“On this annual observance, let us commit to fully realizing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the rights to self-determination and to traditional lands, territories and resources.”
“Our desire for Makarrata is about self-determination, genuine partnership and moving beyond survival. It’s about putting our future into our own hands,
Makarrata was needed because the Apology and successive reforms from both sides of politics have not on their own delivered healing and unity for the nation, or enough progress for Aboriginal people.”
NSWALC Chairman, Cr Roy Ah-See Part 1 Below
What is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?
A declaration is a statement adopted by governments from around the world. Declarations are not legally binding, but they outline goals for countries to work towards.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration) represents 20 years of negotiation between Indigenous peoples, governments and human rights experts, and argues that Indigenous peoples all around the world are entitled to all human rights, including collective rights.
The rights within the Declaration, which was formally adopted by Australia in 2009, set standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of Indigenous peoples.
Why have a Declaration for Indigenous peoples?
The Declaration is necessary to combat the policies of assimilation and integration employed by colonisers throughout the world that have uprooted, marginalised and dispossessed First Nation peoples. This common history of dispossession created many circumstances that remain unique to Indigenous cultures. These groups bear similar marks of colonisation, while continuing to practice their incredibly diverse cultures and traditions.
The rights of all people are protected through international law mechanisms. However, what these fail to provide to Indigenous peoples are the “specific protection of the distinctive cultural and group identity of indigenous peoples as well as the spatial and political dimension of that identity, their ways of life.”[1] Prior to the Declaration there was a lack of a legal guarantee of Indigenous communities to their collective rights, such as ownership of traditional lands, the return of sacred remains, artefacts and sites, and the guarantee of governments to honour treaty obligations.
What does the Declaration mean for Australia?
The Declaration sets out rights both for individuals and collective groups. This reflects the tendency of Indigenous groups around the world, to organise societies as a group (a clan, nation, family or community). An example of these group rights is the acknowledgment that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have the right to own country, hold cultural knowledge as a group and the right to define their groups.
Some other rights secured in the document include, the right to equality, freedom from discrimination, self-determination and self-government. Many of these rights are already secured through Commonwealth and State legislation. However, the Declaration is Australia’s promise that mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples will be able to benefit from these rights.
The significant disadvantages currently faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia only serve to highlight the ongoing relevance and importance of the Declaration.
What is self-determination and why is it important?
Self-determination is a key part of the Declaration, and is a right unique to Indigenous communities around the world. Self-determination can only be achieved through the consultation and participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the formation of all policies and legislation that impacts upon them. Self-determination is characterised by three key elements that require Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to have:
Choice to determine how their lives are governed and the paths to development
Participation in decisions that affect the lives of First Nation peoples.
Control over their lives and futures, including economic, social and cultural development.
A campaign for Makarrata launches in Sydney today Thursday August 9, when Aboriginal people and their supporters will walk from Hyde Park to the NSW Parliament.
Led by the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) and Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations (CAPO), the walk will call on Parliamentarians to join a movement for a better future for Aboriginal people, and all Australians.
NSWALC Chairman, Cr Roy Ah-See said that the walk will promote a positive alternative agenda for Aboriginal affairs in the state. .
Makarrata is gift from the Yolngu language. It means coming together after a struggle. It has been used nationally since the National Aboriginal Conference in the late 1970’s and featured prominently in the historic Uluru Statement from the Heart.
“What we have seen to date are disconnected stepping stones towards a vague future focused on survival. What we need is a clear pathway for Aboriginal people to thrive, and for all Australians to walk with us on this journey.
“Our successes have been many, but we still face significant challenges. We want to see increased prosperity for Aboriginal families across the state, with more of our people going to university and getting better jobs.
“We want to see our children flourishing; walking proudly and successfully in two worlds. Taking part in the economy and enriching the country with their culture.
“By walking with us we are asking all political parties to commit to genuine partnership, to face our challenges together, and grow and support our successes.
“NSW is where the struggle started, and it is right that the largest state, with the largest population of Aboriginal people in the country takes genuine steps towards Makarrata,
“We are looking for all Australians to join us on our journey towards Makarrata,” Cr Ah-See said.
There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, living across 90 countries. They make up less than 5 per cent of the world’s population, but account for 15 per cent of the poorest. They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures.
Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Despite their cultural differences, indigenous peoples from around the world share common problems related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples.
Indigenous peoples have sought recognition of their identities, way of life and their right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources for years, yet throughout history their rights have always been violated. Indigenous peoples today, are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of people in the world. The international community now recognizes that special measures are required to protect their rights and maintain their distinct cultures and way of life.
2018 Theme: Indigenous peoples’ migration and movement
As a result of loss of their lands, territories and resources due to development and other pressures, many indigenous peoples migrate to urban areas in search of better prospects of life, education and employment.
They also migrate between countries to escape conflict, persecution and climate change impacts. Despite the widespread assumption that indigenous peoples live overwhelmingly in rural territories, urban areas are now home to a significant proportion of indigenous populations. In Latin America, around 40 per cent of all indigenous peoples live in urban areas — even 80 per cent in some countries of the region. In most cases, indigenous peoples who migrate find better employment opportunities and improve their economic situation but alienate themselves from their traditional lands and customs. Additionally, indigenous migrants face a myriad of challenges, including lack of access to public services and additional layers of discrimination.
The 2018 theme will focus on the current situation of indigenous territories, the root causes of migration, trans-border movement and displacement, with a specific focus on indigenous peoples living in urban areas and across international borders. The observance will explore the challenges and ways forward to revitalize indigenous peoples’ identities and encourage the protection of their rights in or outside their traditional territories.
The observance of the International Day will take place on Thursday 9 August 2018 from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm in the ECOSOC Chamber at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The programme can be found in Events. More information in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) page.
Languages play a crucially important role in the daily lives of all peoples, are pivotal in the areas of human rights protection, peace building and sustainable development, through ensuring cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue. However, despite their immense value, languages around the world continue to disappear at an alarming rate due to a variety of factors. Many of them are indigenous languages.
Indigenous languages in particular are a significant factor in a wide range of other indigenous issues, notably education, scientific and technological development, biosphere and the environment, freedom of expression, employment and social inclusion.
“ A reconciled nation will be when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have self-determination over their own lives without the constraints of poverty and the burden of disease. We will be in charge of our own affairs and in control over decisions that impact on us.
Our past will be fully acknowledged and our collective future celebrated without reservation. There will be no more debates over our shared history and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ land ownership.
Racism will not be a barrier to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accessing education, employment and health services.
There will be complete acceptance of our unique cultural heritage and identities by all Australians enabling our languages, our connection to land and our cultural practices to flourish without restraint and be incorporated in all aspects of our nationhood “
Pat Turner AM NACCHO CEO interview with Reconciliation Australia when asked : What does a reconciled Australia look like to you?
“They’ve allowed us to retain our identity”
NACCHO Aboriginal Health Australia CEO Pat Turner tells National Rural Health Alliance Di Martin about the importance of Aboriginal grandmothers guarding language and culture #BecauseOfHerWecan
Ms Pat Turner AM is the daughter of an Arrernte man and a Gurdanji woman, and was born and raised in Alice Springs.
After her father’s death in an accident at work, Ms Turner’s family experienced extreme financial hardship. Her mother’s courage and leadership in the face of such difficult circumstances was a constant inspiration.
Ms Turner joined the Australian Public Service in the early 1970s and joined the senior executive ranks by the mid-1980s. She worked in a range of prominent roles, including as Deputy Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet during 1991-92, where she had oversight of the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. In 1994-98, Ms Turner was the CEO of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, making her the most senior Indigenous government official in the country.
Over the years, Ms Turner became more committed to the politics of self-determination. At a professional level, this meant being a firm supporter of community-based service delivery of health and welfare programs for Aboriginal people.
Today, Ms Turner is the CEO of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO). NACCHO is the peak body representing 144 Aboriginal community-controlled health services across the country on Aboriginal health and wellbeing issues.
Interview continued: What or who got you involved in reconciliation?
I first started thinking about reconciliation and the place of Aboriginal people in Australia after attending the graduation ceremony of Uncle Charlie Perkins from Sydney University with Nanna Hetty Perkins. I was thirteen at the time, and listening to Charlie speak, I started to understand the importance of education if I wanted to make a difference.
After joining the Australian Public Service and moving from Alice Springs to Canberra, I was later appointed Deputy Secretary, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. It was here I had a specific role in working for the Government on the legislation and establishment of the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation. I was the inaugural National Secretary to the Council.
After returning to Alice Springs in 2006 I held the position of CEO of National Indigenous Television where I supported the celebration of Indigenous culture and helped challenge perceptions and fears of many non-Indigenous Australians about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that are a continuing barrier to reconciliation.
What do you see as the biggest challenges to national reconciliation?
Our biggest challenges are twofold:
Firstly, making both Federal and State Governments truly accountable to eliminate poverty and disadvantage endured by our people.
Secondly, acceptance and respect by all Australians of our unique cultural heritage and identities, our relationship with land, our languages and our cultural practices, so that those areas and the essence of our beings are incorporated into all aspects of Australian life and government efforts to eliminate our disadvantage.
Recently, Australian Indigenous leaders have set out a blueprint for action in the Redfern Statement.
This blueprint acknowledges that Aboriginal people have provided viable, holistic solutions.
Without a change in leadership attitudes, governance and administration, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women will continue to be disadvantaged, and their health will continue to suffer.
It is high time that Australian policymaking recognized the above issues and acted with integrity on the deficits because we will not have equality until Australia recognizes the impact of the political determinants of health as identified throughout this paper.
Australia will never be a whole, functioning society until institutionalised oppression ceases. ”
The role of government policy is to support its citizenry to thrive. By this measure, Australian policy is failing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and women are bearing the brunt of failed policy through seriously compromised health and wellbeing. “
In this analysis, Vanessa Lee from the University of Sydney applies a lens of political determinants of health to illuminate policy failure for Indigenous women and their communities, and calls for the government to be held accountable to the outcomes of generations of harmful policy.
This piece isdrawn from an article that ran in the Journal of Public Health Policy in 2017.
Paternalism is compromising the health of Indigenous women
When it comes to Australian policy, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are not being supported. Rather, a long history of paternalistic government decisions created barriers towards Indigenous women achieving equivalent health and wellbeing measures when compared to non-Indigenous women.
The manifestation of colonisation has included a displacement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a history of segregation and apartheid, and a breakdown of culture and cultural values through the impact of missionaries and government legislation, Acts and policies.
These political determinants of health breech human rights conventions, lack an evidence base, and are profoundly damaging across generations. Better policy could be and should be implemented but there appears to be a lack of political will.
What this means is that Indigenous women have a cultural and family relationship with their social and economic world.
The breakdown in life circumstances are evident today across employment and education where 39 per cent of the Indigenous females were employed compared to 55 per cent of the non-Indigenous females; and 4.6 per cent overall of the Indigenous compared to 20 per cent of the non-Indigenous people have completed a bachelor degree or higher degree.[1]
Educational attainment and employment are intrinsically linked to economic opportunity, with higher levels of education reducing societal disadvantage. Failure to address these fundamental social determinants in early life contributes to life-long disadvantage.
When the British colonized Australia, they did so under a paternalistic ideology that remains evident today as Australian federal, state, territory and local governments continue to implement paternalistic policies. Paternalistic policies are those that restrict choices to individuals, ostensibly in their ‘best interest’ and without their consent.
The justification of such policies is often to change individuals’ damaging behaviours; for example gambling, smoking, consumption of drugs and alcohol, or the reliance on welfare payments. Given the etymology of the word ‘paternalism’, it is little wonder that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have been the victims of extraordinarily high levels of sexism, domestic violence, marginalization, work-place lateral violence and racism.
Especially since the policies were developed and implemented from colonisation, with little or no evidence to support the need to change behaviours of the First Nations women of Australia. The response to the impact of these paternalistic policies has resulted in an increase in prevalence in pain and trauma based behaviours such as substance abuse.
Social determining factors
Social determinants of health are about “the cause of the cause.” Poorer health outcomes are not narrowed to individual lifestyle choice or risky behaviour. Understanding the social determinants of health requires looking at the relationship between cause, social factors and health outcomes. Social factors are those societal factors that influence health throughout life and include housing, education, access to healthcare and family support.
