VICTORIA must immediately follow Western Australia and pull back from the brink of the outrageous overreach of its backroom deal to give Indigenous groups across the Wimmera sweeping powers to totally rewrite and run everything from renaming roads to co-managing critical functions such as biosecurity and waterways.
A deal with 39 protocols, to which the 10 councils blindsided by the bombshell announcement must not only adhere but must also fund at ratepayer expense.
In WA this week, the Premier Roger Cook apologised to the people of his state for laws he says, “put simply” went too far.
Mr Cook says his government’s cultural heritage protection laws “were too prescriptive, too complicated, and placed unnecessary burdens on everyday Western Australian property owners”.
“I understand the legislation has unintentionally caused stress, confusion and division in the community, and for that I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry” is not a word you will ever hear from Daniel Andrews, but the stealth attack he has sprung on the Wimmera is an incredibly sorry shambles which is only creating more division, not less – and is an attack on the rights of all Victorians.
Reconciliation is “the action of making one view or belief compatible with another”.
The Oxford Dictionary makes it crystal clear; reconciliation is an admirable outcome – in any language.
Reconciliation is also, just as clearly, neither about give, nor take, but about give and take – to be embraced by all Australians, it needs to be embraced by everyone living in Australia.
Yes, it’s a cultural process, but it’s also a social process, educational, generational and, in this day and age, it’s also a financial process.
After 21 years in Parliament, the past five as shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs, I have learnt both sides of this unresolved debate have a long list of issues, questions, demands and expectations they want met – by the other side.
Points on both sides are valid. Many are not. Ranging from the emotive to the ridiculous, they have been there for a long time, have marred debate for decades and will continue as potholes and hurdles in the years ahead.
All these overreactions – the West Wimmera decision, the laws in WA, and definitely the Voice in Canberra – all exacerbate the sense of division, creating an opaque scenario.
In Canberra, the Prime Minister seems determined not to bring us closer together but to enshrine in our Constitution a genuine separateness.
The Oxford doesn’t cover that under reconciliation, neither do I. In Spring St, the Premier has done his deal in secret and then dumped a fait accompli on the unsuspecting region.
WA did theirs in the open and had the wisdom to realise they had got it terribly wrong and apologised to everyone.
You can look around regional Victoria today and see just how far this had got beyond a joke.
Look at our cultural heritage overlays, where Indigenous corporations, elders or just about anyone whose heritage identifies with a certain area, have been given enormous, intangible, powers over who can, and cannot, do everything or nothing.
No qualifications needed, no licensing protocols, and absolutely no regulations, which rule every other part of our working lives.
If you contact the relevant individuals/organisations to discuss overlay implications on your project, it can take weeks, or months, just to get someone to return your initial call or email.
There is no established scale of fees, decisionmakers can charge what they want – and they do.
I have a constituent wanting to build guest cabins on his private property. Denied. To appeal, he was told it would cost $30,000 to commission a report – and he wouldn’t get a copy.
One Kow Swamp farmer wanted to bring in machinery to dredge his GMW channels. Denied.
Another wants vehicular access to his pump. Denied. Although he can carry whatever he wants, after climbing a fence.
No explanation, no rhyme, reason, or accountability to the pricing structure, which can change on a daily basis.
This is not just wrong, it’s unbelievable. When the Kow Swamp farmers finally got someone from the Indigenous corporation to answer a phone, they conceded they had never been to the swamp. Seriously?
Three per cent of Australians “identify as being Indigenous” according to the ABS.
This isn’t even a case of the tail wagging the dog. The whole system is out of kilter and everyone’s paying the price.
Despite all the platitudes, billions of dollars, centuries of conflict, misunderstandings, and yes, atrocities on both sides, we still have a great divide. One we won’t breach by creating yet more separation, this time as formally as in the Constitution with the Voice or enshrined in legislation and secret deals as is being tried in Victoria.
In Mark 3:25, Christ said: “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand”. Abraham Lincoln repeated it in a big to hold his crumbling union together before the American Civil War.
It is a lesson we would all do well to remember. We need to take down fences, not build them. We need to help each other, not ourselves. We need to be a house united.
That means give and take, and a lot of it.
