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Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition

Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
PO Box 6021
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Dear Sir,

Re: Submission re Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander Peoples

I respectfully submit that the Constitution of Australia refer only to the

Australian people, without discrimination. No attempt must be allowed that
would divide Australian society into separate classes by race, religion or by
anything else. There must be no treatment of any sections of Australian
society that discriminates one from another, in law or in anything else.

Each and every Australian has a voice in Government through their elected
representatives. These representatives must be seen to act always for their
constituents without prejudice or favouritism. Their actions must never be
based on race, religion or any other form of discrimination.

Much of the discussion about aborigines is based on myth or falsehood. Much

is divisive. Most misses the point that we would be better to see ourselves as
part of one flock, not several distinct groups of different feather.

Captain Cook led an expedition from England and landed in Australia during
1770. At this time in Australia, there were approximately 750,000 aborigines
living in about 684 separate language groups spread across Australia. Each
group had its own language, customs, and culture. Even adjoining groups
often could not understand the language of their neighbours. Aborigines had
no concept of nationhood in the sense that countries are seen to be nations
today. These groups were “nations” only in the dictionary sense that they
were each a community of people who shared a common ethnic origin,
culture, historical tradition, and language. There was never an aboriginal
nation, and to say there was is to speak nonsense and maleficently.

Captain Cook claimed the land for Britain. The fact the land was inhabited by
another people is irrelevant. The British occupied Australia with every
intention of doing so peaceably. Undoubtedly there were some atrocities
committed by the British, with many precipitated by aboriginal attacks on the
settlers. No atrocity or murder can be condoned and all must be regretted no
matter who committed the act. Notwithstanding, the British did occupy
Australia. They could have done so by force of arms, as obvious conquerors.
Indeed, only people who wish to play with the meaning of words can believe
anything but the British did conquer Australia. To be under a state of complete
bureaucratic, political, economic and administrative dependency, as the
aborigines have been since, is to be in a state of being occupied. The rights of
an occupied people are at the discretion of the occupiers whether or not those
people accept occupation.
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The make-up of societies in most countries has changed throughout history

because of conquest, colonisation, emigration, and immigration. Australia is
no different. Aborigines certainly were in Australia before its colonisation by
the British, but so what? Prior to colonisation, people lived a "stone-age" style
of existence, one fraught with conflict, infanticide, female subservience to a
male dominated hierarchy, and a largely nomadic lifestyle. There were few
comforts and life was one of subsistence.

After colonisation by a technologically superior people, the British, Australian

society changed and continues to change. Most people would argue the
change has been for the better. Many aboriginal representatives are
attempting to perpetuate divisions within the Australian community by trying to
set the Aborigine apart, both within the Constitution and otherwise. They
seem not to accept that if the “white man” had not settled Australia, then the
Aborigine would still be living a stone age like existence. Australia is what it is
today because of settlement since the 1700s, not because of the Aborigine.

The aborigine has been compensated many times over for the occupation of
his lands, by having been given the opportunity of leaving behind his
traditional life-style to enjoy the many benefits of modern Australia. Few would
wish to return to the traditional aboriginal lifestyle that existed before
colonisation. No aboriginal lives today as did his traditional ancestors. Even in
the most remote aboriginal groups, western goods abound in the form of food,
clothing, cars, electricity, or housing, for example. Many aboriginal groups live
in conditions that most non-aborigines would describe as unsatisfactory.
However, aborigines have generated those conditions and seem content to
continue living as they do because it takes little effort and the Australian
taxpayer funds their life-style. When asked why they seem not to have any
ambition to improve their living conditions and life-style, they respond, "there
is no incentive because government looks after them and things are OK". This
has been the response when put to individual aborigines in friendly
conversations, not when put to the politically motivated.

Aborigines are getting significant and special treatment, yet say they want
more. Governments give aborigines vast sums of money to improve their lot
and many aboriginal groups get huge royalty payments from mining and other
companies forced to pay to access “aboriginal” land; noting that aborigines
have been granted native title over 34% of the Australian landmass today,
and will have native title over 62% if all present claims are agreed. Added to
this are the State based Land Rights lands and reserves. In aggregate, there
is aboriginal freehold ownership, native title (exclusive and non-exclusive),
land rights and reserves, and pending determinations of native title over 72%
of the Australian landmass.

Aborigines can do much to improve their lot, if that is what they truly want.
When aborigines progress from their fixation with their past culture and move
to join and live with and like other Australians, and the governments of
Australia encourage this change, aboriginal conditions will improve and their
issues will stop being newsworthy. The myopia exposed in recent newspaper
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articles is revealing. One article gave statistics to show the disparity between
many aborigines and other Australians entitled, "Greater Prosperity Key to
Closing the Gap". One solution proposed was to increase aboriginal home
ownership. This is simplistic. The “gap” is due largely to factors like:
aborigines, generally, continue to be under-educated because they do not go
to school, they are unemployed because they choose to live in places where
there is no work, they suffer from unnecessary health problems because they
live in self-generated unhygienic conditions, and too many are in gaol
because they break the law. ABS data shows at June 2017, Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 27% of the total Australian
prisoner population, although aborigines comprised only 3% of the total
Australian population. This was a 7% increase from 30 June 2016, while the
number of non-Indigenous prisoners increased by 6%.

A serious issue is how a person is defined to be an aboriginal. The presently

accepted definition is:
 being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent
 identifying as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person
 being accepted as such by the community in which you live, or formerly
lived.

This is nonsense. If equivalent definitions were applied to all other

Australians, people could claim to be Chinese, Italian, Greek, Mongolian, et
cetera, or of whatever other ethnicity from their ancestral lineage they chose
and for which they had local community support, regardless of the arbitrary
nature of the choice or the remoteness of the ethnic connection. Logically,
aboriginality should be accepted only for full bloods and, possibly, half-castes.

The time has long past when we should have put away the black armband
and moved on to embrace one Australia and one people having the same
privileges and responsibilities. Seeking to separate the rights of Australians
based on ethnicity is abhorrent and can lead only to fragmentation and
possible anarchy.

There must be no change to the Australian Constitution that allows for racial
discrimination by any government of Australia. What might be acceptable
would be a simple mention in the Preamble of the Constitution that a race of
people described today as aborigines inhabited Australia before colonization
by the English, provided it does not refer to an aboriginal Nation.

Lindsay Hackett