The diagram below highlights an example of the circular relationship between the causes of the social factors and the social factors themselves across a person’s life stages. The unborn Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander child of parents with high drug and/or alcohol intake, low income and low education will be born into an environment influenced at the macrosocial level by history, culture, discrimination and the political economy.
This first stage of inequality can manifest in increasing risky behaviours such as smoking, drinking, unhealthy eating, and lack of exercise or imprisonment. These behaviours have been associated with intellectual impairment that continues through all life stages.[ii] Quite often the continuous exposure to drugs and alcohol from adults becomes part of the child’s assumption of the normality of risk-taking behaviour and the cycle continues.
he imprisonment of women causes an upheaval in their lives and that of their families and for Indigenous women it also creates a breakdown in their world view and to all that is connected to their world view.
Diagram 1: Relationship between ‘the cause’ and life stages
Relationship between causes, social factors and life stages
This truth epitomizes the gross inequalities that continue to exist in Australian society. Inequities in health are heightened because social class not only includes education, employment and income but also differential access to power. Social class structures are characterized by factors including race, sex/gender, ethnicity, Indigeneity and religion. Fundamentally, it is structural issues of class and political disadvantage that place Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women close to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
Denial of a human right directly violates a person’s right to self-determination. These rights should be protected by a covenant to which Australia is a signatory—The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) (The Covenant). It states that “all peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development” (Article 1 Section1).
The level of Australia’s commitment to this covenant became questionable with the implementation of The Northern Territory National Emergency Response (the Intervention) in 2007. This was a federal government action that ignored one of its own government-funded reports highlighting the critical importance of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the design and implementation of initiatives for their communities. In less than six months, following the politically motivated “Intervention” that was introduced just prior to an election, the Australian parliament introduced a complex legislative package consisting of five Bills, all 450 pages long and passed in parliament on the same day.
The bills were primarily associated with welfare reform. In 2008, a national emergency response by the Australian government took effect and was administered across all of the Northern Territory using the political rationale ‘to protect Aboriginal children’. This appeared to be an excuse to further erode Indigenous self-determination rather than to address the safety of children; as one critic pointed out, “we have witnessed the abandonment of consultation with Indigenous people, diminishing use of available statistical and research evidence and increased marginalization of the experts – especially if their views diverge from national leadership.” (p. 7)
The impact on health outcomes
Welfare data published in 2016 show that Indigenous children in the Northern Territory were being removed from families at 9.8 times more often than that of non-Indigenous children based on ‘reforms’ in the five new ‘welfare reform’ Bills.
The Northern Territory Indigenous death rates are still 2.3 times higher than those of non-Indigenous people, and Indigenous people experience assault victimization at six times the rate of non-Indigenous people (see here).
The 2014/2015 Social Survey found that fewer than half of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over were employed, and males were more than twice as likely as females to be working full time.
The deplorable outcomes of these politically motivated policies are most clearly illustrated by the understanding that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women between the ages of 20 and 24 years are four times more likely to commit suicide than are the other woman and between 70-60% of Indigenous women in prisons are due to them being victims of domestic violence.
Holding government accountable to policy outcomes
These outcomes demonstrate the political failure of Australian governments at national, state, territory and local levels to work with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and the lack of integrity surrounding equitable policy administration, leadership and governance.
Many policies developed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders over a long period of time have contributed to the shameful inequity in Australian society between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. This level of inequity is even more dramatic with regard to Indigenous women.
The Covenant is neither the first Human Rights Charter that Australia has signed nor the first it has violated to the disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, their health and well-being (and of the entire Indigenous population). Australia played a key role as one of eight nations involved in developing the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when Australian Dr HV Evatt was the President of the United Nations General Assembly.
Until a referendum allowed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to become citizens, there was scant regard to Article 2: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”. The Australian government is disregarding its own stated ideals when it disregards the rights of Indigenous Australians.
The gap in health outcomes between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians is becoming more apparent, leading to calls for a new and more effective response. The effects of discriminative policies are now being exposed more often – thus, they become more visible. Non-Indigenous services account for 80 per cent of Indigenous expenditure, and there is a lack of transparency and clarity evaluating how these organizations address policies developed by government for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Fifty per cent of the Indigenous Australian population is under the age of 22and their health, as that of their elders, remains dire. Without understanding their cultural ways of doing and knowing and without working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in making policy decisions, there will be no progress in achieving health equality for this population group.
Major changes needed
Western culture remains the dominant culture in Australian society. Its worldview has shaped Australian society and is constantly in conflict with the cultural identity and knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, including that of women. Recently,
Australian Indigenous leaders have set out a blueprint for action in the Redfern Statement.
This blueprint acknowledges that Aboriginal people have provided viable, holistic solutions. Without a change in leadership attitudes, governance and administration, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women will continue to be disadvantaged, and their health will continue to suffer.
It is high time that Australian policymaking recognized the above issues and acted with integrity on the deficits because we will not have equality until Australia recognizes the impact of the political determinants of health as identified throughout this paper. Australia will never be a whole, functioning society until institutionalised oppression ceases.
” National Congress and Redfern Statement Alliance leaders meeting in Canberra yesterday have expressed dismay over last minute changes to a high-level Aboriginal peak body meeting for the Closing the Gap Refresh consultations.
Co-Chair Rod Little expressed his frustration, saying ‘it is critical that the government respects the need for Aboriginal peak bodies to share their expert views without having to accommodate other powerful voices such as NGOs.”
The Closing the Gap Refresh agenda stated: ‘Australian governments acknowledge they need to work differently with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.’
Our Redfern Statement called for the government to ‘commit to better engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through their representative national peaks.’ More specifically, the recommendation focused on ‘convening regular high level ministerial and departmental meetings and forums with the National Congress and the relevant peak organisations and forums.’
National Congress has only recently learnt that no longer will Aboriginal peak bodies be given the much-anticipated exclusive opportunity to voice their views on the Refresh project.
Now we understand that the government organisers have opened the doors to a range of non-indigenous NGOs to participate on the same day.
Whilst these organisations have valuable contributions to make, this may not be the appropriate forum.
The consultation process is already compressed enough without our organisations having to abbreviate our important contributions.”
What is potentially being overlooked by consultation organisers is how having NGOs present might impact on critical evaluations of the influence of NGOs themselves on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs.
It should not be taken for granted that NGOs and Aboriginal peak bodies see eye to eye on a range of issues, and the sensitive issue of setting targets for Closing the Gap may well be such an issue.
National Congress reminds the government that the Redfern Statement Alliance is an excellent framework with which to engage Aboriginal peak bodies.
No member of this alliance wants to see its perspectives on Closing the Gap Refresh watered down or diminished by competing organisations.
Our peak organisations are calling for the full attention of the government and an exclusive opportunity to have our voices heard.
The government is not meeting its own expectations and working ‘differently’ by having powerful NGO representatives share this key consultation.
We would like this to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Background to #CTGRefresh
Another step in this process is to consider how governments can improve program implementation. Six implementation principles have been developed to guide the new Closing the Gap agenda.
The principles are:
Funding prioritised to meet targets
Evidence-based programs and policies
Genuine collaboration between governments and communities
Programs and services tailored for communities
Shared decision-making
Clear roles, responsibilities and accountability
How you can get involved ?
We want your views on the future of Closing the Gap. What is important, what worked and how can we do better?
“We have to be there to be part of the conversation, so let’s get with it.” – Chris Sarra, Co-Chair Indigenous Advisory Council, and Founder and Chair, Stronger, Smarter Institute
We’re interested in getting your thoughts on a few questions below. You don’t need to answer every question.
” Having a Treaty will be a positive step for our mob. It will change the way people think about us, formally recognise what has been done to us in the past, and it will help us heal and overcome so much of this hurt, to achieve better social, emotional, health and wellbeing outcomes for our people.
I want my grandchildren, everyone’s grandchildren, and the generations to come to be happier and healthier. I want us to Close the Gap in all ways possible, and reaching a Treaty in Victoria is part of achieving this critical goal.
Jill Gallagher AO, is CEO of VACCHO and Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Treaty Working Group and now Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner.
Read Jill’s Opinion piece in full Part 2 below Victorian Treaty an opportunity to heal and overcome intergenerational trauma
” I believe a Treaty with the Victorian Government will pave the way for a lot of the work VACCHO does around the holistic approach to improving the health and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal people.
VACCHO has this holistic approach because we know you can’t just deal with health without dealing with housing and other aspects of life. If you haven’t got a roof over your head you can’t be healthy. If you haven’t got a job, that is going to have a negative impact on your health.
If you or your family are unfairly caught up in the justice system it makes it hard to build a life.
The social determinants of health need to be addressed in a holistic way, and we advocate to Government for that. “
Aged 62, Jill Gallagher has lived long enough to have had her sense of the world shaped by some of the sorriest historical aspects of Victoria’s treatment of Aboriginal people.
As a child she accompanied her mother all over the state as she chased seasonal work picking vegetables on farms, one of few lines of employment Aboriginal people were permitted to do.
As Reported in the AGE : Jill Gallagher has been named Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner. Photo: Jason South
And she has an early memory, painful still, of her mother being asked to leave the whites-only Warrnambool hotel.
It was Australia in the early 1960s, before Aboriginal people had been recognised in the constitution or been given the right to vote.
On Tuesday Ms Gallagher took on a job that is meant to shape a much more equal future between the state’s first people and the rest of us, when she was named Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner.
It is the new, leading role in preparing to negotiate the first ever treaty between Aboriginal people and an Australian government.
“What’s happening in Victoria is history making,” Ms Gallagher says of the $28.5 million treaty process.
“It’s never happened before, for any government to actually be serious about wanting to talk to Aboriginal people about treaties.” As commissioner, Ms Gallagher will lead the task of bringing Aboriginal representatives to the negotiating table with government and ensuring everyday Aboriginal voices are heard.
“My role is not to negotiate a treaty or treaties,” she says. “My role is to establish a voice, or representative body, that government can negotiate with.”
By the time treaty negotiations commence, her work as commissioner will have been done and the role will have ceased to exist.
For now the treaty’s terms of reference is a blank sheet of paper.
Its eventual signing could involve years of negotiations between the Aboriginal community and state government.
Aspects of treaties from other nations, such as Canada or New Zealand, may be borrowed from but Ms Gallagher says she hopes Victoria’s model will “stay true to what the need is here in Victoria”. “Treaty is about righting the wrongs of the past but also having the ability to tell the truth,” Ms Gallagher says.
As head of Aboriginal health organisation VACCHO, Ms Gallagher grapples with the lingering failure to “close the gap” of disadvantage between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal Victorians, who statistically live shorter lives and in poorer health than the general population.
A report last month by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria acknowledged the inter-generational damage European colonisation did to Aboriginal people, entrenching poverty, racism and disadvantage.
“I see the devastation that colonisation had on my people,” she says.
“I see how it manifests today in many ways such as overrepresentation in the justice system, overrepresentation of children in out-of-home care … So for me treaty is trying to rectify that.”
And as for non-Aboriginals uncertain about what a treaty means for them, Ms Gallagher offers this piece of reassurance: we don’t want your backyard.
Rather, it’s about creating a shared identity.
“I think it will add value to the non-Aboriginal community here in Victoria,” Ms Gallagher says.
“Treaty is about us having the ability to share our very rich, ancient culture, so all Victorians can be proud of our culture.”
Victorian Treaty an opportunity to heal and overcome intergenerational trauma
*Jill Gallagher AO, is CEO of VACCHO and Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Treaty Working Group
As the end of the year rapidly approaches there is a bright ray of hope on the horizon for Aboriginal people living in Victoria, in the form of Treaty.
Working towards Treaty
For almost two years we have been working as a community towards the goal of a Treaty between the First Nations people and the Victorian Government. It’s an historic process, and one that we hope will inspire and guide the rest of Australia, both at a state and national level.
I’ve been honoured to be a part of the process as Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Treaty Working Group. Our role in this group is not to negotiate a Treaty, but to consult the Aboriginal community on what we would like to see in a representative structure.
As CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) I’ve been working for the past two decades towards improving the health and wellbeing outcomes of Victorian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I see a Treaty as fundamental to reaching the goal of Closing the Gap on many of our poor health outcomes as Aboriginal people.
Our mob, as we well know, has been disempowered for many, many generations and with disempowerment comes distress, and comes a lack of resilience. Our self-esteem has suffered and there have been so many social, emotional and wellbeing issues
in our community as a result of that disempowerment.
