The Council of Australian Governments agreed yesterday to renegotiate the national partnership agreement on indigenous housing after concerns that it was flawed.

The renegotiation follows concerns raised in The Australian this year that new housing for indigenous communities in the Northern Territory was behind schedule and over cost.

In response, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin placed federal officials in all state government department delivering the housing.

But yesterday she said COAG, meeting in Brisbane, had agreed to go further, changing the rules so that states would compete with each other for the funding to create an incentive for those that could deliver on time and on budget.

Grants would initially be notionally distributed on a per-capita basis across the nation but if states performed poorly, they could lose future allocations.

“We’ve been concerned about making sure we get the houses built where we want them built,” Ms Macklin said.

“We’ve been very pleased with the speed with which they have responded about social housing, which has been done on a competitive basis.

“In the future they will need to bid for the money and we will look at moving money from one jurisdiction to another.”

The commonwealth is spending $5.5 billion over 10 years on housing in remote indigenous areas, with new houses as well as repairs of existing but uninhabitable homes.

She said decent housing was essential for protecting children, improving health, education and employment and building positive community norms.

“The commonwealth has worked in good faith to agree implementation plans and capital works plans with each jurisdiction,” Ms Macklin said.

“Work that has already been agreed for this financial year will continue under current arrangements.”

Negotiations on the revised agreement will begin as a matter of priority, with a view to the revised agreement coming into effect from July 1 next year.

The UN special rapporteur on indigenous human rights, James Anaya, said his 12-day fact-finding tour of Australia revealed that the Aboriginal minority still suffers from “entrenched racism.”

Anaya’s comments came as Australia launched its latest bid to address inequality, ill-health and poverty among the country’s 500,000 indigenous people that have dogged the country since white settlers arrived more than 200 years ago.

The government said Thursday it would set up a new national representative body this year to advise it on policies relating to Aborigines.

Aborigines make up about two per cent of the country’s 22 million-strong population. In recent decades, billions of dollars have been thrown into community programs, housing and education. Yet Aborigines remain the poorest, unhealthiest and most disadvantaged minority, with an average life span 17 years shorter than other Australians.

Anaya, a University of Arizona human rights law professor, said he was particularly concerned by restrictions imposed on Aborigines in the Northern Territory in response to a 2006 government-commissioned report that found child sex abuse was rampant in remote indigenous communities.

The government suspended its own anti-discrimination law so it could ban alcohol and hard-core pornography in Aboriginal communities and restrict how Aborigines spend their welfare checks.

The restrictions do not apply to Australians of other races.

‘Measures overtly discriminate’

“These measures overtly discriminate against aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self-determination and stigmatize already stigmatized communities,” Anaya told reporters in the national capital of Canberra.

The measures were too broad and had been imposed for too long, despite a lack of evidence that the ban on alcohol had reduced alcohol abuse, he said.

Anaya described as “demeaning” the policy of forcing Aborigines to set aside a portion of their welfare checks for essentials such as food and rent. “They have to carry a card around that marks them as someone who can’t manage their own funds,” he said.

The restrictions were “incompatible” with Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, he said.

Anaya — who has made similar tours in Brazil, Nepal and Botswana before visiting Australia at the invitation of the government and indigenous groups — welcomed the announcement of plans for an indigenous representative body.

The new body, which is expected to be established before the end of the year, will be independent of the government and serve as a less powerful version of a national Aboriginal organization that between 1990 and 2005 administered billions of dollars in funds for indigenous programs and whose leaders were elected by Aboriginal constituents.

The previous conservative government abolished that organization — the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission — in 2005 amid corruption and mismanagement allegations, and folded its operations into other departments.

Richard Downs, a spokesperson for the Alyawarra people in central Australia, made the request of James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous human rights, who was on a fact-finding tour in Canberra.

Australia’s former conservative government launched an initiative in 2007 to deal with widespread child sex abuse and chronic alcoholism in the remote outback.

