Warren Mundine responds to Pat Dodson's call for reconciliation and WA scheme offering Stolen Generation survivors $85k

Sky News AU

3 days ago

Indigenous affairs advocate Warren Mundine has argued First Peoples of Australia already have sovereignty after former Labor senator Pat Dodson's comments.
Mr Dodson spoke at a Reconciliation Week event in Western Australia on Tuesday where he raised hopes of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Aussies, describing it as "unfinished business" that must not be neglected.
'If we are to have meaningful reconciliation in this country, the nation must come to grips with our inherent collective rights as First Peoples," he said in Fremantle.
"An approach to reconciliation in which the focus is only on the practical business of Closing the Gap suggests that all (that) the First Peoples are entitled to is equality in the standards of life enjoyed by other citizens and little more.
'To reframe reconciliation as solely practical risks displacing from the national conscience the historical root causes of the structural inequality.
'It reinforces a form of psychological terra nullius that has been likened to a collective amnesia about the past which becomes manifest in an ideological inability to come to grips with and accommodate the inherent sovereign rights of ­Indigenous people in a modern nation state. The consequences of this have been devastating for First Peoples."
Mr Mundine on Sky News argued "we get treated all the same, we're all citizens".
He pointed to the 1967 referendum which asked Australia to vote on the recognising of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution.
More than 90 per cent supported it which saw First Peoples included in the census and gave the government power to make laws for the the Indigenous community.
"In regard to the sovereignty issue, we have sovereignty already. We're citizens of this country. We enjoy all the sovereignty rights of this county," Mr Mundine said.
"In fact, we've gotten benefits from the sovereignty rights of this country. And that is in regard to Native title, the High Court decision in regard to the native title saying that we had rights. And that terra nullius is now doesn't exist anymore."
The prominent anti-Voice campaigner referred to a recent High Court decision on property rights for Aboriginals, First Nations programs, heritage legislation and mining and energy industries giving royalties to Aboriginals as examples of sovereignty.
Sky News host Danica Di Giorgio then asked about a Western Australian government redress scheme where Stolen Generation survivors will be each given $85,000.
Those in the community who were forcibly removed from their families in the state before 1972 will be eligible to receive the taxpayer-funded payout.
WA Attorney General Tony Buti estimated between 2,500 to 3,000 people in the state are eligible, meaning the cost of the scheme could reach $250 million.
Mr Mundine stressed "there has to be burden of proof".
Mr Dodson this week also urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to forge ahead with a national truth telling commission, also known as Makarrata, and a treaty process, which are the two other requests in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.
"They can do that because it doesn't require constitutional referendum, it can be done by way of legislation," he said on ABC's 7.30 this week.
If it went ahead it could be met with mixed feelings given the Voice, also one of the requests, was voted against in almost all jurisdictions in a 2023 referendum.
Mr Dodson - also known as "the father of reconciliation" due to his advocacy work - retired from federal politics in 2024 due to treatment on cancer.