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Queen
Elizabethh II, who has been advised against
acknowledging the traditional owners of Melbourne
during the opening of the Commonwealth
Games. |
So much for
symbols; Howard government advises Queen against
acknowledging traditional owners
NIT Issue 100 - 9th March
2006
By Chris Graham
NATIONAL, March
14, 2006: Despite claiming as recently as May last year
that reconciliation between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous Australians was about symbols as much as
it was about outcomes, it appears the Howard government
has advised the Queen against acknowledging the
traditional owners of Melbourne during the opening of
the Commonwealth Games on Wednesday night.
A
spokesperson for Buckingham Palace yesterday ruled out
the possibility of the Queen acknowledging the Kulin
Nation during her official opening speech of the Games
after telling NIT last week the Queen would be seeking
advice from the Howard government on whether or not it
was appropriate.
"The Queen will take advice on
that - she is guided by the government of the day,” a
spokesperson from Buckingham Palace said last
week.
It followed a call by a host of Indigenous
leaders, including director of Reconciliation Australia
Shelley Reys, for the Queen to acknowledge country
during her official duties in Australia.
Ms Reys
told NIT last week: "It's a small gesture but a symbolic
gesture that I think means an awful lot. Having said
that I think it's highly unlikely that [the Queen]
would."
It seems Ms Reys was right.
A
spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told ABC Radio
yesterday the Queen would not be acknowledging the
traditional owners in her Commonwealth Games opening
ceremony speech, to be delivered on Wednesday night. She
will instead read a message from the Commonwealth baton
before declaring the Games open.
In a speech to
the Reconciliation Australia workshop in May last year,
the Prime Minister began by “pay[ing] tribute to the
Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land on
which we gather”.
Later in the speech, he spoke
of the importance of symbols in reconciliation,
prompting Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson to
describe the Prime Minister’s change in thinking as a
“tectonic shift”.
Mr Howard said: “Reconciliation
is about rights as well as responsibilities. It is about
symbols as well as practical achievement. It is about
the past as well as being about the present and the
future. But what can we agree on undeniably? We can
agree on the special status of the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander as the first people of our
nation.”
NIT is seeking further comment from
Buckingham Palace and from the Prime Minister’s office
on how and why the advice was provided, however NIT
understands the Howard government believes it is only
appropriate to acknowledge traditional owners at
Indigenous-specific events.
NIT is also seeking
comment from ALP spokesman on Indigenous Affairs, Chris
Evans who last week recommitted the ALP to the
reconciliation process in a major speech on the
Indigenous Affairs in Perth.
NIT is also seeking
comment from Peter Garrett, who is the ALP’s opposition
Parliamentary Secretary for
Reconciliation.
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