Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 3, 1 March 1988 — New Initiatives for Future Being Planned [ARTICLE]

New Initiatives for Future Being Planned

Australia's Aboriginals Forgotten in Own Land

By Maleolm Naea Chun Cultural Services Officer Onee the only peoples in a vast island continent, the Aboriginals of Australia are now a forgotten, ignored minority in their own land. The years of racial discrimination and neglect they experienced are especially remembered by them this year— 1988 — whieh is being celebrated in the country as the bicentennial of the arrival of Europeans to the continent of Australia. Like the American bicentennial there will be many events to celebrate the founding of this British Commonwealth nation. However, news reports from Australia indicate that at least some Aboriginals, the first people of Australia, are protesting the celebration events to direct attention to the plight of their existence. Yet the present condition of both Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders may be reversed, if new initiatives now being proposed are accepted as law. This should also give Hawaiians something to carefully consider as we begin what Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees Chairman Moses K. Keale Sr. calls "an era of the Hawaiian." In a significant development whieh occured just before the start of the bicentennial, a new proposal for government initiatives and policies on Aboriginal claims and concerns was announced last December at the Indigenous Peoples International (IPI) conference hosted by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The IPI gathering met in Kailua-Kona (see story in Ka Wa\ Ola O OHA, January, 1988, issue). The proposal, entitled "Foundation for the Future," was introduced by Charles Perkins, leader of the Aboriginal delegation to IPI. According to the Honorable Gerry Hand, Pnme Minister and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the proposal sets forth the Labor government's plan to reverse the social and eeonomie plight of Aboriginals. There are several significant points in this new initiative. Perhaps the most important is the official recognition "for the first time that Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islanders . . . were the prior occupiers of and original owners of this land." On a nahonal level a commission is to be established to oversee Aboriginal and Island affairs. Through a system of regional and zone councils, Aboriginals and Islanders ean directly address the commission, nominate commissioners, and ensure that their views are acted upon. The commission would encompass the existing functions of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the Aboriginal Development Commission, Aboriginal Hotels Limited and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Also proposed is establishment of an Aboriginal Eeonomie Development Corporation, to undertake commercial activities in its own right, provide loans and equity capital for Aboriginal eeonomie development, and be the mechanism for the

accumulation of capital assets. The initial developmental funds total about $60 million Australian. The last major feature of these proposals is the initiation of discussions for a formal agreement or treaty between Aboriginals and Islanders and other Australians. Minister Hand stated that "we cannot eome to terms with our history unless we reach some form of compact . . . It is a recognized fact that the settlers of Australia totally ignored the legislative rights of the Aboriginal and Islander peoples." If these initiatives are fully implemented they may certainly reverse the present condition of both Aboriginal and Islanders of Australia. And if the Australian government and people eome to accept these proposals as law, then 1988 would be well remembered as a truly historic year in the annals of Australia.