Howard wants a referendum to insert a “statement of reconciliation” with Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders into the preamble to the Constitution.
Is this because?
- Howard has realised the error of his ways, and genuinely wants to begin to make amends for what he realises is a major blot on his legacy.
- Howard is worried about the Rudd wets, and wants to try to reach out to them.
- Howard is trying to get both Labor and the broader progressive left talking about apologies, treaties, land rights, shared sovereignty, …and scare some “cultural conservatives” who switched to Labor because of WorkChoices back into the Coalition camp. At worst for Howard, Rudd clamps down on any such talk within Labor ranks, thus sending people who care about such issues (and, perhaps, things like opposition to the death penalty) into further despair.
Discuss.
Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett expands on the hopeful sentiments here – here’s hoping he’s right, and points to Guido at Rank and Vile who argues that the doctors’ wives aren’t going to be persuaded by a “deathbed repentance”, as Paul Keating described it to the Oz. Tim Dunlop is cautiously optimistic. Nahum Ayliffe points out that an apology – with the word “sorry” – will be an essential part of the reconciliation process if it is to progress.
It could easily be a mix of all three. Certainly he wouldn’t have done this without thinking through the potential political spin-offs.
But I don’t care. I think it presents a really good opportunity and people should grab it and run with it. The more people embrace it, become determined to make the most of it and insist that Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples play the central role in shaping it, the harder it will be for Howard, Rudd or any other politician to rigidly control it for partisan or ‘culture war’ purposes.
Of course, it might raise hopes and then all crash and burn and leave people disillusioned and disappointed yet again. But that’s not a good enough reason not to try to make something of it. There’s no guarantee anything better will unilaterally come from Labor, given the far grander promises and failures from the Hawke era (Treaty and national Land Rights laws spring to mind). This ball has been set rolling and there may be quite a few good places it can go if some positive momentum can be built up around it. It’s worth a shot anyway.
Like the good Sen. I think it’s probably a mixture of all three.
I dare say Howard is hoping Rudd does a ‘me too’, then Howard starts talking about individual responsibility and other Liberal things, hoping it is something which the Left of the Labor party feel more passionately about than most other issues and may be too much for Rudd’s ‘me too’ stance to shoulder. It could potentially be another area Peter Garrett can be picked on as well if he is forced into supporting a stance he hasn’t be known to advocate.
Like Sen. Bartlett I think its an opportunity to be grabbed, but that doesnt mean it can’t turn ugly, which deep down, I guess Howard is probably hoping it will.
I wrote about this in my blog as well.
I think is a mixture of 2 and 3. While I support the proposal, and I agree with Senator Bartlett proposal that we should run with it, the timing of this statement from Howard makes me profoundly cynical.
I think that internal polling has shown that the ‘Rudd’s wets’ as Larvatus Prodeo describes them may have an impact and this is seen as a way to show as Howard as someone who has ‘repented’ (saying it has been an issue I have grappled in my Prime Ministership etc.) and someone that has a clear proposal for a reconciliation act.
Again Howard is clever. This is a positive move that will be approved by the ‘Rudd’s Wets’ but it won’t upset the Hansonites too much. After all who could dispute that the Aborigines were here before the British? However no mention of dispossession. Howard stay away from that.
Also polling may have shown that Rudd’s Wets may have started to get irritated by Rudd’s me-tooism. And this move is designed to show him up. I expect The Australian to have a field day on this tomorrow.
Will it work? I suspect not. That is because Howard is using a tactic used to get votes from the ‘battlers’ and this may not work with the Rudd’s Wets.
Lets’ for the argument generalise about ‘the battlers’. Maybe they are not as interested in the detail of politics. Probably because they have other things to think about. Like raising a family, maintaining a business etc. Probably they have less discretionary time than the Rudd’s Wets.
The Rudd’s Wets have created a negative view of Howard for a long time. The ‘never to be introduced’ GST, the Iraq War, the Tampa, the Children Overboard and of course the scuttling of the Republic and the refusal to say sorry to the Aborigines.
I suspect that this proposal, albeit positive, will be seen for the cynical exercise it really is.
In my naivey, I’d thought it was a simple response to the information that his record on Aboriginal matters was turning people against him in his own electorate. I don’t believe for a minute the statement is the result of a Road to Damascus experience: Damascus has been bombed out of JWH’s atlas.
I think it is, in its own way, genuine. I’ve always thought that we would see one of a couple of signs that JWH realises all is lost
1/ a narrative trying to rationalise his political life full of reminiscences and/or
2/a magnanimous social gesture towards someone like the aborigines or the refugees that he can be remembered for.
Also remember 2001 (I think) election victory speech when he said we should do something about the plight of the aborigines ( but, well, didn’t)
I think he is thinking about his legacy.
1998, it was.
There’s probably something in that. Note that he’s saying in “18 months” time and that he plans to campaign for it. So it provides him (if re-elected) with some sort of historical event for which he will be remembered to go out on.
Hardly matters what his freakin purposes are (though I suspect a Textor driven ptich to doctor’s wives aka Rudd Wets is predominant) as the dude will no longer be in government in about 8 weeks.
Main impact: will dull the conservative roar when PM Rudd moves on the long overdue address to the nation – whcih will include a formal apology, but hopefully much more.
I mean, seriously we’re really never going to be any good as a people or nation until we come to grips with these basic foundations.
So, we’re sorry for the stolen generation and other well documented abuses, and a whole lot of us, probably a solid majority 80%, actually mean it too. And we’re all here now, so let’s move forward together, lets be proud of the oldest surviving culture on earth, and forget the cultural cringe to Europe while we’re at it – they aint got a scratch 40k years of history like this!
