COMMON Wealth No. 2 of Volume 6

 

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At the current time, there is much public debate about native title on pastoral leases as a result of the High Court's 1996 decision in the Wik case. Many pastoralists and non-indigenous bush families experience the uncertaintly created by this decision as the latest in a series of burdens they have to bear, for life in our rural communities is under great strain as the result of many economic and social changes. It is important, in this context, that the legitimate claims of indigenous people for access to land, not become the target of the frustration of such non- indigenous communities caused by these other factors which are unrelated to native title. At the same time, indigenous people need to recognise the fact that many bush families have strong emotional attachments that could be described in some sense as spiritual to the land over which they hold pastoral leases. The mutual recognition of our shared humanity and legitimate hopes and aspirations is the key to reconciliation.

This document addresses perhaps the most important and most complex issue facing our national community - the need for indigenous and non-indigenous people to practise the virtues of justice, humility and forgiveness in their relationships with one another, and the need for our laws, our policies and our public institutions to support the practice of these virtues.

At the heart of the reconciliation process is the question of how we share the land that is Australia, the land that is home to all of us, regardless of what race we are. This is a moral issue, which is problematic in an age when morality is generally regarded by many as little more than a social and historical construction. The temptation for all involved is to claim absolute rights, and to admit no possibility of compromise. The way forward is to recognise the common ground and the sacred ground that is shared by all. The future well-being of our nation depends on such recognition.

Justice and Wik

The defining characteristic of a pluralist society is the diversity of values and beliefs about what is good and just that find expression and attract adherents amongst the members of society. Not only are these belief systems different from one another, but they are also in many cases incompatible, incommensurable and irreconcilable insofar as there appears to be no rational way to resolve conflicts between them. The fact that such societies - including Australia - can continue to operate peacefully without any clearly shared notion of what it means to be a good society is testimony to the ingenuity of our democratic political institutions which manage and mediate social conflict without necessarily resolving ultimate questions of value and morality.

At this point in our history our democratic system is attempting to mediate what on the surface appears to be just another such conflict between divergent notions of justice - how to accommodate both the interests of Aboriginal people and pastoral lease-holders within a workable and fair compromise in the wake of the High Court's decision in the Wik case that said that native title may not be extinguished on pastoral leases.

On the one hand, there are Aboriginal people and their many supporters in the non-indigenous community. Many, if not most, of those non-indigenous supporters, confronted by the undeniable social and economic disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal people, are motivated by a combination of feelings that includes compassion, indignation and guilt. They believe, more than anything, that a just resolution to the Wik debate will go a significant way to addressing the needs of Aboriginal people and help overcome their disadvantage.

The conception of justice which is informing many non-indigenous supporters of the Aboriginal cause is a needs-based conception and calls upon notions of equality of outcome.

On the other hand, and opposed to the above position, is the National Farmers' Federation arguing that pastoral leases give a right of exclusive possession and use. There are many pastoral leaseholders who cannot understand how aborigines who have no physical contact with the claimed land can make a claim which engages the leaseholder in the process of native title before the rightness of the claim has been established (Boswell, 1997). Underpinning this position is a concept of justice that is based on notions of legitimate entitlement, which has been articulated by the philosopher Robert Nozick, namely that

However, there is a fundamental flaw in the position of those opposing any resolution to the Wik debate that gives adequate recognition to Aboriginal interests. It is possible - in fact it is relatively easy - to demonstrate that the arguments supporting the rights of pastoralists to exclusive possession fail in their own terms, that is they fail when measured against the notion that distributive justice is observed when legitimate entitlements are respected.

This is because the just entitlement account of justice serves the interest of a particular mythology about the past by what it excludes from view. Central to this account is the thesis that all legitimate entitlements can be traced to legitimate acts of original acquisition. But, as Alisdair MacIntyre has argued, if that is so, there are in fact very few, and in some large areas of the world no legitimate entitlements (op.cit., p. 251). The property-owners of the modern world are

To MacIntyre's list of unjust acquisitions can of course be added the original dispossession of Australian aborigines of their land by European settlers. For two hundred years the legal myth of terra nullius was used to argue that what was an unjust act of original acquisition was in fact just. The Mabo decision of the High Court categorically and decisively revealed the falsity of that myth and the injustice it concealed.

