Indigenous calls for a treaty process

The winding down of the formal reconciliation process under the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has prompted renewed Indigenous calls for a treaty process in Australia. In his Wentworth Lecture on May 20 2000 (pdf 40k) this year, prominent Aboriginal leader, Patrick Dodson, laid out a plan for a process of direct negotiations leading to formal treaty documents. He also sketched some of the history of previous attempts by Aboriginal leaders to gain formal recognition from the government.

At Corroboree 2000 on May 27, ATSIC Chairman, Geoff Clarke, and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Dodson, made speeches which also endorsed the need for treaty negotiations to be entered into by the Federal Government.

Following Corroboree 2000, consensus continued to solidify in Aboriginal political circles on the need for a treaty process. Within days of the Bridge Walk in Sydney, prominent Aboriginal leaders Geoff Clark (ATSIC), Prof. Marcia Langton, Charles Perkins, Peter Yu, Gary Foley, Michael Mansell, Senator Aden Ridgeway (by phone), Ray Robinson, Pat Dodson, David Ross and Noel Pearson met in Melbourne and issued a joint call for treaty negotiations.

The idea and the wisdom of treaty negotiations have enjoyed high level government support in the past. A 1983 joint-parties Australian Senate Committee saw nothing outlandish in exploring the concept, and neither did the Council of Australian Governments in 1992. In 1988, Prime Minister Bob Hawke, agreed to negotiate a treaty or Makarrata with Indigenous people but the initiative lapsed.

Clearly, the need for treaty negotiations is firmly back on the Indigenous political agenda for dealing with the unfinished business of reconciliation. It is now up the Federal Government to respond - a point made strongly by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in his recent Vincent Lingiari Lecture in Darwin.

Further information:

See under "Treaty and Direct Negotiations" in Library & Links