The move included sending extra police, soldiers and medical teams to aboriginal communities. Alcohol and pornography were banned and welfare payments were revised so that they could only be spent on food, clothing and health care.

About 460,000 Aborigines live in Australia. Although only about two per cent of the population, they have disproportionately high rates of unemployment, drug abuse and domestic violence. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of other Australians.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, of the centre-left Australian Labor Party, said he has no plans to dismantle the controversial intervention but would review its operation.

Anaya’s visit, the first-ever such UN fact-finding mission to Aborigine communities, which had long been opposed by Rudd’s predecessor, is part of that review.

The remains were bought from Dr William Broad, of Liverpool, in 1948 after he visited Australia between 1902 and 1904 and published works on skeletal remains in the country.

Today George Trevorrow, 57, and Major Sumner, 61, who are both members of the Ngarrindjeri, a group of 18 clans based around the lower Murray River in South Australia, collected the skull.

Mr Sumner said: “We are here to take our ancestor back home. We believe that if there is a part of our ancestor missing and taken to another area that spirit never rests until their remains are put together in their home ground.”

During the short ceremony this afternoon in front of and inside the World Museum Liverpool in the city, eucalyptus leaves were burned.

Mr Trevorrow said: “There are about 600 Aboriginie remains held in British museums. There have probably been around 300 plus returns from the UK over the last ten years.

“I think British people are starting to understand our need for our tribal groups to have people returned to them.

“People who refuse these requests for the return of our ancestors are holding us down. We have been downtrodden for so long.”

Mr Trevorrow said research and “more investigation” will continue into the skull, which is believed to be of mixed Australian and European ancestry, at the National Museum of Australia, in Canberra.

Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, said: “The remains entered our collections many years ago and it is fitting that they are being returned to their homeland.

“The fact is there is a debate. Not everyone believes this is the right thing to do. National Museums Liverpool believes this is exactly the right thing to do.

“The repatriation of cultural items to their countries of origin is a complex, emotive and sensitive issue. National Museums Liverpool takes a decision in each individual case when items are requested for repatriation.”

It is the second time remains have been returned to Australia from Liverpool. In 1997 the remains of the warrior Yagan were returned after the bones were exhumed from Toxteth Cemetery in the city.

The remains of two other individuals will also be returned to Australia at a later date, National Museums Liverpool said.

Dharug was one of the dominant Aboriginal dialects in the Sydney region when British settlers arrived in 1788, but became extinct under the weight of colonisation.

Details of its demise are sketchy but linguists believe the last of the traditional Dharug speakers died in the late 19th Century, and their unique tongue only survives because of written records.

In a remarkable comeback, Dharug now breathes again – its revitalisation helped by the efforts of staff at Chifley College’s Dunheved campus in Sydney.

“We’ve already reclaimed it. That’s why there is so much interest. People are already speaking it,” said teacher Richard Green, who, like others, has fought passionately to rejuvenate the ways of his ancestors that were lost after European settlement.

“They weren’t allowed to speak it. They had to learn English or they were punished,” he added.

Language ‘engineering’

When the British ships arrived, there were about 270 different Aboriginal languages in Australia. Today, only about 60 or 70 are spoken on a daily basis.

Of these, roughly half a dozen are considered to be strong and are being passed from adults to their children, according to John Hobson, a lecturer at Sydney University.

“We can regard any language in the world as worth preserving because it has its own unique nature and contains information that we might not be able to express or find in other languages,” he told the BBC.

“These are the first languages of Australia. They have suffered incredible attrition at the hands of over 200 years of the invasion of English.”

Other indigenous dialects in Australia have been revived but the revitalisation process may require what experts describe as “language engineering” – the borrowing of phrases and words or the coining of new vocabulary for a modern world in ways similar to those undertaken by New Zealand’s Maori and the Hawaiians.

“I often compare Aboriginal languages to something somewhere between Japanese and Latin. That surprises people because the gut approach is to go for something primitive and simplistic which they are definitely not.

“They are an item of cultural pride and are very complex languages,” said Mr Hobson.