I believe if we are successful in reaching a Treaty it will make a humongous difference in the wellbeing of our people across Victoria. This is about truth telling and healing the past for a better future for Aboriginal people.
Intergenerational trauma is deeply felt in our community from myriad past practices, including the relatively recent Stolen Generations – I work with people born to parents who were stolen, many of my friends were stolen or come from families affected by the woeful policies of the past. In fact, almost 50 per cent of Aboriginal Victorians have a relative who was forcibly removed from their family through the Stolen Generations.
Even right now you just have to consider the disproportionately high number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care, and the trauma they are suffering from being disconnected from their families, communities and culture. Thankfully the Victorian Government has worked with our communities to help overcome this with its new Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care program.
Without doubt intergenerational trauma and a lack of empowerment and resilience leads to inevitable mental illness; we currently have 32 per cent of the Victorian Aboriginal community suffering very high psychological distress, which is three times the non-Aboriginal rate.
Social and emotional wellbeing
But while improving mental health outcomes is incredibly important to our people, it is something that cannot be done in isolation; improving social and emotional wellbeing is also important.
The Aboriginal concept of social and emotional wellbeing is an inclusive term that enables concepts of mental health to be recognised as part of a holistic and interconnected Aboriginal view of health that embraces social, emotional, physical, cultural and spiritual dimensions of wellbeing.
Social and emotional wellbeing emphasises the importance of individual, family and community strengths and resilience, feelings of cultural safety and connection to culture, and the importance of realising aspirations, and experiencing satisfaction and purpose in life.
Importantly, social and emotional wellbeing is a source of resilience that can help protect against the worst impacts of stressful life events for Aboriginal people, and provide a buffer to mitigate risks of poor mental health.
Improving the social and emotional wellbeing of, and mental health outcomes for, Aboriginal people cannot be achieved by any one measure, one agency or sector, or by Aboriginal people alone. It needs to be shaped and led through Aboriginal self-determination with support from government, and that is where Treaty comes in.
A Treaty for healing
I know that many people will dismiss Treaty as a political or public relations stunt. Just look at how the Federal Government has dismissed us on Makaratta. Makarrata is a complex Yolngu word describing a process of conflict resolution, peacemaking and justice. It’s a philosophy that helped develop and maintain lasting peace among the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land.
Reaching a Makarrata is the goal of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which was agreed in May this year. It’s hurtful and disrespectful to be asked your opinion on something as important as Makarrata and then to have your ideas and solutions be dismissed.
I am glad to say the Victorian Government is, however, listening to us. I believe a Treaty with the Victorian Government will pave the way for a lot of the work VACCHO does around the holistic approach to improving the health and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal people.
VACCHO has this holistic approach because we know you can’t just deal with health without dealing with housing and other aspects of life. If you haven’t got a roof over your head you can’t be healthy. If you haven’t got a job, that is going to have a negative impact on your health. If you or your family are unfairly caught up in the justice system it makes it hard to build a life. The social determinants of health need to be addressed in a holistic way, and we advocate to Government for that.
Having a Treaty will be a positive step for our mob. It will change the way people think about us, formally recognise what has been done to us in the past, and it will help us heal and overcome so much of this hurt, to achieve better social, emotional, health and wellbeing outcomes for our people.
I want my grandchildren, everyone’s grandchildren, and the generations to come to be happier and healthier. I want us to Close the Gap in all ways possible, and reaching a Treaty in Victoria is part of achieving this critical goal.
” Sol Bellear leaves an important legacy that must be carried on by the board of NACCHO and all our members if Indigenous Australians are to ever enjoy health services and standards that other Australians take for granted.
Throughout his career he advocated a philosophy of community control, self-reliance and independence, attributes that would be vital for the survival of ACCHO’s over the decades
We would like to record our sincere gratitude and admiration for Sol’s service to our nation and communities, and tender our profound sympathy to his family and community in their bereavement.”
NACCHO Chair John Singer speaking on behalf of all the 143 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services throughout Australia said he was saddened to hear of the untimely passing of one of the nation’s leading spokespeople on Aboriginal health issues, Mr Sol Bellear AM. ( see our full Press Release below ) Or Download
Health, justice and land rights Legend Sol Bellear AM will lead his last march at a State Funeral to be held in Redfern on Saturday.
Sol’s family, friends and supporters are invited to gather at Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service on Redfern Street from 10am for a last march to the State Funeral service at Redfern Oval starting at 11am.
WHEN: Saturday 9 December 2017
WHERE:
March from 10am outside Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern Street
Service from 11am at Redfern Oval
For any enquiries please email media@alc.org.au or call 02 9689 4444
“ So they took our children away. They forced us from our ancestral lands. They held our wages and savings in trust, and then found better ways to spend the money. We were forced into slavery, denied equal wages and prevented from ever building generational wealth.
That great lie still underpins thinking in Indigenous affairs policy today. So it’s time to do something different, and time to acknowledge that the case for self-determination for Aboriginal people in Australia isn’t just compelling – it’s overwhelming. “
Sol Bellear AM 1951 -2017 : When NACCHO TV recorded over 100 interviews throughout Australia in 2015 Sol was our first interview : VIEW HERE
NACCHO Press Release :
NACCHO tribute to Sol Bellear AM Aboriginal activist
NACCHO Chair John Singer speaking on behalf of all the 143 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services throughout Australia said he was saddened to hear of the untimely passing of one of the nation’s leading spokespeople on Aboriginal health issues, Mr Sol Bellear AM
Sol was a respected elder, friend, lifetime Aboriginal activist, a co-founder and Chair of Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern and a recently appointed NACCHO board member.
Sol Bellear a Bundjalung man from Mullumbimby was also the first chair of the Aboriginal Legal Service when it was founded in the early 1970s.
In 1990 Sol became a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), where he served as deputy chair before stepping down in 1994.
Throughout his career he advocated a philosophy of community control, self-reliance and independence, attributes that would be vital for the survival of ACCHO’s over the decades.
Mr. Singer said Sol Bellear was an inspiration to everyone involved with or interested in Aboriginal issues and specifically Indigenous health. He was admired and respected leader who served his community for nearly 50 years.
” Sol was a tireless worker for his people,” Mr Singer said.
“He travelled all over Australia and the world championing the cause of Indigenous Australians as we have had historically some of worst health outcomes in the western world.
“He was a fearless advocate not afraid to take on politicians and bureaucracies.
“And he certainly was a man of great compassion and commitment to improving the health of his Redfern Community and all Indigenous Australians.”
“Sol Bellear leaves an important legacy that must be carried on by the board of NACCHO and all our members if indigenous Australians are to ever enjoy health services and standards that other Australians take for granted,” Mr Singer concluded.
You can follow on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook using HASH Tag #NACCHOagm2017
The NACCHO Members’ Conference and AGM will provided a forum for the Aboriginal community controlled health services workforce, bureaucrats, educators, suppliers and consumers to:
Present on innovative local economic development solutions to issues that can be applied to address similar issues nationally and across disciplines
Have input and influence from the ‘grassroots’ into national and state health policy and service delivery
Demonstrate leadership in workforce and service delivery innovation
Promote continuing education and professional development activities essential to the Aboriginal community controlled health services in urban, rural and remote Australia
Promote Aboriginal health research by professionals who practice in these areas and the presentation of research findings
Develop supportive networks
Promote good health and well-being through the delivery of health services to and by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people throughout Australia.
On the eve that the Australian Government has secured a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Redfern Statement Alliance Leaders met to discuss its relationship with the Australian Government.
Securing this position to the UN Council does not reflect the relationship this Government has with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
In 2008 there was bi-partisan support for the National Congress as an elected voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.
Co-Chair Jackie Huggins said, “National Congress is an elected body with more members than some of the major political parties. Although our relationship has improved with Government, it has been through minor contract work and is ineffective.”
Co-Chair Rod Little said, “National Congress is strongly committed to the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
We have consistently called on the Australian Government to honour its commitment and not just sit idly on the UN Human Rights Council when our people are suffering.”
The recent UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous People’s report delivered a verdict to the Australian Government on the status of Aboriginal Australia and called for the reinstatement of funds to the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.
The Redfern Statement Alliance Leaders call on Prime Minister Turnbull to seize the opportunity to do the right thing and invest in the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples as a lead Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled organisation.
Australia is now going to be overseeing the human rights records of other nations whilst serious human rights violations are being committed against our people daily.
2. Tas: Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre at #OTCC2017
Here’s Tina Goodwin, TAC tobacco worker, on stage at the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference is Tasmania this week with Hone Harawura.
Tina announced Hone as the winner of the Tariana Turia award which recognises significant contributions to Indigenous tobacco control.
Hone has worked as a community activist and parliamentarian on many issues of importance to Maori. He wants to see tobacco companies sued for all of the death and destruction they cause to Maori, Aboriginal and other Indigenous communities.
Hone’s words: “Those bastards (Big Tobacco) are making people addicted and they are killing our people. Let’s sue them!”Anyone want to help with the legal case? Pictured below with Tom Calma
3. VIC : Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Healthy Lifestyle Team at #OTCC2017
Representing Deadly Dan and ready to take on day 1 of the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference 2017 in Hobart.
Very excited to hear from our friends in other Tackling Indigenous Smoking Teams and mainstream organisations from Aus, NZ and Pacific Islands today.
Learning about the progress and challenges as we aim for a Tobacco Free Pacific by 2025!
The team exploring kunanyi this morning. Checking out the view and getting our 30 minutes of exercise in before day 2 of the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference.
Having a great time. Loving learning about the rich Aboriginal history of this area and meeting other passionate like minded health professionals.
If you can’t tell from our faces it was very cold at the top!
4. NT : Miwatj AMS Arnhem Land and Congressat #OTCC2017
5.QLD : Deadly Choices at @OTCC2017
6 SA : AHCSA and Quitline at #OTCC2017
7.WA : Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service ‘you CAN quit’ film project ( Note not at #OTCC2017)
Young people in four remote communities in Western Australia’s East Pilbara — where up to 80 percent of community members smoke — have joined forces with filmmakers on a campaign to urge people to give up the deadly habit.
The youngsters from Jigalong, Parnngurr, Punmu and Kunawarritji in WA are shedding light on the personal stories of local smokers to warn about the dangerous habit in a series of short films.
Fifteen-year-old Clintesha Samson, who was involved in the films and doesn’t smoke, said she would like to see people in her community stop for the sake of their health.
She said she thought film was a good way to get the message across.
The series of films are part of a ‘you CAN quit’ project that has documented the stories of community members who have kicked the habit and those who have been affected by smoking-related illnesses.
The project was organised by Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service’s Tackling Indigenous Smoking team.
The young people involved were responsible for researching, shooting, editing and promoting the films.
Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service regional tobacco coordinator Danika Tager said smoking rates in the East Pilbara were high and more needed to be done to support communities to address tobacco addiction.
“Smoking rates in remote East Pilbara communities are as high as 80 percent and tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death and disease in this population,” Ms Tager said.
“Through this important film project we hope to encourage people in these communities to quit smoking, as well as air the many benefits of quitting and where they can find help and support.”
The films are being shown in communities and also aired on TV and social media.
The Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service is a community-controlled health organisation that provides primary health care, 24-hour emergency services and preventative health and education programs in the communities of Jigalong, Parnngurr, Punmu and Kunawarritji.
” When delegates from the Dialogues assembled at Uluru in May this year, the exhaustive deliberations and informed participation through the Regional Dialogues led to a broad consensus, as articulated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart which was adopted by the Convention.
Specifically, Australia’s First Peoples overwhelmingly rejected any purely symbolic changes to the Constitution, such as through a ‘statement of recognition’.
……..Dialogue participants and the Uluru Convention showed significant agreement.
There was overwhelming consensus around three proposals.
First, for a constitutionally established representative body that would give First Nations a Voice directly to the Federal Parliament.
Second, for the establishment of a Makarrata Commission to supervise the making of Treaties with us.
Third, for a process of local and regional Truth-telling which could form the basis for genuine reconciliation.”
Ms Pat Anderson AO delivered the 17th Annual Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture at Charles Darwin University on Wednesday, 16 August.Full Text and video below
The lecture commemorated the historic walk-off from Wave Hill Station by Indigenous stockmen and their families, planting the seeds for Aboriginal land rights in Australia.
