Page 3964 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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I would like to address a number of points which the Chief Minister raised. Firstly, in relation to comments about Aboriginal artefacts, I am going to quote from the Canberra Times of Saturday, 15 October. Quite clearly, what has now been proposed is not satisfactory to the Aboriginal community or to the Australian community as a whole. This goes back quite a long way. Under the heading "Acton museum site condemned as home of 'dead spirits'", the Canberra Times states:
A member of the 1974-75 inquiry which recommended establishment of a national museum in Canberra criticised yesterday the latest deal between the ACT and Federal Governments to establish a scaled-down version of the museum on Acton Peninsula.
Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney said the deal had been struck without consultation with Aborigines and would ignore key aspects of the proposal for a national institution.
Professor Mulvaney was particularly critical of the fact that the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, which donated many Aboriginal artefacts to the museum, had been frozen out of discussions.
He said the Acton site, as opposed to the museum's Yarramundi Reach site, would "set the representation of an essentially outdoor society in an entirely European-made environmental context".
Professor Mulvaney also expressed concern over Acton Peninsula - the site of the old Royal Canberra Hospital - because when it had been discussed previously, Aborigines had opposed it because they believed it to be associated with spirits of the dead.
Another very learned Australian, the eminent historian Professor Donald Horne, before the details of this latest deal became known, told the Canberra Times that he was opposed to the idea of an Aboriginal gallery being developed in isolation from the rest of the museum. Professor Horne, a former head of the Australia Council, was surprised by the Prime Minister's apparent opposition because "a republic without a national museum is a contradiction in terms". The professor went on to say:
It shows that Paul Keating's erratic genius -
he was being kind -
has some very great lumps of ignorance in it ... We have in Canberra a chance to build the best museum in the world. That cannot be replaced by some bullshit about an information superhighway.
Professor Horne said that a National Museum could provide a focus for, and restore a sense of reality to, Australia's history.
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