An Indigenous home for Indigenous children
Speech by Michael Dodson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the SNAICC National Conference, Townsville, June 1997
To all of you who work with and for Indigenous children and families - my deepest congratulations. Many of you have spent years decrying the treatment of Indigenous children.You have written and spoken, cajoled and attempted to convince and then lobbied some more - just trying to get the people of this country to open their eyes. Your energy has been boundless. Your patience infinite.
Now, perhaps, your work is beginning to bear fruit.
In the last weeks we have seen a most extraordinary turn of events. Day after day and now week after week the newspapers and airwaves have been jammed with talk about our families and children. Day after day the letters pages a filled with the reactions of ordinary Australians, horrified at the truths they never knew. Never before have so many Australians turned their attention to our families. Never before has Australia really known or cared about our children. Children taken from the arms of their mothers. Taken from their cultures.
No one could say that the battle has been won! But we have got the nation's attention. And despite the efforts of some of the nations political leaders to minimise the atrocities - we have captured much of the nation's heart.
Last week, a father wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald asking where he might lay his hands on a copy of Bringing Them Home because his seven year old son keeps asking him questions he can't answer.
Questions like:
Who took the children?
Why did they take them?
Did they give them back?
Why didn't the kids write to their mum and dad and tell them where they
were?
Were they, the kids, sad?
Our office has been flooded with messages from ordinary Australians - words full of grief and compassion and shame.
A young woman described reading the report on a tram - tears pouring down her face - and turning to all those around her to tell them what she was learning. She said that when she had finished the report for the second time, she would be lending it to everyone she knew - and later she would keep it to give her children and eventually her grandchildren.
Another woman sent me a photo of her newborn twins, with a note on the back thanking us for creating a future they can look forward to.
When John Laws discussed the report on his show 2 weeks ago, we received 1200 phone calls asking for copies of the community guide.
The pain of children torn from their families is our daily reality. Now it has become part of the reality of all Australians. And that in itself is no small achievement. Which makes now the most important time of all. If ignorance was an excuse for inaction - this new found awareness must be the basis for action. Now is the time that we must translate good will into substantive change.
As you know, the National Inquiry into the Removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families found that past policies of removal have had, and continue to have a horrendous impact on our families and communities. The report of the inquiry recounts, in graphic detail the personal agony of the families, of those who were themselves removed, and of their children. Their stories fill the seven hundred pages of this report.
They also filled eighteen months of my life sitting on the inquiry. Throughout my professional life I have been steeped in the abuses that my people suffer. But never, never have I seen what I saw when witnesses to the inquiry came before me. never have I heard what I heard as they spoke of their lives. Nothing could have prepared me for the weight of suffering that so many of our brothers and sisters bear. If ever non-Indigenous Australians wondered about the basis of our grievances - they need wonder no more. Here it is - in this volume - for all to see.
I truly believe that anyone- no matter what their stand on race issues is, knows that it is harmful and wrong to take children from their families. Everyone understands that children need their mothers and fathers and aunties and uncles and grandmas. Everyone knows that institutions don't grow up healthy, happy children. With the release of this report, all Australians will know that these harms and these wrongs have been the systematic fate of our families. And all Australians can be moved to action - just as we have been.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission was asked to inquire into past laws, polices and practices of removal. To date, media attention and public debate have focussed on that aspect of the report. As I have repeatedly stated - it is crucial that all Australians acknowledge past injustices . without that we cannot even begin to contemplate reconciliation or national cohesion. But, the National Inquiry was also charged with looking into current laws, policies and practices concerning the care and placement of Indigenous children. In fact, we devoted much of our time, and about one third of the report to what is happening to our children today.
We must not let the contemporary dimension of the report be lost in the fiery debate over our findings about the past.