For her lecture titled: “Our Hope for the Future: Voice. Treaty. Truth” Ms Anderson reflected on her personal history and experience as an advocate for social justice during the last half-century of struggle for the recognition of the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Chair of the Lowitja Institute and co-chair of the former Prime Minister’s Referendum Council, former Chair of NACCHO and CEO of Danila Dilba ACCHO and AMSANT , Ms Anderson is a campaigner for advancing the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in education, health, early childhood development, and violence against women and children. She is an Aboriginal advocate for social justice and winner of the 2016 Human Rights Medal.
Ms Pat Anderson AO delivered the 17th Annual Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture at Charles Darwin University on Wednesday, 16 August, which commemorated the historic walk-off from Wave Hill Station by Indigenous stockmen and their families, planting the seeds for Aboriginal land rights in Australia.
Good evening everyone,
I acknowledge and pay respects to the Larrakia people, traditional custodians of the land on which we are meeting tonight.
I want to thank Charles Darwin University for asking me to deliver this Lecture. This is huge honour for me. It’s always hard presenting in your home town.
I was feeling a bit anxious about that because you all know everything about me.
I would like to acknowledge Wendy Ludwick who I think put my name forward for this honour.
We are here to honour the memory of Vincent Lingiari and his leadership in the 1966 Wave Hill strike.
I will return to that story, and to the place of the Gurindji in the contemporary struggle for the rights of Australia’s First Peoples shortly.
But first, I’d like to share another story with you, a personal story.
This story is from the 1950s, a decade before the Wave Hill Walk Off, and is set at Parap Camp a few miles from here (in the suburb now called Stuart Park), where I and my sisters grew up with our mum and dad.
For those who don’t know the history, Parap Camp was home to many Aboriginal and some Torres Strait Islander families in those harsh post-War years.
Many of those families had a Stolen Generations heritage, with the parents of Parap camp families having grown up in the nearby Kahlin Compound. Kids were rounded up from all over the Territory.
My mother was one of those, taken as a young girl sometime in the 1930s by white men on horseback from her Alyawarre family north east of Alice Springs.
She was brought here to the Compound, fifteen hundred kilometres away.
After growing up at Kahlin, she was sent to work as a young teenager on a farm on the other side of the Darwin harbour, near Belyuen.
Later, she met my dad, a Swedish merchant seaman who had jumped ship in Fremantle, and made his way to Darwin.
They married and settled at Parap Camp.
My story is from when I was about 9 or 10 years old, when I was in Grade 3 or 4 – like almost all children from Parap Camp, I and my sisters attended school without fail.
School attendance was non-negotiable in those days – we all just went.
Every year the class would have a Christmas Party at the end of the final term, and the idea was that all the kids would bring food from home for the party.
I was excited because I knew my mum made the best sponge cakes ever: great high, fluffy things.
I pictured myself taking one of these cakes into school – I was a bit vain, and wanted to show off what a great cook mum was.
But when I asked her to make the cake, she flatly refused.
No matter what I said, how I nagged at her, she just said no.
Finally, in frustration, I just burst out: “But why mum? Why won’t you make one of your cakes and let me take it to the school party?”.
She hesitated for a moment.
And then she said quietly: “I don’t like white people eating my food”.
I knew immediately from the way she said it that not only was this the end of the argument, but also that she was telling me something more.
I can still see her face and hear her voice.
I haven’t forgotten this: although I didn’t understand how at the time, it was clearly important.
And so I had to trudge off to my Christmas party with a packet of store bought biscuits, while all the other kids brought scones, cakes and biscuits baked by their mothers – none of which, I might add, were as good as what my mum could have made.
This sounds like an ordinary domestic, family event.
And it is.
But like so many stories that are part of every Aboriginal family in this country, there is a lot packed into this little scenario.
For a start, how did my mum get to be so good a cook?
I see now that her skill with cooking was something she had learnt from the white women she worked for as domestic, unpaid labour.
Her ability to cook a beautiful sponge cake was a direct consequence of the policy of assimilation by which all Australian governments aimed to eradicate us as distinct cultural groups.
At the same time, there were other skills that were withheld from her and so many other Stolen Generations.
Most importantly, growing up in Kahlin Compound she was never taught to read or write.
Despite the rhetoric about Aboriginal children being taken away to improve their chances in life, literacy was one skill that the administration clearly thought was of no use to a young Aboriginal woman.
That much is clear from our history.
However, on a personal level, much about my mother’s motivations in the story about the cake remains curious to me.
Did she not want white people to eat her food as an act of defiance?
Was it a reluctance – or a refusal – to place herself in a situation of being judged by them?
Was it her own brand of passive resistance?
I don’t know.
However, I do know it was a profound moment in our relationship as she revealed something of herself to me.
This moment has stayed with me over all these years.
And I believe this little incident points to the great gulf in experience between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia.
It points towards an experience carried by so many of our families: the experience of having been treated unjustly, but of that injustice not being acknowledged.
This experience has been analysed by Jill Stauffer in her 2015 book, Ethical loneliness: the injustice of not being heard1.
Stauffer describes the profound isolation and loneliness that arises as a consequence of such an experience.
Calling it ‘ethical loneliness’ she says that it is a condition undergone by persons who have been unjustly treated … who emerge from that injustice only to find that the surrounding world will not listen to or cannot properly hear their testimony. … ethical loneliness is the experience of having been abandoned by humanity, compounded by the experience of not being heard.
There is something of this ethical loneliness in my mother’s experience, and even in the story of the cake she would not make.
I believe that experience is common to many if not all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
It stems from the complex, often damaged and damaging relationship between our First Nations and those who colonised this place from 1788 onwards.
Much of that damage remains embedded in the relationship between black and white Australia.
This nation has never properly dealt with that damage.
It has never properly acknowledged it, and acted upon that acknowledgement.
I believe we now, in 2017, all of us over the age of 18, this generation, have an historic opportunity to do that, to begin the process of repair, to re-set that relationship on a foundation of equality, justice and truth.
That opportunity is presented by the prospect of genuine and substantive reform to the Australian Constitution, and that is the topic I want to talk to you about this evening.
I would like to take you on the journey that I have been recently on as a member of the Referendum Council, which was tasked with making recommendations to the Federal Government on constitutional reform.
I would like to share with you our experience of the unique regional Dialogues with First Peoples and communities, and what we heard in them, culminating in the National Convention of First peoples at Uluru in May this year, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
And most importantly I want to describe the three essential demands to come from this process, which I summarise with these three words:
Voice.
Treaty.
Truth.
Before we trace that journey from the world of the Parap Camp in the 1950s, to where we stand today in 2017, I would like to acknowledge the importance of the Wave Hill Walk Off in 1966 in our history.
Mr Lingiari and the other Gurindji men and women first walked off their jobs on the Wave Hill station to demand fair pay and conditions, but ended up sitting down at Wattie Creek and demanding the return of their traditional lands.
They were demanding proper acknowledgment of the injustice done to them, and proper restitution of the harms done.
In doing so, they began the modern land rights movement.
But they were also re-asserting the struggle for self-determination, as summed up so elegantly by Mr Lingiari himself when he said:
“We want to live on our land, our way”
In those nine words, he captured the essence of what have been and continue to be the central demands of our First Nations since 1788.
First, recognition of our sovereignty, never ceded, of the land, of Country.
Second, acceptance of our right to continue in our unique and diverse cultures.
The Gurindji and Mr Lingiari powerfully re-asserted those demands, just as our First Nations have done since the beginning of the colonisation of Australia, and just as we have continued to do since.
This year, 2017, is a year of anniversaries of events which built upon and extended the rights of First Peoples as so clearly stated by the Gurindji.
It is
• 50 years since the 1967 Referendum;
• 25 years since the Mabo decision overturned the lie of ‘terra nullius’ in 1992; and
• 20 years since the Bringing Them Home Report in 1997.
It is also, crucially, 10 years since the Intervention was unleashed on our communities here in the Northern Territory.
The Intervention was the counter-revolution, the attempt to turn back the clock to the times before the Gurindji and Wave Hill, and the 1967 Referendum, and all the other achievements.
The Intervention was the attempt to take us back to the world of Parap Camp in the 1950s, when the powers of the nation-state reached into every aspect of how we lived our lives.
Now, ten years on, it is clear how profoundly and utterly the Intervention and the thinking behind it has failed.
It continues, however, to create much heartache and pain.
As John Lawrence in his recent Castan Centre Address3 has stated, tem years on, the Northern Territory gaols more people per capita than any country in the world.
The overwhelming majority of those incarcerated are Aboriginal.
The number of children being removed from their families is soaring: it rose by an average of 16% per year between 2011 and 2015.
This frightening increase is entirely due to the removal of Aboriginal children from their families4.
Family violence is out of control.
These figures – which many of you will know – are profoundly disturbing.
They demonstrate the tsunami of anger, frustration, despair and sadness that is engulfing our communities and families.
These type of figures are echoed across the country.
They reflect the kind of Intervention-thinking that has informed policy making over the last ten years, based on the idea that the nation-state knows best what is good for us.
Let us remember that the Intervention was trumpeted by its instigators as necessary to protect Aboriginal women and children.
It marked a shift in policy-making not just here but across the country.
Intervention-thinking sees self-determination as a failed idea, and blames us for the situation in which we find ourselves.
It believes that we do not have anything to offer, that we are at best ‘risks’ to be managed.
It ignores or condones or covers up the abuse of young people in detention, or our lack of housing or access to education.
I say again: it has utterly failed.
We can see this through the statistics, but more importantly through visiting many of our communities and listening to the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over these last few months.
I’ve been working in this field all of my adult life, and I can say honestly say that I have never seen things so bad.
This has to change.
We now sit in 2017 at what I believe is a critical junction in our history, not just for the First Nations of this country, but for the nation-state as a whole.
Six weeks ago, the Referendum Council of which I was Co-Chair handed a report to the Prime Minister, recommending what constitutional change should look like if it is to be acceptable to our First Peoples.
The report documents what we were told in a series of regional dialogues with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities across the country.
Going out and talking to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was our first priority under our terms of reference.
These twelve regional Dialogues were held from Thursday Island to Hobart, from Perth, to Ross River outside Alice Springs, to Sydney and Melbourne. People from across the regions came to these centres.
We also held a one-day information session in Canberra.
Each Dialogue was attended by around one hundred people, including Traditional Owners, representatives of local organisations, and individuals.
Each was held over three days to allow full consideration of a number of proposals for Constitutional reform. It was the same format and same agenda for each Dialogue. We needed a methodology which could, in some way, be empirically measured.
The reforms that each Dialogue considered had been inherited by the Referendum Council from the work of the Expert Panel on the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution (co-chaired by Patrick Dodson and Mark Leibler) and the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (co-chaired by Senators Ken Wyatt and Nova Peris).
They were:
• first, a statement acknowledging us as the First Australians, either inside or outside the Constitution;
• second, amending or deleting that part of the Constitution which empowers the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
• third, inserting a guarantee against racial discrimination into the Constitution; and
• fourth, deleting that part of the Constitution which contemplates the possibility of a state government excluding some Australians from voting on the basis of their race.
The Dialogues also considered a fifth option, that of a First Peoples’ Voice to be heard by Parliament, and the right to be consulted on legislation and policies that affects us.
The Dialogue process was unprecedented in Australia’s history: never before have we as First Nations sat down across the nation in such an intensive, structured manner to deliberate on constitutional matters.
It was a passionate process.
Delegates grappled with the technical and legal implications of these proposals, as well as with their political viability.
There were disagreements, there were even arguments: how could it be otherwise when 1,200 people from all the diversity of our Nations were brought together to talk about matters so closely connected with the experiences and history of their families, clans and communities?
But there was also an extraordinary level of agreement on some matters.
When delegates from the Dialogues assembled at Uluru in May this year, the exhaustive deliberations and informed participation through the Regional Dialogues led to a broad consensus, as articulated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart which was adopted by the Convention.
Specifically, Australia’s First Peoples overwhelmingly rejected any purely symbolic changes to the Constitution, such as through a ‘statement of recognition’.
There were two reasons behind the rejection of this narrow model of Constitutional recognition.
First, there was a concern that formal recognition in the Constitution might interfere with sovereignty – and all Dialogues were steadfast in asserting the fact that we as First Nations had never ceded our sovereignty.
