Where Have All The Wentworths Gone?

Chris Puplick - The Australian

The tributes paid to the late Bill Wentworth have rightly focused on his achievements as Australia's first minister for Aboriginal affairs, a position he held with distinction in John Gorton's Liberal-Country coalition government.

The veteran MP will also be remembered for pushing uniform rail gauges and promoting nuclear research. But it was in the area of Aboriginal affairs that Wentworth bequeathed an important legacy. It's a pity many of his conservative colleagues at the time and disciples today have failed to heed his message.

Long before becoming minister in 1968, Wentworth had developed a great interest in all aspects of indigenous Australian history, culture and welfare. He learned at least two Aboriginal languages to a significant extent. He immersed himself in elements of anthropology and archeology, working with renowned researchers such as William Stanner and Adolphus Elkin. And as a skilled and creative bushman, he toured extensively throughout Aboriginal communities in the outback.

Since at least 1963, there had been proposals for a referendum to amend the Constitution as it affected indigenous Australians. But it was Wentworth who introduced a private member's bill for amendments to count Aborigines in the census and to remove the prohibition on the commonwealth making "special laws" relating to "the Aboriginal race".

Interestingly, at the same time he proposed a further constitutional amendment to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race. Wentworth decided not to pursue the latter proposal when prime minister Robert Menzies agreed that the government would take over his proposals. Eventually, in 1967, this referendum passed with the largest majority recorded for constitutional change.

Another Menzies-backed Wentworth initiative was the establishment of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, which reflected Wentworth's concern for the recording and preservation of Aboriginal languages and cultural materials (especially secret and sacred items).

As minister, Wentworth knew more about his portfolio than any of his bureaucrats who, when the ministry was established in 1968, were drawn from departments such as Treasury and Foreign Affairs, and had little or no knowledge of indigenous affairs. In every respect in this field, Wentworth was ahead of his time. He was familiar with – and disgusted with – the racial discrimination he saw retarding Aboriginal advancement. He believed that the terra nullius doctrine pronounced in the Gove land rights case in 1970, was wrong. And he strongly supported Aborigine-controlled economic enterprises.

Wentworth put a number of radical initiatives to cabinet during 1969. These included an early form of land rights legislation (especially for the Gurindji people at Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory), the provision of federally funded equity for Aboriginal businesses, an indigenous work-for-the-dole scheme and legislation to protect sacred sites.

All were presented to cabinet within a framework where Wentworth outlined serious institutional discrimination against Aborigines and called for greater public recognition and protection of their rights as full citizens.

Above all, Wentworth rejected the traditional Coalition policy of assimilation in favour of proper recognition of a unique Aboriginal identity and cultural expression. He also went out of his way to facilitate Neville Bonner's election as Australia's first indigenous federal parliamentarian.

Tragically, many of Wentworth's proposals failed at the time. Trenchant opposition came from the Country Party ministers, the states and mining and pastoral interests. In any case, the coup that installed Billy McMahon as prime minister in March 1971 culminated in Wentworth losing his beloved Aboriginal affairs portfolio to Gorton-hater Peter Howson. A rigidly conservative proponent of states' rights Howson seemed to display little empathy with indigenous people. Indeed, his recent outpourings in Quadrant attempt to reinforce a view of indigenous history and culture that Wentworth found offensive.

Nonetheless, history was on Wentworth's side, and he lived to see all of his initiatives pass. The Fraser government, led by Aboriginal affairs ministers Fred Chaney (1978-80) and Peter Baume (1980-82), implemented a progressive agenda of land rights, legislative protection of sacred sites and representative indigenous bodies. Terra nullius was overthrown and indigenous enterprise and employment schemes were enacted. And there would even be legislation to outlaw racial discrimination.

One wonders how much further we would have progressed along the path of Aboriginal reconciliation had Wentworth's 1968-71 agenda been enacted. But there is no doubt that Australia would have been a fairer and far better place had the conservatism of his Liberal colleagues and the reactionary hostility of the Country Party not thwarted him.

Unfortunately, today's machine-dominated selection process in the Liberal Party and its risk-aversion strategies mean that far-sighted and enlightened, if occasionally eccentric, characters such as Wentworth won't grace its parliamentary benches anytime soon.

Chris Puplick, a former federal Liberal senator from NSW, was press secretary to Bill Wentworth from 1969 to 1972.