...When discomfort arises...
Michael Dodson, former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies:
'When discomfort arises in the non-Indigenous community, with fear of uncertainty, inconvenience and the cost of dealing with native title, we must continually return to the immovable conviction that our human rights to our lands cannot be compromised... The wellbeing of a community cannot depend on the dispossession and denial of the human rights of a minority. The perspective that native title is a privilege needs to be corrected and in gaining a sharper focus of the NTA it should be clear to the non-Indigenous community that governments no longer have the capacity to arbitrarily and unfairly extinguish native title so as to remove obstacles to development.'
'When discomfort arises in the non-Indigenous community, with fear of uncertainty, inconvenience and the cost of dealing with native title, we must continually return to the immovable conviction that our human rights to our lands cannot be compromised... The wellbeing of a community cannot depend on the dispossession and denial of the human rights of a minority. The perspective that native title is a privilege needs to be corrected and in gaining a sharper focus of the NTA it should be clear to the non-Indigenous community that governments no longer have the capacity to arbitrarily and unfairly extinguish native title so as to remove obstacles to development.'
Keywords: Dodson, Michael, human rights, industry opposition, racism, 1994
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Native Title Report, January-June 1994, AGPS, 1995,p 6. Still:Michael Dodson. Courtesy of Walking Together, Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, November,1998.
Author: Strelein, Lisa
Source: Dodson, Michael
Author: Strelein, Lisa
Source: Dodson, Michael