Professor Shane Houston
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Strategy & Services
Freedom not Frustration
In 1962 Oodgeroo Noonuccal penned the poem ‘Aboriginal Charter of Rights’. In
it she juxtaposed Aboriginal and other Australian realities along key social,
political and civil themes. Equals not dependants, self respect not resignation,
status not discrimination, neighbours not fringe dwellers, freedom not frustration.
She did this to draw Australians into a conversation about what is and what could
be.
Oodgeroo wanted real freedom for Aborigines to aspire, to be free to decide what
matters in their lives, free to act on their choices, to pursue their hopes and
ambitions and to do so free of bias, paternalism and disadvantage. Oodgeroo
reminded us that without freedom frustration reigns. Frustration is the wellspring
of loss of confidence, anger and hurt.
In 1964 students from The University of Sydney demonstrated in central Sydney
demanding equal rights, equal opportunities and education for Aborigines, and an
end to legal and social discrimination. Those students were also challenged by
Oodgeroo’s poem, this time in song. The reverberations of that demonstration
and the obvious ‘what’s next?’ question that followed became key ingredients in
the awareness that fuelled Student Action for Aborigines and the 1965 Freedom
Ride.
The Freedom Ride aimed to build public awareness about the unfair economic,
social and human adversity Aboriginal people confronted, to eliminate barriers to
achievement and opportunity, and to engage and encourage greater Aboriginal
self-­‐reliance, action and ultimately advancement. They wanted to create a
society where freedom was real.
Since the 29 University of Sydney students took to the bus we have seen much
change in our nation’s behaviours and rules that enable or constrain freedom and
fairness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The 1967 referendum changed
the Constitution to enable Aboriginal people to directly benefit from
Commonwealth policies and programmes, racial discrimination has been
outlawed, and 30 years after Oodgeroo’s call for a dignified freedom, the High
Court recognised native title. Most recently we have signed the UN Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
As we grow we become more aware and our expectations also change. We see
possibilities where before we saw impasse. We expect more and rightly so. We
expect our nation’s institutions to be more responsive to the changes we have
secured. We expect that progress will be made real in people’s lives. We need
to create a close relationship between the grand intent of social reform and the
lives of our nation’s people. But like the students we need to ask ourselves have
these changes brought real freedom? And ultimately to ask ourselves ‘what’s
next?’
1
For progress and its meaning to be made real it must be embedded, made part of
who and what an Australian society and people are, and it must be part of our
shared behaviours, language and culture. Sharing seeks to create a common
good, dignity and fairness indivisible and interdependent.
Embedding and promoting freedom, dignity and fairness for all confronts hard
edges. What is freedom and importantly freedom to do what? Do Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders today possess in equal measure with other Australians the
freedom to give full effect to their life choices? Do our social and institutional
frameworks assist or impede the realisation of these personal and collective
rights and goals? Do we truly understand and respect difference and how do we
eliminate the conscious and unconscious bias that operates against freedom and
fairness?
These questions go to the heart of the freedom puzzle. Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders may be free to decide what constitutes a valued life for
themselves, but in too many ways, still the choices on which they can act do not
speak to an Aboriginal conception of a valued life. And like the students on the
Freedom Ride, we find ourselves today asking the obvious question ‘what’s next’.
Finding answers is not straightforward. But we do know that answers will require
a better relationship between peoples’ behaviours and culture and institutional
ethics, and a real freedom that respects diversity. We need networks that reach
beyond individuals to embrace a broader community, we need experiences and
knowledge that challenge and validate, and we need to be confident enough to
pursue freedom that respects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ right
to be different.
But most of all it will require leadership.
We need a new aware generation of leaders who will not settle for a job not yet
complete, who will see things we have not seen, who will hear the stories we did
not, who will create a refreshed and extended vision, and who will take us on the
next 50 years of this journey. They, like the Freedom Riders of 1965, will engage
fair minded people from across Australian life and will quicken our personal and
national pace toward the vision for Australia Oodgeroo imagined.
Universities are crucibles of future leadership and they hold enormous
transformative power. We must confront our universities with a cry ‘what’s next’
expecting of them nothing short of a new generation of knowledge and leaders,
inspiring and connected, bold enough to ask hard questions and bold enough to
act. The 29 University of Sydney students that got on that bus in 1965 have set
the benchmark; the challenge is to do better.
2