Fed: ATSIC s new chairman says native title top priority

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-1999
Fed: ATSIC s new chairman says native title top priority

By Rod McGuirk

CANBERRA, Dec 16 AAP - ATSIC's radical new chairman Geoff Clark today flagged land
rights as his top priority as head of Australia's peak indigenous agency.

The former heavyweight boxer is regarded as a compromise between the only other candidates,
government-appointed incumbent Gatjil Djerrkura and high-profile Sydney activist Charles
Perkins.

The ATSIC board carried a motion of unanimous support for their first elected chairman
today following his surprise victory by secret ballot.

The ginger-haired Victorian headed off any criticisms that his paler skin made him
any less indigenous than his predecessor - a traditional East Arnhem Land Aboriginal elder.

"The fact is that we are the one people, we are the one mob in this country," Mr Clark
told journalists.

Mr Clark, formerly ATSIC's commissioner for native title and a 20-year campaigner for
land rights, described today as a defining moment in indigenous affairs.

"My priority is to return land to indigenous people," he said.

"We as the black nation in this country have the right to pursue our rights ... wherever
they take us."

Mr Clark, the vice-chairman of the treaty-seeking Aboriginal Provisional Government
headed by Tasmanian Michael Mansell, predicted the government would find his leadership
more radical.

"I'm happy to wear that (radical) label," Mr Clark said.

But his election did not signal another rocky era in the relationship between government
and its chief indigenous adviser, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

"I would hope that we would have settled some of our differences in the last three
years," he said.

"I might have to step back occasionally but that's okay."

Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron said he looked forward to working with the
predominantly new ATSIC board for improved social and economic outcomes.

Mr Clark said governments must understand that ATSIC constituents also expected the
recognition of their rights, which were a far different issue from economic and social
disadvantage.

ATSIC's first chairwoman Lowitja O'Donoghue, a Labor appointment, welcomed Mr Clark's
election, saying he was her pick of the candidates.

At its first meeting today, the new board also re-elected controversial powerbroker
"Sugar" Ray Robinson to his deputy chairman post.

Commissioners also backed north Queensland activist Murrandoo Yanner whose election
to the board was overturned by Senator Herron yesterday because of an 18-month suspended
jail sentence over a pub brawl.

"Let me say there was a lot of support for Mr Yanner's inclusion in ATSIC around the
table today," Mr Clark said.

Mr Yanner, 27, is appealing his disqualification in the Federal Court.

His regional council, which elected him ATSIC's youngest commissioner on Tuesday, has
yet to schedule another election, an ATSIC spokesman said.

AAP rmg/mfh/apm

KEYWORD: ATSIC NIGHTLEAD

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