They suck, we’re cool etc. All good. Now, lets sort out the practical issues together, respecting indigenous rights to be a genuine party to that process.
That’s arguable.
The Sentinelese have never been colonised because whenever someone comes near their island they hurl arrows from flatbows at them. Many, many fisherman have been killed, and very little is known about them or their culture. Basically all that is known is they prefer red buckets, but reject green ones, when gifts are being left on their beach at night.
Nominally it is Indian territory, but India enforce a restriction zone around the islands, after sveral attemtped ‘friendship parties’ resulted in deaths.
That should have been ‘notionally’, not ‘nominally’. :/
I hardly think it matters what Howard is proposing to do, but I suggest that maybe he is attempting to wedge Rudd over it. I think everything Howard does of late has been an attempt to wedge Rudd, or buy votes.
This is not the time to release a policy like this, in the dying days of your government. I think it’s Howard clutching at straws, particularly when you see that he has not moved very much. No apology, no way forward. All this practical reconciliation stuff matters little unless we get the symbolism right.
And God knows how the referendum would go. Does anybody remember the referendum on the Republic. Howard set it up to fail, and it did.
God I’m getting cynical in my old age.
I wrote a few comments on “if you take the benefits, you gotta pay the price” on my blog
I was struck by Howard’s body language as he delivered this speech. Eyes always to the side. I was reminded of the apologies and promises of the wife beater to get back into the house after the cops have come and he’s been thrown out. And we all know what happens next.
Whatever his motivation I agree we should run with this and really make it happen but with a new government! Howard, being Howard, doesn’t realise there can’t be a statement of reconciliation without there having been a reconciliation. His deciding to have it is not enough. Judging by Aboriginal responses so far it will need more than that apology which is still wanting. If Kevin Rudd can get the Labour factions to behave themselves and be nice for months on end surely once in government he can achieve Aboriginal reconciliation, particularly since this is unfinished business proposed by John Howard!
By the way, Guido, I love Rudd’s me-tooism. It’s just diplomacy in sheep’s clothing. It gets boring and frustrating for the spectators, but it works.
Robert Merkel says:
I guess we are obliged to give a free pass to thirty years of the liberal-Left’s ignorant, incompetent and iniquitous cultural. No erred ways will be admitted there, seeing how this might give aid and comfort to the enemy.
I mean, why wouldn’t Swedish-style unconditional welfare and permissive lawfare work just great for pre-modern tribal peoples attempting to adapt to the modern world? And lets throw in a bit of New Left-style cultural liberation and Noble Savage-style communal self-determination, just to make it interesting.
Who cares that this was in flat contradiction to hard-won knowledge of what works best for certain racial natures, social structures and cultural scriptures.
The liberal-Left’s indigenous policy legacy could never be blotted because, you see, they meant well.
Instead of indulging in pointless speculation about the motives of the ideological enemy why not once, just once, throw the discussion open to the topic of “where the liberal-Left went wrong on indigenous policy”. That would introduce “responsibility for consequences”, a novel idea in some quarters.
Jack, perhaps you could do that on your own blog? Or on one of the numerous “saturday salon” posts, or over at JQ’s place for the monday message board or weekend reflections? All of the above are opportunities to discuss whatever topic you like. Otherwise it seems to me you are attempting to derail the thread that the author has started.
Back on topic, I think it was the excellent Possum Comitatus who noted that this might be part of a “firewall” strategy (ie the strategists figure the election is lost and are looking to prevent an annihilation). Link is here.
The broader point, and for Jack’s benefit I think this also applies to Hawke’s comments in the late days of his leadership, is that if you’re thinking about improving your legacy, it might already be too late.
“Howard, being Howard, doesn’t realise there can’t be a statement of reconciliation without there having been a reconciliation. His deciding to have it is not enough.”
That’s right Patricia. This is a shallow and meaningless piece of puffery, concocted by Gerard Henderson of the Sydney Institute for Liberal Party electoral purposes. And in terms of stirring rhetoric, Keating’s Redfern speech, written by Don Watson, is a standard Gerard and Johnnie can never remotely reach.
If you listen to the speech closely it is all about John Howard. Its about his mistakes, his contrition, his conversion, his personal goals. Did he or Gerard show any aboriginal people the text of the speech before he delivered it? Doubt it. Howard is not interested in their views, he is interested in making a gesture that might resonate with the doctor’s wives.
Sticking a few henderson-crafted words into the Preamble to the Constitution does not constitute “reconciliation” with the aboriginal people. And anyone who remembers the appalling Preamble Howard tried to insert into the Constitution in 1999 should be very wary. Even Les Murray could not stomach the final version and walked away.
I hope that Rudd squibs this one – yes, nice thought, but we will first ask the aboriginal people what they want and need. And we will work towards a Republic, and fixed parliamentary terms, and other necessary changes at the same time, so the eventual referendum will signal the dawn of a new Australia etc etc.
If the Liberals win and if the the referendum turns out to be a core promise, he can carefully word the proposed amendment and run an advertising campaign that ensures that the amendment fails. Those tactics worked for the republic debate. He then gets to look like a great and noble statesman who tried to do the honourable thing. But he achieves his real goal: he puts those pesky aborigines back in their place for another twenty years.
I agree that Rudd should accept this and run with it a bit further, this is one me-too that we should all be happy with and welcome the PM to a place where we’ve been waiting for so long. And we should all jump on board and hold him to it.
However my cynicism is such that yes the question that’s put to the people becomes important and I can’t help but feel that Howard is setting this up to fail in future as he did with the Republic question. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt shall we?
That said, I’m laughing hard at this symbolic gesture from a man that doesn’t do symbolism, it’s funny how electoral oblivion sharpens the mind. What’s next, Signing Kyoto? Now that would surely make a few heads explode.
