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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Aboriginals demand reform, reject ‘symbolic’ proposal

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Sydney: Hundreds of Aboriginal elders gathered in Uluru in central Australia have rejected a plan to give their people official recognition in the country’s constitution, calling instead for greater reforms and political representation.


The Referendum Council, which organised the historic meeting, said on Friday that delegates overwhelmingly rejected the acknowledgement of Aboriginal people in the constitution as “merely symbolic.”


Instead, the final statement pushes for a constitutionally elected indigenous body in the federal parliament, a mechanism to make a treaty with the government, and a truth and justice commission.


“Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people,” said the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which came after three days of talks.


“Our children are aliened (sic) from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future,” it said.


“These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.”


The meeting coincides with the 50th anniversary of a groundbreaking referendum that allowed indigenous Australians to be included in a national census.


The report will be presented to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten in late June, after which a large working group will be set up for final proposal to be put to voters.


Referendum Council co-chair Pat Anderson said Aboriginal Australians must have a say in the government policies, programmes and legislation that affect them.


“At the moment we’re locked out, we’re powerless and voiceless in our own land. All the money that’s (spent) on us and all the programmes, they’ve all failed,” she said.


Australia has never signed a treaty with its Aboriginal people, who are languishing across economic and social indicators.


They live 10 years shorter than the non-indigenous population and make up 27 per cent of the prison population, while making up just 3 per cent of Australia’s 24-million population.


The juvenile detention rate is 24 times higher for indigenous Australians than it is for the non-indigenous, and the incarceration rate for indigenous women has risen nearly 250 per cent since 1991.


Noel Pearson, an Aboriginal leader from Cape York, said on Friday there was no enthusiasm for a statement of acknowledgement of indigenous people in the constitution.


The delegates agreed that a parliamentary “voice” would be more”substantive,” he said.


“It will have a more practical impact on Aboriginal people’s place in the democracy. That’s what they’ve chosen rather than some sort of nice words of acknowledgement.” — dpa


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