Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2608 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The government will be happy to see the day when it can report that one of the practical steps, the erection of signs acknowledging the traditional owners of this country, has gone ahead, but we need to know that all of the ACT's Aboriginal people with an historic association with this land are happy with the signs which are put in place. After all, it is intended as a sign of respect to them, and we need their agreement to it.

MR HARGREAVES (10.51): Mr Speaker, this motion is about recognition. One of the issues about reconciliation is doing something concrete, something positive, about the reconciliation process. It goes a little bit beyond just saying sorry and then getting on with it. What it talks about is recognising what went before.

I have been to quite a number of functions around the town and I have been pleased to be able to listen to people saying thanks to the Ngunnawal people for the use of their land. It has been a hallmark of many an ALP forum that I have attended, and many a public meeting process. It does not occur at every one I go to, and more is the pity, but I think that is starting to demonstrate that the recognition is there.

We, the Assembly, and the political parties and independents that make it up, have an obligation to take a leadership role in this reconciliation process. One of the things that the ALP, for example, is doing as part of its policy formulation is to create within its structure an indigenous persons task force, and I would urge the Assembly to take note of the principle behind it. Hitherto we have been sitting in the driver's seat, heading down the road to reconciliation with indigenous people in the back seat. We have been in charge of the timetable, the direction, the speed and the destination. It is about time we stopped doing that and started putting the indigenous people in the driver's seat so they can dictate the pace, the direction and the destination. I am pleased to be able to say that the Australian Labor Party in the ACT has taken a lead in that way.

I am glad to see that the government is supporting the concept. It would have been a bit rich for them not too when you consider that we can stick up a sign at the entrance of the ACT on a major roadway displaying our technology and sister city relationship with Nara. We ought to do the same for the family relationship that we are trying to forge with our indigenous people in terms of the greater Australian family. It would have been a bit rich to deny our own family members something which we are happy to give an overseas adopted sister.

Mr Speaker, the end product of this motion will advertise loudly to everybody coming into our region our commitment to the reconciliation process and our recognition of prior ownership of the land. Interestingly, the title of that report Bringing them home talks about the stolen generations. Reconciliation addresses the stolen home, the land, the country.

I want to address Mr Smyth's amendment. I recognise the spirit in which the government is bringing forward this amendment, but I cannot see, for the life of me, why it is necessary. Firstly, the minister has mentioned that we have to acknowledge the Ngunnawal lands and that there are a couple of spellings for that. It is acknowledged that there are different opinions about where country boundaries exist within the various groups in the ACT, and that is certainly true.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .