NT: Herron brushes off Fraser challenge to government

AAP General News (Australia)
08-25-2000
NT: Herron brushes off Fraser challenge to government

DARWIN, Aug 25 AAP - Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron today brushed off former
prime minister Malcolm Fraser's veiled call for the government to be thrown out over Aboriginal
rights.

Senator Herron conceded that Mr Fraser had effectively indicated that people should
vote for another government because of Australia's lack of progress on indigenous policy.

"He didn't quite say that, he sort of inferred that," Senator Herron told reporters.

"It's a broad church; the Liberal Party's a great party, so you should join it because
you can get up at meetings and you can say what you like."

Senator Herron said he disagreed with much of what his party's former leader said in
a speech last night - which criticised coalition policy on the Stolen Generation, mandatory
sentencing and reconciliation.

"If government will not act, this is a matter on which people must act to secure a
government that will," Mr Fraser said in Darwin in the annual Vincent Lingiari Memorial
Lecture.

Senator Herron said Mr Fraser had almost completely overlooked the many forward-looking
and constructive activities in Aboriginal affairs.

The minister described as "cultural cringe" Mr Fraser's praise of the Canadian experience,
where a $350 million healing fund has been established and the government is negotiating
compensation with indigenous people outside court.

"The resolutions that occurred in Canada have not solved the problem," Senator Herron said.

"It seems as if we have this cultural cringe in Australia that we need to go overseas
to find out something."

Senator Herron also rejected Mr Fraser's argument that Australia should consider a
bill of rights since common law had patently failed indigenous Australians.

"I think we've got a very dynamic democracy that protects all of us and each of us
individually," he said.

"I don't think the common law has failed Aboriginal people."

AAP rmg/hu/mo

KEYWORD: STOLEN FRASER HERRON

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