Antinuclear

The great power of Vincent Lingiariʼs story is that it teaches us how this land sings to us all, how it holds us and nurtures us. This is the common ground that we share.

When the Gurindji leader and his people walked off Wave Hill Station, camping by the Victoria River and then eventually by Wattie Creek at Dagaragu almost half a century ago, they understood that the land was their birthright and their destiny.

The Old Man also knew in his wisdom that a sharing of the living environment, a responsible Custodianship of the land, was the key to the common good for all Australians. With patience, humility and extraordinary dignity, Vincent Lingiariʼs fight for genuine Land Rights shows us how it is possible to unite and inspire enough Australians to move the country towards a legal settlement that is fair in the eyes of most reasonable people.

This is a priceless lesson as Australians once more contemplate many different views on recognition of the rights and rightful place of the First Peoples. Vincent Lingiari was not a bit interested in the imperial delusions of the Australian Constitution or its negative concepts of racial superiority that leave a deep stain of discrimination on this outmoded document. He simply wanted recognition of the truth and legal acknowledgment that Australiaʼs First Nations had been dispossessed unreasonably and unlawfully for two centuries.

The lesson for us all at this hour of our history is that the most important changes required for the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people are legal empowerment, meaningful recognition of their voices at a national level and the full establishment of Land Rights across the country………….

While we debate meaningful recognition of Aboriginal people, why not recognise that on Aboriginal lands it is reasonable to legislate guidelines that would leverage mining and agricultural development to finance the housing and new technologies that can overcome the isolation and the inadequacies of remote community life? The multinational corporations say that this is an Australian government responsibility but if they are going to extract extraordinary wealth from the lands now being staked out, Australians surely can demand of our government a reasonable investment of these profits in Aboriginal advancement.

Despite the Luddite views of our Prime Minister on wind turbines, all Earth scientists know that alternative energy systems can help power communities across this land. A technological revolution around the world is shifting access to education, health and digital information away from 19th century classrooms and offices so that homes, schools and businesses can be connected everywhere. The Chief Minister in the Northern Territory pointed out this week that so many communities have not been provided with this new technology that can connect all of our citizens. Letʼs get on with building real communities.

To compliment technological innovation, desert knowledge, land and coastal custodianship, are among the most valuable offerings from Indigenous people for the sustainable development of this nation. This means that we should support the knowledge and commitment that comes from Aboriginal people living on country.

For reasons of long-term population planning, national security and sustainability we should not be considering concentrating more people on urban fringes when immigration flows now and into the future are directed there. Creative decentralisation is far more viable. This is genuine long-term custodianship. For effective management and a brighter future for remote communities we need to see not a shift of people but a shift of power and trust by all governments. All Aboriginal leaders, no matter where they stand, believe that responsible and adequately financed local decision making is essential………

When most of the world recognises the uniqueness of Australiaʼs Aboriginal heritage, how tedious that our Prime Minister, as well as some public intellectuals and media voices, continue to wage a very damaging war on Aboriginal culture.

Tony Abbott almost single-handedly has fanned the flames of the Culture Wars. First he dismissed the Welcome to Country as “out of place tokenism.” He then hailed the arrival of the First Fleet as the defining moment in Australian history without any appropriate admission of the devastation caused by invasion and dispossession. With a whiff of terra nullius the Prime Minister declared that the country was “just bush” before the British arrived and then he added his infamous insult saying that living on the homelands was a lifestyle choice.

You may see the Prime Ministerʼs litany of stupidity as merely a series of gaffes but I believe that his words point to a more troubling insensitivity, a failure to comprehend the strengths of Aboriginal culture and the resilience displayed throughout the longer timelines of history. I am thinking again of Bill Gammageʼs appraisal of Aboriginal “farming without fences”, the custodianship that created the sweet grasses that so delighted the English pastoralists. The mosaic of fire-stick farming and management of resources over many millennia is worthy of our admiration, not mere acknowledgement. The Aboriginal writer, Bruce Pascoe, in an essay called “Bread”, celebrates this custodianship as Aboriginal genius………..https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59787