Talking culture

At Chifley College, where around a fifth of the students are Aboriginal, Dharug is taught twice a week with great energy through repetition and song.

“Badagarang!” shouts the class when asked the word for kangaroo. Dingo, wallaby and koala are derived from Dharug.

The language courses are open to non-indigenous pupils, who now have a greater understanding of their country’s rich indigenous history.

For Aboriginal students like Steven Dargin, 16, it is all about identity and pride.

“It’s good especially for the black fellas,” he said. “You get to talk about your own culture and all that. Learn more stuff and speak it out of school.”

His cousin Colleen Dargin, 16, was equally enthusiastic.

“It’s all about the Aboriginal language because not many people know it and it’s real good that Mr Green is in there teaching us,” she said.

Dharug is firmly embedded in the college’s curriculum and Joyce Berry, the deputy principal, wants to export the idea to other schools.

“It is a really big journey that we are on,” she said. “It would be wonderful if it could go across to other schools as well and that is the aim.

“If this can work, it is something that a school in western Sydney has been able to achieve with the support of the elders,” she said.

“If we can do that it’s going to be such a wonderful thing not just for the school but for the Dharug community.”

The move reverses the policy of the previous government which voted against the declaration when it was adopted at the UN General assembly in 2007.

The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, said it meant a new start in relations between all Australians.

The declaration stresses the right of indigenous people to their own cultures, institutions and traditions.

It also establishes standards to combat discrimination and marginalisation and eliminate human rights violations against them.

However, it is not legally binding.

Australia’s original inhabitants, the Aborigines, are believed to have numbered around a million at the time of white settlement but there are now just 470,000 out of a population of 21 million.

They are Australia’s most impoverished minority, with a lifespan 17 years shorter than the national average and disproportionately high rates of imprisonment, heart disease and infant mortality.

New era

The government described its signing as an important symbolic step in healing past wounds.

Australia was one of four countries that voted against the declaration in 2007. The others were the US, New Zealand and Canada. Eleven countries abstained and 143 voted in favour.

“Today, Australia changes its position,” the indigenous affairs minister told a ceremony at Parliament House.

“We do this in the spirit of resetting the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and building trust,” Jenny Macklin said.

“Today we celebrate the great privilege all Australians have to live alongside the custodians of the oldest continuing cultures in human history.”

The former conservative government argued that the declaration could override existing laws and give unfair advantage to Aborigines.

Last year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an historic apology for past abuses, which the original Australians endured after British settlers arrived in 1788.

Arts Minister Peter Garrett announced the new scheme Friday, after a meeting with state and territory arts ministers in Alice Springs.

“By enshrining in law the right of artists and their heirs to receive a benefit from the secondary sale of their work, we are building an environment where the talent and creativity of visual artists receives greater reward,” Garrett said.

The royalty would help struggling artists make a living from their work and also would help their heirs, he said.

It would apply to works by living artists sold for more than $1,000 and would continue to be collected for a period of up to 70 years after their death.

“We have designed the scheme in such a way that we are providing a copyright for visual artists and their heirs and successors,” Garrett said.

“[They] will be able to have that right for their lifetime plus 70 years, consistent with copyright under the Berne Convention.”

The law, which could be passed by the Australian Parliament by the end of the year, is expected to particularly help Aboriginal artists.

Many outback painters live in poverty and are willing to sell their works for low prices. But international demand for work by Aboriginal artists has led to a hot market for their work, which benefits dealers and auctioneers.

Warlugulong 1977, a distinctive work by late indigenous artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, set a new record for Australian Aboriginal art sales last year.

The large canvas blending ceremonial ground paintings and European-style maps was sold to the National Gallery of Australia for $2.4 million Australian ($2 million Cdn).

A dealer had bought the work for just $2,500. Tjapaltjarri died in 2002.

Garrett compared the resale royalty for visual artists to the royalties earned by other creators, such as authors and music composers. Arts Law Centre Australia executive director Robyn Ayres called the deal “very significant for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists.”

