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Jenny Macklin's message to indigenous: use hard-won rights

By Paul Toohey

22 May 2008 - WHAT Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin was really saying in her 2008 Eddie Mabo Lecture, in her very nice way, was this: you, Aboriginal Australia, have won, through land rights and native title, interests in 20 per cent of Australia. Start using it.

Jenny Macklin comforts Bonita Mabo after the naming ceremony for the the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library at JCU.
She's no bully and suggested, modestly, that governments and mining companies were partly to blame for development impasses on Aboriginal land.

But her Mabo lecture should be read for what it is: a kick in the pants to Aboriginal land holders, whom she believes must start sharing - and, most particularly, activating the vast wealth at their disposal for the greater good of their fellow indigenous people.

It was a message for Aborigines to be as individual and forthright as Eddie Mabo, whose original case was about ownership of small garden plots on his island home, but which went on to end the great national terra nullius lie.

When Macklin said that we "run the risk of becoming sidetracked by the tired old debate of ideology versus pragmatism", it appeared she might have been addressing the tired old idealists in her own party. My guess is she was talking more to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Macklin said native title holders and claimants "have access to significant economic and commercial leverage through the procedural rights set out inthe Native Title Act". Start using it.

She rightly pointed out the native title process had become complicated, moribund, costly and time-consuming. And anyone who's had a look at the printed version of the act would agree - it's not a doorstopper, it's an entire door.

As Macklin said, again rightly, everyone was keen to make native title work - petroleum companies, explorers, pastoralists and indigenous groups. It was to everyone's benefit to do so.

Companies that wished to plunder Aboriginal land know, many years on from Mabo, that they must do so with great sensitivity and indigenous involvement.

But why, 16 years after the passage of native title legislation, was it not happening?

Macklin said native title's legal and anthropological processes defied comprehension. But she rightly sank the soft boot, pointing out that claims were often tied down in "internal indigenous conflicts and disputes over traditional rights to land".

Macklin would never say it, but others will: internecine Aboriginal ownership and who's-who politics has been killing the benefits of native title as much as anything.

Agreements with native title holders are ever-increasing. But there could be more agreements, if only the Aboriginal groups could sort out who among them should be paid royalties.

Macklin appeared to suggest it was time indigenous people got off each other's backs and started including all affected Aborigines in the royalty stream, not just the powerful few.

Macklin seemed to be saying that if Aboriginal land holders were more prepared to share the benefits beyond the confines of their immediate clan structures, things might start looking up. It might sound, at a glance, like she's proposing Aboriginal communism; but that's not right. It's a warning that governments are not going to pick up every single piece of Aboriginal society.

When Macklin says that "payments which flow to indigenous companies and trusts must be distributed and invested equitably and effectively in the interests of both current and future generations", she deserves support.

Not just the support of non-indigenous people. But of indigenous land holders themselves.

Source: The Australian

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