MEDIA

FAR Northern indigenous communities are urging the Federal Government to extend its housing investment package that is due to end this month.

Hieu Van Le arrived on a wooden boat that chugged into Darwin Harbour on a misty dawn in 1977. Since then he has occasionally spoken publicly of how the “profound and moving generosity” that met his arrival 41 years ago became the grounding of a dream for a new life in Australia.

In July last year, the Referendum Council met with the prime minister. It was a historic moment, and many participants were optimistic that, finally, meaningful constitutional recognition was imminent.

WHEREAS THREE STORIES MAKE AUSTRALIA: the Ancient Indigenous Heritage which is its foundation, the British Institutions built upon it, and the adorning Gift of Multicultural Migration:

Our nation is in three parts. There is our ancient heritage, written in the continent and the original culture painted on its land and seascapes. There is our British inheritance, the structures of government and society transported from the United Kingdom fixing its foundations in the ancient soil. There is our multicultural achievement: a triumph of immigration that brought together…

Three stories that “make Australia” are the centrepiece of a historic declaration drafted by Noel Pearson that he believes should stand alongside the nation’s Constitution to provide recognition of indigenous peoples for the first time.

Twelve months later we yet have another Joint Select Committee considering Indigenous Constitutional Recognition. We had the Expert Panel in 2012, a Joint Select Committee in 2015 and the Referendum Council in 2017.

Indigenous constitutional recognition will remain “unresolved” unless the proposed advisory voice to parliament is taken to a referendum, Noel Pearson has warned, setting up a new battle with Malcolm Turnbull over the Prime Minister’s rejection of this option.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, two years ago you wanted the Aurukun school on Cape York to be “just like any Queensland school”. Is it now the kind of school you wanted? Perhaps you should return to see how it is faring since your government’s abrupt takeover on May 27, 2016.

Cape York Aboriginal leader Gerhardt Pearson has told Queensland’s government that powerful indigenous groups are gearing up for a major Wild Rivers-style fight against its proposed tree-clearing crackdown.

“I OFTEN take my doctors from the Third World on the short walk from the hospital to the prison nearby. It is the most instructive 800 yards.

This gap won’t close until black fellas take charge of our lives and governments allow and enable us to do so with their support. For all of Malcolm Turnbull’s talk about “doing things with indigenous people and not to them”, in reality there is no “with”. This rhetoric sounds good but turns out to be an alibi for an absence…