I'm going to count myself as still being in my early 60's rather than my mid 60's, but I'm still feeling like an elder who is remembering things that those young'uns in politics seem to have forgotten about: the danger to Labor of looking too gullible on matters of indigenous policy.
Have people forgotten about Bob Hawke and his attitude to the issue of sacred sites:
In 1991 BHP was pushing to mine a hill in Kakadu that was sacred to the local Indigenous Jawoyn people.
According
to Mr Hawke he was angered at the way some members of cabinet
cavalierly dismissed those beliefs while accepting the “mysteries” of
their own Christian faith.
“I was annoyed beyond measure by the
attitude of many of my colleagues and their cynical dismissal of the
beliefs of the Jawoyn people and I think I made one of the strongest and
bitterest attacks I ever made on my colleagues in the cabinet when I
was addressing this issue.
“There
is no doubt this was one element in my loss of leadership as there was a
great deal of antagonism amongst my colleagues as to the intensity of
the remarks I made. But this was something I felt very deeply about.”
And then how the Hindmarsh Island scandal a few years later made non-questioning of claims by all indigenous look like gullibility?
I mention this because the news of a successful native title claim over a large part of the Sunshine Coast is (almost irrespective of its practical effects - which might be minimal, but see my concerns below) bound to hurt the Labor government in Queensland, which negotiated a settlement.
Here's an article from The Guardian explaining what this claim has gained:
Unlike other types of land tenure, native title
only grants a specific, discrete set of prescribed rights, typically
called a “bundle of rights”. Those rights don’t include the right to
sell, though the state must compensate the claimant if it extinguishes
them. It might do that if it wants to turn part of the area into a coal
mine or a housing estate, for instance.
The Kabi Kabi people were granted the following rights:
Access, be present on, move about on and travel over the area.
Camp on the area, and for that purpose, erect temporary shelters on the area.
Take resources of the area for any purpose.
Take and use the water of
the area for personal, domestic and non-commercial communal purposes
(including cultural and spiritual purposes).
Participate in cultural activities on the area.
Be buried and bury native title holders within the area.
Maintain places of
importance and areas of significance to the native title holders under
their laws and customs and protect those places and areas from physical
harm.
Teach on the area the physical and spiritual attributes of the area.
Hold meetings on the area.
Light fires on the area for domestic purposes including cooking, but not for the purpose of hunting or clearing vegetation.
In
order to win these rights, the Kabi Kabi had to prove that their
ancestors occupied the area under a set of laws and customs, which had
continued ever since.
I reckon if this claim was granted to a group of long term residents of an isolated area (like how the first native title claim was covering Thursday Island), with modest intentions, no one would worry.
But the danger is that people perceive (correctly!) that indigenous activism has taken a very aggressive form now, and concessions keep being made to the "flexes" of indigenous activists and (let's be honest) their increasingly dilute aboriginal blood. (God, I feel dangerously Hanson-ite for saying that, but the fact of the matter is that genetics should count for something in claims of indigenous heritage. And it's still considered a valid thing by many actual American tribes - a point rarely mentioned in Australia.)
People might recall some push by some indigenous to get people to stop climbing the Glasshouse Mountains - I wouldn't be surprised if that push is renewed after this claim.
And I suspect that there will be even more controversial things pushed under this claim - all pretty much more as a political "flex" than anything else.
The thing is, people (like Bob Hawke) who argued that indigenous claims to exclusive access to certain natural sites for religious or cultural reasons is the equivalent of the major religions' idea of a scared site were pretty obviously making a false comparison. You don't have to be a believer to have access to St Peter's in Rome, or most mosques, or Buddhist or Hindu temples. You might be expected to observe certain modest restrictions in dress and behaviour, but that's about it. And being able to name any bit of the natural landscape as sacred based on unwritten lore is obviously open to abuse and "flexes".
In other words, people are right to be sceptical of the claims and the religious reasons given for them. If any bit of ground can be declared scared, it dilutes the idea of sacred to something pretty meaningless, really. Let's declare the whole planet sacred, but we all have access to it, OK?
But apart from the issue of climbing mountains, I can see lots of other rights in that list that certainly could be abused and cause conflict. Is the right to light a campfire in Crown land going to cause issues in fire restriction times? Will collecting shell fish be done in a way that is commercial and not really about daily sustenance? (This already causes conflict in other parts of Australia.)
Labor is going to lose the Queensland election big time for a variety of reasons, with one significant issue already related to aboriginality - the rise in youth crime, especially in in regional areas. Add to the electoral ill will that issue has generated a vaguely defined set of Native Title rights in a prime tourist area of the State and it's going to go over like a lead balloon.
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