The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre
Ms
Aparna Rao is a Year 12 student at Brighton Secondary School. An
outstanding student, she has been the recipient of academic excellence
awards every year at school. Aparna is a member of the renowned Brighton
Secondary School Concert Choir which has numerous awards and CDs to its
credit. Aparna is equally at home with the western choral and solo
singing tradition as with singing in the Indian classical style, having
spent a year in India learning classical music and dance.
‘The past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and
the future. It stays to shape what we are and what we do.’ The words of
Sir William Deane, in the inaugural Vincent Lingiari memorial lecture
are just as relevant today in articulating a vision for the future of
our nation. Good evening Mr Adam Spencer, distinguished panel of
speakers, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen.
In a broad sense, all nations can but have a common vision for the
future - to build a prosperous, caring society in which all people can
enjoy their country’s resources and opportunities and thus realise their
potential to the fullest extent possible. In aspiring to such a vision
each nation has to tackle its own unique challenges, and in Australia’s
case our challenges stem from the nature of our settlement a little over
two hundred years ago. While many would regard this as a positive
development, it must be acknowledged that there have also been adverse
consequences on both human and environmental levels which need to be
addressed with a sense of urgency, honesty and with a willingness to
make major changes in our way of thinking. Tonight I will confine my
attention principally to the human dimension, clearly seen in the
dispossession and sense of loss suffered by the indigenous people of our
country.
Historically, our denial of the rights of indigenous Australians can be
seen by the fact that at the founding of the Federation whose centenary
we celebrate this year, there was scarcely a place in our constitution
for Aboriginal people. Indeed the contemporary wisdom of the time,
guided by notions of ‘terra nullius,’ was that the indigenous people
were a dying race and it was the task of those in charge to make their
passing as painless as possible. Such thinking clearly led to the
policies that resulted in what is referred to as the stolen generation.
However, more recent events have given us cause for optimism. The 1967
referendum was an enormous leap forward not only for the constitutional
amendment it achieved but also because of the amazing sense of kinship
which began to be stirred in the hearts of voting Australians. Native
Title Legislation and the Mabo judgement have formally recognised
indigenous land rights, and the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
has accomplished an impressive amount of ground-breaking work during its
ten-year existence. Sadly, some of this unity has been eroded in the
past few years, but much residual goodwill still persists in a
significant section of the electorate and also in the hearts of those
who, like myself, are not yet members of that electorate. My vision -
and I believe that it is shared by many young Australians - is that we
should capitalise on the progress made so far in order to achieve
significant and meaningful reconciliation between the indigenous and
non-indigenous people of our nation.
In this context, the idea of a treaty which has been suggested by many
prominent people before is perhaps still worthy of serious
consideration. A treaty accomplishes two main objectives: it
acknowledges the prior occupation of this land by the aboriginal people,
and, equally significantly, it gives post-facto recognition to later
arrivals and confers legitimacy on the legal, administrative and
political institutions that they have created here. We need, as a
community, to make a tangible gesture, a gesture that has a rich
symbolic content, and yet provides a practical framework in which all
Australians can come together, lay the past to rest and look to the
future.
There are of course other issues of concern to young Australians which
do not arise specifically from our history, including education, youth
employment, health and foreign policy. I find it puzzling that education
and health in particular, issues of vital importance to the nation, have
over the years been reduced to matters of ideological rivalry between
the political parties. Our adversarial system of party politics often
prevents many politicians – and let’s admit it, many of them are sincere
people – from giving the benefit of their best judgements on issues of
vital national importance. As a young person, I have the luxury of being
naive, but I do not expect that a partyless government will ever be
adopted, however appealing the idea might be. I am, however, seriously
suggesting that if subjects like abortion, euthanasia and immigration
can be matters of conscience or bipartisanship, then surely issues like
education, employment and health can be handled on the same basis. The
challenge here is for political parties to discover a new idiom in which
to articulate their ideas and arrive at an established convention for
dealing with these issues. If politicians are willing to do this, it
will not only improve the image of politics and politicians, but will
also help to capture the genuine interest and commitment of young people
in the political process, for it is we, after all, who have the
responsibility of taking care of this country in the future.
I mentioned earlier the importance of foreign policy to young
Australians. It is somewhat disconcerting to me, in terms of our
national self esteem, that our elders appear all too eager to commit
this country to certain international obligations without, it would
appear, pausing to consider whether there are other stances open to us
which will better protect our national interests. I think that many
young people would prefer that this country developed its own foreign
policy and defined a special role for itself in international affairs, a
role which is dictated not only by who we are and where we are but which
also contributes to the emergence of a stable and just world order.
Ladies and gentlemen. The promise of the new generation is a recurring
theme in the life of any people. Hope springs eternal not only in the
human heart but also in the collective psyche of a society. But a vision
for the future is not begun tacitly at a specified time which is always
to come; rather it requires an ongoing involvement and commitment from
both current and future generations. It is a pleasant prospect to hope
that, long before this nation celebrates the bicentenary of federation,
the vision espoused by Reconciliation Australia of a united Australia
“which respects this land of ours, values the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander heritage and provides justice and equity for all” will
be a reality.
