23-10-2014 $1.5bn employment program has failed to get adequate numbers into work. It helped 618 people in the past 15 months get a job, but only 277 indigenous job seekers have found employment that ­lasted more than six months in ­remote regions in the past year; $ 120 million (of the $ 1.5 billion) programm has been spent so far, equating to about $433,000 per successful job placement of 6 months or longer. Only 30 per cent of the 37,000 unemployed Aborigines registered with the scheme are engaged in work for the dole. Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion declared that the system in place was “a disaster”.
Sources: The Australian, 21 oct 2014 and The Guardian 22 October 2014

16-10-2014 The ‘Recognise’ website, advocating for recognition of Indigenous people in the Australian Constitution summarizes their proposals:

• Remove Section 25 – which says the States can ban people from voting based on their race;
• Remove section 51(xxvi) – which can be used to pass laws that discriminate against people based on their race;
• Insert a new section 51A – to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to preserve the Australian Government’s ability to pass laws for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
• Insert a new section 116A, banning racial discrimination by government; and
• Insert a new section 127A, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were this country’s first tongues, while confirming that English is Australia’s national language.

This summary matches the list mentioned in ‘Wake Up Time’. The sensitive and most controversial proposal is the third, preserving the government’s right to make special laws for Indigenous people.

9-10-2014 Andrew Bolt wrote, referring to the proposal by Pearson and Craven on his blog: “I cannot understand how two bright men cannot see how preposterous it is to demand we scrap race-based clauses of the constitution (e.g. section 25), only to demand the very same thing be then inserted – and with even more emphasis (section 51). Referring to Aboriginality as culture in stead of race is according to Bolt “a rhetorical sleight”.
Warren Mundine writes in The Australian a response to a comment by Andrew Bolt: “(…)Today race theory is discredited pseudo-science. (…)The Oxford Dictionary defines a nation as “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory”. That precisely describes traditional indigenous societies. (…)I’m not part of an “Aboriginal race”. I’m a member of the Bundjalung nation.
(…)Bolt has spoken about his own identity struggle as the Australian-born child of Dutch immigrants. (…)He believes we can “renounce our ethnic identity, because I have done that myself”. That’s his choice. (…) Why should I renounce my Bundjalung identity?
Constitutional recognition isn’t about race. Nationhood isn’t about race. It’s about the continuation and evolution of culture through a group of people. (…)And I believe most will embrace recognising this in our Constitution. It’s that simple.”
Referring to ‘Wake Up Time’s’ research Mundine still needs to explain why, till the start of this debate, Aboriginals referred to themselves as ‘a race’, only to change that to ‘culture’ or ‘nation’ in the last few months. Secondly, even if Aboriginality is ‘a nation’, why would that lead to a special legal status?
Source: The Australian

2-10-2014 One of the main Aboriginal websites, Creative Spirits, favors recognition of Aboriginal people in the Australian Constitution.
Recognition only in the preamble of the constitution is not enough, because that would not lead to legal consequences. They favour inclusion of a new section 51 (26) stating that ‘government can only make laws to the benefit of Aboriginal people.’
Several Aboriginal activists don’t support recognition because it will take Aboriginals ‘back of the White Australia Policy, 100 years later’. Others reckon that ‘constitutional recognition is a way of promising something, but with no real substance’, meant to ‘divert our attention from the real issues’ or state that ‘it’s nothing more than a grand token gesture and will mean nothing.’
Another activist says that ‘the real hidden agenda of the proposed referendum is to coerce Aboriginal Nations and Peoples (…) to counter our sovereignty movement.’

25-9-2014 At the same time that Wake up Time was published, a group of authors published a book called ‘Recognise what?’. It is a collection of articles by four writers, edited by Gary Johns. The book is available at http://recognisewhat.org.au/. On 22 September 2014 Gery Johns gave an interesting podcast interview about the book.
In ‘Recognise what?’ the same question is raised as in ‘Wake Up Time’ with respect to the Constitutional change proposals: what exactly should be recognised and how? ‘Wake Up Time’ goes a step further in exploring and revealing the visible results of policies based on preferential treatment for Aboriginal people.

18-9-2014 Cape York leader Noel Pearson and conservative academic Greg Craven have presented Tony Abbott with a joint proposal for constitutional change. It includes a new indigenous body that would scrutinise legislation and advise parliament without having veto power without having a role in funding. Mr Pearson is understood to back a push for a debate on dedicated Senate seats for indigenous Australians.
The proposal also backs instating section 51 in the constitution, permitting laws to be made for indigenous people, recognising them as a constituent component of Australia’s fundamental culture, not as a race.
‘Wake Up Time’ shows that the move to instate section 51 in the constitution using the term culture in stead of race is hardly more than a trick; Aboriginal people themselves refer to Aboriginality as ‘a race’. Therefore section 51 is a racist section.
Source: The Australian 18/9/2014

11-9-2014 In the Australian federal senate a fierce discussion has been ignited by a senator, Jacqui Lambie, claiming to have some Aboriginal heritage in her genes. Indigenous groups deny the claim; politicians and press have taken up the fight…. is she, to some percentage Indigenous, or not???? This is happening in a country that calls itself a Western, democratic, civilised state.
This kind of discussion are impossible in any other civilised state, because they are irrelevant.
Nobody’s race should really matter. Yesterday a woman from South East QLD bought ‘Wake Up Time’. Her husband is Aboriginal with a long history dating back even to Irish settlers of 200 years ago. Because of that her – from her husband adopted – surname is English. All of this is interesting historical knowledge. For her it also means that she feels a tie to the Aboriginal history of Australia and that is great.
Why can’t Australia just see the positive side of this and embrace any good feeling about links to the Indigenous history of this land? Probably the answer has to do with the sensitivities over the racial and legal implications, that still exist her. It really is rather shameful.

4-9-2014 In an essay titled “A Rightful Place: Race, recognition and a more complete commonwealth”, Noel Pearson shows how the idea of “race” was embedded in the constitution, and the distorting effect this has had. “As long as we have a constitution that characterises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the basis of race, it will always have deleterious implications for their citizenship. It must be removed … This is not just a matter of symbolism. I think this will be a matter of psychology. The day we come to regard ourselves as people with a distinct heritage, with distinct cultures and languages but not of a distinct race, will be a day of psychological liberation. And it will also be liberating for those in the wider community.”
This is a remarkable statement, because it follows exactly the same reasoning as presented in Wake Up Time that it is not only possible, but even necessary to make a distinction between race and culture. We don’t need to kinds of citizens based on racial features.
If all Australians are legally similar, then putting more effort into the preservation of the cultural and linguistic heritage is not only still possible, but probably easier.

28-8-2014 One of the main issues raised in Wake Up Time is the question about the way the Australian Constitution should be changed to acknowledge the presence of Indigenous people before white settlement. A year ago the two main parties seemed to agree on proposals for the change and the Abbott government promised to come up with a final proposal within its first year in office. The minister for Indigenous affairs, Nigel Scullion, has now confirmed that the Abbott government is very likely to delay any formal discussion on a referendum until at least 2017. Main reason is alleged lack of enough community support at the moment. The discussion about the reform has changed to the issue of explicitly abandoning any form of racism, because that could clash with the freedom of speech. The main issue mentioned in Wake Up Time (abandoning any form of racial discrimination including preferential treatment) is a slightly different topic. Anyway, we’ve got one year more to go to the referendum. More on ABC