Tasmania

Michael Mansell

" ... 'Cleaning up' out-of-date parts of the Constitution such as section 25 ... or mucking around with s51 (race powers) will not help a single Aboriginal," Michael Mansell, Legal Director of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre said. "No state has ever used s25 and would not get away with it today.

"The proposal is to constitutionally delete Aborigines from the constitutional face of Australia. This promotes assimilation and effectively forces Aborigines to copy the behaviour of white people if Aborigines expect not to be discriminated against. It is a deplorable statement.”

Mr Mansell also said that the proposal to make English the national language is based on notions of "white supremacy” and could have the effect of making Aboriginal languages "subservient” to English. [node:read-more:link]