Shorter Ratty: Kirribilli is sacred to my tribe. We’re all Aborigines now.
This is John Howard at his political worst – cynical, manipulative and dishonest.
I’m sure he has no intention of creating a preamble to the Australian Constitution which genuinely reflects indigenous history and experience.
By the way, did anyone else notice that Mr. Howard is quoted as believing he personally ‘owns’ Australia’s hertitage?
I’m laughing hard at this symbolic gesture from a man that doesn’t do symbolism
It reminds me of the “meta president” schitck Jon Stewart did the other day:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=111129&is_large=true
I’m sorry, but in contrast to the many well meaning ‘let’s give him a chance’ comments here, I quite simply cannot forgive Howard for 11 years of neglect on indigenous issues. How close does he have to come to being shown the door before he begins to address the issues, however obliquely?
“I can’t help but feel that Howard is setting this up to fail in future as he did with the Republic question. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt shall we?”
No. I would rather not. And yes. I agree he’s setting up to fail. Howard knows there is much power in the gesture. But thats all it is, a James Dean moment in his dying days. There is nothing much new. He still plays the politics of exclusion, arguing what he has always argued. Behind the ’struggles” there remains the reactionary rhetoric that got him to office in the first place – A monocultural identity, one nation, indivisible as he puts it. Further, he argues for a “reconciled” nation. Reconciled? As if its in the past? As if reconciliation is one moment, one arrival? as if it can ever be? he says this gesture:
“would recognise the history of indigenous people as the land’s first inhabitants, their culture and heritage, and “their special, though not separate, place within a reconciled, indivisible nation”.
“We are not a federation of tribes,” he said. “We are one great tribe; one Australia.”
yes
paulineJohn, now go away.All he is offering to do is to insert a benevolent romanticised construct of Aboriginals into the white founding document of nation. Having demolished landrights he can now move away from a view of the fearful Aboriginal other (do you remember him holding up a picture of Australia with huge portions of it coloured out, potentially taken by Aboriginal land rights?) and return to the comfortable noble savage visions which threaten no one. What a colonial. First peoples, unique, blah – by placing them within a western concept of linear history he is ahistoricising them and exempting them (again) from the decision making processes of nation. What a rubbish prime minister we have.
Grace My thoughts exactly:
And in terms of stirring rhetoric, Keating’s Redfern speech, written by Don Watson, is a standard Gerard and Johnnie can never remotely reach.
Giving the speech at the Sydney Institute with the picked audience. Whereas Keating was with the people of Redfern and the power of the speech had an immediate response from those people …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqAFLud228
I wonder what Dr Peter Shergold thinks of all this, really? Having been the Secretary for Aboriginal Affairs with the advances in reconciliation of a Keating government and then serving as head of PM&C through the lost Howard years.
I am also in the cynical camp, thinking this is a diversionary tactic to take the attention away from the mess he created when he sent the army and police into indigenous communities earlier in the year. What will he come out with next, “Some of my best friends are aborigines”?
Like Grace said.
Reconciliation is a very important concern. Their polling tells them this so they do something about it. It is also an attempt to recast Howard from someone who shoves his ideology down our throats for 9 years then suddenly decides to “listen to the people” and “confess his mistakes”.
Motives: dodgy – mainly electoral gain & some more wedging
Actions: empty rhetoric – no apology, no consultation. The preamble is puffery.
Context: appalling – just after ramming through the indigenous intervention land grab in true Gubba style
Macklin did the “me too” this morning on radio, and didn’t even counterpunch by pointing out that Howard was failing yet again to offer an apology – something indigenous Australians have said they want.
Like Andrew said, give him a very small tick and keep the focus on what really needs to be done. Like maybe an indigenous summit to discuss and agree changes to the body of the constitution, an apology and a treaty.
Although I agree that this is little more than an election stunt, my first reaction was that this was a chance to push back the date he’d have to hand over to Costello. We now have a firm commitment that he won’t go within 18 months, perhaps longer if getting the referendum organised takes more time.
It’s the firewall strategy.
Scene: Focus group involving the residents of Chapel Hill.
Moderator: (Exasperated) So please tell me WHY you are considering voting for Kevin Rudd.
Doctor’s Wife: Well, I really don’t like those awful socialists he associates with, like that Gillard woman for example, but Mr. Howard is so mean-spirited. If only he could just do something nice for once, well then I wouldn’t feel so strongly about needing a change.
The electorates that have been most affected by WorkChoices are gone for all money, and the dog-whistling isn’t working any more, but the Libs just might be able to save a few leafy-suburbans – where people have never really wanted to vote Labor, through a simple, empty gesture. Makes it easier in 2010 when IR is no longer an issue.
Spot on, Clarencegirl. I noticed it.
Well, why not? He’s Father Of The Nation, isn’t he?
Building on what Grace said, I think the key statement in his speech was when he said “I fully accept my share of the blame for that” – it was much stronger when you see it visually. Just as in the 2004 election when Howard picked his weakest area and claimed it as his strongest (trust), I think this time he will emphasise leadership, what it is to be a leader, and that a leader has to take responsibility (something he has traditionally been appalling at) and throw that in the face of Rudd who he will argue always shifts the blame to someone else (e.g. McClelland/staffer).
Over far too many years of watching him I believe that, when his eyes cast to the side, then he is lying. That is when the ‘non-core’ promises are made and the nasty lies are put. His eyes were off to the side in the grabs I saw of the speech.
Nevertheless, we should go with a referendum to change the preamble but take it further to include a statement of rights in the Constitution proper. Yes, an apology would be good but if there is some momentum here then the nation should ride it to a place where we can be just a bit proud of ourselves as people who do the right thing – sometimes pretty late in the day.
