Podcast transcript
A talk with Mick Dodson
Mick Dodson
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Transcript
- Matt Smith
Hello, and welcome to a La Trobe University podcast. I'm your host Matt Smith and today my guest is Professor Mick Dodson. He’s an indigenous Australian, former Australian of the Year and Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University. He visits La Trobe University to speak at a conference in honour of Robert Manne.
- Mick Dodson
It was great that the Apology was given by the national Parliament. It was a noble thing to do but you know, you can’t just apologise and keep doing what you’re doing. It has to be followed by action. Much of the action, say if you look for example, in the Northern Territory Intervention, was based on racial discrimination, so in spite of the Apology, we as a nation keep doing what we as a nation keep doing, discriminating against Aboriginal people in the hope that it’s going to give the desired results in public policy approaches. But you know, it’s like any relationship. People are constantly apologising for bad behaviour, but the trick is to fix the behaviour, and I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
- Matt Smith
It’s been years since the Apology. You would have hoped that more progress would have been made by now.
- Mick Dodson
Well, it’s very dispiriting to listen to the Prime Minister’s last annual report of the state of Indigenous Australia. It seems like we’re going backwards. And that’s what I mean. The words haven’t been matched by action, action that really makes a difference to the day to day lives of people, and we’re still having terrible outcomes across any ... you know, most significant economic and social indicators. We’re not kicking too many goals.
- Matt Smith
No. What did you want to see in that report? What do you think would be the best way forward then?
- Mick Dodson
I don’t think there’s one single answer to that question, you know, there’s no silver bullet to this, but I think what works, and what we can demonstrate works, not just in Australia but other like jurisdictions, you know, we like to compare ourselves to Canada, the United States and New Zealand so far as outcomes for indigenous peoples are concerned, but I think what has to shift in public policy is a fundamental philosophical shift in that the government and administrators have to stop doing stuff for us, inventing things that they think, and often with good will, but they’re not based in the minds and hearts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. What we have to do is back our initiatives and give us more power over the decisions that affect our daily lives. What really needs to happen here is what happened in the United States, for native Americans under President Nixon, and that is to have as the foundation to public policy, self determination. That’s where we should shift to as proper respected endorsement and implementation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self determination. I mean a move in that direction, particularly in the Torres Straits, wouldn’t surprise me in the not too distant future, that we are able to form a self government in the Torres Straits. There’s no reason why that can’t be applied to different groups on the mainland. No other group of Australians has their lives to regulated and ordered by government as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Most people have the opportunity, and they’re given the space, to make those decisions about things that are going to affect their day to day lives.
- Matt Smith
Wouldn’t it be giving up a level of control though that the government maybe isn’t willing to do, if they took that step?
- Mick Dodson
Well, as I was saying, it needs a philosophical shift in thinking. I'm not saying it’s going to be easy and I'm not saying we might falter along the path of self determination, but we shouldn’t be afraid of tripping every now and again. It’s accepted that as humans we’re fallible and we make mistakes, but government seems to think that Aboriginal organisations and community-based government entities have to be exemplary. You know, you’re not allowed to make mistakes, which is nonsense. It’s that sort of control ideology that holds us back. You know, it’s very difficult when you look around to find too many government initiated, or politically initiated public policy approaches that are directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that you’d really say works. When was the last big success for government in public policy in indigenous affairs? And successes that make a difference. The things that work in my experience from moving around the country over many decades, is the initiatives that are made by the people locally and are supported by the people, and often operate and succeed in spite of government resistance. We seem to have an attitude as a country that, you know, the blackfellas can’t come up with anything. We’ve got to do that for them. And I think that’s wrong-headed thinking.
- Matt Smith
When you became Australian of the Year back in 2009, a lot of previous Australians of the Year and those that have had the title since have used the title to further their cause or at least to get their views heard a bit more. Did you find yourself achieving a lot during that time for what you think is important?
- Mick Dodson
Well I stated on the day I was given the great honour that I wanted to concentrate on school education, and try and inspire kids to ... firstly to rock up to school, to try and learn while they’re there, but also to complete, you know, to finish, and that’s a sad situation of too many kids who live in poverty and too many of them are Aboriginal kids, but their education outcomes are something we ought to be deeply ashamed of, as a country.
- Matt Smith
I know you went to a lot of schools ...