“It’s a recognition of a right that has been recognized overseas in some countries for many years.”

But Ayres said the scheme is administratively complex and it could be some time before artists see any money.

The Indigenous Australians website aims to digitize records of hundreds of disappearing languages.

The State Library of New South Wales aims to make records of the languages available to researchers and Aboriginal people across Australia.

Among the important early records are notes taken by the state’s original British surveyors, who met and spoke with local people to name areas. Many of these surveyors kept vocabularies of the dozens of languages spoken along the coast from the area that is now Sydney.

Later, missionaries created vocabularies of many of these languages.

“What we’re making available online is really just a glimpse of what we have,” said indigenous services librarian Ronald Briggs.

“But it’s the first time that we’ve been able to put those original handwritten documents written by early explorers, surveyors and missionaries that document aboriginal language.”

The library also has original letters and manuscripts of stories by David Unaipon, a 19th-century indigenous rights advocate who was also Australia’s first published Aboriginal writer.

He gathered traditional tales of his people in a volume called Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines.

In addition to records of local life gathered by British settlers, there are paintings of communities by Aboriginal artists such as Mickey of Ulladulla and Tommy McRae.

Many of the estimated 250 languages originally spoken in Australia have been lost over time.

Canada’s First Nations languages are also under threat. A study by the Assembly of First Nations in 2001 found that the number of native peoples who still speak their mother tongue is in decline. Of 50 First Nations languages studied, only three were found to be flourishing.

The Australian version of the Daring Book for Girls is due to be published next month.

It has angered some indigenous leaders who view the didgeridoo as a male instrument not to be played by women.

Publisher Harper Collins Australia said it was not aware of any taboos on women playing the didgeridoo, and has apologised for any offence caused.

The Australian version of the book has replaced much of the original British content with distinctly Antipodean pastimes.

But its advice to young readers on how to play the didgeridoo has offended some Aboriginal leaders.

In many indigenous cultures, the hollowed out wooden pipe is viewed as a male ceremonial instrument, and women are forbidden to play it.

Some Aboriginal cultures believe even touching a didgeridoo can have terrible consequences – and even lead to infertility.

One academic called the book’s inclusion of didgeridoo lessons “an extreme faux pas”.

Harper Collins Australia apologised for inadvertently offending anyone, but said there was a “divergence of opinions” within Aboriginal culture on whether girls should play this ancient instrument.

PM Kevin Rudd formally apologised to Australian Aborigines early this year.

The Pope is in Sydney for the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day, expected to attract some 200,000 young Catholics.
He made his remarks at a short welcome ceremony led by Mr Rudd.

The prime minister said the pontiff was “truly among friends” in Australia and that the country was honoured to have him there.

‘Concrete steps’

The Pope, who arrived in Australia on Sunday, began his first full day of events on Thursday to celebrate the World Youth Day festival.

He will receive a traditional Aboriginal welcome ceremony, to be followed by a tour of Sydney Harbour by boat and an address to crowds gathered on the waterfront.

The pontiff said: “Thanks to the Australian government’s courageous decision to acknowledge the injustices committed against the indigenous peoples in the past, concrete steps are now being taken to achieve reconciliation based on mutual respect.

“This example of reconciliation offers hope to peoples all over the world who long to see their rights affirmed and their contribution to society acknowledged and promoted.”

Australia’s Aborigines make up about 2% of the population. They have consistently higher rates of ill-health, unemployment and imprisonment than other Australians and a life expectancy 17 years lower.

Protests expected

Mr Rudd issued his landmark apology for the abuse and discrimination the country’s indigenous people have endured since European colonisation in February, soon after taking office.

In his remarks, the Pope also commented on Australia’s “serious commitment” to the environment.

During the course of the visit – his ninth outside Italy – he is also expected to apologise for decades of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Demonstrators have vowed to protest against the Church’s stand on homosexuality and birth control.

The Pope will close his trip by presiding over an open-air Mass on Sunday at Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.