Mr TUCKEY(6.36 p.m.) —I would like the member for Grayndler (Mr Albanese) to stay in the parliament for five minutes, if he would, because I would like to give him a little bit of history in regard to the matters that he has raised in his speech, and I do so from a very authoritative work. Firstly, I want to speak to him in answer to his statements that this legislation is not necessary. He used words such as `giving Aboriginal people their legal rights'. This is not about people's legal rights so much as it is about people's rights to litigate.

Unfortunately, as we stand here today, I have read newspaper reports referring to the legal costs that have been involved in this case. As I see it, the costs of paying the legal profession in this matter now exceed the cost of building the bridge. The purpose of this legislation is simply to do one thing: to stop the cash flow of taxpayers' money to lawyers. You mentioned that the member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Holding) has given us the benefit of his legal knowledge when he said that he could fix it. I hope on all occasions that he would be prepared and that his firm Holding Redlich, or whatever it was called, would be prepared to take both sides of any future action so that the taxpayers at least are not obliged to meet the costs on both sides, which, as I say, now exceed the cost of the bridge.

This is really what I wanted the member for Grayndler to listen to for a minute. I was interested in the member's total defence of people's right to their spiritual beliefs, and I see that the shadow minister agrees. I just want to acquaint him with a little bit of history. My folks have lived in Western Australia since the first ships and they became seafaring people. I have often said that, if my grandfather had not died when my dad was six months old, I would probably be the secretary of the Seamens Union. As it so happened, I got divorced a bit from that.

Having made that rather light-hearted comment, I want to come to a very serious thing. I happen to be Charles Wilson Tuckey and my great-grandfather, Charles Tuckey, rescued two survivors of a shipwreck in 1857. It was the shipwreck of the barque Stefano, which had come out of Yugoslavia and was taking coal to Hong Kong. It was shipwrecked on the North West Cape. Ten people got ashore, eight perished and the Aboriginal people, a tribe living in that area, picked up the last two, probably because that was all they could feed. And I make that as a statement of view and nothing else.

They looked after these two people. The tribe knew something that the survivors did not know, that once a year my great-grandfather, on his return from Broome where he used to sail for pearling, would drop in there and drop off his surplus stores to this tribe. They knew that the time would come when he would come in and they could transfer these two Yugoslavs, one of whom was the son of the shipowning family and who later migrated to America. Anyhow, they were duly rescued and they were taken to Fremantle, got back to their native country and got hold of the village priest; and they wrote in great detail the story of their time on the cape with these Aboriginal people.

The story was so authentic that, when a grandson of the shipwrecked person, now in his 80s, visited Western Australia some time ago with the decision to convert these detailed notes into a book which he called The wreck of the barque Stefano—and I have the cover sheet here—we sent him up there to this pastoral property. He said, `If we go in here and up there according to my grandfather's notes, we will actually find a small well', and the pastoralist said, `No well there, mate.' And they walked the distance and they found the well.

I say all of that because I want to establish the authenticity of what I am going to read to you. But further, I want to say something. This is not a story about Aboriginal people. It is about two white shipwrecked men. But this is just part of the story, quoted in the first case. It tells us:

I was jolted out of my meditation . . . Loud, dolorous cries arose from the midst of the tribe—the cries of a poor mother who for the past few days had been watching over her sick child.

The child died. It continues:

Meanwhile, funeral preparations were progressing. The parents of the dead child, in what I suspect was a gesture of grief or sacrifice, threw into the sea the fish they had saved from the precious catch. Nearby, a huge fire was started and it quickly became a deep bed of glowing coals.

Somehow, I sensed what was about to happen even though not a word was spoken. The child's corpse was laid atop the glowing coals. All of us gathered around the pyre. Quickly and mysteriously, I realised that this was not to be a cremation. The young one was being roasted for a gruesome meal.

It began with the first portion being offered to the father who had gone alone to the top of a nearby hill. The mother was served next as we all sat around the dying embers. Then everyone else was served until the small corpse was completely consumed.