This gesture is pathetic. I can only sense that he is trying to bait Labor into an argument over the word “Sorry”. There are further, less obvious ulterior motives – what he’d want to do is confirm by referendum that aboriginals are ‘one tribe’ with white Australians, thereby negating their special claim to have been dispossessed of historical land rights, which are also a target of the phony anti-child abuse/martial law campaign.
Rudd will probably ‘me too’ as usual, but what he should say (albeit in a more refined manner) are the following three things:
1. Howard already had a chance to change the preamble to the Constitution in the 1999 referendum (his suckful preamble was roundly rejected). At that time, as throughout his entire miserable, race-baiting career, Howard had no interest in ’symbolic’ reconciliation, except to ridicule it. Now this Windschuttle fan has suddenly, out of nowhere conjured up the ultimate in ’symbolic’ gestures, just as he’s imposing his preferred version of history as a compulsory subject in grade 9 and 10.
2. This is being done without any participation of the indigenous community, which Howard has continuously sidelined. The only people participating are his Sydney Institute advisors. We only need to look at the (total lack of) improvement in indigenous living standards under Howard to see that, far from choosing ‘practical’ over ’symbolic’ reconciliation, his only interest in indigenous communities has been using them for electoral wedges and resisting the implications of Mabo for the mining and pastoral industries.
3. Labor is promising to constitutional reform to a referndum, rather than just a waste-of-time preamble written by an old white racist. This involves a chance to reinvent the country as a Republic without the English aristocratic fox-murdering aldulterer Charles III as head of state, with fixed 4-year terms, and with a reconciliation clause written with the input of actual indigenous Australians. Furthermore, Labor must pledge to actually improve the wretched third-world health and living standards in remote indigenous communities.
The predictable thing about the wingnuts is that if Labor had come out with this idea first they’d be running around saying the sky was falling in, but because it’s Howard’s idea they’re all for it. They are like dogs loyal to their godlike master. They have no mind of their own and Howard decides for them what they think.
By the way, I must disagree with Sen. Bartlett and others who say that we should “seize the opportunity” presented here. Howard has forfeited the right to be given the benefit of the doubt on this stuff, and if (3) in the original post is even a little true, we should just dismiss it for the empty gesture it is and focus on getting rid of the government .
The correct response is not “me too” but “whatever, dude”. Again, contra Sen. Bartlett, the record of the Keating government shows that there is a better chance of getting traction with Labor on these issues, but only if they are in office. The less we talk about the niceties and complexities of what JWH might do if the Australian public are “good and generous” enough to re-elect him, and the more we think about what kind of approach we are going to make to a newly-installed Rudd government, the better.
Howard and his cabinet can’t be trusted on anything to do with indigenous affairs, now or ever, end of story. Sit back and wait for the next stunt.
I support the initiative. Wish Labor had come up with it! However I’m not going to nit-pick on it. It’s a good initiative and I hope it goes through.
Doesn’t change a thing though. I want this government gone quick smart. Please, Australia… I’m begging you!
If Reconciliation is going to be put front and centre once more as a way of thinking through race relations and trying to change them for the better, then we also need to give care and attention to the meaning and implications of the term. Who is supposed to be reconciling, to what, and most importantly, for whom? These questions have always troubled the use of this term.
I think Sen. Bartlett has raised a really important point:
The key part here is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people play a central role in shaping what the concept should mean, and ultimately deciding whether it’s adequate to the task. By all means we should take this opportunity, but with great care and attention to this aspect of the situation, unless Reconciliation is simply Aboriginal people reconciling themselves to their place in ‘the mainstream’.
Oh, and by the way, Rudd’s response should be
“At last, Howard has come to his senses on Indigenous Australians. If he’d done this 11 years ago who knows where we’d be now. Australia’s ready to move forward together.”
No political point scoring, just an acceptance that this is the right thing to be doing, but possibly outlining an area of positive policy to go with it, for example a national reconciliation public holiday to mark the date of the referendum. Howard cannot argue against a public holiday and it would be a positive iniative.
I agree totally with Yeti, Grace and Dave of Albury (as well as many other commenters) on this. Howard was on AM this morning, quickly steering every answer to every question back to why he/we should not say “sorry”. He wants a culture war so he can paint anyone who endorses “sorry” as divisive and stuck in the past, while he has moved on to the “new paradigm” of so-called inclusion, oward-style. It’s all about Howard.
Gerard Henderson was also on-message on Fran Kelly’s show, ensuring that the narrative is right on track, too. Managed to bag “intellectuals” and “the left” while he was there.
Any referendum would be engineered to fail, just like the republic referendum.
I hope Kevin Rudd responds with “we’re sick of the stunts, Mr Howard – just call the damn election”.
Let’s get this straight – this is another of JWH’s big Goebbels-type lies.
If he was remotely genuine we would have seen him marching across the Bridge in 2000. Or he would have suggested it earlier, at the anniversary of the 1967 referendum. And he woulkd have said sorry, given the importance of that word on this issue to all Australians, black and white.
Remember, this man can never be trusted on issues of race -look what his Gover5nment is doing to our African migrants, African Australians right now.
I disagree that this was an attempt to wedge. Most likely it is an attempt to claw back some of the ‘Rudd wets’ back to the Coalition.
(BTW I changed the terminology in my post on my blog. ‘Doctors’ wifes’ smacks of sexism and paternalism, while ‘Rudd wets’ is a bit too optimistic as we don’t know whether when it comes to the crunch they will switch to Rudd. I call this voter liberal Liberals.)
In fact by going into this territory Howard has done Kevin Rudd a big favour. Not only it has put the death penalty debacle out of the front pages of the media, but it has presented Rudd with a great opportunity to wedge Howard.