This point is fundamental to the cause of reconciliation, for what it also means is that those non-indigenous Australians who support the Aboriginal cause because of Aboriginal disadvantage are in reality not appreciating the true source of Aboriginal claims to land, namely that they are claims made not on the basis of need but on the basis of legitimate entitlement.

Shifting Aboriginal claims to land from a needs-based concept of justice to an entitlement-based concept has three other important advantages. First, it puts Aboriginal claims to land on an equal footing to those of other Australians insofar as they do not rely on or require any paternalistic or compassionate response on the part of mainstream Australia. This itself is more consistent with the fuller aspirations of indigenous Australians who see reconciliation as going beyond welfare, and who want to be seen as equals in citizenship rather than continue to be viewed, even by those non-indigenous Australians who are angered and upset by their disadvantaged situation, as 'objects of pity' and deserving of altruism.

Secondly, it makes race irrelevant. Legislation based on the recognition of native title is not racially based legislation, giving special treatment to one group on the basis of race, but simply upholds the principle of the legitimate entitlement of the original owners:

Thirdly, it reduces the possibility of claims to land being undermined by the same method, that is, being shown to be unsustainable in the context of a needs-based conception of justice. This is so because the need-based conception of justice could still be used, and has been (e.g. Price 1997), to justify the enforced redistribution of wealth and resources (in this case, land) from a small group of land-holders two-hundred years ago to a people more numerous and short on land. In other words, while the pastoralist argument can be shown to be unsustainable in its own terms, the needs-based argument for land-rights can also be shown to be vulnerable in its own terms.

Overcoming false dichotomies, finding common ground

The implications of this for the native title debate and for reconciliation generally are that while legislation may remove conflict by removing the rights of one party (e.g. by allowing back-door extinguishment by the 'bucket-load'), nevertheless the fact remains that regardless of whether moral rights are legally recognised, they continue to exist and to be denied.

An important problem remains unresolved, namely what will the consequence of Wik be for the reconciliation process, given that one way or another, either Aboriginal people or many pastoralists will feel a grave injustice has been done to them? When injustice, whether real or imagined, is nevertheless felt as real, what are the prospects for improved relationships? How is it possible to move forward? It would make more sense for legislation to allow room for negotiation rather than litigation, so that fair compromises can be reached that accommodate co-existing rights in a manner that suits a specific local situation.

The cause of reconciliation will not be well served by false dichotomies, generalisations or stereotypes which exaggerate differences between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. These simply create and support an 'us' and 'them' mentality.

For a start, it is over-simplification to speak about 'white Australians' and 'black Australians' as if both groups had a high degree of internal cohesion and solidarity amongst themselves. What does 'white Australia' mean? It is a term that tries to capture under a single heading an extremely diverse range of people with differing racial and ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, political perspectives and personal tastes. Almost the same could be said of the term 'black Australia'. While the diversity is perhaps not as great, it exists.

Secondly, both 'groups' (insofar as they can be called groups) are made up of individual human beings, with all the foibles of individual human beings. It is wrong to suggest that one group is morally superior to the other. Yet this generalisation, which is the tell-tale sign of racism, happens on both sides of debates about race relations in Australia. At one extreme, there are those who believe that Aboriginal people are somehow morally inferior to the rest of the Australian community. They blame their disadvantage on perceived personal moral faults, such as laziness and lack of a work ethic and personal discipline which makes them prone to alcoholism and associated problems. They point to examples of anti-social behaviour and claim proof for a racial theory of moral superiority, as if 'whites' never displayed the same kind of behaviour.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who believe that because Aboriginal people have been the victims of injustice at the hands of non-Aboriginal people, therefore white society is somehow less virtuous and lacking in cultural values than Aboriginal people. In particular, the stereotype of the 'redneck' or the portrayal of pastoral leaseholders as modern versions of greedy and unscrupulous squatters has been used in public debate, or exists as an often unspoken and subconscious assumption. In a similar vein, there are many non-indigenous supporters of the Aboriginal community too ready to excuse any anti-social or self-destructive behaviour on the part of Aboriginal people as entirely the consequence of past oppression. While this is true to a great extent, this view reduces Aboriginal people to powerlessness and assumes that they are able to take little or no responsibility for themselves - the very same attitude that has led to so many paternalistic and destructive policies in the past.

Such assumptions prevent people from analysing clearly the problems facing the whole Australian community on issues relating to indigenous people.

