MOST Australians do not care if indigenious Australians are left on the “dung heap of society”, a prominent Aboriginal Catholic has said.
At the start of National Reconciliation Week, celebrated May 27- June 3, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission executive secretary Graeme Mundine asked whether the Australian people really cared about indigenious Australians.
“This is the picture which I see has emerged,” Mr Mundine said of the 40 years since 90.77 per cent of Australians stood up for Indigenous people and allowed federal laws to be made on their behalf and for them to be counted in the census.
“Some (indigenious Australians) have become better educated and are doing quite well within the wider community, but for the vast majority life still stinks.”
Mr Mundine said for many years politicians had been heard to say, ‘there are no votes in blacks’, when asked to address the plight of Indigenous Australians.”
Brisbane’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission executive officer Peter Arndt said Mr Mundine’s comments were understandable.
“Forty years after the referendum, which gave many people hope that Indigenous Australians would finally see some justice, there are still enormous problems and difficulties for indigenous people and governments don’t seem to want to take concerted action to deal with the,” Mr Arndt said.
Brisbane archdiocese’s Murri Ministry co-ordinator Ravina Waldren said all indigenous people expected good things to follow after the 1967 referendum, but they hadn’t.
“Everyone talks of reconciliation, which is a familiar concept to Christian people, but what does it mean to our people, it is just a feel good approach to indigenous issues,” she said.
