Greens and a clean sweep of governments across the country.
In what he described as a ‘clear mandate from the Australian people’ the Prime Minister announced a bill for substantial legislative changes designed to acknowledge the primacy of Australia’s First Peoples.
The changes, which were negotiated with Indigenous communities during the government’s first term are mainly symbolic. However, there will be a further strengthening of the Indigenous Land Justice Act which will give Aboriginal communities absolute veto over proposed commercial activities on traditional lands.
The ILJA legislation, enacted in the government’s first term, replaced the Native Title Act, which had become hopelessly enfeebled by legislative amendment and by conservative court interpretation. A new and much stronger Cultural Heritage Protection Act is still to be unveiled.
Dr Bruno said that the overwhelming endorsement of the electorate demonstrated that the country was united in its desire for social justice, and Indigenous justice in particular.
He spoke of the huge changes to the Australian political culture since the demise of the Liberal and Labor parties over the previous 10 years.
The Prime Minister said that these once great parties had ‘withered on the vine’.
He cited widespread public disenchantment at the cynical, poll-driven nature of the traditional parties who had left the country ‘bereft of a vision for the future’.
“It wasn’t so long ago”, the Prime Minister continued, “that Australia was offering itself as the saviour of the South Pacific - despite the fact that thousands of Indigenous Australians lived in third world poverty.”
Dr Bruno briefly and comically recalled the low-point in Australian politics back in 2003, when the then Prime Minister entertained colonialist delusions of becoming ‘Lord Protector of the South Pacific’.
Dr Bruno poked fun at the idea of the ‘Bennelong Bwana’ decked out in pith helmet and safari suit, being carried about his pacific dominions by a team of native bearers whilst perched atop a four-poster bed.
He recalled that each pacific paradise was to have its economy sustained by a Refugee Humiliation Centre.
Under this plan Bronzed Aussie supervisors, hardened from years of rounding up sheep and doing surf life-saving drills, would be in charge.
Detainees who had funny names, adhered to a non-Christian religion, or failed to recognise photographs of Shane Warne would be deported without ceremony.
Flimsy excuses like ‘but we were fleeing from a brutal despot in fear of our lives’ would simply be waved away.
Dr Bruno noted that it was a matter of historical record that the idea had crumbled like Mururoa Atoll after a nuclear explosion.
Before signing up to ‘fortress Australia’, leaders of the island nations demanded the opportunity to make their own assessment as to how well Australia treated its citizens.
They shunned the opportunity for a ticker-tape parade through Sydney and opted instead for an extended tour of remote Indigenous communities.
The standard of heath and housing they encountered on the trip convinced the Pacific visitors to forsake the offer of the Bwana’s tender ministrations.
“But that is far behind us now”, observed Dr Bruno. “We are a mature country capable of acknowledging our mistakes and taking action to redress them.”
“Although it is now over 10 years since the historic Prime Ministerial apology to Indigenous Australia, this additional recognition will go a long way towards further healing the wounds of the past.”
“This land on which we stand was stolen,” Dr Bruno told the house. “We can’t achieve peace as a nation until we establish a genuine moral and ethical basis on which to go forward.”
graham.ring@bigpond.com
Graham Ring is based in Melbourne. He’s a part-time, award-winning writer and a fortnightly NIT columnist.
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