Thirdly, it is also false to say that indigenous people have a spiritual relationship with the land whereas non-indigenous people have a economic relationship with it. This dichotomy does an injustice to both groups. Certainly the land is of central importance to indigenous spirituality and culture, but the land was also the source of their physical and material well-being. In other words, indigenous people always had an economic relationship with the land.

It is also untrue to say that those non-indigenous families who have held pastoral leases for generations have no spiritual relationship with the land and see it only as a resource to be exploited. Certainly, they depend on that land for their survival, but they also have an emotional connection to it that goes beyond simple economics and can be described as being in some sense a spiritual relationship.

For both groups the land is the source of their physical and spiritual well-being. It nourishes us like a mother. The earth is our mother, we must respect it like we must respect our own mothers, and we must learn to share it (Mundine, 1997).

Christian Tradition, Aboriginal Culture and the Land

The spiritual significance of land is a good entry point into understanding how indigenous and non-indigenous Australians can learn to can coexist better. Aboriginal Christians hold together in their own faith two traditions that may appear completely different and incompatible. Many people, who have a false understanding of both Aboriginal culture and the Christian faith, who find it easier to think in false dichotomies and generalisations, find it hard to understand how these two traditions can be reconciled.

At the heart of their inability is a false understanding of the Christian teaching about our relationship with the Earth, our Mother. Many people interpret Genesis 1:26-28, where God grants Adam and Eve 'dominion' over the rest of creation and commands them to 'fill the earth and subdue it', as giving humankind a divine mandate to be as destructive as we like towards the earth. This false understanding of Christianity is shared by those who want to rape the Earth as well as those who blame Christianity for encouraging the rapists and alienating humanity from nature (Collins, 1995, p.87; Honner, 1986).

But in fact a more accurate interpretation of 'dominion' is that this is to be exercised as responsible stewardship of the natural world. In Catholic social teaching, this principle of responsible stewardship has been expressed by Pope John Paul II:

Stewardship and respect of the land is a concept that is central to Aboriginal culture. In this context, elders are seen as 'guardians' of sacred sites and the rituals associated with those sites. That land can be held to be sacred is not a concept alien to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Moses was told by God to take off his shoes because he stood on sacred ground. Mount Horeb is revered as the holy place where Moses was given the Ten Commandments, as he led Israel to the Promised Land, or what later generations of Christians refer to as the Holy Land.

The image of Genesis 2:5-8, in which human beings are created by God out of the earth, has strong resonances with Aboriginal spirituality (Rainbow Spirit Elders, 1997; pp.29-35).

No Man's Land or Common Ground? Issues of Cultural Border Control and Implications for Reconciliation

The dispossession of Aboriginal people from their land established a transplanted version of Western European culture as the dominant culture in Australia. Dispossession began, but did not complete, the process of the destruction of Aboriginal culture. The separation of children from their families, which was combined with Christian missionary activity, was another phase in the attempt to establish a monoculture in Australia. Together, these actions were early signs of the policy of assimilation, and extended to the White Australia policy which sought to filter migrants on a racial basis. Aboriginal people would be mixed in with the white population, adopting their values and habits, and becoming just like them in all things except the colour of their skin. Eventually that too was supposed to fade away (HR&EOC, 1997; p.32).

But the effort to create homogeneity has not succeeded. Many Aboriginal people have fiercely held onto their identity as a specific group within Australian society. Ironically, it was the experience of oppression and suffering that helped reinforce their sense of distinctiveness. The Aboriginal spirit has survived and has been made strong through shared suffering.

The maintenance and acceptance of cultural difference within a single national community gives rise to the creative tension at the heart of the reconciliation project: how to balance the maintenance of a distinct cultural identity with the demands of equality of citizenship?

The word 'reconciliation' implies an overcoming of differences, a coming together as one, an arrival at equality. Yet one of the most clearly articulated aspirations of many Aboriginal people in recent years has been the desire to maintain a clear and distinct cultural identity, whereby many see themselves, and wish to be seen, as different to mainstream Australia. This is one of the important paradoxes at the heart of contemporary Aboriginal policy and politics; namely that differences can be overcome by allowing and recognising differences, even promoting them.

This paradox is not understood by many people for whom reconciliation and equality means that Aboriginal people must assimilate into the dominant culture and there must be no recognition in public policy of racial and cultural differences or of historical injustices perpetrated by the dominant culture.

