The rainbow never sets

Minister for Social Service and Aboriginal Affairs, supporting him in his stand for Aborigines, in particular his efforts in securing land rights for Aborigines.

The Australian, 26/7/69, had carried a report on a speech by Mr. Snedden, then the minister for Immigration, who said that "we must have a single culture and do not want a multi-cultural Australia. Those of different ethnic origin must integrate and unite into our community." I was alarmed. Is that what the referendum had achieved? I wrote to Mr. Snedden:

"With this statement you seem to be ignoring our Aborigines completely, as with them, together with our Chinese, Italian, Greek etc. communities, we already have a multi-racial society in Australia. Therefore, your whole reasoning in support of your type of immigration policy does not hold É trying to preserve old European traditions and expecting from Aborigines to be 'integrated' into the Australian community is, of course, blatant racism."

And I reminded him that I didn't want Hitler's racist policy in Australia.

"Such a policy cannot lead to peace, as we know. But an immigration policy based on tolerance and justice may lead to an enrichment of Australia's culture and must eventually be to the benefit of our whole region here in South East Asia. Let us hope for the sake of our future, that such a policy will become Australia's immigration policy."

I sent a copy of that letter to the then leader of the Opposition, Gough Whitlam.

During my student years I attended seminars on Aboriginal spirituality, where I came to appreciate the depth of their traditional religion. Whatever they do has spiritual significance, and there is no dimension in life which is not touched by the spiritual. This was driven home to me by Charles Harris, the president of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress of the Uniting Church.

The Congress was formed after Aboriginal christian leaders from the Uniting Church had met at Crystal Creek in August 1982. Charles was, like I, a member of the Commission for World Mission, and he stayed at our home several times. On 9 May 1988 the new Parliament House was opened in Canberra. I took part with Charles in the protest march of Aboriginal people, which ended in the forecourt of Parliament House. He had a large Aboriginal flag to unfurl, so we went together to the top of the western wing, facing the main entrance. There, laid in mosaic, was the Aboriginal emblem of the rainbow serpent watching over the entrance to the meeting place. He explained that the hill, on which the Parliament House was built, was actually a traditional Aboriginal site for a meeting

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