‘Bob stood by us’: Hawke remembered fondly by Indigenous leaders

Bob Hawke has been remembered fondly by Indigenous leaders for his commitment to Indigenous rights despite ultimately failing to deliver on his promise of pursuing a treaty.

The former Australian prime minister died in Sydney on Thursday, aged 89.

John Ah Kit was director of the Northern Land Council (NLC) when Aboriginal leaders of the Northern Territory presented Hawke with the Barunga statement, on Jawoyn country east of Katherine in 1988.

The Barunga statement was a historic declaration by the land councils and traditional owners, of demands and aspirations – carefully-worded, handcrafted, painted and written on a bark – and presented by the chair of the Northern Land Council, Galarrwuy Yunupingu and the chairman of the Central Land Council, Wenten Rubuntja.

“Bob was a legend in his own right, but he had a special relationship with the Katherine region that in some ways transcended, for us, the mere fact of being a prime minister,” Ah Kit said.

“Back in ’88, the 200th anniversary of the Invasion, he was more than willing to come to the Barunga Festival and talk to the land councils at that historical event.

“And he listened to us, he was patient and listened to us. He clearly wanted to do something which is why he was happy to sign the Barunga statement which called for a treaty. There was no doubt about his genuineness.”

Bob Hawke co-signed the statement and set a deadline for a treaty at the end of 1990, but a major obstacle was the strident statements of hard-right politicians in the Liberal party, in particular the president, John Elliott, and opposition leader, John Howard, as well as resistance within his own party.

In a statement from the Yothu Yindi Foundation, Galarrwuy Yunupingu said Hawke was “a friend of the Yolgnu people”.

“His efforts to bridge the gap between black and white Australia were always sincere, and continued after the end of his prime ministership,” Yunupingu said.

“We did not achieve all that was set out in the Barunga statement, but it remains in parliament, and we continue to pursue its aspirations. We will remember Mr Hawke fondly, a smile on his face.”

One of Hawke’s first actions after being elected prime minister in 1983 was to amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to return Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to the Anangu people, breaking a long stalemate.

“This is an historic decision and is a measure of the willingness of the government, on behalf of the Australian people, to recognise the just and legitimate claims of a people who have been dispossessed of their land but who have never lost their spiritual attachment to that land,” Hawke told the Launceston Examiner at the time.

John Ah Kit told Guardian Australia he met Bob Hawke again in 1991, while fighting to stop uranium mining at Guratba – the Jawoyn name for Coronation Hill.

Hawke refused to allow the mine to go ahead, saying he would not override the deeply held religious beliefs of the Jawoyn traditional owners. It was a decision which he later said cost him the prime ministership.

Ah Kit, who was later elected to the Territory parliament as a Labor MP and became the Territory’s first Aboriginal minister, said that despite not being able to deliver on his promise to pursue a treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, “Bob stood by us.”

“It was over the issue of Guratba , at a time when the mining companies were bashing us at a hundred miles an hour, that he stood firm by the custodians of that country,” he said. “He believed those old men and refused to back away. He and Gerry Hand pushed for the protection of the Sickness Country of which Guratba was a focus. Guratba was saved.

“I heard an interview with him much later when he said that Coronation Hill was the thing that brought him down, but Bob stood by us.

“And on his last day in office, he welcomed Jawoyn and other Aboriginal people to the official hanging of the Barunga statement in Parliament House. To me, that was a symbol of his legacy to us as Aboriginal people.”

Decades later, Hawke was at Woodford Folk Festival in 2017 when the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the successor to the Barunga statement that outlines a renewed path to treaty, was presented to the crowd.

Current Indigenous Labor MPs paid tribute to Hawke on Thursday night.

“His vision and legacy of a big hearted Australia, fair and inclusive of all, will serve this country for generations to come,” Labor social affairs spokeswoman Linda Burney said. “He is loved and will be missed by all.”

NT senator Malarndirri McCarthy thanked Hawke and said “lets finish what you started … with the Barunga statement in 1988.”

One of the authors of the Uluru Statement, University of New South Wales law professor Megan Davis, said on Thursday that Hawke “introduced me to the power of policy.”

“I am a child of the social mobility he made possible,” she said.

Even those who are more critical of Hawke’s failure to deliver on treaty and promises of extended land rights laws have praised his anti-racism stance.

“Hawke failed to deliver a treaty and scuttled national land rights by bowing to pressure from the mining lobby,” Darumbal and South Sea Islander writer Amy McQuire said. “But I can’t imagine an Australian PM being so open about how racist this country is today.”