Site navigation

Change font size: SmallerLargerReload

About the Australian Human Rights Commission navigation

Creating Futures 2010 Conference

Harnessing creativity and social enterprise for mental health and wellbeing


Mick Gooda
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner
Australian Human Rights Commission

Cairns

20 September 2010

I begin today by thanking Granny Alice Yeatman for her warm welcome to Yarrabah and paying my respects to the Traditional Owners, on whose land we meet.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters, distinguished guests.

I am of the Gangulu people from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland and when I speak to my Elders, they ask me to pass on my salutations to the traditional owners of the land I visit, and thank them for their continued fight for their country and their culture. But today I also acknowledge their graciousness in sharing their lands and their culture with all those who live and visit here in the spirit of reconciliation.

I would also like to commit to two things, the first is that I commit to respecting their culture and their country. Secondly, I commit to leaving both their culture and their country in the same condition as it was when I arrived here.

Can I also particularly acknowledge my fellow Directors and Dr Jennifer Bowers, the CEO of the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health Queensland. I continue to be proud to be part of the Centre since its inception and the way it has developed over those years gives all of us involved in one way or another a great deal of which to be proud.

When we first started out in this venture, to put some practical meaning to the vision of people like Ernest Hunter, we had the opportunity to build an organisation from the ground up to ensure:

‘ Rural and Remote Queenslanders, whoever they are and wherever they live are able to access the best possible information and services that support their mental health and wellbeing, helping them to think, learn and live well with their own emotions and with those of others’.

Conferences such as this one because it shines light on the issue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental ill health; an issue that is often overlooked in discussions around Indigenous disadvantage and in relation to some of the headline issues associated, often unfortunately, with Indigenous Australians in the media.

Yet, without addressing mental ill-health as an issue in its own right, efforts to improve life in many Indigenous communities, both urban and remote, are likely to come undone. Poor mental health contributes to the crisis of family violence, anti-social behaviour, substance misuse, confrontation with the legal system, low participation in schooling and employment that is evident in a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The statistics speak for themselves. Mental health is BIG issue for us.

In terms of our emotional and social well-being, the 2004-2005 National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Health Survey found that Indigenous people aged 18 years or older were twice as likely as their non-Indigenous counterparts to feel high or very high levels of psychological distress.

And this is consistent with our higher experience of significant stressors including the 'death of a family member or friend', 'alcohol or drug related problem', 'trouble with police', and 'witness to violence' in the previous 12 months to the survey; in fact in this survey 77% reported experiencing such stressors in the previous 12 months. Almost one in five Indigenous people reported that a member of the family had been sent to jail in the previous 12 months. This of course has significant impacts on all of us.

I am particularly proud to have been involved in the development of our strategic vision as it relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders because we are not seen as solely peoples with problems but people who may have some of the answers. We say that:

‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples live with historically-based, endemic whole person, whole community disadvantage. Through a concept of health that integrates physical, cultural, spiritual, social and emotional domains, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples offer a holistic perspective on wellbeing. In working to bring healing, reconciliation and social justice to their communities, they model how to respond to multiple and entrenched disadvantage. From their stories, we can all learn how to find our way, acknowledge our journeys and rebuild confidence and resilience’.

For those of you who don’t know me I am the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. As part of my statutory responsibilities in this position, I report to Parliament once a year with my Social Justice Report which addresses the human rights of Indigenous Australians. I also provide a Native Title Report which looks at native title issues. I also:

I must admit that when I first started in this job it took me a while to get my head around these ‘human rights’. Now people who do know me know that I don’t say or do things that don’t make sense to me. So with a ‘rights based approach’ now implicit in everything I do I am on a fairly steep learning curve. But today I want to talk about how this approach can show us a practical way forward.

Health is a good place to begin.

What was to become the intellectual foundation of the Close the Gap Campaign: Achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Equality within a generation was first published and tabled in the Australian Parliament as a chapter in the Social Justice Report 2005

That Report characterised Indigenous health inequality as a major human rights issue, and called for a human rights based approach to the Indigenous health gap.

And as a rights issue, Indigenous health inequality was largely framed as an opportunity gap – that Indigenous peoples in Australia did not enjoy the same opportunities to be as healthy as other Australians. That is, to see doctors when they needed them, eat fresh food, live in healthy housing and so on.

And this is where human rights play such an important role in providing a sound intellectual and legal foundation for an approach to Indigenous health.

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises ‘the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’.

The right to health is essentially the right to opportunities to be healthy: it includes the enjoyment of a variety of facilities, goods, services and conditions necessary for the realisation of the highest attainable standard of health. It is not to be understood as a right to be healthy (which is something that cannot be guaranteed solely by governments).

The right to health extends not only to timely and appropriate health care but also to the underlying determinants of health, such as access to safe and potable water and adequate sanitation, an adequate supply of safe food, nutrition and housing, healthy occupational and environmental conditions, and access to health-related education and information, including on sexual and reproductive health.

And a key element of the idea of the right to health as the state enabling the opportunity to be healthy, is that the sate provide equal opportunities to be healthy to the range of sub-groups within its citizenship; and of course that includes Indigenous Australians.

