Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to the Gama Festival will certainly be memorable but not in ways that he will necessarily appreciate. It displayed, in a manner for all to see, his government’s final renunciation of the Uluru Statement From The Heart of 2017 and the attendant process of reconciliation.
The Referendum of October 2023 rejected the Voice to Parliament. The Prime Minister has now closed down all consideration of the Makarrata Commission, truth telling and treaty making. In placing his emphasis on economic development he has returned to John Howard’s policy of ‘practical reconciliation’ dating from C. 1996 but tarted up now as something new and innovative. It brings to an end an era of reform dating back to the 1980’s when the emphasis was on social justice and human rights, both domestic and international. It was a period when the world moved on in relation to indigenous rights but Australia fell by the wayside unable to shed its colonial heritage. Albanese has run up the white flag to appease the resurgent right wing and fully confirmed his administration’s moral myopia.
It is clear as well that the Government either knows nothing of pertinent recent history or if that isn’t the case, doesn’t give a fig about it. This is seen most clearly in relation to the concept of the Makarrata which takes us back forty years to the final years of the Fraser government in 1982 and the work of a star-studded bi-partisan Senate Select Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs which........