Antinuclear

Across the front pages is a photograph of a resolute Tony Abbott with Aboriginal children in Arnhem Land, in Australia’s remote north. “Domestic policy one day,” says the caption, “focus on war the next.”

Reminiscent of a vintage anthropologist, the prime minister grasps the head of an Aboriginal child trying to shake his hand. He beams, as if incredulous at the success of his twin stunts: “running the nation” from a bushland tent on the Gove Peninsula while “taking the nation to war”. Like any “reality” show, he is surrounded by cameras and manic attendants, who alert the nation to his principled and decisive acts.

But wait; the leader of all Australians must fly south to farewell the SAS, off on its latest heroic mission since its triumph in the civilian bloodfest of Afghanistan. “Pursuing sheer evil” sounds familiar; of course, an historic mercenary role is unmentionable, this time backing the latest US-installed sectarian regime in Baghdad and re-branded ex-Kurdish “terrorists”, now guarding Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil and Hunt Oil.

No parliamentary debate is allowed; no fabricated invitation from foreigners in distress is necessary, as it was in Vietnam. Speed is the essence. What with US intelligence insisting there is no threat from Islamic State to America and presumably Australia, truth may deter the mission if time is lost. If the police and media show of “anti-terror” arrests in “the plot against Sydney” fails to arouse the suspicions of the nation, nothing will………

Far from being a “friend”, Abbott’s government is continuing the theft of Aboriginal land with a confidence trick called “99-year leases”. In return for surrendering their country — the essence of Aboriginality — communities will receive morsels of rent, which the government will take from Aboriginal mining royalties. Perhaps only in Australia can such deceit masquerade as policy.

Similarly, Abbott appears to be supporting constitutional reform that will “recognise” Aboriginal people in a proposed referendum. The “Recognise” campaign consists of familiar gestures and tokenism, promoted by a PR campaign “around which the nation can rally”, according to the Sydney Morning Herald — meaning the majority, or those who care, can feel they are doing something while doing nothing.

During all the years I have been reporting and filming Aboriginal Australia, one “need” has struck me as paramount. A treaty. By that I mean an effective bill of rights: land rights, resources rights, health rights, education rights, housing rights and more. None of the “advances” of recent years, such as Native Title, has delivered the rights and services most Australians take for granted.

As Arrente/Amatjere leader Rosalie Kunoth-Monks says: “We never ceded ownership of this land. This remains our land, and we need to negotiate a lawful treaty with those who seized our land.”

A great many if not most Aboriginal Australians agree with her; and a campaign for a treaty — all but ignored by the media — is growing fast, especially among the savvy Aboriginal young unrepresented by co-opted “leaders” who tell White society what it wants to hear.

That Australia has a prime minister who described this country as “unsettled” until the British came indicates the urgency of true reform — the end of paternalism and the enactment of a treaty negotiated between equals. For until we, who came later, give back to the first Australians their nationhood, we can never claim our own. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57493