An open letter to the Queensland and Australian Greens September 2006

The September 2006 Queensland state election was remarkable for the Greens in two ways. The first of course was the increased Green vote, in particular several seats getting around 20%, firmly locating the Greens as a significant political phenomenon in Queensland, despite the lack of an upper house as in other states. The second remarkable thing about the election was the Greens’ silence on indigenous issues at a time when the unresolved death in the Palm Island watch house, the resurgence of the stolen wages campaign including a senate enquiry and the recent media hysteria about violence in Aboriginal communities were firmly planted in the public consciousness.

The Greens have only one elected representative in Queensland, Erykah Kyle – the mayor of Palm Island. Palm Island is the biggest Aboriginal community in Queensland and arguably the most disadvantaged. The state has muddled from crisis to crisis including offering $800.000 to the Palm Island council to appear in a photo opportunity with Premier Beattie.

I believe the development of the Palm Island Greens and the active involvement of Mayor Kyle in the Green Party is of great historical and political significance, not just for the Greens but also for the evolution of the Aboriginal struggle into the twenty first century. However these profound developments have been totally betrayed and disempowered by the current leadership of the Qld. Greens and their refusal to engage with indigenous issues.

The very first thing the New Labor government did after the state election was to abolish indigenous affairs from cabinet with a commitment to mainstreaming indigenous public service delivery.

Beattie has managed to slip this major change in Aboriginal affairs through without even a whimper of opposition, unlike John Howard who has had to fight, and continues to fight for exactly the same policies.

I believe this would not have been possible if the Greens had campaigned on indigenous issues. With the exception of the Socialist Alliance (who only got an insignificant 2%) there was no party that campaigned on indigenous issues. Beattie has correctly assumed that there is no political support from anywhere so he can sweep all the indigenous problems under the carpet. The silence of the Greens has facilitated this move.

The abolition of the indigenous affairs portfolio and the transition to mainstreaming is a watershed moment in Aboriginal affairs in Qld. It marks the final elimination of all of the Aboriginal political gains of the twentieth century, in particular the principle of self determination. The Greens were the only political party capable of pressuring the Beattie government on indigenous issues and they didn’t. Blood is indeed on the hands of the Greens.

As the author of the draft Greens state indigenous policy I believe the policy is a good one. I have read the national Party’s indigenous policy and I believe it is also very good. But both policies just sat as meaningless text in cyberspace and had no manifestation in the election campaign or any other attempt to pressure the government to abandon its present indigenous policy (non)paradigms.

The Greens, like the National Party have upheld mainstream white racism and allowed Beattie to continue to enact genocidal programs that not even John Howard has been able to achieve (yet). As long as white power does not consider black disadvantage, then the disadvantage just compounds upon itself resulting in more deaths, violence and illness. It is no hyperbole to call this genocide.


Queensland and national issues come together with the upcoming federal election. Will the Greens remain silent on Howard’s indigenous agenda as well as Beatties? Or will they leave it to federal Labor to challenge them on issues such as housing or health in Qld?

For Aboriginal people and their supporters there is an alternative to the Greens in Queensland. Andrew Bartlett has consistently and over many years supported the struggles of Aboriginal Australia in the senate and in the community. He has recently initiated the senate inquiry into stolen Aboriginal wages and has as one of his core public campaigns “Put Our First Peoples First - Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage” which he will presumably push into the senate election with the momentum of the stolen wages inquiry.

Why would a supporter of justice for Aboriginal people vote Green when Bartlett is an option?

I am not a member of the Democrats or the Greens (though I am a former member of both). At present I am promoting Bartlett simply because he is campaigning on Aboriginal issues. On Aboriginal issues, as with all other issues, the Democrats are more interested with tinkering around the edges trying to make an unworkable system work, they have no capacity for social leadership or the propagation of new paradigms. However the Democrats are the only political party in Queensland who has publicly identified itself as a supporter of Aboriginal Australia, they speak up for Aboriginal issues. Despite the Democrats political limitations this public association with Aboriginal Australia is crucial to stop Aboriginal crisis from being swept under the carpet as a non-priority in white political discourse.

Andrew Bartlett is the Democrats national indigenous affairs spokesperson and he has the benefit of the senate and his office to campaign from. The Greens will have to come up with a major campaign to convince Aboriginal supporters to vote for them rather than Bartlett. I hope they do.

Unlike the Democrats, the Greens have an ongoing relationship with Palm Island, a number of Aboriginal members grouped on the Sunshine Coast with a specific indigenous agenda within the party. The Greens have the structural links with Aboriginal Australia and are not in the “centrist” straight jacket that Bartlett is, they are capable of articulating a vision that will catch fire in the community.

It would seem however that the present leadership of the Qld. Greens is choosing to ignore this great social capital, a base capable of increasing the Green vote but more importantly, capable of pressuring all levels of government to lift their games on Aboriginal issues by simply campaigning on the issues. The Qld. Greens are capable and professional campaigners, it is not as if they are not able to campaign on Aboriginal issues. They just choose not to. I hope this changes.

John Tracey
kalkadoon.org
johntracey.blogspot.com


A response from Drew Hutton of the Qld. Greens

I was the Indigenous Issues spokesperson for the Greens for about 12 months up until the recent state election.  In that time, and in the couple of years before that, I had visited the community of Palm Island several times to give support to the council and the residents who have come under attack from the state government and sections of the bureaucracy.  I have also visited other communities around the state and attempted to learn more about Indigenous culture and the concerns of Indigenous people.  I have also worked with John Tracey and others to get a better deal on housing and other services for communities.  As spokesperson for the Greens I issued press releases on everything from Stolen Wages and Murri Court to housing and alcohol management plans.
 
I was not the spokesperson for the state election as I was not a candidate but, even if I had been, it would have been incredibly difficult to get Indigenous issues on the agenda for it.  I had originally wanted some protest action in Brisbane outside Parliament House on the deplorable state of Aboriginal housing and that might have highlighted the issue for the election campaign but it proved impossible to organise.  The media was not at all interested in covering any non-major party during the election campaign and we were lucky to get coverage even on the issue of dams.  It would have been nice to get some coverage on stolen wages or housing during the election but it just wasn't going to happen and I don't accept John's assertion that the lack of a significant number of media releases from the Greens made Beattie think he could get away with downgrading the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander portfolio.  He seems to have no trouble doing outrageous things that fly in the face of any number of issues that we make public statements on.
 
I notice that the Australian Greens have also come in for a bit of criticism from John on this issue.  I don't deny the excellent work Andrew Bartlett has been doing on Indigenous issues but the Australian Greens spokesperson Rachel Siewart has issued a large number of relevant media releases as can be seen from her web site and has been active on committee work in the area and I think the implied criticism of her is unfair.
 
Cheers.
Drew Hutton

a note from J.T.
Rachel Siewert is the greens senator for Western Australia and their national indigenous issues spokesperson. As far as I am aware she did not get involved in the Qld campaign.

Here is her indigenous issues page
Aboriginal issues

Here is Bartlett's
tPut Our First Peoples First - Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage

and
issues - stolen wages

issues - Palm Island

and
an index to indigeous threads on his blog

I have also received messages from a couple of Green branches outside the Brisbane area informing me of local indigenous issues that they campaigned on in the election. I acknowledge and applaud the grass roots commitment to indigenous issues that I believe is wide spread amongst the Greens and their supporters. I am also aware of and acknowledge the great commitment of Drew to these issues over decades. These things make the silence and inaction of the present, Brisbane based, central campaign leadership even more frustrating and saddening.