Reflections on Native Title

It's like the shimmers of heat that appear in the distance on a hot road; teasing you with a resemblance to a sparkling lake of cool refreshing water but disappearing suddenly as you approach; evaporating into thin air leaving only a small memory that makes you feel, maybe, possibly, slightly cooler as you imagine diving into, submersing yourself in that lake while in reality your head pounds from the extreme heat.

If there is one thing I have learnt from my time out here it's to adjust my expectations. If you adjust your expectations you can find ways to feel like you are making progress in a system like native title. Deals that I would have thought were awful and would shudder at advising communities to accept suddenly appear more of a triumph if you lower your expectations and remind yourself that any deal can be a good deal for people that have nothing and who have virtually no recognised rights or power.

Native title is an incredibly racist system of recognition. It is the ultimate colonising process. White laws expect claimants to jump through legal loopholes (with almost no funding to do so) often only to be told at the end of the fifteen year journey that you are not who you say you are... or to quote that favourite phrase from Yorta Yorta 'the tide of history has washed away' your rights - meanwhile even if you do get native title rights recognised, they are a bundle of rights that for instance that might allow you to hunt on pastoral land but not live there. But then if this right to hunt is recognised the courts will often force you to enter into an agreement with the pastoralist negotiating terms such as how many dogs you can have and how many firearms and what type. how many people at any one time and you may not be allowed access to dams (these are 'improved areas' because they are fenced). (talk about mirages on horizons in the middle of hot stinking cattle stations!) Other times the relationships may be good and then it seems that a whole world of potential freedoms and recognised rights can be enjoyed by mutual recognition and respect.

But after the last three weeks which I have spent with various claimant groups in the outback it seems that our nation still has some ways to go. A prospector can still bring shiny worthless rocks and 'wow the crowd' who will then agree to almost anything... pretty impressive if you dont have much and you can take a bunch of shiny rocks back home as presents. At least that's something concrete because even if you are able to negotiate a royalty payment how are you going to keep track of who owes you money and chase the defaulters, particularly if over your large claim area you might have thousands of these little 'agreements' to issue mining tenements (they usually get issued anyway if you say 'no'). Of course the government funding that pays for your native title lawyer doesn't extend to trusts and financial and business planning assistance. And geez as a claimant you must be dog tired of all these years and years of meetings with nothing to show for it.

But then there are those who have big mining going on in their country and who will likely get quite a sizeable sum. The government then seems to expect you to spend this compensation money (that you get as recompence for a great big whopping hole in your country and extinguishment of your rights) on salary for a teacher and any medical services you might need; services that in other places are provided to the public. It also means that suddenly there are boundary disputes and people clamouring to get mining deals on their land so that they can get a dialysis unit and an aged care facility too.

BUt what I really wanted to talk about was expectations...and the lowering of them. A lot of the native title claimants that I met were simply looking for respect. Sometimes all that is needed is a sign recognising that they are the traditional owners. sometimes they just want the shire council to ask them before a new road goes in so that they get the opportunity to rebury their dead when it cuts through a burial ground. (sometimes in places that grandparents are buried so not even always that old) sometimes they just want to be involved in discussions about development and occasionally they want to be able to fish and camp and teach their kids bush skills when almost the whole of their country is a national park and they are not allowed. Symbolism is huge and even going through the motions of making symbolic gestures that indicate respect for the traditional owners of this country will go a very long way... Kevin Rudd understands that, which is why he said 'sorry'. I know that there is still so much work to be done but out here the struggle for repect and simple symbolism continues.

To illustrate - Here's a sign. Good start you might think. It was erected several years ago. It's spelt wrong. Can we get the shire to change it to Malgana? To do so has and will waste precious little resources that are supposed to be allocated to native title work. You would think it would take a simple letter, but no, nothing, no action for many years and the group continue to raise it as an issue. See what I mean by lowering expectations. To get the sign altered would be a success. I won't even bother saying anything to the white dude who just came into the meeting and said 'it's my land' about a million times.