In re-asserting the fact of sovereignty, the delegates echoed the conclusions of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples five years ago, which stated that5:
The … occupation of the country … proceeded on the fiction of terra nullius. It follows that ultimately the basis of settlement in Australia is and always has been the exertion of force by and on behalf of the British Crown. No-one asked permission to settle. No-one consented, no-one ceded. Sovereignty was not passed from the Aboriginal peoples by any actions of legal significance voluntarily taken by or on behalf of them.
Second, and more simply, participants in the Dialogues and at Uluru simply did not trust the likely process for drafting a constitutional statement of recognition
The concern was that by the time the lawyers were through with it, such a statement would end up being so bland as to be incompatible with the duty to recognise the difficult truths of Australia’s past.
Instead, our mob wanted substantive change, structural reform, for their communities on the ground.
And if it didn’t fit that criteria, they weren’t interested.
And this is where Dialogue participants and the Uluru Convention showed significant agreement.
There was overwhelming consensus around three proposals.
First, for a constitutionally established representative body that would give First Nations a Voice directly to the Federal Parliament.
Second, for the establishment of a Makarrata Commission to supervise the making of Treaties with us.
Third, for a process of local and regional Truth-telling which could form the basis for genuine reconciliation.
These three things – Voice – Treaty – Truth – were the key consensus demands that arose from the Dialogues, were captured in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and form the core of the Referendum Council’s report.
I’d now like to turn to each of these three crucial concepts and unpack them, give you my view why they are important, what they might mean, and how they might provide a pathway out of our current situation.
These are not abstract notions, or intellectual constructs.
Changing the Constitution, many of us believe, is the only place left for us to go.
We have sat on the Committees, we have set up our own organisations, we have changed national policy agendas, but we still haven’t been able to achieve the substantive change demanded by our communities.
As Marcia Langton said at Garma recently, we have been Royal Commission-ed out, we have been committee-ed out, and we have been panel-ed out.
We still have to rely on other people’s good will.
And that is not good enough anymore.
We need more than that.
We need once and for all for our sovereignty to be recognised and our voices to be heard.
The recommendation for substantive constitutional change was for the establishment of a “representative body that gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander First Nations a Voice to the Commonwealth Parliament”.
We believed – following the consensus at Uluru – that this is the only constitutional reform which would accord with the wishes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Why is this important?
Establishing such a body in the Constitution has both substantive and symbolic value.
Symbolically, it recognises the unique place of First Peoples in Australian history and in contemporary Australian society.
It formally acknowledges our place here.
In asking Australians to vote ‘yes’ to such a proposal we would be asking us all to reflect on who we are, on what values and principles we hold dearest.
It would establish a significant national narrative about working together – about a genuine two-way conversation.
But such a body will also provide substantive benefits.
A constitutionally entrenched Voice to Parliament could address Australia’s poor history of consultation with our Peoples by government.
All too often we have been excluded from the key decisions that are made about our lives.
The Intervention itself is a key example, designed over three days6, in some offices in Canberra by people who took little account of the evidence, had no understanding of the realities of our lives and most significantly didn’t talk to any of us.
(No wonder it has failed!)
The Voice to Parliament would ensure we have input at the highest level into the policy-making that affects us.
It could also play a valuable monitoring role.
Properly resourced, it could hold Government to account, regularly reviewing and reporting on the implementation of recommendations from the host of inquiries and reports from the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody onwards.
It could also monitor the use of the Constitution’s ‘race power’ or attempts to suspend racial discrimination legislation so that measures like the Intervention could be properly scrutinised before their implementation.
Embedding the establishment of the Voice to Parliament in the Constitution is vital because the body’s existence would not then be at the whim of whichever government was in power in Canberra.
You know, every time there is a change of government, or a new Minister, or even a Head of Department, we all have to troop down to Canberra yet again and justify our existence. Pretty much, start all over again.
The Voice to Parliament would be a permanent and enduring feature of the nation’s body-politic.
It could only be abolished by going back to you, the people, in a new referendum.
To date, all our national organisations have disappeared with the stroke of a Minister’s pen.
We would be, at last, in the main building, not in the demountable out the back.
Of course, the details of how to establish such a body would need to be carefully negotiated with Parliament once its establishment was agreed through Referendum.
My vision – and that of many people we spoke to during the dialogues and at Uluru – is for a body that include representation from all the diversity of First Nations across Australia.
It would be a place for dialogue, a meeting place for us and with us.
And in my opinion, it is this diversity that would enrich the body-politic.
After 65,000 years or more on this continent, with all our different languages, histories and cultures, I think we would have something powerful and unique to offer the nation-state through such a body.
Let me turn to second proposal to come from the Dialogues and from Uluru: Treaty.
Australia is one of the few liberal democracies around the world which still does not have a treaty or treaties or some other kind of formal acknowledgement or arrangement with its Indigenous minorities.
It is something we have demanded since at least the mid-nineteenth century.
Despite the hard-won gains, such as through the Land Rights Act following the Gurindji Walk Off, and the Native Title Act sparked by Eddie Mabo, there is unfinished business that we need to resolve.
We used the word ‘Makaratta’ to describe this process of agreement or Treaty-making.
Makaratta is the process that guides the Yolngu Nation in North East Arnhem Land through difficult disputes, and its workings have been recently described by Galarrwuy Yunupingu in this way7:
… each party, led by their elders, must speak carefully and calmly about the dispute. They must put the facts on the table and air their grievances … The leaders must always seek a full understanding of the dispute: what lies behind it; who is responsible; what each party wants, and all things that are normal to peacemaking efforts. When that understanding is arrived at, then a settlement can be agreed upon.
Following the Uluru Statement, this means the establishment of a ‘Makarrata Commission’ to set up a national Framework and principles for negotiating treaties, and a possible a national settlement document.
A Treaty is a pathway to the recognition of sovereignty and to the achievement of self-determination.
It is an agreement between equals.
Such treaties could be regional or State-wide, and it would be the Makarrata Commission’s job to provide a national framework for, and supervise, these two-way processes.
Critically, treaties are inseparable from the third demand from the Dialogues and Uluru: Truth.
You cannot make a lasting and effective agreement unless you have a shared, truthful understanding of the nature of the dispute, of the history, of how we got to where we stand.
The true story of colonisation must be told, must be heard, must be acknowledged.
Because, this is still not the case.
This is difficult and painful territory – for us as well as for mainstream Australia.
It can be hard to hear.
As Jill Stauffer says in her book ‘Ethical Loneliness’ that I quoted from at the beginning of tonight:
Responding well to others, especially survivors of wrongdoing, may require that we open ourselves to hearing something other than what we expect or want to hear
But hearing this history is necessary before we can come to some true reconciliation, some genuine healing for both sides..
I was reminded of this just last month when I read media stories about an online digital map of more than 150 massacres developed by Professor Lyndall Ryan at the University of Newcastle8.
Through meticulous examination of the records, the map seeks to provide the evidence for those who still question whether massacres happened.
Professor Ryan has started documenting these facts for the eastern coast of Australia but plans to extend this to the rest of the country.
This is important work.
But I question how it is that we have had to wait until 2017 for this?
Why is this not part of the national conversation?
Our communities know about the massacres.
Our families know about the children being forcibly removed from their families.
But it seems that there is a need for many in mainstream Australia to pretend that all this didn’t happen, that it’s all just part of a ‘black armband’ view of history, made up to make you feel guilty.
One of the most moving episodes in the regional dialogues for me personally came at Ross River near Alice Springs.
There the Elders spoke of the distress they felt at the recent placement of a statue of the explorer John McDouall Stuart in Alice Springs to mark the the 150th anniversary of his attempt to reach the Top End from Adelaide.
The statue was shown holding a gun.
The Elders felt legitimately that this showed a painful lack of respect, given the fact that Stuart’s journey led directly to a series of massacres in the region as control of the land was wrested from the traditional owners.
Let me be clear: this process of truth–telling is not about guilt.
Guilt is a debilitating emotion that stops us moving forward or doing anything.
What I’m talking about is respect and acknowledgment.
As one participant in the Regional Dialogues in Broome said:
[We are] people who worked as stockmen for no pay, who have survived a history full of massacres and pain. We deserve respect.
And of course, this is not just the history of our First Peoples – it is the history of all of us, of all of Australia, and we need to own it.
Then we can move forward together.
The Dialogues opted for the development of a ‘Declaration of Recognition’ to be passed by all Australian Parliaments.
This declaration – outside the Constitution – would be free to articulate that difficult shared history.
It could provide a unifying statement about the three waves of people who make up the Australian story:
• our ancient First Peoples (65,000 years or more),
• those people who came in 1788 and after,
• the peoples who have come from out of Europe and Asia and who continue to try to come us today, often fleeing persecution and seeking a better life.
Three waves of people.
So, this where we stand now in 2017.
The unprecedented process of deliberation by Australia’s First peoples, through the regional Dialogues and at Uluru, led to the formulation of three clear demands:
Voice.
Treaty.
Truth.
Some commentators and others have expressed concern that these are new proposals, the examination of which will need yet more new processes to consider.
I respectfully disagree.
None of these issues are new.
We have been talking about these things for a long time.
Other commentators believe that these are impractical, left-field proposals.
Again, I respectfully disagree.
I believe these changes are challenging but achievable, and are proportionate to the level of distress, anger and powerlessness being felt in our communities.
In the international landscape of recognising Indigenous peoples, what we are asking for is modest, conservative even.
Many of our First Nation communities and families are plagued by a myriad of challenges including poverty, suicide, youth detention, family breakdown, and all kinds of health problems.
Worse, in my view, than any of this, is that too many of us feel hopeless.
To reverse this and to take our rightful place in this country, we need to create new places, new ways by which we can speak and get things done to deal with our complicated 21st century lives.
At the same time we will strongly and even fiercely guard who we are and our right to be different.
We need to create a future when we, and our children and grandchildren, are recognised as having something powerful and unique to offer this nation.
This needs to happen now, and not just for us as First Nations.
This is about the social and emotional wellbeing of the country as a whole.
It is a time of reflection, a time for all Australians to consider what kind of a society we are today, what are our values and our principles.
Surely, we are not the same people as we were in 1901 when the Constitution was drawn up.
Eventually we will have to sit down together, black and white in this nation, and deal with this.
For the truth is that this is our place.
We, the First Nations, are not going anywhere.
They can put it off for another ten years, twenty years fifty years.
But eventually you will have to sit down with as respectful equals and sort out this relationship.
But right now, we have an opportunity, a roadmap for doing that.
” Djapiri said Bill and I are in the same canoe and on this issue we certainly are – but we are not alone, we are not alone in the canoe. We are in the same canoe with all of you as well and we need to steer it wisely to achieve our goal, to achieve that goal of Makarrata.
Beyond Constitutional Recognition, that work continues every day. I reflect on the Makarrata discussion of the late 70’s and 80’s. A list of demands was sent to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in 1981. It called for rights to land and resources, compensation, the creation of Aboriginal schools, medical centres and an Aboriginal bank.
Despite a final agreement not being reached at the time, we have achieved some of the policies called for. The Commonwealth provided $433 million to 137 Aboriginal Medical Services across the country last financial year.
As Prime Minister I will continue to do all I can to ensure that being an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian means to be successful, to achieve, to have big dreams and high hopes, and to draw strength from your identity as an Indigenous person in this great country.
That’s why, as we renegotiate the Closing the Gap targets with the various state and territory jurisdictions later this year, my Government has insisted on a strengths based approach.
Indigenous people are not a problem to be solved.
You are our fellow Australians. Your cultures are a gift to our nation.”
Selected extracts from the full Prime Minister Speech 5 August Garma see Part 2 Full Speech
” Djapirri said, she told me of a dream of a canoe, paddled by the Prime Minister and myself.
That in itself is an arresting image. Two captains. But in all seriousness, we appreciated I think the power of that illusion, the power of that dream.
Here at Garma, on the lands of the Gumatj, we gather to talk about a Yolngu word. Makarrata.
It is not just now a Yolngu word – I put it to you it’s a national test.
Coming together, after a struggle.
And for the first Australians, it has been a very long struggle indeed.
– A struggle against dispossession and discrimination, exclusion and inequality.
– A struggle against violence and poverty, disease and diminished opportunity.
– A struggle for better health, for better housing, for safer communities, more jobs, for longer lives.
– A struggle against injustice and racism: from the sporting field to the courts of our land.
Above all, a struggle for a better future for their children: a struggle to be counted, to be heard, to be recognised.