But even within the Aboriginal community there is disagreement over this issue. For example, to what extent should 'whitefella' values be used to judge the behaviour of those Aboriginal organisations which have been found to have misused or misappropriated funds provided to them by government? At the heart of many of these allegations is the fact that Aboriginal executive officers have used their positions of power and influence to the benefit of their families and clan groups. In Western society this is called nepotism and is seen as a form of corruption. Yet some Aboriginal people have defended it on the grounds that it is simply an expression of traditional Aboriginal culture.

Understandably, those Aboriginal people who have suffered as the result of these practices object to cultural identity and self-determination being used to justify the situation.

If Aboriginal self-determination is the way forward, who is the 'self'? Is it individual Aboriginal people, or families, or tribal groups, or the whole Aboriginal community? Is self-determination about the development of aborigines as persons, or as a people? The answer to this question has important implications for policy.

For example, during a Federal Senate Inquiry into the creation of a Land Fund to help those aborigines who would be unable to claim land under the Native Title Act to purchase land on the open market, conflicting views were put forward by Aboriginal people. On the one hand, there were those who claimed that grants of land should be made to individuals, partnerships and families as well as corporations: We have fought long and hard for equal rights, let us not be constrained by traditional ownership practices that are foreign to many in contemporary indigenous communities in the south east of Australia. On the other hand, the view was expressed that this would be an insult to our own indigenous social structures, to the basis of our relationships with each other and with the land, and makes a mockery of the rights based approach to social justice. (Griffiths, 1995; pp.281-282)

These conflicting statements highlight a growing issue for Aboriginal people; namely their rights to be individuals as distinct from members of a racial sub-group or community within Australia. Are Aboriginal people who wish to integrate more fully into mainstream Australia to be considered 'race traitors' by those aborigines who decide that their future lies in maintaining a stronger sense of cultural identity and solidarity separate from the mainstream? This tension within the indigenous population is also evident in the fact that the Native Title Act 1994 has given rise to overlapping claims to the same piece of land by a number of indigenous people and groups. This situation is indicative of a number of things. First, that tribal and clan rivalries still exist among Aboriginal people. Secondly, that dispossession and separation has resulted in the loss of much traditional knowledge of law and custom that would clearly define which groups are legitimate claimants. Thirdly, that access to land may not be seen solely in terms of re-establishing a spiritual connection, but also as providing an basis for economic development.

The motivation for land ownership as a basis for economic development intertwines with the notion that Aboriginal people need to demonstrate greater initiative to overcome their disadvantage, rather than rely too heavily on white society's philanthropy and guilt to deliver them social and economic salvation. Whenever that has happened in the past, the temptation for paternalism has been too hard to resist for white administrators and politicians, with the consequence that problems often get worse instead of improve.

A good example of this was given by Sir James Gobbo at the Australian Reconciliation Convention in May 1997. Giving an abbreviated history of the 1965 case for equal pay for Aboriginal stockmen on cattle stations in the Northern Territory, Sir James quoted the decision of the Arbitration Commission to award equal rates of pay, even though it believed that this would result in a substantial loss of job security and attachment to traditional lands. The Commission stated:

What this episode indicates is that in matters pertaining to Aboriginal relations, not only do moral principles often collide, but when Aboriginal people are not consulted about what they want and/or how they might wish to see such collisions resolved, non-indigenous paternalism is almost certainly bound to arrive at decisions that are detrimental to the well-being of those it seeks to assist. As Sir James noted, what troubled him most about the 1965 case was that no Aboriginal person was asked to provide evidence to the Commission. The issue was left entirely to white unionists, lawyers and bureaucrats.

The Aboriginal people involved in that dispute, the Gurindji, after the case had been decided in favour of higher wages, then took matters into their own hands and in a new and unexpected direction. What had begun as a union-supported walk-off from Wave Hill Station to strike for better wages, they turned into their own struggle for recognition of their human dignity, cultural identity and economic opportunity - a land claim. They moved camp to a site at Wattie Creek, rich in tribal lore and spiritual significance:

Our people lived here from time immemorial, and our culture, our myths, our dreaming and our sacred places have evolved in this land. Many of our forefathers were killed in the early days while trying to retain it. Therefore we feel that morally the land is ours and should be returned to us. (Gurindji member, cited in Gobbo 1997)

Self-determination

Clearly, as the term itself suggests, self-determination implies just such an acceptance of responsibility for one's own development as was demonstrated by the Gurindji. This issue of Aboriginal responsibility is one of the most controversial issues in the debate over indigenous affairs. At the heart of this controversy is the issue of who or what is the cause of the continuing disadvantage experienced by indigenous people in Australia.

