Statement by THE RT. HON. MALCOLM FRASER, AC, CH
Patron – National Sorry Day Committee
PRESS RELEASE: April 27, 2005.

At a press briefing on a National Day of Healing, Malcolm Fraser (as Co-Chair with Doris Pilkington Garimara of the Journey of Healing) has highlighted the failure of both major parties to advance Indigenous health, and Indigenous participation in Australian public life.

Several indicators of Indigenous well-being and involvement have seen a reversal in recent years. There are now fewer Aboriginal people at university than there were five years ago, and fewer Aboriginal people in the public service than a decade ago. The Office of Indigenous Policy, which is shaping the new approach to Indigenous affairs, has only one Indigenous person at senior level.

There has been no improvement in the life expectancy of Aboriginal people since the Commonwealth Grants Commission in 2001 reported the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians as over 19 years. In New Zealand, the gap is 5 to 6 years; in Canada, it is 7 years; in the USA, it is 3.5 years. Every developed country except Australia eliminated trachoma decades ago; we still have 20,000 to 30,000 Aboriginal children going blind through trachoma.

Of the Western countries with an Indigenous population, we are now the only country with no Indigenous representative body. Representation is a learned skill, and ATSIC offered an opportunity to learn. Now that it is gone, we need a new method by which Indigenous people can choose their representatives. Shared responsibility agreements will only work if they are negotiated with people chosen by the Indigenous community, not by the Government.

The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Survey shows that the children of the stolen generations have greater health problems than other Aboriginal children. This gives added importance to implementing the Bringing Them Home Report wholeheartedly.

At present, we are failing on the first step – bringing together separated Aboriginal families. Though the Government is putting about $3 million a year into the Link-Up Programme, it is only scratching the surface. Several thousand Indigenous people are searching for family members from whom they have been separated, and Link-Up is only able to help a few hundred. Canada is more realistic in its approach to healing the wounds of the past. As one example, it has put over $400 million into a recovery programme for the victims of abuse in the institutions to which their Indigenous children were removed.

The attempt to separate “practical” from “symbolic” reconciliation seems to mean that the Government will not acknowledge past wrongs, and will not accept any obligation to redress the effects of unjust treatment. But it is only possible to share responsibility to answer a problem once agreement has been reached on each party’s responsibility for causing the problem.

As Professor Ian Ring and many other experienced medical professionals have shown, major advance in Indigenous health is within our knowledge and capacity. If adequate resources are made available, we would see dramatic improvements within a decade.

But without support from either of the major Federal political parties, it is very difficult to get the issue on the public agenda and it becomes too easy for people to put it aside.

If either the Liberal Party or the Labor Party were prepared to argue genuinely for a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, based on justice and healing, they would attract many from the middle ground who feel unrepresented by the Canberra political processes, and who would be ready to support policies that genuinely advance aboriginal reconciliation and well being.