Table of Contents:
What
is ANTaR?
What is The Sea of Hands?
Why does Australia Need a Treaty?
Myths and Realities of Aboriginal Life
A Brief History
ANTaR seeks to advance the moral and legal recognition of indigenous rights, to create a fair and just society for all Australians.
Formed in 1997 at a time when native title rights were under threat from the Howard Government, ANTaR coordinates a national community education campaign, promoting reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and raising awareness of indigenous rights.
ANTaR works closely with indigenous representatives and communities to lobby governments and to educate non-indigenous Australians and international audiences about native title and reconciliation.
Central to ANTaR's public awareness and education activities is the Sea of Hands, which has gained national and international recognition as the symbol for rights-based reconciliation and mutual respect.
Much of this work is coordinated by ANTaR's state and territory bodies and a network of more than 200 local groups, which carry out reconciliation and native title activities around the country.
ANTaR is almost entirely voluntary and is funded by donations from ordinary Australians. Supporters come from every sector of Australian society and include many eminent citizens.
It made its first appearance in 1997, when 70,000 plastic hands, in the colours of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, were displayed in front of Parliament House in Canberra.
Each hand carries the name of a person who has signed the Citizens' Statement in Support of Native Title - a petition circulated by ANTaR to mobilise non-indigenous support for native title and reconciliation.
Since 1997, the Sea of Hands has been installed in every major city and many regional locations throughout Australia. There are currently almost 250,000 names on more than 120,000 hands. The Sea of Hands continues to grow wherever it goes.
Recently, 6,500 hands were displayed in London during "Australia Week."
More information:
For more information about ANTaR, to include your name in the Sea of Hands or to make a donation or give other support:
1. Log onto our web site at www.antar.org.au
2. Phone us at the ANTaR National office on 02 9555 6138 or call your state ANTaR:
Victoria 03 9419
3613
Western Australia 08 9314 5690
New South Wales 02 9555 6138
Australian Capital
Territory 02 6257 4472
Northern Territory 08 8946 6545
Queensland 07 3844 9800
South Australia 08 8227 0170
Tasmania 03 6234 3870
Why does Australia need a Treaty?
Despite clear instructions to Captain James Cook in 1770 to take possession of areas of Australia "with the consent of the natives," no consent has ever been sought or given. No agreement acknowledging the rights and status of the first Australians has ever been negotiated.
This issue remains unresolved and Indigenous Australians are now calling for their right to negotiate an agreement or treaty to be respected and acted upon.
Australia is the only Commonwealth country never to have entered into a treaty agreement with its native peoples and this is reflected in a history marred by conflict over land use and the abuse of Indigenous human rights. Australia's Aboriginal people are today among the most disadvantaged in the world.
The way forward
The formal Reconciliation process of the past decade has been a first, decisive step towards a solution. This process has won significant public support. In May, an unprecedented quarter of a million Australians walked across Sydney's Harbour Bridge in support of justice for Indigenous people. Tens of thousands more walked in other cities. These walks prompted the current renewed discussion about treaty negotiations for Australia.
Treaty negotiations are the "unfinished business" of the Australian Reconciliation process and are the task of the new decade. Changes flowing from the Reconciliation process must not be confined to the personal and community levels. Change is also essential at the political and structural level. Reconciliation requires a fundamental, formal relationship change at the national level as well.
The exact nature of the outcome of treaty negotiations will be one of the substantive issues to be decided during the talks. This cannot be determined before they begin. The outcome might take the form of an overarching, national treaty or it might take the form of a series of documents negotiated for certain geographic areas or on certain issues. Whatever the outcome, it is likely to require constitutional as well as legislative reform.
A growing number of non-Indigenous Australians support treaty negotiations. Most people can see the benefits of sitting down and talking about problems, especially when the alternative is endless conflict and litigation. Two recent Saulwick and Newspoll surveys indicated that 45% of those surveyed support a treaty. These results are particularly significant given that there has been virtually no public education about the benefits of a treaty process and the current Federal Government is publicly opposed to the idea.