Rudd should state that he would go further and if elected as Prime Minister he will apologise to the Aborigines people of Australia. This will go down well with the Labor voters, the Green voters, and the ‘liberal Liberals’. It will piss off the Hansonites would not vote Labor anyway. It would also differentiate Rudd from the Prime Minister. Stand on a different set of principles.
We can only hope the recent campaigns by the AEC and Bureau of Statistics (Census) to get Aboriginal people, particularly the growing youth demographic on electoral rolls, will bear fruit in helping prise this sickening man and government from office.
We will “recognise you”! Aboriginal Australians are supposed to fall for or be satisfied with that? It’s beyond insulting coming as it does too from the very man who turned his back on Aboriginal Australians for 11 years. He does think we are stupid.
Vote the Liberals out.
Moderator: (Exasperated) So please tell me WHY you are considering voting for Kevin Rudd.
Doctor’s Wife: Well, I really don’t like those awful socialists he associates with, like that Gillard woman for example, but Mr. Howard is so mean-spirited. If only he could just do something nice for once, well then I wouldn’t feel so strongly about needing a change.
I reckon the Doctor herself would answer that question with: “because I’m tired of John Howard, he’s the same old, same old.”
So Howard’s trying to look bold, fresh, statesmanlike, a leader etc.
And of course he’s trying to trap Labor.
Consider this: just the other week Howard’s government refused to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Yesterday, one of Howard’s Ministers (Kevin Andrews) engaged in naked racism in the continuation of the Sudanese refugees story.
And look at what they are doing in the Northern Territory.
I smell a cunning rat, an attempt to legally wedge indigenous people and do them out of land rights for all time, writ large in the constitution.
(PS: I don’t have an open mind on this.)
Mr Howard acknowledges his intellectual debts:
.
Yairs. And prominent among those “precious things” would be his seat in Commonwealth Car Number 1.
A question. If these sentiments are so central to Burkean liberal conservativism, why has it taken Howard until the very eve of his political demise to discover them?
Yes, it is a rhetorical question. Howard’s hypocrisy, opportunism and mendacity are too well understood to require further explication.
What jinmaro, suz and Katz said. It is beyond belief that anyone would fall for this pathetic and devious stunt, concocted in the back rooms of The Sydney Institute.
Like a battered wife/partner, the Australian electorate (and particularly the indigenous section) are being asked to trust him just one more time, and like the poor abused woman, there seem to be those out there who want to believe that Dear Leader really does love them, and that he has changed this time.
Read the statement. Read the weseal words. Trust this man at your peril.
“If these sentiments are so central to Burkean liberal conservativism, why has it taken Howard until the very eve of his political demise to discover them?”
PJK said it best, as often he does.
It’s a death bed repentance.
Er make the ‘the Australian electorate…IS being asked’
“Nice idea, come back and we will discuss it in two months time”.
Jason nailed it. Even if you take this as a sincere gesture by Howard and put aside whatever electoral gains one can only legitimately assume he was angling for with this – he cannot be trusted at all, especially on indigenous issues.
He’s always said that he thought symbolic gestures such as saying sorry were a waste of time and that his focus is on ‘practical reconciliation’. But you only have to look at his governments absolutely disgusting record on ‘practical reconciliation’ to see just how mendacious the man is (or at best, fundamentally bigotted and ignorant by the ‘burb upbringing he offered up last night). He has slashed support for Indigenous Australians across the board, disbanded ATSIC, removed the parliamentary passes for Indigenous leaders and played god to whom he will talk with, and the Northern Territory invasion is one of the most shameful acts in Australian history, nothing but a land grab deliberately aimed at driving Aboriginal people from their land so that their native title claims are broken.
Now all of a sudden he digs symbolism. Like you could trust him to get even that right, of all people! You only have to look at his speech and subsequent comments last night – his refusal to understand or even admit that there is a serious reason why ’sorry’ needs to be said, his refusal to talk about any of the most fundamental issues -land rights, dispossession, cultural continuity and integrity, equal rights. At the very, very best, Howard would screw up any wording into the Constitution because he fundamentally (at best) does not understand the issues.
I think I get it; “Fraser stopped me from reforming the economy when I was Treasurer and the electorate stopped me on reconciliation when I lost as PM”. Looks like a case of the loser wanting to write history.
Here is Howard’s previous (1999) attempt at a new Preamble:
Its emetic qualities are undeniable.
Struggling to find Burkean conservative liberalism here…
Plenty of suburban self-righteousness, but.
blockquote>Here is Howard’s previous (1999) attempt at a new Preamble:
Yes, one referendum question I was very happy to vote down.
“Mr Howard, 68, said his age was part of the reason he had underestimated the value of symbolic gestures. “The challenge I have faced around indigenous identity politics is in part an artefact of who I am and the time in which I grew up.”
I am very curious as to why, after having avoided issues of age throughout his prime ministership, he would now offer it as a reason as for not having done anything to date.
Just thinking about the UN declaration on indigenous rights.
If Labor wins we’ll have two big ticket events when it comes to our first peoples, a constitutional addition, with the UN declaration on indigenous rights running alongside it……and probably a third in a formal Prime Ministerial “sorry”.
2008 could be a big year for indigenous rights in OZ if Labor puts in place a good policy framework.
And by way of contrast to Howard’s emetic preambling, here is the Preamble to the South African Constitition:
“We, the people of South Africa, Recognize the injustices of our past; Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to —
Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights; Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person – Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations. May God protect our people.
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso. God seen Suid-Afrika. God bless South Africa. Mudzimu fhatushedza Afurika. Hosi katekisa Afrika.”
So symbolism’s OK, but only if it is a conservative, Burkean, Oakshottian kind of symbolism, which is different to the other kind. WTF.
