“I commend the Greens for the bold, even courageous, commitment to seek to address a painful fracture in the local Aboriginal community,” says columnist JON STANHOPE.

I REGRET not seeing the ACT Greens policy statement and election commitments to First Nations’ people before the election. It is very good. 

Had I been aware of the range and depth of the ACT Greens’ commitments to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Canberra I may have been tempted to abandon Labor and vote for them on that policy alone. Labor’s First Nations’ election manifesto is, in comparison, derisory.

The Greens’ headline commitment is that it will “support First Nations’ families with claims (to native title) to submit those claims for determination.” 

This promise is not just generous, recognising that the native-title process is extremely demanding, but also expensive, but also far sighted and, in light of the unique lease-based land title system in the ACT, particularly important. 

The Greens are, if I am interpreting their intention correctly, seeking to respond to the inherent unfairness to traditional custodians of land in the ACT, being denied the prospect of claiming native title to that land because freehold title and hence possibly native title, was extinguished when the ACT was transferred by NSW to the Commonwealth for the purposes of creating a national capital.

Importantly, the Greens have recognised the impact which the legacy of colonisation, disrupted customs and policy decisions being made by government, without proper consultation with relevant First Nations’ custodians, is having on the Aboriginal community including in the generation of conflict. The Greens acknowledge that disputes within the community are causing lateral violence between local families.

This was, sadly, comprehensively illustrated by “CityNews” journalist Danielle Nohra in her August 6 report of an interview with Mr Paul House, speaking on behalf of a group of Aboriginal families whose traditional connection to Canberra is beyond question, but who identify as Ngambri not Ngunnawal peoples.

In his interview, Paul House highlighted two main issues. Firstly, that the ACT government is in breach of the 2001 Namadgi National Park Agreement and, secondly, the decision by the ACT government and other organs of government such as the ABC and the ACT Legislative Assembly, to refuse to engage with or acknowledge those traditional custodians who identify as Ngambri while engaging with those who also claim traditional connection but identify as Ngunnawal.

The hurt which the actions of the ACT government, and by extension the ABC and the Legislative Assembly, are doing to those Aboriginal families who have chosen to identify as Ngambri was palpable in Mr House’s closing comment to reporter Nohra, when he said: “It’s creating intergenerational trauma, a stolen generation. 

“There’s a generation of people being told a lie on their own country. This government is stealing the identity away from Ngambri. They’re stealing it, they are reinterpreting it, they are trying to whitewash the true history of this country. That’s what they are doing. It’s criminal.”

It is notable, I think, that the Commonwealth government and Parliament acknowledge the Ngambri peoples as traditional custodians.

I commend the Greens for the bold, even courageous, commitment to seek to address this painful fracture in the local Aboriginal community. 

The Greens’ First Nations’ election commitments extend well beyond the central issue of native title and traditional custodianship. There are in fact in the order of about 30 separate commitments. All are worthy of recognition and will, as they are rolled out over the next four years, make a significant difference to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents of Canberra. 

Having been responsible for the commitment in 2008 by the then-Labor government to establish an Aboriginal-specific, residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, I was touched, to the point that I burst into laughter when reading the following Greens’ commitment to such a facility: “The ACT Greens support the aims of the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm which is operated and administered by Canberra Health Services. However, we know that the NBHF is not a drug and alcohol service, despite its original intention to be so, and never will be.”

One could not count on the fingers of both hands the number of times members of the ACT government have stood up over the last four years and insisted, with a straight face, that the NBHF was never intended to be a drug and alcohol service. It is so refreshing to see the Greens acknowledge the truth and call out those repeated claims for what they are. 

I will quickly mention three other major commitments that we can look forward to the re-elected ACT Labor/Green government implementing. In addition to an Aboriginal specific drug and alcohol service the government has also promised a dedicated Aboriginal community controlled medical withdrawal, ie detox, service. It has also agreed to the creation of an office of First Nations Social Justice Commissioner within the Human Rights Commission and the establishment of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People’s Commissioner. Each of these is a very significant initiative.

Congratulations.