At Uluru, you gave us the statement from the heart.
A call for:
– A voice enshrined in the Constitution
– A declaration to be passed by all parliaments, acknowledging the unique place of the first nations in Australian history, their culture, their connection.
– And a Makarrata Commission to oversee a process of agreement-making and truth-telling.
All three of these objectives speak to the long-held and legitimate aspirations of our First Australians:
– A proper acknowledgment of Aboriginal histories and the dispossession that followed upon the arrival of the Europeans
– A bigger say in the issues which affect you – no more ‘solutions’ imposed without consultation or consent
And a more lasting settlement, a new way forward, a new pathway including through treaties.
These ideas are not new – but the Uluru statement did articulate these with new clarity, a new passion, a new sense of truth and purpose “
Selected extracts The Hon Bill Shorten speech Garma 5 August 2017 see in full Part 3 Below
When it comes to Aboriginal constitutional reform, picture Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten sitting in a canoe – and the opposition leader thinks he’s the only one paddling.
The Labor leader has backed a referendum question on an indigenous voice to parliament, while the prime minister has failed to commit bipartisan support.
The two politicians are moving together downstream, struggling to balance the boat to achieve reconciliation, Gumatj leader Djapirri Mununggirritj has told Garma Festival in northeast Arnhem Land.
Mr Shorten called it an “arresting image” but said he was disappointed Mr Turnbull dismissed his end of year referendum question deadline as “very ambitious”.
“We support a declaration by all parliaments, we support a truth telling commission, we are not confronted by the notion of treaties with our first Australians,” he said.
Mr Turnbull acknowledged many Aboriginal leaders were disappointed the government didn’t give “instant fulfilment” to the Referendum Council’s recommendations.
He described the Yolgnu elder’s canoe analogy as apt, saying his cabinet will give the matter careful consideration to keep the aspiration of Makarrata, or coming together after a struggle, from capsizing.
An “all or nothing approach” to constitutional change risks rocking the boat, resulting in a failed referendum, and Mr Turnbull called for time to develop a winnable question to put to Australian voters.
“We are not alone in the canoe, we are in the canoe with all of you and we need to steer it wisely to achieve that goal of Makarrata,” he said.
Mr Turnbull said there’s still many practical questions about what shape the advisory body would take, whether it would be elected or appointed and how it would affect Aboriginal people around the country.
Specifically, he questioned what impact the voice to parliament would have on issues like child protection and justice, which are largely the legislative domain of state and territory governments.
But Mr Shorten said debate over Aboriginal recognition in the nation’s founding document has dragged on for the past decade.
“I can lead Mr Turnbull and the Liberal party to water but I can’t make them drink,” he said.
Having led the failed 1999 republic referendum campaign, Mr Turnbull warned that Australians are “constitutionally conservative”, with just eight out of 44 successful since federation.
But Mr Shorten said “Aboriginal Australians do not need a balanda [white person] lecture about the difficulty of changing the constitution”.
Mr Shorten’s proposal of a joint parliamentary committee to finalise a referendum question has been met with cynicism by indigenous leaders.
Ngarra Prime Minister numalagu djal Ngarra yurru wanganharra’wu nhumalangu bukmak’gu marrigithirri.
Ngarra ga nhungu dharok ga manikay’ ngali djaka wanga’wu yirralka.
I acknowledge and pay respect to your country, and your elders.
As Prime Minister, I’m here to talk to you and learn from you.
I acknowledge and respect your language, your song lines, your dances, your culture, your caring for country, and your estates.
I pay my respects to the Gumatj people and traditional owners past, present and future, on whose land we are gathered.
I also acknowledge other Yolngu people, First Peoples from across the country and balanda here today including Bill Shorten, Nigel Scullion and all other Parliamentary colleagues but above all I acknowledge our Parliamentary colleagues, Indigenous Parliamentary colleagues. Truly, voices of First Australians in the Parliament. Thank you for being here today and for the wisdom you give us, you together with my dear friend Ken, so much wisdom in the Parliament.
I offer my deep respect and gratitude to the Chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, Dr Galarrwuy Yunupingu for hosting Lucy and me with your family. It was lovely to camp here last night and the last music was beautiful, serene and like a lullaby sending us all off to our dreams. Thank you. Emily was the last singer – beautiful. And of course we woke here to the beautiful sounds of Gulkala.
I again as I did yesterday extend our deep condolences to the family of Dr G Yunupingu at this very sad time. He brought the Yolngu language to the people of Australia and his music will be with us forever.
I’ve come here to North East Arnhem Land to learn, participate respectfully and can I thank everyone so far I’ve had the chance to talk with. I am filled with optimism about our future together as a reconciled Australia.
Last month scientists and researchers revealed new evidence that our First Australians have been here in this land for 65,000 years.
These findings show that Indigenous people were living at the Madjedbebe rock shelter in Mirarr Country, at Kakadu east of Darwin, 18,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Among the middens, rock paintings, remains, plants and ochre, was the world’s oldest-known ground-edge axe head.
These findings place Australia on centre stage in the story of human origin, including mankind’s first long-distance maritime voyage – from Southeast Asia to the Australian continent.
Our First Peoples are shown as artistically, as technologically advanced, and at the cutting edge of technology in every respect.
Importantly, they confirm what Aboriginal people have always known and we have known – that your connection, your intimate connection to the land and sea are deep, abiding, ancient, and yet modern.
This news is a point of great pride for our nation. We rejoice in it, as we celebrate your Indigenous cultures and heritage as our culture and heritage – uniquely Australian.
As Galarrwuy said yesterday as he spoke in Yolngu, he said: “I am speaking in Australian.” Sharing, what a generosity, what a love, what a bigness he showed there as he does throughout his life and his leadership.
I want to pay tribute to the work of so many of you here today, who are leading the healing in communities, building bridges between the old and new, and looking for ways to ensure families and communities are not just surviving, but thriving.
Particularly the Indigenous leaders who every day wear many hats, walk in both worlds, and yet give tirelessly for their families and their communities. You often carry a very heavy load, and we thank you.
Where western astronomers look up at the sky and look for the light, Yolngu astronomers look also deep into the dark, using the black space to uncover further information, to unravel further mysteries.
So while we are both looking at the night sky, we are often looking at different parts. And yet through mutual respect, sharing of knowledge and an openness to learning, together we can see and appreciate the whole sky.
Those same principles are guiding us toward Constitutional Recognition.
The final Referendum Council report was delivered, as you know, on the 30th of June. Bill Shorten and I were briefed by the Referendum Council two weeks ago. The report was a long time coming and I know some would like an instant fulfillment of its recommendations.
Let me say, I respect deeply the work of the Referendum Council and all of those who contributed to it, and I respect it by considering it very carefully and the Government is doing so, in the first instance with my colleagues, including Ken Wyatt the first Indigenous Australian to be a Federal Minister, and together we consider it with our Cabinet. That is our way, that is our process, that is how we give respect to serious recommendations on serious matters.
And I do look forward to working closely and in a bipartisan way with the Opposition as we have done to date.
Djapiri said Bill and I are in the same canoe and on this issue we certainly are – but we are not alone, we are not alone in the canoe. We are in the same canoe with all of you as well and we need to steer it wisely to achieve our goal, to achieve that goal of Makarrata. Thank you again Galarrwuy for that word.
We share a sense of the significance of words. I love words and language. There is a great definition. What is the difference between poetry and prose? The best definition of poetry that I have ever found is that which cannot be translated, it can only be felt.
The Referendum Council’s report as Marcia reminded us is the fourth major report since that time and it adds immensely to the depth of knowledge. It gave us the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and I congratulate all those who attended on reaching an agreement. That was no small task.
It tells us that the priority for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is to resolve the powerlessness and lack of self-determination experienced – not by all, but certainly by too many.
I have been discussing it with leaders, the leaders of our First Australians and will continue to do so as we develop the next steps.
But there are still many questions:
What would the practical expression of the voice look like? What would the voice look like here for the Yolngu people? What would it look like for the people of Western Sydney, who are the largest population of Aboriginal peoples in Australia?
Is our highest aspiration to have Indigenous people outside the Parliament, providing advice to the Parliament? Or is it to have as many Indigenous voices, elected, within our Parliament?
What impact would the voice have on issues like child protection and justice, where the legislation and responsibility largely rest with state and territory governments?
These are important questions that require careful consideration. But the answers are not beyond us.
And I acknowledge that Indigenous Australians want deeper engagement with government and their fellow Australians, and to be much better consulted, and represented in the political, social and economic life of this nation.
We can’t be weighed down by the past, but we can learn from it.
Australians are constitutionally conservative. The bar is surmountable, you can get over it but it is a high bar. That’s why the Constitution has often been described as a frozen document.
Now many people talk about referendums, very few have experienced leading a campaign. The 1999 campaign for a Republic – believe me, now, one of the few subjects on which I have special knowledge – the 1999 campaign for a Republic has given me a very keen insight into what it will take to win, how hard it is to win, how much harder is the road for the advocate for change than that of those who resist change. I offer this experience today in the hope that together, we can achieve a different outcome to 1999. A successful referendum.
Compulsory voting has many benefits, but one negative aspect is that those who for one reason or another are not interested in an issue or familiar with it, are much more likely to vote no – it reinforces an already conservative constitutional context.
Another critical difference today is the rise of social media, which has changed the nature of media dramatically, in a decade or two we have a media environment which is no longer curated by editors and producers – but freewheeling, viral and unconstrained.
The question posed in a referendum must have minimal opposition and be clearly understood.
A vital ingredient of success is popular ownership. After all, the Constitution does not belong to the Government, or the Parliament, or the Judges. It belongs to the people.
It is Parliament’s duty to propose changes to the Constitution but the Constitution cannot be changed by Parliament. Only the Australian people can do that.
No political deal, no cross party compromise, no leaders’ handshake can deliver constitutional change.
Bipartisanship is a necessary but far from a sufficient condition of successful constitutional reform.
To date, again as Marcia described much of the discussion has been about removing the racially discriminatory provisions in the Constitution and recognising our First Australians in our nation’s founding document.
However, the Referendum Council has told us that a voice to Parliament is the only option they advise us to put to the Australian people. We have heard this, and we will work with you to find a way forward.
Though not a new concept, the voice is relatively new to the national conversation about constitutional change.
To win, we must all work together to build a high level of interest and familiarity with the concept of a voice, and how this would be different, or the same, as iterations of the past like the National Aboriginal Conference or the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
We also need to look to the experience of other countries, as we seek to develop the best model for Australia.
The historic 1967 Referendum was the most successful in our history because of its simplicity and clarity. The injustices were clearly laid out – Indigenous people were not enjoying the rights and freedoms of other citizens. The question was clearly understood – that the Commonwealth needed to have powers to make laws for Indigenous Australians. And the answer seemed obvious – vote yes to ensure the Commonwealth gave Indigenous people equal rights.
To succeed this time around, we need to develop enough detail so that the problem, the solution and therefore the question at the ballot box are simple, easily understood and overwhelmingly embraced.
One of the toughest lessons I learnt from the Referendum campaign of ‘99 was that an ‘all or nothing’ approach sometimes results in nothing. During the campaign, those who disagreed with the model that was proposed urged a “no” vote, arguing that we could all vote for a different Republic model in a few years. I warned that a “no” vote meant no republic for a very long time.
Now, regrettably, my prediction 18 years ago was correct. We must avoid a rejection at a referendum if we want to avoid setting Makarrata reconciliation back.
We recognise that the Uluru statement is powerful because it comes from an Indigenous-designed and led process. And because it comes from the heart, we must accept that it is grounded in wisdom and truth.
It is both a lament and a yearning. It is poetry.
The challenge now is to turn this poetry that speaks so eloquently of your aspiration into prose that will enable its realisation and be embraced by all Australians.
This is hard and complex work. And we need to take care of each other as we continue on this journey. We need to take care of each other in the canoe, lest we tip out of it.
Yesterday afternoon was a powerful show of humanity. As we stood together holding hands – Indigenous and non-Indigenous people – we stood together as Australians. As equals.
And we will have the best chance of success by working together. This cannot be a take it or leave it proposal. We have to come to the table and negotiate in good faith, and I am committed to working with you to find a way forward.
Galarrwuy – you gave us your fire words yesterday, thank you again. We will draw on them as we look to light the path forward for our nation.