Not. One. Vote. Will. Change.
Paradigm OZ describes it as the latest chapter of assimilation, when contextualised within the other decisions this government has made.
Can I signal an excellent post by Possum Comitatus
[LINK]
I haven’t done anything because I’ve had so long to do it. I needed a deadline, y’know? Like, impending political oblivion or something.
Reconciliation? F*ck off! The Oz dollar’s up and the cost of 4WD’s and fuel will come down. Beauty mate!
I dont know FDB. He’s made an admission of missing the mark based on his age (a perceived frailty in the electorate and he knows it) – He is so calculating,(or maybe I just find him putrid), but I suspect he has taken this risk based on some poll or something generational he’s perceived in the electorate. He has called his views on Indigenous identity issues an “artefact” of who he is, which starts to make him look like a bit of Raptor bone left over from the Mesozoic era.
grace, the failure to seperate church and state in the SA constitution must be infuriating…
BBB
So Howard presents non-indigenous (mostly white) Australians with an excuse to ignore our own implicit racism.
“Look, we’re not racist! We even voted ourselves the right to define ‘reconciliation’ so that we could ensure that ‘reconciliation’ occurs, no matter what we do!”
Didn’t Keating take a strong Aboriginal reconciliation policy to the 1996 election and didn’t Howard roundly condemn it?
And given that Aboriginal reconciliation has been part of ALP policy since before then, how can Rudd and co be accused of “Me-tooism”? Surely it is the other way around, which I believe is the way the ALP should be arguing it: after 12 years, the Coalition have finally caught up with ALP policy!
Bango Bingo Bongo, I am a tolerant atheist. And South Africans will tell you there are many gods. But just for you, here is the Preamble to the Indian Constitution:
WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.
JWH aka Ratwedge, is as slippery as 12 slippery things in a greasy sack. It’s all very well me lolling about here enjoying the going over he’s getting, but of more interest, what are the other side saying? Tim Blair is deathly silent. Piers Akerman..nothing. Who is out there rationalizing this volte face.
@ Guido, yes the Possum piece was excellent as usual, I’ve spent the morning reading the vox pop’s in the various papers online (hundreds of comments) and this is being see as too little too late by the vast majority of readers News and Fairfax alike.
Not a vote in it.
Oh, and I’m enjoying re-reading this column by Janet Albrechtsen on how Labor’s politics of symbolism fails us. I look forward to her next column on symbolism.
“I’ve spent the morning reading the vox pop’s in the various papers online (hundreds of comments) and this is being see as too little too late”
Yes, it appears those who support reconciliation aren’t being fooled and that the Howardhuggers are pissed off because ‘we don’t have anything to be sorry for, it wasn’t us that did it’.
Agree “Not a vote in it”.
Ha ha. Not only will it not gain him any votes, it’s likely to lose him some by reinforcing perceptions of rat like cunning and desperate ineptitude.
Look, Howard wedges himself.
Those South African and Indian pre-ambles shit all over what Howard had to offer us.
grace, we’re on the same side for this one. Get rid of the words ’socialist’ and ’social’ from that Indian constitution, and you’ve got a winner. Puts Howard’s 1999 effort to shame, really. That one remains utterly bewildering to me. ‘We value excellence…’? WTF? Let’s hope there’s a strict word limit for the ’statement of reconciliation’, whoever ends up responsible for it.
BBB
Re age: I’m just under five years younger than JWH. I grew up in Earlwood, the same suburb he grew up in. I read Burke’s ‘Reflections on the French Revolution’ when I was 16. When it came to literature I was a precocious child.So why didn’t I turn out like him.
Just lucky I guess.
I can’t imagine this will change any votes. Aboriginal Australians won’t trust it, the right will support it because it’s coming from Howard but won’t see it as an election issue, and the left so completely doubts Howard’s sincerity that nothing he said or proposed could change their votes.
Unlike previous elections, it looks like the Coalition’s attempts to make race a voting issue will fail, and Howard’s “symbolic” move toward reconciliation will be shown for what it is — a meaningless cry for attention.
Anyone who cares knows that Howard hasn’t been part of reconciliation for a long time — it’s been moving along without him, and will continue to do so long after he is gone.
Wonder if he did his back practising this flip?
I worry is that Howard is doing this to kill off reconciliation forever. How? Take the previous preamble. It was meant to be about enshrining the notion of egalitarianism into the constitution – not that the word made it into the preamble (he would never be so stupid to actually promote concept – just layout some platitudes about it), but that’s how Howard sold it.
But the minute it was released, it was immediately talked down and when added to a pathetic question on the republic, he must have had some confidence it would be voted down. So the question I’d ask is, by having Australian’s say NO to the preamble, did we subconsciously reject egalitarianism?
So, here’s my theory on this latest one. Howard throws out this wonderful idea. However, when the wording finally appears, he drops in some hidden gems – like that we’re a christian nation – thus making it instantly offensive to the same people likely to vote for it (and don’t think for a minute that he hasn’t already got a wording – but he’d never be so dumb to release it before the election).
So Howard’s “each way bet” says that we’ll either vote it down OR if it makes it in, we actually sign up for something else. The other thing he can do is stir up old sentiment on the Apology issue (as he’s already doing), add to that the history war stuff now going on (and the black arm band claptrap the right keeps whining about), then give oxygen to someone like Pauline on the issue and before you can say boo, he’s guaranteed voting down the change.
So Howard gets to sounds like he’s all about reconciliation, but underneath he’s just pulling strings to ensure it gets overturned. I don’t trust the little bastard an inch…
I think it was very gutsy, and he should be taken at face value and applauded. An unequivocally good thing from the PM.
