The Sydney Morning Herald A corroboree too soon, says Dobson Date: 03/05/2000 The reconciliation declaration should be delayed due to 'unfinished business', the Aboriginal leader tells Debra Jopson "I think it's appalling that you end a 10-year process with one quarto size piece of paper with words on it. It's not going to go anywhere." That is what Patrick Dodson thinks of the declaration for reconciliation, over whose final, as yet unreleased words, members of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation shed much pain last weekend. He revealed yesterday that he advised the council "some time ago" to postpone the event and enter serious negotiations with the Government on a deal for real change for indigenous Australia. Having served six years as the council's inaugural chairman until he found it impossible to work with the current Federal Government, he wrote to the current chairwoman, Evelyn Scott, in February, to say he would not attend Corroboree 2000 on May 27. "I would have thought you'd postpone it and set about having serious discussion," Dodson said. "We do have the time. We have between now and the end of the year. The council's process, its formal life, doesn't end until January 1, 2001. So you do have a serious period of time in front of them in which to achieve the things that they're saying they're going to recommend. "I still like the notion of trying to get some constructive outcome this year." Dodson said the council should return to its "role of objective broker that the council can and has played in the past and try and bring about a better outcome". What could the Government do to change his mind about attending Corroboree? "It could convene a serious conference of Aboriginal leaders and get down to negotiating a framework agreement with us ... that contains the matters we're still at odds on and celebrates those that we agree on. That's to see something tangible and concrete and given the force of law." "Unfinished business" in the agreement can include the need for a national apology, for settlement of land matters, protection of cultural heritage of sacred sites and recognition of customary law. "You need to have the commitment of government to resolving the issues, not put it off for another day so we can be better educated. We've had enough education. "This Government has changed three-quarters of the way through the process, but their ideological shift has been to reject the concept of self-determination and to reject the notion of any real negotiation for a social accord. They will talk about that in the mainstream, but they won't do it with indigenous people in relation to our unique status as the first people of this country." As the nation's leader, the Prime Minister is responsible for the stall in the reconciliation process in which Dodson still vests his hopes. "Howard, he's got himself caught up in semantics and ideological views about inter-generational guilt and all those things. They're personal problems that he has to work through. "He's obviously got a good intellect. It's got to be something beyond his personality, something that he's intellectually convinced of and therefore is diametrically opposed. "As Kath Walker [or Oodgeroo Noonuccal] would have said, he's got a bit of mental constipation in relation to us. "There are many decent Australians and I just feel very sad about the fact that many of them are going to be disappointed as to what is going to take place in May. The real event is between May and December, but if anyone is going to have the energy and drive and commitment to pursue the process of reconciliation right to the wire - that's where the real results are going to be." Dodson will not attend the May 28 Harbour Bridge walk for reconciliation, although he wishes it every success. "I think the walk across the bridge will be interpreted as a matter that highlights reconciliation and I hope it does that. It won't have any great significance for the Government. You could march the whole of Australia across that bridge at the moment and you probably wouldn't have the Government budge on a single thing. "There're no real results in May. That's not a result. That's warm inner glow." 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