And when considering how to do that, we are inspired by the success of the Uluru process. The statement that emerged from Uluru was designed and led by Indigenous Australians and the next steps should be too.
To go to a referendum there must be an understanding between all parties that the proposal will meet the expectations of the very people it claims it will represent.
Now we have five Aboriginal members of our Parliament. They will be vital in shaping and shepherding any legislation through the Parliament. They too are bridge builders, walking in both worlds, and their contribution to the Parliament enriches us all.
The Australian Parliament and the nation’s people – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – must be engaged as we work together to find the maximum possible overlap between what Indigenous people are seeking, what the Australian community overall will embrace and what the Parliament will authorise.
I have been learning that the word Makarrata means the ‘coming together after a struggle’— Galarrwuy told us a beautiful story this morning about a Makarrata here in this country. And a Makarrata is seen as necessary, naturally, if we are to continue our path to reconciliation.
But just like the night sky, reconciliation means different things to different people. This complexity convinces me that our nation cannot be reconciled in one step, in one great leap. We will only be reconciled when we take a number of actions, both practical and symbolic.
Beyond Constitutional Recognition, that work continues every day. I reflect on the Makarrata discussion of the late 70’s and 80’s. A list of demands was sent to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in 1981. It called for rights to land and resources, compensation, the creation of Aboriginal schools, medical centres and an Aboriginal bank.
Despite a final agreement not being reached at the time, we have achieved some of the policies called for. The Commonwealth provided $433 million to 137 Aboriginal Medical Services across the country last financial year. Indigenous Business Australia provides low interest loans to help Indigenous Australians secure economic opportunities including home ownership with 544 new housing loans made last year. The Aboriginal Benefits Account supports Northern Territory Land Councils and provides grants for the benefit of Aboriginal people living in the Territory.
We now spend $4.9 billion on the Indigenous Advancement Strategy.
And we are empowering communities through our Indigenous Procurement policy.
I am pleased to announce today the Commonwealth has officially surpassed half a billion dollars in spending with Indigenous businesses all over Australia. I am looking forward to sharing the full two-year results in October. This is a spectacular increase from just $6.2 million being won by Indigenous businesses only a few years ago under former policies.
Since 2008 the Commonwealth has been helping improve remote housing and bring down rates of overcrowding, with $5.4 billion to build thousands of better homes over ten years.
And the land is returning to its traditional owners.
More than 2.5 million square kilometres of land, or about 34 per cent of Australia’s land mass is today recognised under Native Title. Another 24 per cent is covered by registered claims and by 2025, our ambition is to finalise all current Native Title claims.
So we are standing here on Aboriginal land – land that has been rightfully acknowledged as yours and returned to you. And we are standing here near the birthplace of the land rights movement. A movement of which the Yolngu people were at the forefront.
As a nation we’ve come a long way.
In the Northern Territory, more than 50 per cent of the land is now Aboriginal land, recognised as Aboriginal land.
Just like the land at Kenbi which, on behalf of our nation, I returned to the traditional owners, the Larrakia people last year.
Earlier this year I appointed June Oscar AO, who has been acknowledged earlier, as the first female Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, who has agreed to report on the issues affecting Indigenous women and girls’ success and safety.
And all of that work contributes to a better future for our First Australians.
But there is much more to be done in not just what we do, but how we do it – as we work with our First Australians. We are doing things with our First Australians, not to them.
Now Galarrwuy – I have read and read again your essay Rom Watungu. It too is a story from the heart, of your father, of his life and when his time came, how he handed his authority to you, the embodiment of continuity, the bearer of a name that means “the rock that stands against time”
But rocks that stand against time, ancient cultures and lore, these are the strong foundations on which new achievements are built, from which new horizons can be seen – the tallest towers are built on the oldest rocks.
You, Galarrwuy, ask Australians to let Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders breathe and be free, be who you are and ask that we see your songs and languages, the land and the ceremonies as a gift.
As Prime Minister I will continue to do all I can to ensure that being an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian means to be successful, to achieve, to have big dreams and high hopes, and to draw strength from your identity as an Indigenous person in this great country.
That’s why, as we renegotiate the Closing the Gap targets with the various state and territory jurisdictions later this year, my Government has insisted on a strengths based approach. Indigenous people are not a problem to be solved. You are our fellow Australians. Your cultures are a gift to our nation.
There’s so much more work to be done.
But in doing so, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and all Australians, continue to connect with pride and optimism – with mabu liyan, in Pat’s language from the Yawuru people – the wellbeing that comes with a reconciled harmony with you, our First Australians, our shared history truthfully told and a deeper understanding of the most ancient human cultures on earth, and the First Australians to whom we have so much to thank for sharing them with us.
Thank you so much.
Part 3 Opposition Leader’s Garma Speech
Good morning everybody.
I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet, I pay my respects to elders both past and present.
I recognise that I stand on what is, was and always will be Aboriginal land.
I acknowledge the Prime Minister and his wife Lucy.
I wish to thank Gallarwuy and the Gumatj for hosting us – and on behalf of my Labor team who are here, Senator Pat Dodson, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, the Hon Linda Burney, the Hon Kyam Maher, supported also by local Members of Parliament the Hon Warren Snowden and Luke Gosling, and Territory Minister Eva Lawler.
We are very grateful to be part of this gathering.
Also Clementine my daughter asked me to thank you for letting her join in the bunggul yesterday afternoon, she loved it.
At the opening yesterday, we were privileged, all of us, to be at a powerful ceremony, where we remembered Dr G Yunupingu, a man who was born blind – but helped Australians see.
From his island, his words and his music touched the world.
But I also understand that the words of our host were about setting us a test, reminding all of us privileged to be here that there is serious business to be done.
Here at Garma, on the lands of the Gumatj, we gather to talk about a Yolngu word. Makarrata.
It is not just now a Yolngu word – I put it to you it’s a national test.
Coming together, after a struggle.
And for the first Australians, it has been a very long struggle indeed.
– A struggle against dispossession and discrimination, exclusion and inequality.
– A struggle against violence and poverty, disease and diminished opportunity.
– A struggle for better health, for better housing, for safer communities, more jobs, for longer lives.
– A struggle against injustice and racism: from the sporting field to the courts of our land.
Above all, a struggle for a better future for their children: a struggle to be counted, to be heard, to be recognised.
In 2015, the Referendum Council was created with a very clear mission.
To consult on what form Constitutional Recognition should take – how it should work.
To listen to Aboriginal people and to be guided by their aspirations.
And to finally give them a say in a document from which too long they been excluded.
Since then, thousands of the first Australians have explained to the rest us what
Recognition means – for all of us, for our children and indeed for all of our futures.
We asked for your views, we sought your counsel – and, in large numbers, it was answered.
At Uluru, you gave us the statement from the heart.
A call for:
– A voice enshrined in the Constitution
– A declaration to be passed by all parliaments, acknowledging the unique place of the first nations in Australian history, their culture, their connection.
– And a Makarrata Commission to oversee a process of agreement-making and truth-telling.
All three of these objectives speak to the long-held and legitimate aspirations of our
First Australians:
– A proper acknowledgment of Aboriginal histories and the dispossession that
followed upon the arrival of the Europeans
– A bigger say in the issues which affect you – no more ‘solutions’ imposed without consultation or consent
– And a more lasting settlement, a new way forward, a new pathway including through treaties.
These ideas are not new – but the Uluru statement did articulate these with new clarity, a new passion, a new sense of truth and purpose.
And let me speak truthfully on behalf of Labor, the Opposition.
I cannot be any more clear than this: Labor supports a voice for Aboriginal people in our Constitution, we support a declaration by all parliaments, we support a truth-telling commission.
We are not confronted by the notion of treaties with our first Australians.
For us the question is not whether we do these things, the question is not if we should do these things but when and how.
The Parliament needs to be engaged.
The Parliament needs to be engaged now.
The Parliament needs to start the process of engaging with the people of Australia now.
It does not come as a surprise to me, that following upon a report of the
Referendum Council, the Parliament’s next step must be to consider this report.
And in doing so, we must carry its message from the heart of Australia into our hearts as parliamentarians. With optimism, with understanding, not with a desire to find what is wrong, but to find the desire to make these concepts work in the interests of all.
If we were all gathered here now, back in 1891 and 1894 and 1897 to write the Constitution, we would never dream of excluding Aboriginal people from the Census.
But in 1901, they did.
If we were starting the Constitution from scratch, we would not diminish the independence of Aboriginal people – with racist powers.
But in 1901, they did.
And if we were starting on an empty piece of paper, we would, without question, recognise the First Australians’ right to a genuine, empowered voice in the decisions that govern their lives.
Now as you know, we cannot unmake history. We do not get the change to start all over again – but it doesn’t mean that we are forever chained to the prejudices of the past.
The Prime Minister’s observations though are correct about the difficulties of constitutional change. But I ask also that we cannot let the failure of 1999 govern our future on this question.
Voting for a constitutional voice is our chance to bring our Constitution home, to make it better, more equal and more Australian.
A document that doesn’t just pay respect to the weight of a foreign crown, but also recognises the power and value of the world’s oldest living culture, recognises that
Aboriginal people were here first.
And of course, let us reject those who say that symbolic change is irrelevant because dealing with these questions does not mean walking away from the real problems of inequality and disadvantage.
– Talking about enshrining a voice does not reduce our determination to eradicate family violence
– It doesn’t stop us creating good local jobs, training apprentices, treating trachoma or supporting rangers on country.
– It doesn’t distract us from the crisis in out-of-home care, youth suicide or the shocking, growing number of Aboriginal people incarcerated for not much better reason than the colour of their skin.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples don’t have to choose between historical justice and real justice, you don’t have to choose between equality in society and equality in the Constitution – you have an equal right to both.
The Uluru Statement has given us a map of the way forward – and today I finally want to talk about how we follow it, how we take the next step.
Not the obstacles ahead, not the problems, real as they are.
Aboriginal Australians don’t need a balanda lecture about the difficulty of changing the Constitution, our inspiration friends, should not be the 1999 referendum, it should be the 1967 referendum.
You have lived that struggle, every day.
Let me be very clear. In my study of our history, in my experience, nothing has ever been given to Aboriginal people – everything that is obtained has been fought for, has been argued for, has been won and built by Aboriginal people.
Think of the Freedom Riders
Think of the Bark Petition, which Gallarwuy was witness to
Think of the Gurindji at Wave Hill
Eddie Mabo and his fight for justice
Nothing was ever sorted by simply waiting until someone came along said let me do it for you. It is not the way the world is organised.
Every bit of progress has been driven by pride, by persistence by that stubborn refusal to not take no for an answer when it comes to the pursuit of equality.
Now making the case for change and encouraging Australians to vote yes for a recognition, reconciliation, and truth – this is not easy.
But before we can do that we surely must agree on the referendum question that has to be the long overdue next step.
I have written to our Prime Minister, we’ve proposed a joint parliamentary committee – which they’re taking on board, having a look at – to be made up of Government, the Opposition and crossbench MPs – to work with Aboriginal leaders right across Australia.
This committee will have two key responsibilities.
One – advising the Parliament on how to set-up a Makarrata Commission and create a framework for truth-telling and agreement making, including treaties.
Two – what would a voice look like. Whilst there are many questions, none of these are insurmountable.
And three, as a matter of overdue recognition – to endeavour to finalise a referendum question in a timely fashion. There’s no reason why that couldn’t be done by the end of this year.
The issues have been traversed for a decade.
Now friends this is not a committee for the sake of a committee, it’s not another mechanism for delay. It is the necessary process of engagement of the Parliament.
But we have had ten years plus of good intentions, but it is time now perhaps, for more action.
The Parliament does have a key role to play here, in setting the question.
The Parliament could agree on the question this year if we all work together so that the people could vote not long after that.
Voting to enshrine a voice in a standalone Referendum – free from the shadow of an election, or the politics of other questions.
It may seem very hard to imagine, it may seem very hard to contemplate.
But it is possible to imagine a great day, a unifying day, a famous victory, a Makaratta for all.
As I said yesterday, we’ve heard plenty of speeches, there are many fine words… but perhaps people have a right to be impatient after ten years – indeed after 117 years.
So the test I set isn’t what we say here, in this beautiful place.
It’s what we do when we leave.
It’s the honesty of admitting that after the event, what is it that we do.
The test I set for myself is can I come here at future Garmas and look you in the eye and say I have done everything I can, because if I cannot say to you that I have done everything I that I can, then I can’t be truthful with my heart.
