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Howard silences Aboriginal advocates

The [Australian] Federal Government has ended the policy of self-determination which for three decades has taken the voices of elected Aboriginal representatives to Canberra, with the Prime Minister, John Howard, announcing he will abolish the nation's peak indigenous body.

The Government will introduce legislation to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) next month, moving all its programs into government departments and replacing the 13-member elected board with an appointed body of "distinguished indigenous people" with an advisory role only.

"We believe very strongly that the experiment in separate representation, elected representation, for indigenous people has been a failure," Mr Howard said.

The move follows a series of scandals among ATSIC's elected leadership and a scathing report on its performance by a government-appointed review team which said it had reached a "crisis point" over its credibility among indigenous people.

However, Jackie Huggins, a member of the review team, said the "essential element" of its report was that there had to be legitimate national representative leadership for indigenous people.

"A representative panel of individuals, no matter how distinguished, can never be the voice for indigenous Australia over the long term," said Ms Huggins, who is also co-chairwoman of Reconciliation Australia.

ATSIC's first chairwoman, Lowitja O'Donoghue, said she was unhappy with the way Mr Howard had ended self-determination. "Governments can't blame Aboriginal people for all these failures. They have to take some responsibility for themselves over the question of self-determination."

Labor is likely to support the Government's proposals, with the Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, having pre-empted Mr Howard's decision to abolish ATSIC two weeks ago. Mr Latham said yesterday that Labor had "once again shown the way on policy".

The Opposition and Government differ, however, on what type of organisation should replace ATSIC, with Labor saying it would set up a directly elected body to provide advice. Labor also wants responsibility for the provision of services to indigenous communities devolved to ATSIC's regional councils. Mr Howard plans to abolish these in mid-2005.

The Australian Democrats leader, Senator Andrew Bartlett, said that the proposed new advisory body would be a "hand- picked board of Mr Howard's chosen advisers for him to ignore whenever he feels like it".

The Greens accused the Government and Labor of playing "pre-election games" and said ATSIC's abolition would "do nothing to assist indigenous Australians to escape poverty and poor health".

The acting ATSIC chairman, Lionel Quartermaine, said the Government was "kidding" itself if it thought indigenous issues would go away with the organisation's demise. The board would still meet next month to decide if any protest or other action should be taken against the Government.

The suspended ATSIC chairman, Geoff Clark, said he would fight using "whichever means necessary" to retain the indigenous organisation.

Posted by thinkum at April 15, 2004 04:43 PM