The fourth term of reference - contemporary removal is an integral part of the story the report has to tell. It is not simply another issue tacked onto the end to bring the report up to date. Contemporary removal is not conceptually distinct from past policies and practices. It grows out of what happened yesterday, and a decade ago. And throughout the last two hundred years. There is an unbroken line that moves through the story of removal. And that line is cultural destruction.
The laws, policies and practices of past removal were not simply unjust. They were not merely cruel or unethical. They were genocidal. There it is the 'g'; word - that word that has caused such an uproar.
We do not use the word genocide because it evokes more horror than any other word. We do not use it because it is controversial. We use it because of its precise meaning. Genocide is an act taken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a racial group. The intent to destroy a people. Our people.
The explicitly racist and genocidal laws of the past have been wiped from the statute books. And the state no longer overtly sets out to destroy Indigenous peoples, as peoples. But neither the racism, nor the cultural destruction are things of the past. Our children are still systematically taken from their families and communities. And taken at an astronomical rate. Our children are 6 times more likely than other children to be removed for welfare reasons and 21 times more likely to be removed for juvenile justice reasons. Now more than ever, Australians can not turn away from what is happening in our own country at this moment.
Now that it is known what happens to children who are taken from their families this country cannot allow the ground to be laid for another and then another generation of stolen children.
Now, more than ever as Australia contemplates its identity - Australians must not turn away from the real meaning of removing Indigenous children. Taking Indigenous children is not just an act of violence against those children and their families. It is an act of cultural destruction. Our people have barely survived the genocidal policies of the past. We cannot afford, as peoples, or as a nation to allow current laws and policies to decimate Australia's first peoples.
Since the release of the report, one of things people keep asking is: "how is this any different from the removal of non-Indigenous kids?" they point out that it was common practice for children to be taken from white single mothers or white families who did not meet departmental standards.
There is a simple answer to that question. Indigenous children and only Indigenous children were taken because of their race. Only Indigenous children became wards of the state at birth. They could legally remove an Indigenous child without alleging neglect or abuse. You just had to say they were Aboriginal. There were separate statutes specifically authorising the removal of our children because their Aboriginality was a "problem".
But there is a more complex answer - an answer about the contours of cultural difference and systemic racism.
Some of you may have heard that I spoke about this report at the Second World Congress on Family Law and the Rights of Children and Youth in San Fransisco a couple of weeks ago. I was asked to address the Congress on family functions and family forms, and in that context discussed the experiences of Indigenous families under the laws and policies of this country. In particular, I focused on the conflict between the values that underpin the state's law and policy and the values and cultures of Indigenous families.
The issues I raised were of great interest to the participants at the conference. Because what happened to Australia's first peoples has happened to first peoples in colonised countries throughout the world. The conference recognised that child removal has been one of the greatest crimes of colonisation. At the end of the conference, we passed a resolution condemning the removal of Indigenous as a gross violation of human rights. The convention called on all states who engaged in such practices to formally and unconditionally apologise, and to make reparations.
Australian governments have long taken office on "family values" platforms. They promote policies to strengthen and support Australian families. And we would be the first to stand behind that. Family is tremendously important to us. But if your family culture does not match the state culture, its laws and policies bear little resemblance to support. In our case, quite the opposite. They have undermined, and they continue to undermine our families. Colonial states embody the coloniser's culture. Their language is the language of the colonising culture. Their laws and systems reflect the values and aspirations of that culture. And they do that so invisibly that you'd never even see it. Unless you do not fit. When they try to make our families white, they destroy the source of our identity. They sap our strength and they threaten our survival.
Racism is not just about one individual discriminating against another individual. Structural racism is about the hierarchy of cultures. About one group of people imposing their values on another. Racism comes in many forms. It can be well disguised, even dressed as "the best of intentions". Racism - in this broad sense - was and is the basis of the removal of our children. And that is why it is not the same as the removal of other children.
