2/29/00
-  Disbelief, anger over reconciliation delay

                    Disbelief, anger over
                     reconciliation delay

                KERRY-ANNE WALSH in Canberra

                Black and white Australians reacted with anger and
                disbelief yesterday when Prime Minister John Howard
                abruptly cancelled an end-of-year deadline for the
                production of a historic reconciliation blueprint
                document.

                Mr Howard's commitment to Aboriginal people and the
                reconciliation process was again being openly
                questioned after his statements effectively left the
                negotiating process in limbo.

                Mr Howard declared that setting the December 31
                deadline for the reconciliation document was "a big
                mistake" and that meeting the challenge of reconciliation
                was "an often slow and sometimes difficult process".

                "Too often on public policy issues, artificial time
                deadlines imposed on sensitive processes can have quite
                counterproductive effects," he said.

                With federal Parliament resuming next week, Mr
                Howard will field aggressive questioning about his
                single-handed abandonment of a process which
                Parliament put in train in 1991.

                An Aboriginal Reconciliation Council has been working
                towards an acceptable form of words to include in a
                reconciliation document, the concept of which
                successive governments have been committed to since
                1991.

                Mr Howard also jumped on the emotive issue when he
                was re-elected just two years ago, saying he "very
                genuinely" wanted "true reconciliation with the
                Aboriginal people of Australia by the centenary of
                federation".

                The council was due to deliver a draft document of
                reconciliation to the Government in May, with the
                council wrapping up its work and disbanding in
                December.

                Reconciliation Minister Phillip Ruddock tried to calm the
                waters by committing the Government to still receiving
                the document and commenting on it "in due course".

                But he said it was unreasonable to expect the Prime
                Minister to just "click his fingers and produce a
                reconciliation outcome".

                Kim Beazley, the opposition Labor leader, immediately
                branded Mr Howard "absurdly chicken-hearted" and
                said the abandonment of the document deadline was
                "tragic".

                "John Howard is killing the reconciliation process by a
                thousand delays and cuts by making sure every word
                minimises offence to himself personally," he said.

                New South Wales Premier Bob Carr also called on Mr
                Howard to honour federal Parliament's deadline
                commitment, saying for Mr Howard to sign a draft
                reconciliation document would be a "proud, honourable
                and politically sensitive thing to do".

                Mr Howard's credentials on Aboriginal reconciliation
                have often been criticised.

                Upon winning power in 1996, his Government
                substantially amended historic 1994 legislation which
                gave land and fiscal compensation to indigenous people,
                widely seen as diminishing Aboriginal rights.

                His Government sent auditors and criminal investigators
                into the main government-funded Aboriginal body, the
                Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Council, which
                was branded illegal. He has refused to allow a motion of
                apology through federal Parliament which would have
                recognised injustices done to Aboriginal people through
                a policy of forced removal of Aboriginal children.

                And more recently, he has been under increasing
                pressure to override mandatory sentencing laws
                operating in the Northern Territory and Western
                Australia, which ensnare many more Aboriginal people
                than white.
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