EVERY country has its own unwritten history, much of it representing "unfinished business". It is well known that approximately 25 per cent of Australians have Irish ancestry, but it is not well known that many Aboriginal Australians share that ancestry.
While I am a Yawuru man from Broome in Western Australia, my great-great-grandparents - the Fegans - came from the north of Ireland in the 1850s. On the eve of the new millennium, this link assumes significance for a number of reasons, not the least of which is our mutual engagement with the processes of reconciliation and justice.
On November 6th, Australians will vote on a referendum to decide whether the country should become a republic. Viewed from an Aboriginal perspective, the referendum proposal represents a minimalist symbolic change to the constitution. It does not address the rights of Aboriginal people - the country's "first peoples". Regardless of the referendum outcome, the constitution will remain an act of the British parliament. The British parliament passed the Australian Constitution Act in 1900 with no protection or recognition of our rights.
This has allowed widespread human rights abuses over successive generations. Aboriginal people were discriminated against in the original constitution. The national parliament was specifically forbidden to make laws on our behalf. The situation was not changed until 1967.
We have never voted on the constitution as we had no rights in the 1890s when it was first promulgated. There has never been a treaty between the Aboriginal people, the British government or any subsequent Australian government. The land was taken without our consent.
This is reflected in significant levels of disadvantage we suffer such as poor health, education, employment, and other social indicators.
Indigenous people strongly advocate the need for the recognition of our rights in the Australian constitution in order for Australia to be a truly independent republic.
Australians will also vote on November 6th for a new preamble to the constitution. This should acknowledge our true position, our occupation of the land and should be legally binding. It does not include these matters.
Australia will not achieve reconciliation by 2001 - the centenary of federation. This date is also significant in that it will mark the end of the statutory 10-year term of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. The council was charged with the task of promoting a process of reconciliation with tangible results for the nation and addressing Aboriginal peoples concerns for our rights.
We are concerned that this process will not involve any substantive recognition of our rights. Aboriginal leaders met in Canberra last month and put forward a range of proposals in a document entitled "Towards Reconciliation".
It is a call for self-determination, constitutional recognition and the negotiation of a range of matters essential to our recognition and survival.
These matters are fundamental to a reconciled Australia, yet, despite increasing numbers of non-Aboriginal people seeking a respectful relationship with Australia's first peoples, the relationship between the national government and Aboriginal leaders is acrimonious.
Last year the government legislated to diminish our rights to our lands and our ability to protect our cultural heritage. They have not acted on key recommendations of a major government inquiry into the forced removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families: a practice described in the report as genocide.
Recently the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed its concerns about Australia's 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act. The committee urged Australia to suspend implementation of the amendments and to reopen discussions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Australian government has refused to negotiate over this matter. The committee will again consider this next March.
We hope that Irish people and the Irish Government will seriously consider supporting us and the protection and advancement of indigenous rights.
It is time to deal with the unfinished business of history. Reconciliation and peace can be established if we implement some key principles, including:
The acknowledgement of Aboriginal people as first peoples in Australia;
the recognition of distinct rights that flow from that acknowledgment;
a commitment to social justice in order to deliver formal and substantive outcomes;
negotiations in good faith;
a change in power relationships.
We are concerned to put this unfinished business to rest and to ensure that the Fegan legacy in Australia is one of justice and reconciliation.
Patrick Dodson is the former chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in Australia and a former Royal Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. He was director of the Central Land Council in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley Land Council in Western Australia.