Now why do you say that Jack? On what basis should he be taken at face value? What makes you think this is gutsy, rather than a cynical wedge/grab for votes?
And most telling of all Mr Robertson, why a one liner rather than your usual 3 pager???
“And most telling of all Mr Robertson, why a one liner rather than your usual 3 pager???”
Well, Case, as it happens I was reading the other ranty Jack’s latest self-contained lengthy masterpiece on some or other God-spurned thread and I had one of those chilling moments of recognition and introspective clarity. I’m sure I’ll recover just as soon as I remember what an even more brilliant and original fellow I am than Strocchi, and how much luckier LP is to be blessed by my essaying presence, etc.
“Now why do you say that Jack?…”
Well, firstly because it’s what I believe. I also believe the surest and fastest way to make a mockery of your own tenaciously clung-to and desperately expressed idealism is to sneer at anyone else’s, including – and maybe especially – any that happens to come from a bete noir; that when you’ve occupied a ridiculed and grossly-misrepresented political fringe for as long as I have now, and had as many deeply held hopes and genuine beliefs treated as beneath contempt by the Lib/ALP ‘hard heads’, you’re nuts to look even a dodgy gift horse in the mouth; and that the good Senator B is a very wise and very cool election-looming cucumber.
I’d like a referendum to take God out of the preamble.
Sadly, it wouldn’t get up if the census results are anything to go by. I think the alternative is to get Nietzschean and just take God out … with extreme prejudice.
LOLZ!!!!1!
The Australian Democrats have pretty good form in sowing illusions in bad Howard government initiatives. Andrew Bartlett and others who figure a statement included in the preamble to the Constitution recognising the bleeding obvious will improve the conditions and lives of Aboriginal people one jot are themselves aiding Howard in his lifetime quest to stymie Aboriginal self-determination.
“I think the alternative is to get Nietzschean and just take God out … with extreme prejudice.” Right on, jobby.
The fact is I will never vote for a constitutional preamble, no matter how poetic or uplifting, that includes any reference to any god. I can tolerate people worshiping whatever gods and spirits they want, so long as they don’t bring their religious convictions into parliament and insist that our representatives get down on their knees and bow their heads before legislating.
“With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted…”
I honestly have no idea what this means anyway.
Jack Robertson: “I think it was very gutsy, and he should be taken at face value and applauded. An unequivocally good thing from the PM.”
Firstly, it’s impossible to take this at face value when it’s dropped on us this close to an election, given his past record on indigenous issues.
But putting that aside, let’s look at what is actually offered:
A national refererendum in the distant future …
as to whether to include in the pre-constitution waffle …
some vague statement of ‘reconciliation’.
This is not even meaningful symbolism. Saying ’sorry’ sure don’t mean much, but is at least something. Anything less is empty symbolism. And of course Ratty is not even committing to that – merely to giving us the opportunity to vote on whether such empty symbolism should be included in the pre-constitution waffle.
You gotta admit that Howard sure is a cunning little rodent. He must be. How else could he get such worthless humbug on the front page of a national newspaper?
“With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted…â€?”
Maybe they meant “We hope to god…” and it is actually a typo
It truly is an absurd sentence.
It can only mean:
The citizens have constituted Australia having been guided by hope in God.
Leave aside the possibility or otherwise of divine agency in such a project, this sentence implies that God has had nothing to do with the constitution of Australia so far, but that we Australians hope that God may have some influence in the future.
That being the case, Australia has declared itself to be in existence without any help whatsoever from God.
Les Murray and Ratty sat down in 1999 to nut this doozy out.
Did they know what thay were trying to say?
I would put Dave Allens’ farewell in the constitution:
“Goodnight, thank you, and may your God go with you.”
No one should object to that one.
Lauredhel has reproduced the press release from Women for Wik, responding to Howard’s speech, over at Hoyden.
An excerpt:
There are forums being held soon where Women for Wik will speak:
Contacts and more details at womenforwik.org
FDBJAATOTI, dude…service your blog-irony-detector. Goodness gracious me. (I thought this was the 21st century in here!?)“Firstly, it’s impossible to take this at face value when it’s dropped on us this close to an election, given his past record on indigenous issues.”
Jenny, if it’s impossible for you to take this at face value, fair enough. I do agree Howard’s a cunning little rodent. I suppose it’s very likely you’re right to be cynical and I’m very wrong to be hopeful.
Still. Oh well, eh. Each to their own.
FDB, I do hope that wasn’t a spectacular own goal just then. If so…sorry…unwell…tech problems…pressures…etc…oh God I hate irony.
*Kicks clod disconsolately, un-bursts into song: ‘Shoulda stayed on the farm, shoulda listened to my old man…’*
Guido
Maybe you should check out a post at News.com.au titled “PM: Millions will Never Say Sorry”. From 11.34 am today there are a staggering 570 odd comments on it, mostly from the kind of ignorant blatant racist bigots that Howard has played on like a consummate expert from 1996 onwards. No this fulsome (in the true sense of the word) display from Howard is sadly playing very like yet another wedge. Now all he has to do is get Rudd to reiterate his pledge to say sorry to aborigines…
I liked the comment from the old Aboriginal who said when the snake sheds his skin it is still the same snake.
Malcolm wasn’t impressed.
Lawyers are not impressed. The preamble does not have any effect on how the Constitution is interpreted.
In this interview, Brian Butler and Larissa Behrendt reckon it’s a stunt.
Jackie Huggins says:
“Respectful consultation.” Does it sound like JWH? Remember what the old guy said about the snake.
Rudd was rattling on today about bringing the Aboriginal life expectancy up to the standard of the rest of the population. The only ALP policy document I’ve seen does not inspire with confidence. It looks as though it has been thrown together from a few different portfolios and prettied up with photos, graphs etc. The weakness is in procedure. Not much evidence of respectful consultation.
