Practising Reconciliation? the Politi Parliamentary Library Department of Parliamentary Services

Parliament of Australia Parliamentary Library • Practising reconciliation? The politi Department of Parliamentary Services Parliamentary Library PRACTISING RECONCILIATION? THE POLITICS OF RECONCILIATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT, 1991-2000 cs of reconciliation in the Australian Parliament, 1991-2000 cs of reconciliation in Dr Angela Pratt 2003 Australian Parliamentary Fellow Practising reconciliation? The politics of reconciliation in the Australian Parliament, 1991–2000 Dr Angela Pratt 2003 Australian Parliamentary Fellow ISBN 0-9752015-2-2 © Commonwealth of Australia 2005 Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written consent of the Department of Parliamentary Services, other than by senators and members of the Australian Parliament in the course of their official duties. This monograph has been prepared to support the work of the Australian Parliament using information available at the time of production. The views expressed do not reflect an official position of the Parliamentary Library, nor do they constitute professional legal opinion. Presiding Officers’ foreword Since its establishment in 1971, the Australian Parliamentary Fellowship has provided an opportunity for academic researchers to investigate and analyse aspects of the working of the Australian Parliament and the parliamentary process. The work of Dr Angela Pratt, the 2003 Australian Parliamentary Fellow, examines how the language of ‘reconciliation’ featured in parliamentary debates about Indigenous affairs policy between 1991 and 2000. In an unusual approach, Dr Pratt’s work uses the results of a content analysis of over 650 parliamentary speeches made during the period of the formal reconciliation process, 1991–2000, to examine the nature of the political language and discourse. She studies a series of key debates from this time, including those over native title, the ‘stolen generations’ and ‘practical reconciliation’. In doing so, Dr Pratt’s monograph provides a narrative of how, over the course of the ‘reconciliation decade’, Australia’s federal parliamentary representatives grappled with some of the most complex social and political issues of recent times. PAUL CALVERT DAVID HAWKER President of the Senate Speaker of the House of Representatives November 2005 iii Contents Presiding Officers’ foreword iii Overview vii Acknowledgments ix Chapter One: Introduction—Was ‘reconciliation’ the dawn of a new age in Australian politics? 1 Chapter Two: Legislating reconciliation—the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991 25 Chapter Three: Mabo and the native title legislation—reconciliation’s fragile consensus 47 Chapter Four: Towards social justice? 79 Chapter Five: Collision course—Wik, the stolen generations, and reconciliation under the Howard Government 101 Chapter Six: ‘Practical reconciliation’ 131 Chapter Seven: Beyond 2000 and the conclusion of the reconciliation decade 151 Appendix I—Chronology of events in the reconciliation process 159 Appendix II—Methodology used in content analysis 163 Appendix III—Interviews 167 Endnotes 171 Index 203 v Overview Since the Council for Reconciliation Act passed through the Australian Parliament in 1991, the term ‘reconciliation’ has become part of the lingua franca of Australian politics and public life. ‘Reconciliation’ is now a key idea in debates about Indigenous affairs policy in Australia, and discussions about Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations more generally. But just what does ‘reconciliation’ mean? This monograph traces the conceptual evolution of reconciliation over the period of the formal reconciliation process, 1991–2000. Using the results of a content analysis of over 650 parliamentary speeches during this period, the monograph examines how the idea of reconciliation functioned as a term of political discourse in a series of key debates. The chapters in the first half of the monograph discuss the parliamentary debates over the establishment of the reconciliation process itself in 1991, the debates over the Keating Government’s native title legislation in 1992–93 following the decision of the High Court of Australia in Mabo and Others v. Queensland (no. 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1 (‘Mabo’), and those over a broader ‘social justice’ response to Mabo during 1994 and 1995. These chapters also highlight how the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation—the body charged by the parliament with overseeing the reconciliation process—advocated a broad, rights-based ‘social justice’ framework for reconciliation during this time. The chapters in the second half of the monograph examine how the election of the Howard Government was associated with a shift in direction for the reconciliation process after 1996. In particular, these chapters examine the parliamentary debates over reconciliation following the decision of the High Court in Wik Peoples v. Queensland (1996) 187 CLR 1 (‘Wik’), and those over Bringing Them Home, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s report into the separation of Indigenous children from their families. Part II also traces the emergence of the idea of ‘practical reconciliation’ since 1997, and how this idea differed from the broad ‘social justice’ reconciliation model that was pursued by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. This analysis shows that while the idea of ‘reconciliation’ now seems to be permanently part of the Australian political vocabulary, there is no universally accepted understanding of what the term means. Rather, the amorphous nature of the term ‘reconciliation’ allows a broad range of political players to attach their own different, at times contradictory, meanings to the term. It can be argued that this is one of reconciliation’s greatest strengths, in that it allows for a diverse range of views to co- exist. But at the same time, the lack of any coherent, shared understanding of vii Overview reconciliation arguably means that while ‘reconciliation’ is now a ubiquitous term in Australian political discourse, it is not an especially influential one. viii Acknowledgments It was an enormous privilege to take up the Parliamentary Fellowship in March 2003, and so my first debt of gratitude is to the joint Library Committee of the Parliament. I wish to thank the Committee for its support of this research project. I would also like to thank Dr June Verrier, former Head of the Parliamentary Library’s Information and Research Services Group, for her enthusiasm for and commitment to the Parliamentary Fellowship. The Fellowship has a fine tradition of supporting important scholarly work about Australian politics and the parliamentary process. I hope this work does that tradition justice. I am very grateful for the guidance of Dr Tim Rowse from the History Program at the Australian National University’s Research School of Social Sciences who acted as an external supervisor of this project. Tim is an extremely knowledgeable and generous scholar, and his advice throughout each stage of this research project has been invaluable. The quality of this finished product owes a great deal to Tim’s input (though of course all remaining flaws are my responsibility). I would also like to thank June Verrier and Gerry Newman for helpful comments on the final manuscript. One of the most exciting opportunities afforded by the Parliamentary Fellowship was the opportunity to interview the practitioners of Australian politics—the politicians themselves. I was also able to interview many participants in various aspects of the reconciliation process. While the voices of my interviewees do not feature prominently in this monograph, the interviews were an integral part of shaping the key themes and ideas herein. My sincere thanks to all of the busy people who so generously made themselves available to be interviewed for this research project in 2003. I wish to thank my many colleagues, past and present, in the Parliamentary Library for providing me with such a friendly, constructive and collegial environment in which to work since my first day in the Library in March 2003. In particular I would like to acknowledge the support of Carol Kempner and the staff of the Social Policy Section, and my good friends Dr Sarah Miskin, Dr Amanda Elliot, and my successor as Parliamentary Fellow, Dr Kate Burton. My thanks also to Richard Ryan and Maryanne Lawless for skilfully and patiently steering this monograph through the production process, and to Morag Donaldson for editing the manuscript (especially so close to the arrival of her daughter, Charlotte). Finally, I am ever grateful for the love, support and encouragement of my family. And last but never least, it is hard to find the words with which to adequately express my ix Acknowledgements thanks to my partner, Greg Smith. Like most things in my life, without his love and support, the mountain that was this monograph would have been much harder to climb. Angela Pratt Canberra, September 2005 x Chapter One: Introduction—Was ‘reconciliation’ the dawn of a new age in Australian politics? I believe we stand on the threshold of a new era … we have before us here a very auspicious beginning. —Senator Patricia Giles, Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Bill debates, 1991 At just after 6.30pm on 5 June 1991, the House of Representatives unanimously passed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Bill, setting in train the process of reconciliation which

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