Catholic Diocese of Broome

Social Justice Sunday Statement 2006

Broome Launch at Notre Dame, Broome Campus
by Bishop Christopher Saunders DD, Bishop of Broome
19 September 2006

In publishing the Social Justice Sunday Statement the Bishops of Australia have

chosen the topic entitled ‘The Heart of Our Country – Dignity and justice for our Indigenous sisters and brothers’. It is an expression of solidarity and continuing hope for the aspirations and rights of Australia’s first peoples. It is at once a celebration and a remembrance of the visit of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, to Alice Springs in 1986. There at Blatherskaite Park, 20 years ago, the Pontiff gave a ground-breaking talk that one Australian historian described as the most subversive speech delivered in Australia in the 20 th Century.

The speech was ‘ground-breaking’ because it put before the Church and the people of Australia a framework of justice needs and rights for indigenous people that previously had only been rarely proclaimed in high places. It was subversive because it sought to give a prominence to Aboriginal society and culture that overturned prejudicial thoughts that the might of the new settlers properly extinguished or diminished or excluded the rights of Australia’s indigenous peoples to a place of profound dignity in their own land.

The Bishops’ Statement is a discussion paper and a teaching document that very ably attempts to break open the content of the Holy Father’s speech and looking at what was said there the Bishops seek to discover how we as Church and nation have or have not met the challenges laid bare before us by John Paul in 1986. This paper offers us a platform to re evaluate ourselves as Church and as a nation. Quite clearly our moral worth stands or falls according to our willingness to stand firm on matters of ethical principle and be resolute in the quest for truth and justice.

The Document fairly mentions the progress that has been made on matters concerning Native Title. It outlines the valiant attempts by groups, churches and individuals to help Indigenous cultures preserve their identity and maintain their tradition. It gives due credit to schools committed to a ‘two-way learning’ process and it heralds the ongoing efforts in ministry and service and in matters of dialogue and community development. In addition it recognizes that the road to reconciliation has been more travelled now than ever before in Australia’s history. The long journey has well and truly begun.

Just as importantly this Statement voices acutely the demands for more to be done. Issues related to inequality of opportunity diminish the possibilities for Aboriginal equity in the prosperity we presently enjoy, for instance, in this part of the Country. Inadequate and sub standard housing for indigenous Australians appears to be too readily tolerated by Governments and non-indigenous citizens. And while useful progress has been made in the area of indigenous health there is evidently one clearly defined set of statistics relating to non-indigenous Australians and another for indigenous. The gap in life expectancy between these groups remains perilously disparate. Suicide in the Kimberley is predominantly a youthful phenomenon and Aboriginal – as it is in the Northern Territory. Emerging Government policies addressing remote communities has put some of them under direct threat of closure. The progress made in the recognition of cultural ways of life in recent years is thus submerged by the rhetoric of economic outcomes and the dogma of economic rationalism. Prisons, including our own here, hold inmates who are in number disproportionately aboriginal. In Broome, incarceration is a local growth industry that locks away marginalized people from the gaze of holidaying sun-seekers.

The changes that are needed for a better life for indigenous peoples in Australia will only be possible if the will to change is deliberately and methodically brought to bear on the problems. The investment of resources by the public and private sectors must accompany imagination if we are going to see the time when, as Vincent Lingiari put it, ‘we can live together as mates’.

So long as Aboriginals do not have a voice in the building of their future, so long as they are under-represented in the planning and administration of their lives, we will continue to see more of the same.

The Church, I emphasize, does not go unscathed in recounting the work that still needs to be done if Aboriginals are to take their rightful place in communions of faith. The message of Jesus who heals and liberates must still be translated into cultural forms that are familiar to Aboriginal people. Words and deeds in faith praxis have to be relevant and I think it fair to say that the gift of imagination is not adequately applied by Church leaders to the challenges of inter-cultural faith celebrations and ministry.

But, on a hopeful note, change is indeed possible. The metaphor of the bushfire-burnt gum tree sprouting new shoots is as much a description of the resilience of the Aboriginal people as it is a sign of hope for all of us. When John Paul used this image in his speech he painted a picture that we are familiar with and in that context we remain ever hopeful and steadfastly committed to justice as a way of life for all Australians.