Alan Missen Memorial Lecture.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 January 1998
• Author: Chaney, Fred

Parliament House, Canberra Wednesday, 27 August 1997.

To deliver a lecture in honour of the memory of the late Senator Alan Missen over lunch, a lunch held just prior to Question Time, is to risk doing much less than justice to his memory. Neither the time nor the circumstances permit a lengthy exposition. Alan's contribution to human rights in Australia and abroad and to the Commonwealth Parliament warrants a serious contribution to the issue going to human rights and freedom. All that I can do in the time available is to remember Alan and make a few points in an area which is central to my own concerns about human rights in the hope they might contribute to debate in an area of considerable disquiet and discontent.

It is an honour to be invited to deliver the Lecture. The honour derives from Alan's qualities and the fact that for many people he represented an approach to politics which, while not extinct, is sufficiently rare to make cherishing Alan's memory important.

Alan devoted a great deal of his life to fighting for principles rather than markets. One of his causes was, of course, Amnesty International, and we honour him for his commitment to the assistance of prisoners of conscience. He brought the same passion to a great range of subjects; administrative law reform, family law reform, the role of Parliament and its committee were among the subjects for which he is remembered. I, of course, remember him for the things we shared, for example, our work on the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of the Senate, where, in my relatively brief time with the Committee, all of us worked both productively and harmoniously. I think it is fair to say that on that Committee we often gave the lie to the view of politics as a matter of eternal partisan conflict and its reports stand as a reminder that when men and women of goodwill focus on facts they will often come to common conclusions, whatever party label they may bear.

May I also acknowledge Alan Missen's stubbornness in persisting with what he thought was the right course. I had the task of being the Opposition and later the Government Senate Whip. Those who remember Alan's independence of mind will understand how often that put me in a most difficult position with him, notwithstanding my Party's adherence to the view that in the ultimate a member may vote according to his conscience. Today I acknowledge his stubborn determination to advance what he thought right. It was an important part of what people admired in him. If Parliament is to be any more than an electoral college for an executive dictatorship, we need stubborn parliamentarians. His death was a loss to Australian politics and to the Parliament.

In preparation for this lecture I went back and read the things that were said by so many in the condolence motion moved after his death and asked myself what Alan might have expected me to talk about today. My conclusion is that he would want me to address, as constructively as I can, the area of my own closest concerns, Aboriginal affairs, not least because in 1997 it is such an area of contention.

It would, of course, be appropriate to address the issue of prisoners of conscience. After all, such prisoners remain with us and Amnesty continues to mobilise support for them. It seems to me that Amnesty does this because prisoners are reduced in their humanity--even when they are held in benign conditions. Prisoners of any sort are denied a vital part of their lives, their freedom, their capacity to choose how they will spend their lives.

It is interesting that American scientist--an environmental optimist--Singer described how poverty prevents people leading "truly human lives", lives which go beyond the struggle for survival and permit the enjoyment of the non-material joys of life, music, art, literature.(1) He was talking of a full life of the sort this audience can to a man and woman enjoy. Such a life depends upon prosperity and order. And I agree with that aspect of Singer's thoughts--I have not seen too much humanity in poverty.

Work which results in the release of large populations from the prison of grinding poverty is to me akin to the work of Amnesty--a different target group is involved--but in a broad sense the object is the same: to restore to people their capacity to fully enjoy their humanity.

It is in this context that I justify speaking about the core policy interest of my working life, Aboriginal Australia.

There are many Aboriginal Australians leading successful lives--successful in that they are independent and self-sustaining and exercise their individual choices in family, work and play.

I am fortunate to know, and from time to time work with, many such people--and have known and worked with them and others like them for well over 30 years. Some, like the Dodson brothers, Noel Pearson, Lois O'Donoghue, Peter Yu and the present Government appointment as head of ATSIC, Gatjil Djerrkura, are in the first rank of talent in the country. You might disagree with their views from time to time and their activities from time to time, but it is hard to argue that they could not easily sit in the Cabinet or in the boardrooms of major corporations as they do in holding high office in government and community organisations.

Less noticed, but just as real, are the tens of thousands of Aboriginal individuals and families who are proudly Aboriginal, are successfully integrated into the Australian community on their own terms, and make contributions in fields as diverse as medicine, sport and farming, and as loving parents and devoted community workers.

But there is consistently a statistically unbalanced proportion of Aboriginal Australia which is disadvantaged in almost every measure. Government after government, minister after minister describe their condition in similar terms. Let me quote the present Minister speaking only last May:

The statistics speak for themselves. For example: * Life expectancy for Aboriginal people is 15-20 years less than the general population. * Indigenous infant mortality is still more than 3-5 times higher...