http://www.smh.com.au/news/9910/11/text/letters.html
Not more indigenous rights
The sound and fury of the republican debate have unfortunately diverted
attention from yet another disgraceful decision of the High
Court (Herald, October 8).
Not content with granting limited land rights to Aborigines under Mabo, and
limited Aboriginal access rights to pastoral leasehold land
under Wik, the court has now irresponsibly strengthened Aboriginal traditional
hunting and fishing rights. This represents yet another
threat to Anglo-Celtic land appropriations, which took nearly 200 years of
dispossession and injustice to secure.
I call on the prime minister to respond as promptly and forcibly as he did to
the Wik decision. Turning that threat into an opportunity, he
brilliantly evoked the need for "certainty" and ultimately not only diluted the
land rights granted under Wik, but cleverly unwound many
existing ones contained in the then Native Title Act - introduced by that
dangerous socialist Paul Keating. Now that's what I call a
win-win.
I realise that John Howard's legislation was subsequently condemned by the
United Nations as racist and contrary to Australia's
international treaty obligations, but so what if we were the first democracy
ever to be so criticised? Our government dismissed that report
with contemptuous disdain and if necessary we should do so again.
We again have the opportunity to convert a High Court judgment into even more
"certainty" for Australia's (white) land owning classes,
by further attenuating Aboriginal land rights.
Let's seize the moment and the opportunity.
- Norman Monshall, Seaforth
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