Benefits from a treaty process
A negotiated Treaty would:
Addressing arguments against a treaty
A treaty will cause division and will create two separate nations within Australia.
Treaty processes in other countries have reduced division, not caused it. They have strengthened unity, reduced conflict (particularly litigation over land and resources), boosted reconciliation and increased economic certainty. They provide an agreed framework for positive dialogue.
Indigenous Australians have never sought secession or separatism. Instead, they have argued for self-government or autonomy. They seek coexistence and cooperation in relations with other peoples and a rightful place as partners in the Australian federation. The "Father of Reconciliation," Indigenous elder Patrick Dodson, has described indigenous people as seeking a society "where we meet our obligations as citizens but where we are accommodated also as Aborigines."
Australia already has self-governing territories with the Cocos Keeling, Christmas and Norfolk Islands. These have not posed any territorial integrity problems for Australia.
Integration, not treaty talks, will deliver the solutions to Indigenous social problems.
Attempting to force Indigenous Australians to integrate ie. assimilate, is both unjust and futile. It is wrong to deny Indigenous Australians the right to determine their own futures or to deny them support to pursue their distinctive cultures and fashion their societies in ways that reflect their values. Indigenous Australians have made it clear that they have no plans for abandoning their cultures.
In calling for treaty talks, Indigenous people are asking to take responsibility for their problems and to be intimately involved in the development and delivery of solutions.
The very real progress which has been made by Indigenous communities in recent times has resulted from the hard work of Indigenous people themselves and from the introduction of policies giving a degree of self-determination to Indigenous people through such bodies as the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).
Most past policies have denied indigenous self-determination and have not worked. These policies have consistently undermined indigenous people in taking responsibility for their own futures and have increased dependence on the State. They are simply a continuation of the assimilationist welfare model and bring with them all the same failures.
Indigenous people would not be able to agree on who would represent them in treaty negotiations or on the final outcomes.
Australia already has a network of negotiated agreements between Indigenous peoples and other stakeholders. A treaty process would be a graduated one, building on what has already been achieved. Indigenous Australians may decide to develop an even wider network of regional agreements, rather than negotiating one single, overarching treaty.
In negotiations to date, issues of representation and agreement have been worked through and resolved as an integral part of the process. Success in any treaty negotiation is dependent on getting the process right and by allowing time from the beginning for full discussion and agreement on how to proceed. Such a course will ensure that matters of representation and agreement are properly resolved.
Myths and Realities of Aboriginal Life
Myth 1: Mistakes are in the past, active discrimination is not current
Many Indigenous people in Australia remain affected by relatively recent or current discriminatory government policies applied on the basis of their Aboriginality.
Stolen Generations: The policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families, communities and culture was consciously directed at expunging their Aboriginality to facilitate their assimilation into mainstream white society. Many of these 'stolen' children found themselves used as servants or cheap labour, or subject to abuse by the institutions charged with their care. The Bringing Them Home report recommended a range of measures to address the devastating legacies of the policy on individuals and communities. The present government has refused to adopt key recommendations, including a national apology, national reparations and a compensation tribunal.
Native Title: Indigenous customary rights to land (native title) were first recognised in the common law of Australia only in 1992. However, in the same ruling, native title was also found to be vulnerable to discriminatory impairment or extinguishment by non-Indigenous tenures. International standards of non-discrimination required that the government adopt special measures to protect these newly recognised rights from such discriminatory treatment. The Native Title Act 1993 was such a measure, negotiated with the consent of Indigenous people. Subsequent amendment of the legislation in 1998 by the present Howard Government applied a discriminatory approach which wound back native title rights in favour of non-Indigenous rights and removed special protection measures negotiated in the 1993 Act.
Mandatory sentencing: Mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory and Western Australia are widely understood to unfairly impact on Indigenous people, who are already significantly over-represented in the criminal justice and prison systems. The Federal Government has refused to intervene to abolish these laws.
