An ungracious winner is even less palatable than a sore loser. Australian of the Year Mick Dodson falls into the former category with his reluctant decision to accept the award bestowed on him yesterday to mark this year’s Australia Day celebrations. Dodson said he “angsted” over whether to accept the title and did so on advice from his family. He should have stuck with his first instincts to decline the honour.

Dodson’s award does not honour Australia Day - it diminishes it. The indigenous activist has made clear his views about the evils of Invasion Day. It was a “day of reflection” rather than celebration, Dodson told ABC radio this morning. In fact, the day is one of celebration as many Australians mark the settlement of the nation. Dodson may not like our history, but he cannot change it. For Dodson, the arrival of the First Fleet marks “the day our world came crashing down”. For most Australians, that day marks the beginning of a nation built on the rule of law and parliamentary sovereignty. 


To accept an award, even begrudgingly, to mark a day he does not recognise suggests that personal aggrandisement triumphed over principle. In other words, hypocrisy explains Dodson’s decision to accept the award. He is of course free to campaign to move Australia Day to a different date. But his commitment to that cause would have been better served had he refused to accept the Australian of the Year title given on a date he opposes.

Hypocrisy aside, those who awarded Dodson the honour have clearly not caught up with the times. Dodson’s dogged pursuit of symbolism in the form of a treaty and an apology has delivered nix for indigenous advancement. His agenda is the politics of old based on collective aboriginal victimhood not individual advancement. In his acceptance speech, he talked about the need for a greater focus on human rights as a means of promoting human dignity. The failed policies of the last thirty years have proven that a rights agenda cannot do that. Yet, Dodson has stubbornly remained on the losing side of the debate in contrast to other indigenous leaders who now recognise that encouraging their people to assume responsibility for their life will do more for human dignity. Warren Mundine is one of those leaders who had the courage to eschew a rights agenda when it became clear it was failing indigenous people. And he was on the mark when he pointed out that a return to symbolism is a backward step, saying of Dodson that “He has no practicality whatsoever and that’s why he’s been ignored for 13 years.”

SMH journalist Joel Gibson today waxed lyrical about the times now suiting Dodson. Writing that the Australian of the Year would now have a new platform to pursue “a treaty, reparations and an end to talk about assimilation”, Gibson merely confirmed that sections of the media are equally clueless about the fundamental shift that has occurred in indigenous politics this past decade under their political nemesis John Howard.

Lew Griffiths, and adviser to the Cape York Indigenous Association, told the Sydney Morning Herald that” Mick’s not doing his job if he’s not at loggerheads with everybody. “I’ve known Mick for 30 years and I’ve never known Mick not to be at loggerheads with every government.” If being at “loggerheads” is the greatest praise to justify Dodson as the 2009 Australian of the Year, then this award has lost its way.