Mansell slams Legislative Council on land rights …

Aboriginal lawyer Michael Mansell has slammed the “ignorance and prejudice displayed by a core minority in the Legislative Council that surfaces every time any government proposes return of stolen lands to Aboriginal people.”

Mr Mansell was commenting on the latest move to return ownership of just 150ha.

Mr Mansell said, “There is a cabal within the Legislative Council – mostly comprising Ivan Dean, Ruth Forrest, Tony Mulder and Tanya Rattray – whose joint actions surface only when Aboriginal land rights comes before them. Ivan Dean made some disturbing negative comments in the Cape Barren land return 10 years ago and still demands Aborigines explain to him today how reconciliation is linked to land return. Shame he makes no effort to find out for himself by reading about the wholesale slaughter of Aboriginal men, women and children so that whites could claim the land or how the prejudice and domination of Aborigines still has an impact on the Aboriginal people today.

Forty years ago Xavier Herbert, author of Poor Fellow My Country, wrote:

“Until we give back to the black man just a bit of land that was his and give it back without provisos, without strings to snatch it back, without anything but complete generosity of spirit in concession for the evil we have done him – until we do that, we shall remain what we have always been so far: a community of thieves”. (1970)

Some MLC’s are yet to reach this level of self education 42 years later. Ivan Dean’s approach hardly fosters reconciliation: it shows the ugly side of people in power abusing their role as representatives of all people, including Aborigines.

Ruth Forrest uses the opportunity to block land returns unless the Aboriginal community accepts her absurd claim that 4,000 Aborigines live in Smithton which only has a total population of 3,361.

The opportunists in the Upper House are abusing their positions to amuse themselves by humiliating Aboriginal delegates. It is a damn disgrace.

The State Government should look at alternative ways to promote reconciliation through land returns. The 25,000 Tasmanians who walked the Tasman Bridge in 2000 understood that a society taking all the benefits of a people dispossessed must make amends in a spirit of generosity to promote an inclusive society of which all can be proud to be a part.

The Tasmanian government could surrender crown lands to the Commonwealth under section 111 of the Australian Constitution. This would allow the Commonwealth to hand that land over to Aboriginal people. The State would readily admit that it relies heavily on Commonwealth funds to manage much of these lands anyway and the Commonwealth could ‘compensate’ the State for the land.

The Commonwealth could justify the action by also providing Aboriginal representation in the Federal Parliament once the land is Commonwealth land.

In this way, the prejudice in the Legislative Council is contained and disrespectful treatment of Aboriginal delegates avoided. Nothing said here implicates the legitimate and dignified manner in which other MLC’s question, and discuss issues with, Aboriginal delegates.”