Some people have argued against our findings by saying that children were removed with the best intentions . Far from trying to hurt them, the argument runs, the intention was to save them. That may well have been what people thought they were doing. But, quite frankly, that is irrelevant to the finding of genocide - or the fact of cultural destruction. The authorities who took and who continue to take our children often framed their actions in terms of the best interests of the child. They thought - and think that removal was "for their own good" - to free them from our dysfunctional families. To protect them from our moral failings. To immunise them against our pathological behaviour.
They see our families as faulty so they have to fix them. They see our cultures as impoverished, so they have to enlighten them. They see our difference as inferiority, so they have to improve it. They judge our difference - and they try to take it away. But it is our difference that makes us unique - and our uniqueness that we want to protect. They look at the way we share responsibility for children with our extended kin and they see instability. They look at the way we allow our children autonomy and they see irresponsibility. They think our preference for comfort and affection over discipline is a mark of our moral weakness. Before their scrutinising eyes, all this is just evidence of the fact that we are not qualified to produce decent members of society.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically states that a child who is Indigenous has a right to enjoy his or her own culture - in community with other members of the group. In case that is not clear enough - let me spell it out. Our children have a right to their Indigenous culture. It is not in the best interests of our children to take them away from their Indigenous culture.
But is this the principle that informs Australia's policies on children? I think not. They take our children from their own culture - and they deposit them in an alien culture.
No other international human rights treaty has received the degree of support that has been given to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Close to two hundred countries (there are only three member states of the United Nations that have not signed/ratified) across the globe - including Australia agree that a child's own culture is absolutely central to their well being.
But our domestic law and policy flies in the face of that recognition. Contemporary juvenile justice and welfare systems still construe Aboriginality as a problem. Far from respecting and protecting cultural connection, they still see it as a risk factor. They still see Indigenous communities and families as "dysfunctional" and "culturally deprived". It is only our children that are potentially savable. But to save them, you have to protect them from contamination from Indigenous environments. We are still somehow seen as incompetent to bring up or care for our own children, and make them into acceptable members of society. We are still seen as morally deficient and in need of guidance.
From our point of view, the rates of removal are a source of the greatest grief. But non-Indigenous society holds them up as proof of our failure. You - the people who work at the front line with Indigenous families would be the first to acknowledge that many of our children are living in troubled environments. No one knows better than their parents that many of our children are troubled. Nor does anyone have to tell our communities that many of our children cope with their problems by causing more trouble.
But recognising that there is a problem, and blaming us for it, are two very different things. And they lead to two very different types of response.
Seeing us as the problem has led to the development of elaborate legal and bureaucratic systems of control. We are surrounded by police, courts, welfare officers, foster parents and juvenile justice centres, all of whom apparently know better than us, how to look after our kids. If you understand the problem, you may well see that taking control away from us is the very worst thing you can do.
When you think an Indigenous child is not adequately cared for, you can remove her on the grounds of neglect. Or you can look at the historic and systematic homelessness, the unemployment, the racism, the dispossession and the poverty that characterise her family and community. If you do that, you might well decide that the best way to help her is to alleviate the disadvantage around her.
When you think that a child is not being properly brought up, look at who his parents are. Many are themselves the survivors of past removal policies. They are still suffering the psychological and emotional damage of those policies. Left alone to cope with their own losses, it is hardly surprising that they are unable to provide their child with a loving, strong and safe home.
If you see that, you may well recognise that the best way to help that child is to support his parents, and allow them to give him the parenting he needs. When you think that our children are acting out you would do well to look at their context and their inheritance. Time and again, we see the children of the stolen generation inherit their parents' unresolved feelings and express those feelings in the form of violence, criminality, self-abuse and substance abuse.
If you just take them away, you are doing little more than sealing the fate of another generation. Quite frankly - we are sick of being made the problem. We think it is about time to turn the tables. If there is a "mismatch" between the broader non-Indigenous culture and our Indigenous culture, then they fail to meet our standards just as much as we fail to meet theirs. From our point of view, when non-Indigenous society removes our children from their Indigenous families and communities it is not saving them. It is condemning them to a life which they will never fit.