Robert Merkel says:
The “Rudd Luvvies” are an urban myth. The Wets are in long term secular decline, as evinced by the collapse of the DEM and GREEN vote over the past decade.
The collapse of the GREEN vote over the noughties, ever ,since the major parties hopped onto the enviro bandwagon is a particular shocker. Since 2004 it has slipped from 7% of the vote to 4%, a decline of 30%+. A lingering rump of the rainbow coalitionists.
Whats left of the Wets are trapped in the LP, clustering around ex- and would-be PMs. Playing the civil rights violin. They will not be flipping en masse to Rudd, or else he would be courting their vote, Which he aint.
To the extent they exist they are a pretty cheap date. They can be bought off for a few cheap words of sympathy and a compliment of their ideological dress.
The explanation of Howard’s back-flip is fairly simple: he is a Machiavellian who is uncomfortable with the concordance of words and deeds.
His duplicitousness is the best way to keep the enemy wrong-footed. No doubt some such stratagem got hard-wired into our genes to evolutionary advantage.
In the Aboriginal affairs case Howard is talking Left but he has already tacked Right. Rudd, always the careful student of the master, is probably likewise dupliciting. Although he has changed the ideological signs: talking Right but preparing to tack Left.
I dread the passage of Gilliard through the cultural institutions of our state.
Its part of the Great Convergence between the major parties, that I have been blogging about since the early noughties.
It would be nice, for a change, if bloggers tried to develop predictive explanations of political behaviour. Instead of indulging in pointless retro-dictive speculation about motives.
jack
Who made up the silly notion of “Doctor’s Wives” in the first place? They must be very old and sexist. My husband is also a doctor. More than 50% of medical school graduates are women. Maybe in our grandparents day, the Doctor marrying the Nurse or the Physio might have had some validity, but those days are long gone. I rarely get enough free time to see my girlfriends, let alone getting involved in the charity set.
Luvvie Doctor’s Wife on 13 October 2007 at 6:05 pm
Its a silly term isnt it? I prefer Luvvies, if one must use a colloquialism to compare to the Battlers.
FTR the term “Wets” refers to liberal-Leftists who are focused on the identity politics of differentiated ethnic minorities. The term “Dries”, conversely, refers to “corporal”-Rightists who are focused on the identity politics of an integrated civic majority.
These terms do not easily map onto the traditional Left-Right dichotomy. But minorities tend to be lower-status than the majority (which is typically led by Caucasian males holding pragmatic conservative views).
The Left tend to support the low-status and the Right supports the high status. Hence the Left tend to be pro-ethnic diversity whilst the Right tend to be pro- civic unity.
The whole Culture War battle field has been heavily mined with terms loaded with exlosive social status connotations. eg redneck natives versus vibrant adoptives.
The story of the genesis on the Howard backflip was more or less given by Marcia Langton on Saturday Extra today. It seems that principally Galarrwuy Yunupingu, but also Noel Pearson and Marcia herself worked strenuously on Brough to convince Howard. Exactly of what I’m not sure, but Marcia was very happy with the outcome.
Just prior to her on the program Geoff Gallop had been pointing out that there wasn’t an actual backflip on Howard’s part, that his position is now pretty much what it has always been. Max Walsh was totally scathing, pointing out that Howard was at the end of his days politically and what he thought and said didn’t matter all that much.
Langton says that the outcome is more important than the motivation. She should be aware that what will be delivered will be consonant with current initiatives, which are philosophically in the Pearson mould. The money quote on this, I think, is from Robert Manne’s essay in The Monthly:
Brians story (and particularly the mention of Noel Pearson) leads me to wonder whether part of the explanation is some sort of a quid pro quo involving the constitutional preamble and the intervention in the NT.
All western cultures are based on individualist, acquisitivist philosophies having been shoved down the throats of protesting traditionalists. The early, hallmark example of this was the enclosure movement in England. This enclosure movement is closely related to the rollback of Aboriginal landrights.
There is no reason to assume that Aboriginal cultures are any less susceptible to this form of coercion than any other cultures.
One of the chief reasons for the failure of previous social-engineering attempts to inculcate an ethos of acquisitive individualism among Aborigines has been the failure/refusal of authorities and white entrepreneurs to create a comprador class of Aborigines who could become the pioneers and missionaries for this ethos among other Aborigines.
There is a powerful reason for this failure/refusal: racism.
And now the memory of racism, discrimination, disenfranchisement, dispossession, marginalisation and cultural genocide casts a dark shadow over Black/White relations in Australia.
This past cannot be forgotten. It must be acknowldged and confronted.
That is why a sincere, substantive gesture of apology is essential before any reconciliation is possible.
Howard therefore promises to try everything except the one thing that will work.
Mr Howard is indeed a very clever politician.
mikey, I think that Pearson was up in the NT to convince Galarrwuy Yunupingu to do a deal with Brough on his land. I suspect that is when it was cooked up but perhaps not in the sense of a contra deal.
Katz, I think you’ve got it about right. With Brough the money doesn’t flow until you sign up to individualistic, acquisitive capitalism.
The comments by Marcia Langton in the interview with Geraldine Doogue on Saturday Extra were really strange. A lot could be said about them. But to what constructive end. And who can really knows what they meant. She was not being frank.
I’m the first to respect what Aboriginal elders, male and female, have to say, but the next era can and will, I fervently hope, allow and provide the means for many new, younger representative voices and perspectives to come forward and have their say.
jinmaro, I had the same feeling about Marcia Langton. She didn’t seem to realise who she was dealing with in the Howardistas. Blind to the subtext.