No Consent

NT Labor's disregard for Indigenous rights exposed in fiery Senate committee hearings

Recent events in the NT have exposed the uncomfortable truth of entrenched racism.

As Tess Lea writes in the book Darwin, racism up here is a bit like meliodosis – the notorious Nightcliff Gardener’s Disease, carried by dormant soil bacteria. Burkholderia pseudomallei lie dormant in the dry season, but once the rains come, and gardeners get busy, pose a seriously deadly threat.

So too, racism in Darwin lies just below the surface; and just a little bit of activity can bring it forth.

Last month, former NT police officer Zachary Rolfe saw fit to present evidence of widespread racism within NT police to an inquest into the shooting of a teenager in Yuendemu in 2019. Rolfe was trying to control the coroner’s interpretation of various racist text messages that he had shared with his colleagues during his time as a police officer in Alice Springs. His counter narrative was that he is just a product of his environment: the NT police force are racist, and he learned to be a bit racist to fit in.

To make this case, Rolfe presented certificates pertaining to the Nugaddah Award - a racist mock award handed out each year by the Territory Response Group “to the member who behaved most like an Aboriginal person”. Rolfe gave evidence that the mock award is known informally as the ‘coon of the year award’.

Five members of the TRG gave statutory declarations denying any racism within the group, and senior police figures gave similar indignant assertions to local media. Police Minister Brent Potter announced an inquiry, declaring:

racism or discrimination in any form will not be tolerated

But this only prompted the airing of further evidence: an internal email, sent to all TRG members, with the subject “Indigenous monopoly” and featuring an image of a monopoly board where every square is labeled “go to jail”

To compound the mounting scandal further, historical social media posts made by the Police Minister were aired, in which he shared racist comments about Jewish people; disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement; quoted a nazi general and indulged various right wing extremist tropes. Over the following week, the Police Commissioner, Police Minster and Chief Minister danced on a tightrope of pledging to take historical racist emails among police officers seriously, while excusing same from their Minister.

But NT police are not the only racists here.

I’m racist. You’re probably racist too. That’s not an insult, it’s just an observation. We grew and learned, prospered and socialised in a racist society, founded on Terra Nullius and the White Australia Policy. This century, some of us may truly transcend the habit of racism; but most of us simply learn to keep those tendencies under the soil. And with just a little activity, it is readily exposed.

As it was when Chief Minister Eva Lawler was questioned by visiting Senator Lidia Thorpe.

Ms Thorpe was in Darwin for hearings of the Select Senate Committee’s inquiry into the proposed Middle Arm Development (MAD) Precinct. Chief Minister Lawler was the first witness, selling the benefits of the unprecedented industrial proposal, and prepared to answer any curly questions about environmental impact.

But maybe not so ready to answer a single simple straight question about Indigenous rights and interests in the project.

Ms Thorpe began her interrogation by referring to the NT Government’s written response to the inquiry.

Now this is the point where, in retrospect, the Chief might have done best to say “I don’t know”. To take the question on notice, and move on to other matters.

But politicians don’t like to do that. In fact politicians are notorious for avoiding simple answers to simple questions. Most politicians prefer to answer a straight question with a speech. And many don’t like to admit ignorance; preferring to answer something than be found to come up short.

Such is the case for Ms Lawler - and so rather than answering the question, or failing to, or promising to get to it later, she attempted to divert.

At this point, the chair tried to mediate:

the chair called for order again, directing:

if you don’t want to answer Senator Thorpe’s question, don’t answer it, take it on notice.

But Ms Lawler couldn’t take a hint. In fact, the Chief Minister appeared determined to make a tangential point:

Later on, the Senator’s questions became more direct. But it was useful that her first question exposed Ms Lawler’s attitude to the rights and principles the MAD precinct plan claims adherence to.

Ms Lawler’s response shows that, whereas the precinct plan claims to be “Larrakia led”, for Ms Lawler, it’s sufficient to simply claim “a good working relationship with Larrakia people” - regardless of whether they would agree.

And where the precinct plan claims to respect the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent, for Ms Lawler, this ‘respect’ is extinguished along with Native Title.

Ms Lawler indicated that the extinguishment of Native Title over Middle Arm rendered her precinct plan’s commitment to UNDRIP principles of Indigenous Consent as ‘irrelevant’.

That’s Native Title: the weak feint at respecting enduring Indigenous rights to land drafted to urgently backfill the Ausfailian colonial project after the Mabo decision proved the lie of Terra Nullius.

Native Title: as further weakened by the Howard government’s 10 point plan.

Native Title: which Professor Gary Foley once described as – “so weak a pissing dog could extinguish it”

Native Title: which prompted former NT CLP governments to granting swathes of crown land to a government corporation (the NT Land Corporation) precisely for the purpose of extinguish the newly recognised Indigenous rights.

Despite decorating the petrochemical precinct’s plan with platitudes about “Larrakia led” and “consent”, the Chief Minister’s commitment to the interests of Traditional Owners ends at the limits of White law.

Just a few minutes later, the Senator graduated from illustrating the Chief Minister’s poor grasp of her government’s empty commitments on Indigenous rights, to exposing the NT Governments failure to address them.

Nigel Browne is CEO of the Larrakia Development Corporation. Now, Mr Browne is a prominent member of one Larrakia family. But the Larrakia Development Corporation, while Larrakia in name, is more of a Northern Land Council vehicle. The Larrakia Nation (the native Title Body who represent Larrakia people) hold a single share in the Corporation, to the NLC’s 99.

Larrakia people do share in the proceeds of LDC activities, and Larrakia Traditional Owners are employed, however the Corporation is majorly owned by the NLC, and it does not play a representative function for Larrakia people.

In fact the Inquiry did hear from Mr Browne later that day, and he played a straight bat. LDC are implicated in Middle Arm by ambitions for Larrakia Energy, a joint-venture solar project planned to be built adjacent to the precinct, and their role on a recently established cultural consultative committee. Mr Browne described an approach to Indigenous consent that started late, and hasn’t progressed. Pressed as to whether LDC would respect Larrakia dissent, Mr Browne answered plainly: “I would have to.”

Similarly, witnesses from the NLC confirmed that the committee established by NT Government is not appropriate for pursuing consent.

But back to the Chief: Senator Thorpe continued to drag Ms Lawler:

As the Chief demonstrates, racism isn't just about sharing slurs, unfair generalisations and mean memes. Sometimes, racism takes form not in an individual's social media or email history, but in the institutions and laws our systems of government maintain.