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Is Mundine our messiah?
by Stephen Hagan 12 August 2013
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f Warren Mundine is Tony Abbott’s pick – a blue imbued version of former PM Julia Gillard’s ‘captain’s pick’ of former Olympian Nova Peris as the replacement for outgoing NT Senator Trish Crossin – to head his new advisory board to solve our myriad social ills, then what role does the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples play and who will they be advising? Mundine concurred on ABC breakfast radio yesterday that he “massively disagreed” with Abbott’s Indigenous policies in the past - but with his latest appointment publicly announced at Garma by the Opposition Leader on Saturday he now respects his vision for our mob, especially as “he actually sits and takes the criticism on then thinks about it”. Not quite sure where Mundine’s going with that analysis. On the weekend we were all led to believe, by saturation media coverage, that Mundine was in it for the long haul with his four-tiered plan to rewrite Aboriginal affairs by principally ‘abolishing scores of statutory Indigenous governance bodies’ and ‘letting outsiders in’ to Aboriginal communities. Not allowing private ownership on traditional lands – meaning private individual and commercial title of ‘others’ to Aboriginal lands – he conjectured, will result in residents of those communities continuing “to languish and be wedded to the taxpayer like a baby to its mother’s breast” is disconcerting in its ingenuousness. Unbeknown to the outside world the great messiah Mundine was going to wave his magic wand around and have our multitude of social ills and colossal levels of marginalization moored and
secured in the ‘fixed’ box within a finite period of six months. It appeared that Tony Abbott – supported by his trusted Indigenous Affairs shadow minister, Senator Nigel Scullion – offered initially an advisory brief to Mundine for the sum total of six months. Mundine agreed that was all the time he needed to sort the mess that simply could not be blamed on “past discrimination, colonization, dispossession or the Stolen Generations”. I’m speechless: how could Mundine – who left his last post as CEO at GenerationOne with more questions then answers about their ineffectual employment outcomes for our mob (see First Nations Telegraph story http://goo. gl/VFk7XU) - possibly advise an Abbott led Coalition government, should they win office, on best practice strategies to fix dire problems no government has come close to solving since federation? Abbott now insists his handpicked advisory council that would include ‘indigenous and non-indigenous Australians with a broad range of skills, including experience in the public sector, business acumen, and a strong understanding of indigenous culture’ will be a “permanent feature” of his government rather than “a short-term audit”. What should First Nations people make of Warren Mundine: an ambitious man who succeeded Barry Jones as President of the Labor Party to then let his membership lapse in 2012 because his party chose Bob Carr to replace NSW Senator Mark Arbib over him; a former public servant, CEO of the NSW Native Title Service, deputy mayor of Dubbo City Council, director of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation and Chairman of the
Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce? I don’t know Mundine personally – and would’ve exchanged no more than a couple of brief words with him at various public functions in the past decade – but if he is going to be the confidant of potentially the next Prime Minister, then I hope he has the same confidence to usher in practical life changing outcomes for our mob as he exudes in front of the glow of media lights. Should Abbott move into The Lodge after September 7 I don’t quite know what role, if any, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples will play? Senator Nigel Scullion told First Nations Telegraph that he would not support them if he became Minister for Indigenous Affairs – although Les Malezer offered up a slightly different slant on their status after he won a second term as co-Chair recently. Malezer said his conversations with the Opposition Party has been fruitful of late with respect to an ongoing working relationship. They say nothing is boring in Indigenous Affairs and Warren Mundine, Abbott’s black enigma, certainly makes for interesting times ahead. If he does ascend to the top Indigenous advisory role after the elections I hope he doesn’t surround himself with the usual suspects who appear to spend more time wining and dining big business and mainstream media than working with their mob. “Throwing money at indigenous issues hasn’t worked: give commerce a chance” could prove to be Mundine’s prophetic words in years to come. If nothing else – I support Warren Mundine totally in his authoritative statement of “giving commerce a chance”.
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