After the feast, the bones were gathered with a semblance of religious ritual and devotion. I found myself participating in the ceremony without the slightest hesitation or any thought of impropriety.

What I am about to say is that, when we start being so singular as to say that the religions of the past must be respected, of course they cannot. We could not possibly condone that. I am not criticising it. It was their religion and it was not their mythology. It was their genuine religion. So I ask people who stand up and make those sorts of generalisations to think again.

And I can take you to other examples that have been brought to my attention by mission people. We talk of the stolen children, yet many of the old mission people told me that they frequently took the girls of the tribe to prevent infanticide because there were too many girls. Again, we know that is still practised in parts of the world. I do not stand here to criticise it, but I say to you that you cannot generalise and stand up and say, as the member for Grayndler has just done, that people have an unfettered right to practise their religious beliefs—certainly not as they reside in culture.

Let me also ask, in terms of all this, that people start to separate mythology and culture. I want to address that at the moment, when in fact I proposed to address it later in my speech. Surely, there is mythology but, when it comes to the conduct of business of government, it is up to ministers, in particular when they are called upon to make decisions which have a very substantial effect on other individuals—also Australians, also protected by the Racial Discrimination Act—to ensure that those people get justice and that mythology is not allowed to override common and current scientific information.

When the whole Hindmarsh Island thing blew up—whether there was a belief or otherwise is another matter, but the royal commission said there was a fabrication—one would have thought that the minister—whether he was prepared to open those sealed envelopes is another matter also—would have taken account of some of the matters discussed in the press. What were those matters? A previous member made some comment on this.

There was a reference to the shape of the island and its relationship with a woman's anatomy. We are not talking about today's circumstances; we are talking about culture. Where in the culture of Aboriginal people was cartography? Where was it? They, unfortunately, lacked even a written language. They were not cartographers. They did not have aeroplanes to do aerial photography. They would not have had any idea about the shape of that island 200 years ago. By the way, the situation I described in that other book was in 1857. The reality is that they would not have known. So how can that be part of their culture?

There was also a suggestion that the Aboriginal women had a link with the island because they went over there to abort babies. I lived in the town of Carnarvon from 1958 to 1980 as both a hotel keeper and a local government person in various capacities, including shire president, and one-third of that town's population were of Aboriginal descent. During the time I was there we went to the camps on all the adjoining pastoral properties.

In all of my long connection with Aboriginals I was never once aware of an Aboriginal woman even seeking an abortion. The Aboriginal women became pregnant and did not seek abortions. To suggest that they did that because a white man was involved is patently ridiculous. I am yet to be told how they got to the island because the making and using of boats was something that frequently even river people did not do—though sometimes they did.

The reality is that these are silly propositions, but they get worse. They said, `If you build this bridge, all our women will cease to be able to conceive.' Modern scientific evidence says that could not be so. Consequently, it is silly. You cannot as a government or a parliament be convinced by these matters in this regard.  The member for Grayndler also made the point that we have never had a royal commission into a religion. I think we had one into Scientology. Tell me it was not a religion—I think the royal commission said that.

Mr Albanese —It's not.

Mr TUCKEY —Thank you. You have just denied a certain group of people their beliefs.

Mr Albanese —No, no.

Mr TUCKEY —Yes, you have. That is just the point you make. This is why it is so silly. It is the same as this mythology which has been quoted in substantiating this case that convinced a minister to send a group of honest Australian people broke.

We still have around the world a group of people known as the Flat Earth Society. I can concede them their beliefs, but they better not try to stop me from flying around the world in an aeroplane. They should not stand in the way of building airports. One might wonder when some minister is going to ban the construction of a new airport on the grounds that the Flat Earth Society suggests that the earth is flat and that, if planes take off from that airport, they will end up disappearing.

When Robert Tickner was called into a public works project in South Australia, he allowed himself to be influenced by very silly propositions. I think he ignored the Racial Discrimination Act because his responsibility as a minister was to apply it fairly—in other words, not discriminate for any people of any race.