Obviously the dispossession of indigenous people of their land and the separation of young indigenous children from their families are the primary cause of the economic and social disadvantage suffered by this group of Australians. They are in a sense two aspects of the same experience, the experience of being forcibly removed from one's mother. This experience of dispossession has left many Aboriginal people caught between two cultures - unfamiliar with their own Aboriginal culture, yet unwelcome in the mainstream culture. The crisis of identity that has followed this dispossession has, in many cases, acted to exacerbate Aboriginal disadvantage.

Is financial compensation the answer? The idea of monetary compensation, while it is important as a principle of justice and may be part of the solution, will not necessarily be very helpful to Aboriginal people if it simply perpetuates or encourages the self-image of victim.

Welfare dependency, and the sapping of dignity it entails, is another unintended consequence of providing a form of institutionalised charity when what is required is justice and citizenship. But this justice and this citizenship should not be conceived in terms that focus on the right to receive assistance to the detriment of an equally important but often neglected focus on responsibilities (Civics Expert Group, 1994).

It is very difficult to believe in yourself and in your ability to take up more responsibility when the society in which you live repeatedly denies you opportunities to prove yourself, due to racial prejudice. Yet the way forward must be for Aboriginal people to overcome any sense of helplessness and hopelessness. This does not mean ignoring past or even present injustices. In fact, drawing on the experience of survival will be an important spiritual resource for indigenous people. The Aboriginal story is one of oppression. The future will also be one of oppression if Aboriginal people resign themselves to waiting for the non-indigenous community to change. Indigenous people will achieve little progress towards the achievement of greater participation in the nation's economic and public life if they wait for the wider community to realise its need to change.

If there is any lesson that should have been learnt by now it is that non-indigenous Australia as a whole recognises Aboriginal rights and past injustices against them only grudgingly. It is far easier for governments to assuage the collective conscience by funding welfare style programs in the name of compassion for the disadvantaged, than to recognise the claims of justice. When welfare programs fail to deliver substantial benefits, governments can then wipe their hands of any blame for the failure by pointing to the vast sums of money expended by the state - thereby providing a justification for those who claim that indigenous people only have themselves to blame for their disadvantage. Aboriginal people will have to reassert their own dignity, since looking to mainstream Australia to do it has not been a well-proven path in the past.

Partnership, not Paternalism

There are two points that must be made clear on the issue of self-determination. Firstly, it is vitally important to recognise that this is already happening. Attitudes in the wider community are changing, and that is happening because Aboriginal people are making it happen. All over the country, indigenous Australians are claiming and taking a greater effective say in matters pertaining to their own development. Self-determination is working. Aboriginal communities are setting up and successfully running a variety of industries and businesses that benefit not only the local indigenous community but contribute to the economic and social wealth of the whole nation.

The Chevron Corporation's project to lay down a gas pipeline from Papua New Guinea to Australia has been successfully negotiated with Aboriginal communities. These negotiations clearly support the fact that Aboriginal ownership of land does not represent a threat to economic expansion. Working with Aboriginal people is likely to be far more advantageous than working against them.

Secondly, and related to the above point, self-determination does not imply that non-indigenous Australians should withdraw from any efforts to work together with Aboriginal people. What it does mean, however, is that they must change the way they think: stop thinking about what they can do for Aboriginal people, and start thinking about what they can do with them.

Engagement is the key. Aboriginal people are looking for partnership, not paternalism. Successful relationships, whether they be in businesses, families or local communities, or in any sphere of life, are built upon cooperation rather than confrontation. If the globalised economy has anything to teach us about how we ought to relate to one another, it is that interdependence is the reality in which we live. No man, woman, community or nation can exist as an island, refusing to engage with those around them. That is a recipe for failure.

A People's Movement towards a 'Document of Reconciliation'

A conscious commitment to empowering indigenous people in more Australian institutions, organisations and communities is necessary. The non-government sector will be particularly important in this respect. These organisations both reflect and lead community opinion to which governments and policy makers must listen. It is important that non-government organisations specifically address the issue of how to involve indigenous people more in their processes. Specific commitments should emerge from dialogue with indigenous people.

