As I was watching
Lateline on the ABC tonight I saw Pat Dodson who joined Michael Long (and Pat’s brother Mick) in a meeting with the Prime Minister.
It reminded me of a meeting between two of the four men in May of 1996.
Having lived in the Top End for some time, I often had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Pat (and to a lesser degree Mick) through the NT Trades & Labor Council.
Most memorable was the emotional foreword Pat gave at The Inaugural Lingiari Lecture, delivered by Sir William Deane, (who was at the time) Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia at the invitation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in Darwin, on 22 August 1996 titled Some Signposts From Daguragu.
We had never before (or since) seen the Auditorium at the Northern Territory University (recently renamed Charles Darwin University) so overflowing with lovers of Lecture!
In a speech given at the National Press Club in Canberra on 28 November 1997, a few weeks before he was to finish his term as Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation after six years at the helm, Pat Dodson had this to say about the Howard Government:
"In recent times we have seen that commitment from the parliament on reconciliation weaken and dim. It was a multi-party commitment to which the Government is no longer committed. The Government is no longer demonstrating the leadership required.
The Government chooses not to act on the pragmatic and practical recommendations of the Council’s social justice package, despite a major consultation process with the Australian community;
It chooses not to apologise to the Stolen Generations despite the example of State and Territory parliaments, major church groups, and many thousands of individual Australians.
And now it has chosen not to act on the heart-felt cries for justice and fair dealing in its response to the Wik decision."
Tonight, eight years later, Pat is still an imposing figure.
Still generous.
Still wise.
Still optimistic.
Shame we can’t say the same for John HoWARd.