Yesterday Gallarwuy spoke with a tongue of fire, he told a powerful truth.
He said that for more than two centuries we had been two peoples – living side-by-side, but not united.
I think that is the challenge for politics too.
Djapirri who just spoke up before me, she’s talked about hope. There is the hope that you refer to, you have the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. We are here side-by-side, and now we need to be united, not to kick the can down the road, but united on a process that says this parliament will respect what we have heard from Aboriginal people.
Not just at Uluru, but for decades.
In 1967, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were counted. In 2017, you are being heard.
There is no reason why we can’t enshrine a voice for Aboriginal people in our Constitution.
Djapirri said, she told me of a dream of a canoe, paddled by the Prime Minister and myself. That in itself is an arresting image. Two captains. But in all seriousness, we appreciated I think the power of that illusion, the power of that dream.
My party is ready.
I think Australia is ready.
The fine words that we heard at the opening yesterday, they remind me of the fire dreaming symbol, which is in the front of the Parliament of Australia.
Fire.
That fire dreaming symbol is from central Australia but it is connected isn’t it, by the word of Djapirri yesterday.
Again, that spirit of fire it is a gift from Indigenous people to all Australians and I sincerely will endeavor to make sure that spirit of fire infuses our Parliament.
” 50 years on from the referendum that made Indigenous affairs a Commonwealth concern, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s new deputy secretary, Professor Ian Anderson, sets out a clear and comprehensive vision of a better way forward.
The 50th anniversary of the referendum that made Indigenous affairs a federal policy concern has prompted a lot of reflection on what governments have done with that role and, more importantly, consideration of how policymakers and public servants can do better.”
In the view of Australian Public Service head Martin Parkinson, the 90.77% affirmative vote both “provided opportunities for us to begin to right the wrongs” caused by British colonisation and assured the prime minister that nearly every citizen wanted the national government to try and do so.
“We may have created the opportunity in ’67 but we haven’t actually delivered on it,” Parkinson added on Friday, opening a public administration seminar at Old Parliament House marking half a century of Indigenous policy.
The keynote address came from his new deputy secretary for Indigenous affairs, Ian Anderson, an Aboriginal University of Melbourne professor who became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) last week for “distinguished service to the Indigenous community” as a doctor, health researcher and role model.
Ian Anderson
Anderson was brought in to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in February to lead a “root and branch” review of Closing the Gap targets, replacing Richard Eccles, who quietly moved across to the Department of Communications and the Arts.
“There is a shared sense among Indigenous leaders, governments and the wider community that despite the significant progress in some areas, we need to do better,” said Anderson.
He sees enough progress to prove solutions do exist, but also consistent themes behind the failures: too many “one size fits all” approaches, “chopping and changing” goals, and governments “overreaching” in terms of what is realistic, while failing to “significantly” engage with Indigenous communities.
The highly regarded professor is seen as a brilliant quiet achiever who has led by example rather than taking to the barricades. He acknowledged “the activist generation” who fought for their rights and built a robust Indigenous-led community sector “from the ground up” but also pointed out Aboriginal society had changed.
“We now have an Indigenous middle class, working at all levels of government, the private sector, universities, and of course continuing to lead in the community sector,” said Anderson, who thinks this group will play a key role in the future of their people.
He also sees a role for new joined-up approaches to public administration, but believes “wicked problems” like Indigenous disadvantage can’t be solved by government alone; they require “the active participation of citizens” as well.
“We, as the Australian Public Service, have to do a damn sight better than we’re doing now.”
“We, as the Australian Public Service, have to do a damn sight better than we’re doing now.”
“The key to Indigenous disadvantage is not just what governments do, but what Indigenous people and communities do,” Anderson said, arguing public servants must create “an environment that helps solutions be found by a much wider range of actors”.
Regional planning in healthcare and the Empowered Communities initiative supported by PM&C were both good examples, he said. Government agencies would need to keep working collaboratively with Indigenous Australia “at a scale and depth we haven’t seen before” — and learn to share leadership and accountability in new ways that might be uncomfortable at first.
A new joined-up vision
Invoking the principle of subsidiarity, Anderson displayed his deep knowledge of the challenges of Indigenous affairs and set out a clear and comprehensive vision for how the federal and state governments could improve outcomes.
“The current approach to building the public sector Indigenous workforce is well past its use-by date,” he added later.
“It’s focusing only on entry-level programs and assumes a sort of trickle-up model that looks increasingly constrained, given the growing numbers of skilled and experienced Indigenous professionals working across … many sectors outside government.”
Martin Parkinson
The newly recruited deputy secretary, who will have a hand in a $10 million per year evaluation program, also spoke for the importance of rigorous evidence-based policy, using “high quality, granular data” to empower better regional and governmental decision-making.
“In the past, we have tended to rely too heavily on gut-feel and ideas that sound good but don’t have anything to back them up beyond their ability to generate enthusiasm,” said Anderson.
He thinks Australia has “one of the best Indigenous data collection systems in the world” but said data quality issues were common, especially for areas where Indigenous people are a tiny minority. Much of this is “not collated transparently, burying important information about Indigenous outcomes in population-wide trends and averages”.
In his admittedly “ambitious” vision for the future, the operating model is a “collaborative partnership” with Indigenous Australia, “founded on robust, accountable and professional working relationships” that feature shared decision-making and mutual accountability as core principles.
“At the same time, higher quality and more transparent data platforms will give us better tools for understanding the problems in our communities and Indigenous cohorts, measuring our successes and our failures and keeping ourselves accountable,” Anderson said.
“And on these foundations and the new capabilities and insight that will give, we will build an Indigenous policy system that is much more dynamic, much more responsive to diversity and innovation, and much better able to negotiate a place-based context, and create solutions with authority and with buy-in.”
‘Fire in the belly’
Anderson was followed by National Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisation CEO Patricia Turner, who in some ways represented the activist generation.
Pat Turner
Having worked in senior APS roles herself, she believes Aboriginal public servants still need a bit of “fire in the belly” and should constantly advocate for their people within the administration — because support for Closing the Gap within mainstream Australia is not guaranteed.
Indigenous affairs is not a top-order political issue among the general population, judging by its absence from recent debates. Turner reminded the audience that the Redfern Statement she helped launch during the last election was a direct response to this.
Turner argued for more targeted public service recruitment and mentoring to increase Indigenous representation at senior level, better engagement with Indigenous-led groups like NACCHO, and more collaboration between departments. She criticised the lack of progress towards Closing the Gap targets, questioning why they are not an explicit concern of every cabinet submission and calling on individual public servants to think about how they personally could contribute to achieving them.
Turner was followed by the architect of the Close the Gap targets, University of Canberra professor Tom Calma, who spent 45 years in the APS. Calma said the media often obscured the role of governments in Indigenous policy failures and suggested they were the fault of communities themselves.
Tom Calma
“Now this is not the case, and we need a better understanding of the role and effectiveness of the APS in Australian Indigenous affairs, and their consistent contribution to failure,” he said.
Calma also pointed to the financial and opportunity costs of machinery of government changes, pointing out there have been 21 different ministers for the portfolio in the past 50 years and 10 different administrative structures — nine of those within the past 30 years.
This had led to the same old ideas being recycled with little learning from the mistakes of the past, he said, fuelling a destructive cynicism and lethargy among those who had watched the government spin its bureaucratic wheels through several policy and MOG changes.
The full speeches — and the panel’s responses to pre-written questions asked by Department of Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell, ACT Public Service head Kathy Leigh and Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews — are all worth listening to in the full video of the two-hour event.
A flurry of discussion, but where will it lead?
Held in partnership with the Institute of Public Administration Australia (ACT Division), the event was just one of many ways PM&C, as the current home of Indigenous affairs, is actively encouraging a discussion about the way forward. The department’s Indigenous affairs group has also partnered with the Australia New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) to deliver several more academic forums and publications this year.
The first, a discussion paper that also came out on Friday, considers “two constant underlying problems” that have persisted ever since the Commonwealth first set up an Indigenous affairs bureaucracy in 1967.
“They had to ask what government structure or instrument would be best suited to this effort,” Parkinson explained. “And they had to ask how best to bring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into the national decision-making process.”
“They” were the original Council for Aboriginal Affairs set up shortly after the referendum, comprising inaugural Reserve Bank governor Herbert Cole “Nugget” Coombs, senior diplomat Barrie Dexter and the famous anthropologist William Stanner.
“50 years after Coombs’ original questions, I think those questions are as salient today as they were then,” said the PM&C secretary.
The event was also a moment to admit that in many ways, federal policymakers have struggled to work out what to do and where to stand with regard to Indigenous Australians for most of that 50 years.
“We, as PM&C, have to do better. But we, as the Australian Public Service, have to do a damn sight better than we’re doing now,” said Parkinson.
While the IA group in his department plays a leading a role, he said it only spends about 7% of funding for services directed to Indigenous Australians.
“The vast bulk of monies spent in this country actually rest in your hands and the hands of states and territories,” Parkinson said, with a line of federal secretaries seated front and centre.
“And ask yourself a question: do you pay enough attention to the impact of the policies that you design and you implement and you deliver on Indigenous Australians?
“And I think if you ask that question and you’re honest with yourself, the answer is pretty clear.”
Going back to first principles
Much of the progress that has occurred has come through protest, grass-roots activism and community organisations built by Indigenous people, as Turner reminded the audience. The years before the referendum were much darker times for Aborigines and, she recalled, the outcome of the vote was a joyous occasion.
“However, we have always had to fight for our basic rights as Aboriginal people, the original owners and occupiers of this land for some 60,000 years,” she added.
Turner had high praise for some of the past “giants of the APS” whose frank, impartial advice led to big nation-building projects and successful responses to national crises — and for the “bold vision of the future” set out by Coombs, Dexter and Stanner.
“Those three wise, white men did so much for my people in a short space of time,” she said, suggesting there might be value in revisiting some of the CAA”s “seminal” report.
“Today we can bear witness to the fact that very few professional public servants seek an entire career at the coal-face of Indigenous policy advice.”
It is up to all public servants, she said, to make sure their ministers hear “frank and fearless” advice on the “political hot potato” of Indigenous affairs that reflects the views of Aboriginal people “about the decisions made in government for them” and comes through their own representative organisations.
“In the past, we have tended to rely too heavily on gut-feel.”
“In the past, we have tended to rely too heavily on gut-feel.”
Turner believes in Indigenous self-determination and public servants using their positions to advocate for their people, in line with cultural expectations. She said doing this made her an “unusual” public servant who often challenged her superiors — but encouraged current public servants with an Indigenous background to do more or less the same.
Meanwhile, the PM&C discussion paper reminds us that conservative views remain and, across the whole population, not everyone agrees that there should even be Indigenous-specific arms of government — or affirmative action to reverse “the lack of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices in the government executive and administration” for that matter.
Going all the way back to the questions Coombs wrestled with in 1967, the paper explains the other view is that governments should demand better outcomes for Indigenous Australians from all mainstream agencies as part of their normal work — not cast Indigenous people as a special class of citizens with special policies and special public servants to administer them.
“We may have created the opportunity in ’67 but we haven’t actually delivered on it.”
“We may have created the opportunity in ’67 but we haven’t actually delivered on it.”
As wise as those white men of the CAA were, it was also their view that Indigenous people should call the tune through their own organisations as soon as practical. 50 years later, it is still up to APS to figure out “the structural challenge that Nugget Coombs outlined” decades ago, according to Parkinson.
“One thing I am absolutely sure of is that setting the agenda for how we approach the second 50 years of Commonwealth public administration in Indigenous affairs is going to test our values,” he added.
“It’s going to test our technical expertise, and it’s going to test, importantly, our leadership — both our capacity to lead but more importantly, our willingness to lead. There’s no question; we have to do things differently.”
Parkinson’s closing comments reflect the current policy mantra to do things “with” Aboriginal people, not “to” them. But it is much easier to put this principle into words than into practice, although in Anderson, the department seems to have found someone who truly understands the challenges and can plot a realistic path forward.
“We will be asking Indigenous communities to step up, to take on leadership and to hold themselves accountable, but we, as public servants, also then have to let go,” Parkinson said.
Top image: Department of the Environment and Energy secretary and IPAA ACT president Gordon De Brouwer with the panellists and Martin Parkinson. All images by RLDI.