Other discriminatory practices: Indigenous Australians also face widespread discrimination in the form of systemic barriers to the attainment of rights enjoyed by other Australians:
Myth 2: Australia has a good record on Indigenous and human rights
The existence of active discrimination against Indigenous people belies the claims of the Australian Government to have a good record on Indigenous and human rights.
The 1998 native title amendments weakened the Racial Discrimination Act, Australia's domestic enactment of the international anti-racism convention. The discriminatory effects of a number of Indigenous affairs policies have been confirmed by recent findings of prominent United Nations monitoring committees, including the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the UN Human Rights Committee.
The Australian Government has refused to accept the UN Committee findings and has recently criticised the UN committee process.
Myth 3: Aboriginal people already receive more government dollars than other Australians
Indigenous communities rank as some of the most disadvantaged in the world. Health, housing, education, employment and income indicators lag well behind those for other Australians. However, many non-Indigenous Australians believe that Indigenous people are the recipients of generous 'hand-outs' that are not available to the remainder of the community.
In Australia, claims of excessive spending on Indigenous services are frequently made to gain political advantage. Bodies such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which provide basic service delivery to Indigenous communities, are often the targets.
The reality is that such spending is mostly for services automatically provided to the rest of the community. Additionally, the provision of services to Indigenous communities is often more expensive due to their generally small, dispersed and isolated nature.
In other respects spending on Indigenous services is neither excessive, nor adequate to redress the relative disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians. For instance, in 1995-96, despite significantly worse health indicators, for every $1 per capita spending on non-Indigenous health, only $1.08 was spent on Indigenous health. Taking into account all relevant factors, a recent study concluded there was a spending shortfall of at least $245 million a year in comparison to spending on non-Indigenous health.
Myth 4: It's all too late - Indigenous people have lost their cultural integrity
Some non-Indigenous Australians continue to advocate the assimilation of Indigenous people into mainstream Australian society partly on an assumption that Indigenous culture has either already been lost or is in decline.
Assimilation and other policies of the past have caused the destruction of aspects of Indigenous culture in many parts of Australia. However, Indigenous communities have proved remarkably resilient to such impacts and have maintained strong Indigenous identities.
In the north and central Australia many Indigenous communities have been able to remain on or near their traditional land and to maintain strong cultures, including languages and systems of law and land-based religious traditions.
The adoption of self-determination policies since 1972 enabled a corresponding resurgence in the ability of Indigenous communities to maintain and strengthen the integrity of their cultures.
The importance of Indigenous identity and cultures to the well-being and development of Indigenous communities has been identified in numerous studies and inquiries, including the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, and many others.
Pre 1788 Traditional owners: Indigenous peoples have lived on the Australian continent for between 50,000 and 150,000 years on current estimates.
1788 Terra nullius: The British arrived in Australia and claimed sovereignty
on the basis that Australia was unoccupied (terra nullius). It is estimated
that at the time there were around 750,000 inhabitants living in independent
groups or nations, speaking 250 languages and many more dialects.
1788-1850 Dispossession: Aboriginal people were decimated by violent
conflict and introduced disease as they were forced from their tribal lands
by the advancing British frontier.
In the Port Phillip region
in Victoria, 80 per cent of an estimated population of 10,000 were dead after
only 18 years of European occupation.
By 1850 many Aboriginal groups in south-east Australia were at the point of extinction.
1850-1930s Dispossession continued: As the frontier moved through the
north and west of the continent the cycle of dispossession was repeated. The
last Aboriginal massacre occurred in the Northern Territory in 1928.
1830-1970s 'Protection' policies: So-called 'protection' policies were
introduced from the 1830s as a means of managing the conflict and as a way of
controlling and 'civilising' Indigenous people. Remnants of Aboriginal groups
were rounded up and moved, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away to reserves
and missions where most were forbidden to speak their language or practice their
culture. Protection policies continued until the 1960s.
1930s Indigenous population decline had stabilised and numbers began
to increase.
