THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL IS INTERVIEWED BY GREG TURNBULL ON THE TEN NETWORK’S MEET THE PRESS

29 May 2005

Greg Turnbull (GT) Good morning and welcome to Meet The Press.

Well it’s five years since hundreds of thousands of Australians walked across bridges to show their support for reconciliation. How far have we come since then? In a rare television interview, the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery, gives us his view of where to now for reconciliation.

GT - Well it’s National Reconciliation Week, but many Australians would be hard pressed to say what that means, and what it’s striving for.

The Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery, has a keen interest in advancing the cause, and he’s our guest this morning.

GT - Your Excellency, welcome to the programme.

Governor-General (MJ) - Nice to be with you Greg.

GT – What do you understand by the term ‘reconciliation’, and how can it be advanced?

MJ – Well I like to look at the definition, if one can put it that way, in terms of linkage – linking the magnificent history of a people going back at least 40000 years, and probably 60000 years, with all that that means, to the modern day and the people of the modern day. So I prefer to define it in a linkage sense.

GT - But is that a commendable, lofty notion? Does it have a practical effect, because as we know, the Government recently has been talking principally about practical reconciliation, and dealing with those health, education and imprisonment, and other substance abuse problems. How does the notion that you are discussing relate to those problems?

MJ – Well I think there is a practical connotation to it. You may recall that the day before Australia Day at Uluru, a very spiritual place for indigenous people, I spoke about the desire, perhaps the need, for all Australians to look at the history of our indigenous people, going way back that 40-60 thousand years because it’s a marvellous story to tell. How did those people survive for so long, longer than any other known civilisation, through eons of history, probably taking in all sorts of different climate changes? But they did survive and they prospered. And they had systems of activity and operation and story-telling and trade – a history that I think we should be doing more to record and understand. And what I was suggesting at Uluru was that perhaps those people with real knowledge and wisdom could think deeply about this and look at the enduring features of aboriginal history, culture, tradition, with a view to bringing it, perhaps, into the education system. Because my feeling is that if indigenous history and culture was really taught well and consistently across the nation, it would do much for Australia to understand where it has come from, rather than just say from 1788, European settlement. If we all understood that our history went back through the indigenous culture 60000 years and that European settlement was just one component of that history, I think we’d do a lot for reconciliation and indeed national pride.

GT – Do you think the national debate has moved on from the roadblock that became the “Sorry” controversy?

MJ – It is moving on I think to practical measures. I mean there isn’t an Australian from my experience who doesn’t want to see indigenous people living happy, contented and fulfilling lives. And how to do that will be continuing topics for the reconciliation meeting in the next two days. But I’m coming in, I guess, from a slightly different approach to the practical health, education aspects, to this linkage business and understanding our history. But I think there are two other areas in which we can all play a very good role. And one is to publicise far more widely the hundreds, probably the thousands, of success stories in indigenous life. I’ll give you one. Many years ago I was privileged to establish a Unit, an Army Unit, in northern Australia called NORFORCE. It’s a surveillance unit. It’s part-time Regular, part-time Reserve, but it has 300 indigenous soldiers in it. It’s probably the largest employer of indigenous people in the country. And we set up another Unit in Cape York called 51 Far North Queensland Regiment which has a lot of Torres Strait Islanders in it. Now they are both very good news stories. And there are hundreds and hundreds of others. And what I’d like to see is the good news stories being publicised far more frequently than the ‘nasties’, if I can put it that way. And let’s look at how and why individuals and groups have succeeded in the way that they have.

GT – Governor-General, if I can move from a good news story to a bad news story for a moment. Most Australians over the weekend have had something to say about the Schapelle Corby case. As our representative of our Head of State, do you have a view on it?

MJ – Well I wouldn’t be stating…I think it’s totally inappropriate for me Greg. There’s so much discussion on it and I don’t think it’s something that I should be talking about publicly.

GT – Would you lend your office to any plea to the Indonesian President that might be down the track?

MJ – Well I think that’s speculation. We’ll just have to see how things go. I have been known to do that in at least one other case but we’ll leave it at that to see how things develop.

GT – OK, can I just put it to you that the republic debate seems to have been dormant in the period, the 21 months that you’ve been Governor-General. Is that good luck or good management?

MJ – Well I’ve always said that people should take a great interest in how they’re governed. Indeed, that was one of the key themes of my Australia Day address – that we should all look at being far better informed and that civics and citizenship should be taught at schools. And that process is now being developed by State and Federal governments, and I think it’s to be applauded. I mean, everybody has the right to look at the way things are happening, including the way we are governed, and if people can come up with systems that are better, then that’s fine. But my point has always been, to make any judgements about the future, wise judgements about the future, you’ve got to understand how your present system works. It has been successful for over 100 years and I think you have to look at why it’s been successful before you can make wise judgements about perhaps any prospective changes.

GT – Governor-General, we’re just about out of time. I thank you for your time. But help me out with this one just before you go. Are you in fact our Head of State or in fact a representative of our Head of State?

MJ – (chuckles) Well, The Queen is the Monarch and I represent her, and I carry out all the functions of Head of State.

GT – Very good. I’ll pass that on to Tony Abbott. Thank you very much Your Excellency for your time this morning.

MJ – Thank you very much Greg. I’ve enjoyed being with you.

(Ends)