TRANSCRIPT:
(This transcript is derived from an automated process. The video recording is authoritative.)
Excellent. Well, thank you very much Jewel, and thank you Scott for the introduction and of course everyone for being here tonight, I should say. Um, thank you as well to Anthony Capello from Connor Publishing.
Um, so my name's Sean Jacobs, and as Scott touched on, I'm the author of a book on Neville Bonner. So who was Australia's first indigenous parliamentarian available at all good bookstores, but also here through Concor tonight.
Um, and look, I won't chew up too much of your time, but I just wanna say thank you as well. Um, you know, once again, for everyone, for being here tonight, this is an incredibly important moment, and Scott, uh, touched on that and Jewel did as well.
But just in terms of formal remarks, I really wanted to maximize the Q and A session. So again, I won't say too much, but what I did wanna just touch on very briefly is this moment that we were in this post-Voice moment and look at this through the lens of Neville Bonner.
Now, I was really careful about deploying Bonner too much, um, during the, the actual referendum debate itself, but I think now in this post-Voice moment, it's really critically important to look at his life and how his lessons can actually apply, uh, to this situation that we're in.
So, um, Bonner as, um, Scott alluded to was senator for Queensland from 1971 to 1983, and there were three things about Bonner that really just make him confront assumptions. Um, the first that he was a member of the Liberal party, um, he was philosophically conservative.
Uh, second he was also from the state of Queensland, the deep north as Bonner referred to it. He wasn't from the southern and, and supposedly more progressive cosmopolitan, um, states of New South Wales and Victoria.
He was from Australia's Texas, as he referred to it, the deep north in Queensland. And the third thing as well was just, um, the timing. You know, if you look at when Bonner came of age politically in the late 1960s, this was a time when indigenous activism even compared to today, was really running hot.
Bonner being philosophically conservative, was running upstream against those currents being, uh, philosophically what he was, and also a member of the Liberal, uh, party and becoming a senator from 1971 to 1983.
So yes, a character that really confronts assumptions. Um, and look, I think, you know, regardless of where you sat on this yes, no divide, um, indigenous disadvantage remains a stubborn problem in Australia in certain quarters.
That's, that's clear. And as I mentioned, I think we can draw three key lessons, um, from Bonner's life to this moment that we're in today. And think the first one is just acknowledging that reconciliation ultimately can take place or more optimally takes place, I should say, among individuals versus institutions.
I mean, as many doors that would close on Bonner, many more would, would open. And I think that was down to, to good people in his life and having good individuals as well.
He worked every job under the sun, he said in central Queensland, Northern New South Wales. He, um, cut lantana. He was a, um, a cattle, a dairy hand. Um, he was a a a ring barker.
He worked on Palm Island for almost 20 years before coming to Brisbane to work on the Mount Cosby, uh, waterworks. Um, he worked every job under the sun. A lot of that was actually achieving reconciliation among individuals and he wasn't relying wholeheartedly on institutions.
So I think that's one key takeaway. I think second is trying to avoid solving yesterday's challenges with yesterday's solutions. And what I mean by that is there's a time clearly for con contest, a time for agitation, but there's also a time for compromise.
And Bonner found himself very much in the latter camp. He was trying to achieve long-term objectives through compromise over confrontation. And I guess one of the key examples of that is Bonna, notably was a member of the One People of Australia League.
He was head of the head of the league before he became a senator for Queensland. Notably, he wasn't part of the federal council, uh, for the advancement of Aboriginal. And to Torres Strait Islanders for Katsy was a, was um, an overwhelmingly political body.
Whereas OPAL, the One People of Australia League that honor was a part of was overwhelmingly focused on individuals and individual capabilities and bringing black and white people together. Whereas for Katsy was overwhelmingly, uh, a political body that was purely focused on achieving political power and also, um, composed entirely of activists as well.
So I think that there's some of that residual effect today, especially in the indigenous affairs movement, those competing tensions between indigenous welfare of the best kind, but also trying to look for a political solution for every single, uh, welfare issue.
And I think there's a contemporary lesson there. And that's the second. And look, just lastly, um, I think this is, this is kind of an exciting lesson, but thinking about electoral integrity and, and federalism and what actually local representation means and looks like, um, I think it was cited and everyone in this room would've read the washup that around 80% of indigenous remote communities voted yes, um, uh, for the referendum.
And when you get a chance to ask Jacinta Price about this, she says that, look, that that may be the case. But you really have to look at the standards of electoral integrity that apply in some of these communities.
Some of the stories are absolutely harrowing, and I think what you need to think hard and scrutinize hard about what electoral integrity looks like in some of these communities, and actually, you know, thinking hard about what that really means, um, in terms of a proper federation.
Um, Neville Bonner lost a lot of political skin in 1978, uh, for the raccoon and Mornington Island issues. It put him offside with the Bjelke-Petersen government again in the late seventies.
He left, uh, federal Parliament in 1983, but he lost a lot of skin for that issue for going up against Bjelke-Petersen because he believed that the communities were run by the Presbyterian church.
The communities were happy with that and they didn't wanna be run by the state government. And this is just such an optimal example of a, an actual federation working where local issues get tackled locally and where there's local preference.
And I think when you have that integrity, those democratic standards at a very local level, I think that really drives home how important it is to actually get things right from a governance perspective and get the democratic settings correct at a local level.
And I think that really starts as Justine says, or Senator Price rather, um, at improving electoral integrity. Um, so again, it's a very boring place to start, but I think that's the third point that, uh, Bonner would probably remind us about today.
Um, so I didn't have too much more to add. I hope that just gives a bit more space to the Q and A. Um, and I'll hand back to, um, jewel or to Scott, um, to flip over.
But thanks very much everyone. Appreciate you.