- Mick Dodson
I went to 57 schools I think. Yeah, and it was great. It gives you sustenance to continue when you see the little kids get so much hope and enthusiasm, and you know that, for too long we’ve been letting a lot of those kids down. We know the skills to succeed. Why don’t we emulate them? Instead we do the opposite. The year I was Australian of the Year the Northern Territory government for example, announced that they were scaling back on bi-lingual education, on very spurious grounds in my view. And we know that kids in the early formative years, all the research points to them having better learning and educational outcomes if they’re taught in their mother tongue. A lot of these kids in the Northern Territory in particular, in remote areas, English isn’t the first language. And it’s never going to be.
- Matt Smith
That’s how you see your time as Australian of the Year. A lot of the interviews, when you got the honour, it was all Mick Dodson doesn’t like Australia Day. You’ve got a problem with Australia Day being when Australia Day is.
- Mick Dodson
Some journalists asked me a question, straight after the event, and I said we should look at it. I think it’s highly offensive to too many Aboriginal Australians. It’s seen as Invasion Day – it’s the day that the British came and began to shatter our lives, take our country, our resources, kill our people, introduce disease and the general two hundred years of misery. That started on that proclamation of New South Wales. I think for good reason a lot of Aboriginal Australians find that highly offensive. At least we should talk about it.
- Matt Smith
Yes.
- Mick Dodson
And I got thousands and thousands of responses around that, either through letters or emails, and I think there is a handful that you’d call cranks, there was overwhelming support for the idea, at least we should discuss it. Mr Rudd was the Prime Minister at the time and he flatly refused to do that. Why should politicians tell us what we can and can’t talk about? I still think it’s an issue that has to be dealt with. One suggestion that was made to me that I think was a sensible one, because I think eventually we’ll become a republic, perhaps the day we vote to become a republic, an inclusive republic, might be a more appropriate day to celebrate Australia Day. You know, the 26th of January is not an inclusive date.
- Matt Smith
New Zealand was claimed on the same day, in the same flag-planting, and they celebrate something completely different, the signing of a Treaty for their national holiday.
- Mick Dodson
My understanding of the 26th of January in Australian history is that it was the proclamation of New South Wales. So you know, it didn’t include two-thirds of South Australia, two-thirds of the Northern Territory and all of Western Australia. So almost half of the land mass of Australia wasn’t included in that proclamation. So why are we celebrating that? Not only it doesn’t include the indigenous population but it excludes half the country. The land mass of the country.
- Matt Smith
So do you think that Australia Day, if that did change, it would go a lot further to recognising reconciliation than it has at the moment?
- Mick Dodson
Well, what’s the rationale for it now, you know? It’s the proclamation of the penal colony of New South Wales. What’s the relevance of that to us? You know, when I say us, I mean all Australians. Go figure.
- Matt Smith
Can I ask what reconciliation would mean to you, and if you’re hopeful that it will happen?
- Mick Dodson
Well, I think there’s a problem with characterising reconciliation as an event with an end. I don’t see it that way. I think it’s an ongoing process and we establish parameters of the relationship through generations, one my generation might find acceptable. It may not be acceptable to my grandkids, or your kids or grandkids. I mean I think it’s a process of constantly locating and relocating the relationship. I think we’ve come a long way. We’ve got a lot of work to do. But you know, if you look at the surveys that Reconciliation Australia has been conducting over the last six or so, I think they do it every two years, we’ve put a barometer against reconciliation and it has overwhelming support, the idea of reconciliation, which is very, very encouraging. But, there’s still this distrust on both sides, of each other. That’s what we’ve got to tackle. And we’re not going to get there unless we keep at it. It’s a funny thing but what’s going to happen in, say, fifty years times time? Will some Prime Minister get up in the parliament and apologise to the refugees that we’ve locked up in stinking detention centres? On off-shore islands. I think it will happen one day, someone will apologise. Some senior politician, like the Prime Minister. I hope it’s the President of our republic who will say that was wrong. I'm very sorry. We shouldn’t have done that. It’s not who we are. So you know, we’re in a sense discriminating against another set of people. One day we’ll come to regret it and have to say sorry for it.
- Matt Smith
I've just got one more question. Do you honestly describe yourself as a troublemaker?
- Mick Dodson
Every citizen has a duty to hold our political leaders to account. If that’s being a troublemaker, well, I'm one of them, and proud to be one.
- Matt Smith
That was Professor Mick Dodson, and that’s all the time we have today for the La Trobe University podcast. If you have you have any questions, comments or feedback about this podcast or any other, then send us an email at podcast@latrobe.edu.au.
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