Makarrata: Bipartisan approach to stop truth-telling commission

Written by: Nick G. on 5 August 2024

(Above: from ANTAR Victoria)

Labor’s eternal fear of being wedged on matters of principle by the Opposition was revealed at this weekend’s Garma Festival.

It surprised no-one when the ex-Queensland copper who runs the Opposition came out and said that if elected, there would be no telling the truth, or Makarrata, under his government.  

Dutton thinks he is on a winner by pledging to keep Australians comfortable in the cotton wool wrapping of willful ignorance, allowing them to slumber on under the blanket of denial.

Well, as soon as the dog barks, Albo runs inside.

He disavows a central objective of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, telling ABC interviewer David Speirs that Makarrata simply means “the coming together after a struggle”.

Yes, that is how the word is defined in the Statement, but the action that followed from adoption of the word was: “We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.”

These were the words, and that was the action, promised by Albanese on the last election night. 

He has now broken that promise and has chosen to stand with Dutton against the aspirations of Australian First Peoples, against opening an opportunity for a formal truth-telling about the violence, and threats of violence, by which Australia was seized from its owners.

Albanese says that he will now concentrate on closing the gap between outcomes experienced by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, gaps that have kept widening under his government.

The only gap that he has closed is that between himself and the racist Right at the top of the Opposition.

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