Garma: Dr Galarrwuy Yunupingu calls for Australia's 'final settlement'

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Sorry, this video has expired Video: Stan Grant says indigenous leaders hope politicians will make their positions on constitutional change clear (ABC News)

Dr Galarrwuy Yunupingu sits in a wheelchair — he has battled ill health and recently undergone a kidney transplant — but he stood taller than either of the national leaders seated next to him.

The great champion of the Gumatj people opened the Garma festival in his Yolngu language, as he said "Australian words".

Dr Yunupingu's vision is for an Australia at peace; an Australia truly settled.

We live next to each other he says, black and white, but we have never truly been comfortable.

Dr Yunupingu says we need a "final settlement" or, in his language, Makarrata; coming together after a struggle.

It is the theme of Garma, a meeting of Indigenous leaders and chiefs of Australia's political, business and industry groups, but Makarrata seems more hope than reality.

Yes, there is a coming together, but the struggle continues.

The mood of some has turned dark. There have been tears and cries of anguish.

There is a deep despondency; a dismay at what Cape York Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has branded a "failure of leadership".

Reaching back into the history of civil rights struggles in the United States, Mr Pearson asks, where is our Lyndon Johnson?

The Texan followed the assassinated John F Kennedy into the White House and finished the business of civil rights reform in the face of deep and violent opposition in a segregated America.

Mr Pearson quoted Johnson: "What is the point of the presidency if it is not about civil rights?"

Some Indigenous leaders are asking the same question of Malcolm Turnbull: What is your point of your prime ministership?

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Indigenous leaders at Garma want action on constitutional change (ABC News)

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has not escaped censure.

The two leaders spoke Friday but failed to meet the challenge of Dr Yunupingu.

This was a chance to make good on the Uluru Statement the unified call of Indigenous people for meaningful and substantial constitutional change.

It has been a decade-long struggle for what has been termed "recognition" but is much more than that.

It is about a rightful place in our country. It is about peace and nation building.

The delegates of Uluru, drawn from all over Australia, called for a "voice" — a representative body enshrined in the nation's founding document.

This would give the First Nations of this land a say in policy directed at them.

It would place Indigenous people at the heart of a document that had written us out when it was drafted in 1901.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Indigenous people issued a plea to political leaders to commit to a referendum and treaty (ABC News)

The reform has been described by its proponents as "modest". It is not envisaged as a veto; it is not as Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has said, a third chamber of the Parliament.

In fact its modesty has been criticised by some more hardline Indigenous people who would prefer more explicit recognition of sovereignty or treaties.

But what hope is a more ambitious agenda when this modest reform is floundering?

Mr Turnbull did not offer explicit support for the voice in his remarks at Garma, instead he fell back on his familiar tropes of wishing to "listen to" or "learn from" Indigenous people.

Once again he spoke of the strength of Indigenous culture, he spoke some Yolngu words but many watching on wondered if he truly understands what he is saying.

Mr Shorten was more overtly political, pledging that Garma 2017 be the year we turned words into action.

But sceptics wondered if he was just playing politics — seeking to score points — on an issue that is more precious than the political whim of the day.

Speaking with fire

The festival was opened with a fire dance — to speak with fire means to speak the truth.

Speaking the truth burns.

Former co-chair of the Referendum Council Pat Anderson says her truth is that she is distressed.

She has taken aim directly at the leaders.

"They will do anything and everything except talk to us," Ms Anderson said.

"We have nothing more to give you.

"We give you a ceremony, and our leaders didn't get it, they can just stand here and give us empty platitudes."

There are two truths here at Garma; there is the truth of the Indigenous plea for justice and recognition and there is the truth of politics.

Mr Shorten was correct about one thing — he said "people feel politics has failed them".

This is not just in Indigenous affairs. It is not just in Australia. This is a global malaise.

A disaffection with traditional politics has fractured the centre.

Everywhere political certainty has been shattered.

Outliers are capturing the vote.

Populism has fed into a volatility that has put Donald Trump in the White House and has withdrawn Britain from Europe.

Here it has returned One Nation and Pauline Hanson to our Parliament.

Australian voters are looking outside the two main parties and sending independents or minor parties to Canberra.

Another election is looming at a time of stagnant wages, rising home prices, skyrocketing power bills and increasing inequality.

The dance card is full with issues from marriage equality to potential four-year parliamentary terms — even the republic is back on the agenda.

And all the while constant opinion polling and a voracious 24-hour media remind politicians they walk treacherous fault lines every day.

At a time when every vote counts, where are the votes in black fellas?

This is the political reality facing Indigenous leaders: a political system that is fractured with little appetite for reform and timid leaders.

Where is the voice for First Peoples? They are 3 per cent of the Australian population, the most impoverished and imprisoned people in our nation.

The anger is understandable; the pessimism warranted.

Ms Anderson says these are desperate times and she fears that in 50 years little may be left of Indigenous society and culture.

But as Mr Pearson reminds us, this issue is not going away.

This is a struggle as old as modern Australia and it reaches back to time immemorial: honouring the legacy of the First Peoples.

When the anger off some here subsides the hard work of diplomacy will remain; to build a bridge across troubled political waters and coaxing Australia's leaders across and hoping the Australian people follow.

Not easy business; no, as Dr Yunupingu the true leader here reminds us: serious business.

Topics: indigenous-policy, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander

First posted