By JANINE MacDONALD
CANBERRA
The chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Mr Gatjil Djerrkura, will support calls for a referendum of all indigenous Australians on the question of a treaty and possibly a separate Aboriginal government.
In a move set to further inflame tensions between indigenous Australia and the Federal Government, Mr Djerrkura will use his Australia Day address to make the first in a series of sustained attacks against the Government and to call for a treaty.
He is one of the signatories to a newspaper advertisement, running on Australia Day, that demands a referendum as part of the forthcoming ATSIC elections.
Referendum questions could include whether indigenous people want their own government, a bill of rights, co-sharing of land or the seeking of levies for non-indigenous people using land.
The coordinator of the campaign, activist Mr Les Malezer, said ATSIC elections - held every three years at a cost of $6million - could be used to ask indigenous people if they wanted separate government and to elect delegates to negotiate a treaty with the Government.
``ATSIC is not a government, it is an authority controlled by the minister and it relies upon the Government for its budget,'' he said.
``Never have the Aboriginal people been given the opportunity of their own referendum.''
ATSIC held an executive meeting in Brisbane this week to thrash out a strategy. A source at the meeting said: ``Gatjil was pretty fired up. He thinks this year is going to be a pretty important year and they are going to run hard at the Government.''
In other developments yesterday, indigenous leaders were dismayed at reports that the Labor Party and Australian Republican Movement were prepared to walk away from a commitment to link the republic referendum to a plan to acknowledge Aborigines in the Constitution.
The ARM has convinced senior ALP strategists that asking Australians to vote on a constitutional preamble recognising prior occupation by Aborigines could invite a scare campaign and confuse the vote for a republic.
The Opposition's spokesman for Aboriginal affairs, Mr Daryl Melham, yesterday moved to reassure Mr Djerrkura that the decision had not been finalised.
Ms Evelyn Scott, the chairwoman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, said she would be appalled if Labor refused to back the preamble.
Ms Scott, an important figure in the1967 referendum that gave the Commonwealth the power to make laws concerning Aborigines, said: ``Let the people decide.
``In 1967 we were told during our campaign for the referendum would never get through, it would never succeed, our efforts were going to be in vain ... and it was the most successful referendum in this country to date.''
The former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, Mr Mick Dodson, said it was wrong to assume the electorate was too stupid to decide on the questions independently.
``Are they ever going to get around to it?'' he said.
``It seems to me whatever politicians are in power whenever the indigenous issue comes up, it is a little too inconvenient and they tend to treat it as expendable.''