I don’t claim to have the answers to all our problems. And I recognise that Australia has a lot going for it: great climate; great natural resources; great people. Maybe our good fortune is the source of our complacency. We’re a bit like Middleton’s Rouseabout (see the poem by Henry Lawson here).
It’s hard to go to any public function in an Australian city these days without the MC intoning recognition of “…the traditional owners of the land we meet on. The people of the …Nation; their leaders past, present and emerging…”.
It is one-sided and self-indulgent. It does not recognise that our ancestors took the land from them, and caused them immense harm. And we don’t intend to give it back. Then we added to the harm by taking their children from them.
It is easy to overlook that Aboriginal settlement in Australia goes back about 65,000 years. Compare that with recent developments like ancient Egypt (about 4,000 years ago) and ancient Greece (about 3,000 years ago) and blow-ins like ancient Rome (a bit over 2,000 years ago).
Aboriginal people are about 2.8% of the Australian population. So how about this:
- A once-off tax of 2.8% of the capital value of the land we took. The proceeds would amount to billions of dollars. Use that money specifically to fund programmes designed – genuinely designed – to repair the damage we did to members of the oldest, longest-lasting civilization on earth.
The Arts struggle to get genuine, meaningful support from governments and big-Australia. Of course there are exceptions, but it is rare to see a head of government also holding the Arts portfolio. And most practising artists in Australia can’t make enough from their art to cover the cost of surviving, so they take a job as a teacher or as a waiter.
But in the long sweep of history, it’s artists who are remembered. Try this experiment:
Take a room of 50 or 60 people of fair intelligence and reasonable education. Give them a list of names from the past 6 centuries. They will recognise the names of painters, sculptors, composers and writers out of proportion to the number of practising artists from time to time. They will not recognise the names of lawyers, accountants, sporting heroes…They will recognise the names of a few politicians, but mainly the ones who were tyrants. By this experiment you will demonstrate the real, transcendent value of the Arts.
- So: when governments at any level (from local to Federal) put out a request for tender, they could include this question: “What does your company do to support the Arts?”. It’s a fair bet that a lot of companies would want to be able to give a good answer and might just start supporting the Arts creatively – and generously.
In 1974 the parliament passed the Trade Practices Act which, by section 52, decreed that a corporation should not “engage in conduct which is misleading or deceptive”. It was new norm of conduct for companies in Australia. While it was resisted at first, it is, by now, a deeply ingrained idea of the way companies should behave.
But parliamentarians are not subject to similar restrictions. We accept without questioning that the norms of conduct, which parliamentarians set for commerce in 1974, do not apply to politicians.
Most people expect politicians to lie. Not many politicians have shown the capacity for dishonesty and hypocrisy which Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have displayed in connection with people seeking asylum.
But should we expect better? I propose:
- Parliament should pass an Act which provides that “A politician, in his or her capacity as a politician, shall not engage in conduct which is misleading or deceptive, or likely to mislead or deceive”.
Imagine how our politics would be transformed if politicians were expected to behave with the same honesty they demand of companies…
I thought you may have included: “The Coalition government must be booted ASAP.”
Fantastic ideas all of them and for the record I believe the last one should be easy as the rest of Aus has to follow the ACL why not them!
Thanks Julian for all your compassionate work.
Spot on Julian; thank you for your courage in highlighting some of these discrepancies and your imagination in your suggestions
Time for us to think outside the square, as our elected reps are not. I like your suggestions, especially number 1.
I guess it’s a level of my distrust of politicians, I just feel politicians would find some way around number being accountable for number 2.
And why don’t you mention any Labor politicians Mr Burnside. Of course, the fact that you’re a lawyer, AND a leftie, defines what’s really wrong with our country – ‘elites’ who think they know better than the rest of us. Hypocrites, the bloody lot of you! Now, if you were fair dinkum, you’d propose this legislation apply to your profession – first.
What on earth makes you think such obligation don’t already apply to members of the Australian legal profession?!
I propose that affluent virtue-signallers make their own, personal reparations by handing back all of their stolen property to its rightful indigenous owners, perhaps negotiating to rent it back from the original custodians.
They should do so quietly, and not “sound a trumpet before them like the hypocrites in the streets” after the manner of Matthew Chapter 6.
Foremost, “Let not the right-wing know what the left-wing doeth”, because we’re heartily sick of your posturing.
I have an issue with #2. The best programs are those designed and carried out by the recipients. For too long, our Indigenous peoples have been subjected to top down programs designed and operated by Gardiya/Kartiya (white people) which ultimately fail. The other problem is the short-term nature of the funding. I have witnessed many programs start and just start getting results, when the funding is cut. Many problems are going to take at least 2, perhaps even 3 generations to start having effect, so the funding needs to be guaranteed for say 100 years.
Dear Julian
I could not agree with you more on most topics, but Acknowledgement of Country is tricky. You are right, it is often one-sided, minimalist, tokenistic, insincere, self-indulgent virtue-signalling. However, the Wurundjeri people say they would rather have it delivered poorly than not at all (again, not their exact words) as inter alia it can lead to an incentive to improve by way of cultural education when the fault is pointed out. Boroondara Council has taken the contrary view that it is more respectful to have no Acknowledgement delivered than to have it delivered without sincerity; and has made its delivery discretionary in their Councillor Code of Conduct (previously it was customary and absent from the Code) while at the same time making the delivery of the Council prayer compulsory at Council meeting (and thus possibly in breach of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities). We at Boroondara Reconciliation Network have been opposing their stance for nearly a year now, but they remain intransigent despite a petition with over 600 signatories.
Finally, the form of the Acknowledgement can be “upscaled” once delivery becomes customary and there is pressure to do so; for example, references to “sovereignty which has never been ceded” are becoming more common, and Richard di Natale referred recently to “stolen land” in his Acknowledgement at his National Press Club address.
I agree, broadly speaking.
Something is better than nothing, but the right something is better than an insincere something