We make a lot of the Racial Discrimination Act in these debates. We talk about it and ignore its provisions. As we know, the act is only a very brief piece of legislation, but attached to it is the United Nations convention, which forms part of the act. Article 1, paragraph 4, especially prohibits positive discrimination with some pretty tight conditions. It says:

Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination, provided, however, that such measures do not, as a consequence, lead to the maintenance of separate rights for different racial groups and that they shall not be continued after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.

We have a heritage act. We have substantial legislation to protect Australia's heritage. Why then do we need an Aboriginal heritage act, other than to make money for lawyers? Why can the courts not deal with those matters as heritage matters? Of course there are items, things on the record, property, caves and other things that are of great significance, but even those issues should be taken in proper context. It is ridiculous for us to suggest that everything that some Aboriginal person says is right is right.

Although Mr Dodson is extremely well paid by the government to represent Aboriginal interests, when he stood for election to ATSIC, as I recollect, he got less than 20 votes. The reality is that he is not seen by people at the grassroots of the Aboriginal community as being one who supports their views.

I just want to repeat that the facts of life are that if we were to entrench every aspect of Aboriginal culture, heritage and religion we would be having some royal commissions all right. But in the case of the Hindmarsh Island matter the realities are that there is a lot of credit to be given to the member for Barker (Mr McLachlan). The member for Barker saw his responsibility as representing the interests of all the people in his electorate, not just a very special interest group which, from all the evidence we have seen, had one agenda. It was not an agenda to protect Aboriginal interests; they had taken the briefs from some people who were opposed to a public works development.

The point has been made by some speakers that those women who gave all the original evidence refused point blank, on some moral platform, to attend the royal commission. I have to say that they knew very well that if they went there and restated the sorts of issues they had put up, they would have had a great chance of being charged with perjury. The royal commissioner quite properly found the whole process a fabrication. But the point I want to make about this is the grave damage that is done by processes of this nature to the genuine needs of Aboriginal people.

It is always a fact that my time seems to escape very quickly—and that is a great pity. I wish we were not having this debate. I wish Hindmarsh Bridge was built and the Chapmans were profiting from it and people were able to buy nice blocks of land and enjoy the river view because I would like to be talking about what the Australian told us on 30 October when it talked about Pat O'Shane's speech on black family violence and our inability to address that, along with the glaucoma, the alcoholism and the substance abuse. The Australian, in its editorial, says:

There is compelling evidence to suggest that domestic violence and physical and sexual abuse of children is widespread among Aboriginal communities but public acknowledgment of this is rare. . . There is other evidence the problem needs urgent attention. Statistics from the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region suggest that Aboriginal women are roughly 33 times more likely to die as a result of domestic violence than other Australians. The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care has estimated up to 50 per cent of Aboriginal children are victims of family violence.

And the article goes on. They are the issues for us. We still have failed to address them as a parliament and as a past government. I think there are some intentions now to try to get to those issues but we are still arguing over a bridge on the basis of what people have put forward, people who live an urban lifestyle today.

Let me say that there are a few things that really start to annoy me. Fancy instituting into Aboriginal culture the word `business'. They never did business; they were self-supporting groups. They did not trade to any extent. But all of a sudden that is a nice catchy word that the European community understand—women's business. Let me tell you something from all my knowledge of them: women were not consulted on very much and they did not have too many secrets. It was a silly proposition and a silly proposition for a minister to use a law in the way he did.

But what was the great achievement of all of that? You turned tens of thousands, if not millions, of Australians against Aboriginal people because the general population is not so silly. They know that building a bridge will not stop women having babies; they know that a minister, as the judge eventually told him, must open the evidence before making a decision. In the end, they took it out on the minister and his electorate and, more importantly, we hear all these other issues that are running around today. It is totally silly. When one reads the entire book The Wreck of the Barque Stefano one will get a great idea of Aboriginal life in 1857 in a remote area. I can tell you that it was very tough and very difficult, and they lived on the verge of starvation. We have given them alcoholism and some things I regret but the reality is that we have got to be a bit more sensible. (Time expired)