THE FIRST PEOPLES


Recognising a wrong to set it right
(this is an introduction to the speech in: Long Game We have to Win)


By John and Elaine Telford


One of the ironies in Australia is that its original inhabitants are not recognised in the Constitution. Drawn up in 1902, it made no reference to the fact that the land was inhabited by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for thousands of years before the first British settlers arrived in 1788. Instead, it classified them as part of the flora and fauna.


We began to come to grips with issues like these in 1970, when we met the late David Mowaljarli, a famous painter, activist and leader from Mowanjum. The small aboriginal community lies on the outskirts of Derby, in the West Kimberley, Western Australia, about 2,400 kilometres north of Perth. The Institute of Cultural Affairs had just begun working with this community. The human development project involved measures such as motivating residents, releasing their creativity and building leadership skills to empower them in the task of comprehensive change.


Since then, we have worked in various places wrestling with the task of changing myths, stereotypes, boundaries of opinion and racism among Australians that oppress the “First Peoples”.


In 1991, the Royal Commission report on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was released, highlighting the depth of racial discrimination. That eventually led to the formation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, replaced in the year 2000 by Reconciliation Australia, an independent, national not-for-profit organisation promoting reconciliation by building relationships, respect and trust between the wider Australian community and the First Peoples.


As coordinators for the council’s Australians for Reconciliation program in New South Wales (NSW) in the 90s, we worked with diverse community groups to make an impact on the national psyche. One of them, the Women's Reconciliation Network, which has several ICA members, is involved in the current Recognise Campaign.


The Recognise Campaign aims to raise awareness of the need to end the exclusion of the First Peoples in the Constitution and deal with the racial discrimination in it. It has a specific deadline – a referendum. At this stage, 2017 has been mentioned as the date. That would coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum after which Australia stopped classifying the First Peoples as fauna and flora. However, the real unknown is the question the public will be asked at the referendum booth.


In the meantime, supporters of the Recognise Campaign are travelling to hundreds of communities around the nation to educate and prepare Australians to vote on the issue.


One such event was held in Bourke, NSW, about 800 kilometres north-west of Sydney. The rural town, far from the hurly burly of city life, has a large population of First Peoples. The main speaker was Linda Burney, a Member of Parliament, who had served on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and whom we have known since the 1990s. Her speech on the importance of the Recognise Campaign appears in these pages.


John and Elaine Telford, members of ICA Australia, live in the Blue Mountains, a two-hour train ride west of Sydney.



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