1937-1969 Assimilation - The Stolen Generations: The new policy of assimilation
aimed to segregate 'full-bloods' into reserves, and to assimilate 'mixed-bloods'
into white culture. It is estimated that between 10 and 30 per cent of Aboriginal
children were removed from their families. This practice continued until the
late 1960s.
1960s Land rights: Indigenous protests in the Northern Territory received
national prominence, focusing attention on Indigenous calls for land rights.
In 1963 Aboriginal people
in Arnhem Land, faced with the establishment of a mine on their land, presented
a bark petition to the Federal Parliament seeking recognition of their ownership
rights.
In 1966 Aboriginal pastoral workers on Wave Hill station, walked off the station in protest of their treatment by whites and demanded the return of their traditional lands.
1965 Activism: The 'Freedom Riders', led by Aboriginal activist Charles
Perkins, undertook a national bus tour to draw attention to Aboriginal disadvantage
and discrimination.
1967 Referendum: An unprecedented 90 per cent of voters carried the 1967
referendum to remove elements of discrimination against Indigenous Australians
from the Constitution, and to enable the Commonwealth to legislate in relation
to Indigenous affairs.
1972 Tent Embassy: The Tent Embassy, established in Canberra beside Parliament House, raised the issue of Indigenous sovereignty.
1976 Land Rights Act: The Woodward Royal Commission (1973) resulted in
the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, giving inalienable
freehold title to former reserve land in the Northern Territory. The Land Rights
Act also established procedures for claiming land rights on unalienated Crown
land, and established a system of land councils to administer claims and Indigenous
management of claimed lands.
1979 Treaty call: National Aboriginal Council calls for a treaty or makarrata.
Aboriginal Treaty Committee formed by prominent non-Indigenous supporters.
1980-1983 National land rights: The Federal Government announced an intention
to pass national land rights legislation. The initiative was abandoned following
an anti-land rights campaign, particularly by the mining and pastoral industries
in Western Australia. A number of states have subsequently passed land rights
legislation but with much weaker rights than those of the Northern Territory
act.
1987 Treaty: Prime Minister Hawke promises to deliver a treaty inside
twelve months. The initiative lapsed.
1991 Reconciliation: A decade-long formal reconciliation process was
launched and the 25 member Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) established
to steer the process.
1992 Mabo: The High
Court Mabo decision overturned the legal doctrine of terra nullius (unoccupied
land) - the basis for European sovereignty over Australia. Mabo established
that Indigenous native title continued to exist where it had not been extinguished
by Crown grants.
1993 Native Title Act:
This was the Federal Labour Government's response to Mabo. The legislation was
negotiated with Indigenous people and other stakeholders. It allows Indigenous
people to submit claims to a limited number of Crown tenures to which they have
a continuing traditional attachment; established a right to negotiate over development
on some land tenures, including leasehold land; and set up processes to administer
claims.
1996 Wik: The High
Court Wik decision confirmed that native title rights could coexist with pastoral
and other leasehold tenures, but that in cases of conflict, native title rights
must yield to those of the leaseholder.
1997-1998 Government
reaction: The Howard Federal Government reacted to Wik as a crisis in land
management. In 1997 the government introduced its '10-Point Plan' - amendments
to the Native Title Act (1993) to wind back native title rights. The amendments
were passed in 1998.
1997 Stolen Generations:
A call for a national apology and compensation for the Stolen Generations, coming
out of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Children, was rejected by the Howard Government.
1999-2000 UN censure:
Three prominent United Nations monitoring committees produced a series of damning
reports about Australia's recent Indigenous affairs policies, including policies
on native title, the stolen generations and mandatory sentencing.
2000 The way forward: On 27th May, CAR presented its Document Towards Reconciliation to the Australian people at Corroborree 2000 at the Opera House in Sydney. The following day 250,000 people walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of reconciliation. Similar bridge walks took place around the country. Indigenous people have renewed called for a treaty or direct negotiation process leading to legislative and constitutional change. CAR is due to present its final report to Parliament at the end of this year.