We now have undeniable proof that putting Indigenous children in non-Indigenous families or institutions rarely, if ever, gives them happy and full lives. The great assimilationist dream of making them into another shade of white just does not work. By now a long succession of royal commissions, inquiries and reports have been highly critical of mainstream welfare and juvenile justice systems. Their conclusions are unanimous. These systems contravene the basic rights of Indigenous children and families. They fail to uphold the principle of self-determination. They contravene Australia's international human rights commitments. They don't even do what they are set up to do - protect children and the community.
Children who go into welfare come out without a sense of self and without a sense of belonging. Children who go into detention come out and reoffend. They graduate from the welfare system to the juvenile justice system. And from the juvenile justice system to the criminal justice system.
How many times will we have to repeat these facts? How many times are we going to read or write the recommendations, receive the government's endorsement and the listen to their commitment to implementation? We have heard it all too many times already. Mouthing support is but a hollow gesture if it is not matched by a genuine willingness to change the culture which underpins the removal of Indigenous children. And the fact is that the culture of control remains firmly in place.
For 20 years self determination has been the official national policy. It is also a human right of all peoples. But we are still the objects, not the subjects of family law. We are still having decisions made for us. We are still being told what is in our best interests. Our key recommendation on contemporary removal is little different to what you, the workers in the field and people in the community have been saying for years.
Self determination and cultural connection are the keys to the well-being of Indigenous children and young people.
We are calling on the commonwealth to work with key players, including SNAICC, to establish legislation to give a national framework for the principle of self-determination to be put into practice. This legislation would allow communities or regions to negotiate with the Commonwealth and the relevant State or Territory to establish arrangements for their own children.
Some communities may want to take over all or some of the welfare, juvenile justice, care and protection and adoption matters currently controlled by governments. Others may want to share those functions. Others may want current authorities to continue to work with their children - but to have greater say about their operations.
The key is that communities not governments will decide how best to address welfare and juvenile justice issues.
The framework legislation would set out minimum standards to ensure that children's rights are protected, no matter who is in control of the laws and policies affecting Indigenous children. That means that communities which are not ready, or do not want to take over welfare and juvenile justice functions, need not feel they are handing their children to the lions. Certain basic principles and standards will be guaranteed.
The standards we have outlined are derived largely from the views put to us by Indigenous organisations and families. They are also firmly grounded in international legal and human rights standards set out in the key international instruments. These include the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The key principle underpinning the standards is that the best interest of the child must at all times be paramount. And in the case of Indigenous children, the basic presumption must be that the best interest is to remain within his or her Indigenous family, community and culture.
Any authority making arrangements for Indigenous children must consider the need for the child to maintain contact with their family and culture. Decision makers must consider the significance of the child's culture and heritage for his or her future well-being. Every non-Indigenous decision maker must consult with accredited Indigenous organisations from the point of notification or arrest, and at each stage from then on. Token involvement or ad hoc consultation after decisions are made and the child is already on the systemic treadmill will not do.
Our recommendations are designed to attack the problem at its heart. For too long we have long suffered a system which undermines our communities. We want one which strengthens us. For too long we have lived under authorities ignorant of our values. We want to authorise those values. For too long, we have seen what is precious to us taken away.
When they take our land, they take the ground of our culture. When they take our children, they take the future of our culture. If they keep on taking, there will be nothing left.
Ladies and gentlemen, we can no longer equivocate. This is not history. The children taken in 1937 became the parents unable to teach the children of 1967. The children taken in 1967 became the parents unable to teach the children of 1997. If they take the children in 1997 - worse still if they take them in 2007 and 2027 - there may be nothing left to teach.
We cannot allow that to happen. We will not allow that to happen. The taking must stop.
Thank you.
Reference notes
1. Letter
from Michael Carey, Jakarta, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June 1997.
2. Article 30.
