Shared history of racism spurs Liebler
PROMINENT Jewish lawyer Mark Leibler concedes that he had no idea how challenging co-chairing the Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians was going to be.
PROMINENT Jewish lawyer Mark Leibler concedes that he had no idea how challenging co-chairing the Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians was going to be.
But he this made the successful completion of the panel’s report into recognising Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders in the Australian Constitution, which was delivered to Prime Minister Julia Gillard last week, even more satisfying.
“It would have to be one of the most, if not the most challenging and difficult things that I’ve ever been engaged in,” he told The AJN this week.
“But I must say that we got our report out, our report is unanimous and I gained a great deal of satisfaction from what we’ve achieved,” he said.
The report calls for the Constitution to be amended to “recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of Australia, to affirm their full and equal citizenship, and to remove the last vestiges of racial discrimination from the Constitution”.
In launching the report last week, Leibler spoke of how racism had affected the story of his ancestry, telling how his parents fled Belgium in 1939 and how his maternal grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.
“My family has never forgotten our debt to Australia. We owe our freedom, prosperity and the very lives of our children and grandchildren to this country,” he said.
“For me, one way I can help repay this debt is by working to change our Constitution for the better.”
He told The AJN that indigenous Australians and the Jewish people had an understanding of “what racism is all about”, one of the motivations behind his work.
He described the process of working on the document as daunting.
“There are probably around over 200 different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, they all have their different aspirations, it’s not a question of one size fits all,” he said.
“But I think we came up with something which was extensively tested, in round-tables and in consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples … our recommendations have gone through a very, very rigorous process.
“And I’m reasonably confident that these recommendations will stand the test of time and that we will in the course of time be able to mount a successful referendum.”
Leibler was personally appointed to the 22-member panel by the Prime Minister a year ago after serving as co-chair of Reconciliation Australia for more than a decade.
GARETH NARUNSKY
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