Without doubt one of the most tangible and important symbolic achievements that could be reached by the centenary of Federation is the adoption of a new Australian Constitution that recognises the truth expressed in the Mabo decision. Namely, that the original owners of this land were the indigenous people who did not give up their native title but had it taken from them by force.

This recognition will be vital to the future well-being of the country. A community that refuses to deal with the negative aspects of its past has no future worth speaking of. There are those who claim that the past should be left in the past, or more precisely, the unpleasant things about the past should be left in the past. They equate any recognition of past injustice with an admission of personal guilt in the present, and object to what they call pejoratively 'black arm band history' on the grounds that they personally had nothing to do with that past injustice. Yet at the same time many of those same people are proud to call themselves Australian because of the achievements of past generations. This selective memory is utterly dishonest and immature. Furthermore, it results in the view that the past unjust treatment of indigenous people has no moral significance for present relationships to them. This undermines our human dignity because it turns us into atomistic individuals cut off from our social and historical roles and status: I am born with a past; and to cut myself off from that past, in the individualist mode, is to deform my present relationships. (MacIntyre 1974, p.221)

For its part, if the Catholic Church community is going to show any leadership in the reconciliation process, it too must face its own past. In particular, the Church has a responsibility to make every effort to assist those indigenous people who were accommodated in Catholic institutions following forced separation from their families reclaim their personal history and identity. This will involve indexing and making accessible whatever extant records are available.

Furthermore, non-indigenous Christians can learn many spiritual lessons from listening to the theology of their indigenous brothers and sisters. Changes to our rites and rituals that explicity incorporate Aboriginal theological insights would be a good starting point.

Of course the Christian community is not exclusively non-indigenous. For many indigenous Australians, Christianity provides a way to deepen their awareness of their spiritual connection with other Australians and with the land. Spiritual energy is required to overcome many of the problems faced by indigenous people and which have been exacerbated by separation from their land, problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence and so on.

For those who can still access their traditional lands and draw spiritual strength from that contact, land rights are an important first step. But they are not the last step. Observation of the law and of ceremony must follow. For those who have lost the chance to renew contact with their traditional religious practices, there are many other avenues of spiritual expression and sources of spiritual strength available.

Pope John Paul II's address to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Alice Springs in 1986 encapsulates the necessity for indigenous people to rediscover their spiritual roots. It also highlights the need for the rest of the community to facilitate the process of reconciliation by welcoming and empowering indigenous participation in institutional and communal structures and organisations:

Australia, too, will only become the nation that we can and should be when the contribution of indigenous people to the national life has been encouraged and joyfully received by others.

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References

Boswell, R., 1997, 'Mabo, Wik: What they mean for farming families', News Weekly 8 March 1997, pp.8-9. Civics Expert Group, 1994, Report, cited in Gobbo 1997. Collins, P., 1995, God's Earth: Religion as if matter really mattered. Dove Publications, Blackburn. Gobbo, Sir James, 1997, 'Renewal of the Nation: Citizenship in Australia'. Address to the Australian Reconciliation Convention, 28 May 1997, Melbourne. Griffiths, M., 1995, Aboriginal Affairs: A short history 1788-1995. Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst. Honner, J., 1986, 'The theology of Hugh Morgan, Miner', in Finding Common Ground: An assessment of the bases of Aboriginal land rights. Collins Dove, Blackburn. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, Bringing them home: The Report of the Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. AGPS, Canberra. John Paul II, 1986, 'Address to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders'. The Pope in Australia: Collected homilies and talks, St Paul's Publications, Homebush, pp.166-172. John Paul II, 1990, 'Message for World Peace Day'. Cited in Agenda for the Third Millennium. Harper Collins, London 1996, pp.198-200. MacIntyre, A., 1984, After Virtue: A study in moral theory. (2nd edition) University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame. Mundine, G., 1997, "Finding Sacred Ground: Spiritual solutions to Aboriginal disadvantage", paper presented at the Religion and Cultural Diversity Conference, Melbourne, 30 July 1997. Nozick, R., 1974, Anarchy, State and Utopia. Cited in MacIntyre 1984. Price, C., 1997, 'Aborigines need to be less pushy'. Letters to the Editor, The Sunday (Canberra) Times, 26 October. Rainbow Spirit Elders, 1997, Rainbow Spirit Theology: Towards an Australian Aboriginal Theology. Harper Collins Religious, Blackburn.

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