Government by lies
The Howard government has been completely consistent on one aspect of its effort to amend the 1993 Native Title Act to restrict the land rights of indigenous Australians: whenever it has met opposition to its plans, it has tried to overcome them by lying. Consider:
- It claimed its amendments were necessary to protect pastoral leaseholders against native title claims. The reality, as it well knew, is that the High Court's ruling gives leaseholders predominance over any conflicting native title right.
- It pretended its legislation was only to give "certainty" to pastoral leaseholders and denied the truth that the amendments were a financial windfall (at public expense) for big leaseholders, allowing them to upgrade their activities without renegotiating their leases.
- It claimed that mining development was at risk because of native title. The Bureau of Statistics reported at the end of November that mining investment rose 19% last year and a planned 18% in 1997 — making mining easily the strongest sector of the economy.
- It pretended its amendments were about "land management" rather than indigenous people's rights, even though they would restrict the land rights only of Aboriginal people.
- It spread the claim — which even some Liberal politicians objected to — that freehold title (people's "back yards") was at risk from native title claims.
Since the Senate modified the government's amendments in a way that the PM regards as unacceptable, the lies have become even more brazen.
Howard had the effrontery on December 5 to call his bill an attempt to "implement" the High Court's Wik decision. We are evidently expected to have forgotten the government's violent criticism of the Wik ruling and its development of the 10-point plan precisely to restrict or undo the effects of the Wik decision.
There is one more lie that is particularly important because it holds the key to what is really going on. This is Howard's claim that the Senate's changes destroyed ("emasculated" in the PM's non-PC language) his 10-point plan. (Of the 10 points, only one, on facilitating voluntary agreements, did not curtail existing or potential rights of Aboriginal people.)
Senator Brian Harradine, not Howard, was telling the truth when he said that the Senate had given Howard 90% of what he asked for. Eight of the 10 points were passed by the Senate in full or in substantial part. On the government's point nine — to make it more difficult to register native title claims and to impose a six-year sunset clause on claims — the Senate slightly weakened the first part and rejected the second.
The only point on which the government was completely defeated was its attempt to abolish Aborigines' right to negotiate with mining companies on pastoral leases.
The government's refusal to accept what is essentially its own bill without the amendments on mining show what is really at stake. In the "10-point plan", advantaging miners at the expense of indigenous people is as important as the other nine points put together. (In the week before the Senate voted, the miners conducted a major advertising campaign in support of Howard's legislation.)
In the political debate about Wik in coming months, this "land rights for mining companies" deserves to be a focus of attention. However, this should not obscure the other pro-miners amendment passed by the Senate.
Following passage of the 1993 federal act, some state governments, mainly Queensland, unlawfully issued numerous mining permits without allowing native title claimants the right to negotiate. The first of Howard's 10 points was the validation of these unlawful permits.
The Labor Party voted for this legalising of the theft of Aboriginal rights, ensuring that it passed the Senate. While the ALP is posing as the defender of native title, in fact it too puts miners' interests first.
This makes it all the more important for the campaign against racism and in favour of native title to step up its activities. In the absence of continued pressure from a mass movement, it is possible, even likely, that the Labor Party or others in the Senate will "compromise" away Aboriginal rights when the government's bill is presented again in three months.
Our demand should remain the complete rejection of the entire 10-point plan.