Category: Indigenous affairs

We can all accept imprisonment as the appropriate response for serious and violent crimes. Nevertheless there is a plethora of studies confirming the common sense conclusion that prison is damaging for individuals at a psychological level, especially in the absence of rehabilitative services; that rates of recidivism, however measured, remain persistently over 50 per cent and up to 75 per cent for Indigenous prisoners; that somewhere around half of prisoners have a mental illness or cognitive impairment; that a high proportion the prison population is received from a very small number of socially disadvantaged postcodes; that the over-imprisonment of Indigenous men, women and children is a continuing  national tragedy; and critically, that rates of imprisonment are mostly quite unrelated to the rate of crime. (more…)

Aboriginal community controlled health services have many advantages, including their power to advocate and shame governments into action, according to Donna Ah Chee, CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. (more…)

Australians have become used to the idea that major reforms demand bi-partisan support. Yet bi-partisanship, as traditionally understood, is increasingly elusive with the result that genuine reforms are either watered down or abandoned on the assumption of failure. This is being played out before our eyes in the arguments for and against putting a referendum to the people on enshrining a First Nations’ ‘voice’ in the Australian Constitution as envisaged by the Uluru Statement From the Heart (May 2017).  (more…)

In the far north east of Arnhem land, a line has been drawn in the sand.

As part of the great Garma festival, two of the most important and revered leaders of Indigenous Australia have made it clear that  the Uluru Statement from the Heart is not negotiable. (more…)

There are many good reasons to support the latest plans to find a constitutional referendum question to encapsulate the principles of the Uluru statement from the heart. There’s the fact that it represents a good idea and good ideal – perhaps one, as some say, that is essential to a mature nationality for Australia and a reconciliation with indigenous Australia, so cruelly displaced, to this day, by white settlement. (more…)

Addressing the National Press Club during NAIDOC Week, Ken Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians said: ‘I will develop and forward a consensus option for constitutional recognition to put to a referendum during the current parliamentary term. That means working through until we reach a point in which there is consensus across all the relevant groups who have a stake in it.’ (more…)

The first words addressed by the Hon David Hurley AC as Governor-General were to the Australian First People and their successors, including, specifically, ‘future leaders’. (more…)

Any person who can establish genetic link to Australia in 1787 may be acknowledged, honoured and respected, by official recognition as a First Australian. (more…)

The truth of Australia’s history has long been hiding in plain sight. The stories of “the killing times” are the ones we have heard in secret, or told in hushed tones. They are not the stories that appear in our history books yet they refuse to go away. (more…)

The biggest gap that needs closing is the lack of an acknowledgement of the past by non-indigenous Australia and a determination that not only will the ignorance and denial not be repeated, but there will be genuine collaboration at every level in future.

Morrison has talked the talk; now he needs to walk the walk, and he had better get on with it if he is not to be part of the unhappy legacy of so many previous leaders.   (more…)

The Australia of today is vastly different to the Australia of my childhood with its widespread racism and sectarianism. It was socially suffocating. For those changes I am very grateful. There is a lot that we can be proud of.  No country has integrated newcomers as well as we have.

But there have been failures and remedial action must be taken. We are yet to be reconciled to our indigenous brothers and sisters who watched the European boat arrivals in 1788. We are yet to take our share of responsibility for the displaced and persecuted people of the world particularly for those displaced by our involvement in futile and disastrous wars in the Middle East which  triggered the enormous refugee outflows.  (more…)

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In 19th century Queensland, the Native Mounted Police were responsible for “dispersing” (a euphemism for systematic killing) Aboriginal people. (more…)

US slave owners wrote and spoke about liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness. Similar hypocrisy, buried in the foundations of settler Australia, has escaped comparable scrutiny. (more…)

For ten years our political leaders have talked about closing the gap. The harsh reality is that the gap in disadvantage suffered by indigenous Australians fails to close. Worse, there has been little discussion about why the gaps do not close despite all the money, the effort, the programs and the goodwill over the decade. Not only are the gaps obstinately immovable, but they are worse than they appear. (more…)

Indigenous Australians suffer racism when they seek or require medical treatment. The good news is that the medical profession acknowledges there is a problem. The bad news is that doctors are not doing nearly enough to bust the systemic bias against our First Peoples. (more…)

Last Tuesday marked 90 years since the last recorded massacre of Aboriginal people in Australia. (more…)

In this Q&A, former senior bureaucrat Michael Dillon offers some very thoughtful insights into the last several decades of Indigenous policy-making and the role of historical knowledge in the policy process. (more…)