We have a human right to the same opportunities to be healthy as other Australians.

This focus on ensuring equality of opportunity is reflected in the way the right to health is understood, largely as set out in General Comment 14 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (that oversees State compliance with the ICESCR)

Thus the right to health contains the following interrelated and essential elements:


And I’m sure as I’ve set out these elements of the right to health in relation to health services, you can see immediately how the right itself if of enormous assistance to Indigenous Australians; recognising the importance of culturally tailored services, for example, in ensuring that we are able to access health services.

In the preamble to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the UN General Assembly:

Affirmed the Indigenous peoples are equal to all other people and while recognising the right of all people to be different, to consider themselves to be different, and to be respected as such.

The onus for dealing with that difference falls on the providers of services. It is not for the person to navigate his or her way through a health or any other system. It is the duty of the system to be built in such a way to deal with differences.

To take this concept further I suggest we have to look to the standards contained in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the instrument that contains the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of indigenous peoples.[1] And in essence these standards are about creating better engagement between States and Indigenous peoples.

This Declaration took over 20 years to develop with both States and Indigenous peoples being involved.

When it was adopted in 2007 an overwhelming number of States voted in favour with only four voting against. These four included Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Australia.

In 2009, Australia, was the first of these four to reverse position, closely followed by New Zealand. I am pleased to report that the remaining two, Canada and the USA have also indicated they are looking to reverse their positions on the Declaration.

Although only a declaration and therefore aspirational, this instrument is one of the most significant milestone in the protection of indigenous human rights. In one place it catalogues the human rights outlined in other binding international instruments as they apply to indigenous peoples. In that sense it is sourced from binding international law like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination should apply to indigenous peoples.[2]

It is crucial to grasp a central tenant of the Declaration, namely the importance of re-setting relationships between Indigenous peoples and the broader community but more particularly governments. In other words better engagement. The Declaration in affirming Indigenous peoples collective rights to self-determination and decision-making powers through the principle of free, prior and informed consent, is not an instrument of division, rather an instrument to create the institutional structures, arrangements and process needed for indigenous peoples to be able to effectively engage in a relationship with Governments based on mutual respect. Any doubt to this is made clear in the preamble which states the General Assembly is:

Convinced that the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples in this Declaration will enhance the harmonious and cooperative relations between the State and indigenous peoples.[3]

I will dedicate my work to February 2014 to reframing the relationships Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have at four levels in Australian society.

The first level will be with the rest of Australia and this will involve constitutional change and addressing issues like racism. I will come back to this constitutional matter later.

The second level will be with Government, both nationally and with communities.

The third level will be at the international level where we join with other Indigenous peoples globally to pursue our rights with Governments of the world, but to also bring those outcomes back to Australia and agitate for their implementation domestically as a way of making headway to addressing the issues we face on a day to day basis.

The fourth level will be addressing the relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders at the individual, family, organisational and community levels. This cannot be a Government program because these are our issues to sort out.

The full implementation of the Declaration will therefore form the basis of my work for the duration of my tenure.

I finally want to return to the issue of constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. During the recent election campaign both major parties committed to a referendum to facilitate such recognition. In my view Australia will go to a referendum at the next election in three years time with a question, at the very least, about preambular recognition.

There is plenty of work to do bringing together a group of people from the wide spectrum of Australian society who will campaign for this change and to develop the thinking about the extent of change to be put to the Australian people.

Now we don’t underestimate the difficulties we will all face in this endeavour. For instance, only eight out of 44 referenda have been passed in Australia’s history because there is a double majority needed. First there needs to be an overall majority vote yes, and secondly 4 out of the 6 States also have to vote yes.

In real terms this means about 14 million people we need on our side.

We also know that bipartisan support at the political level will be absolutely essential and I am pleased to see the Greens and the Independents also indicate this matter will be a priority.

I think we can look at the referendum in two ways. One, it will mark the beginning of a new relationship between Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander peoples and the rest of Australia. Or it will be the end point to say we now have a relationship built of mutual respect.

For me I will be going for the second option, because we need to have the majority of Australian onside if the referendum is to be successful. We will need their vote in three years time and for me that says we need to start this relationship building right now, from today onwards

One of the great attractions to this is that it will be this generation that gets the opportunity to say ‘yes’ and same opportunity that generation had in 1967. And imagine being able to say to our grandkids, that it was us that did this great thing. That we put the final part of the jigsaw in place the finally gave recognition to the first peoples of Australia.

I would say it is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss, so therefore we have less than three years to do all of the hard work.

I want to finish with a poem form Oodgeroo, or Kath Walker, one of the heroes of our struggle. It is for her son Denis and for me it captures the essence of change needed here. It goes like this:

My son, your eyes search mine
Hurt and puzzled by colour line
Your black skin as soft as velvet shine
What can I tell you son of mine

I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind
I could tell of crimes that shame mankind
Of brutal wrongs and deeds malign
Of rape and murder son of mine

But instead I will tell of brave and fine
When lives of black and white entwine
When men, in brotherhood combine
This I would tell you son of mine

Thank you ladies and gentlemen

[1] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Resolution 61/295, UN Doc: A/61/L.67 (2007), article 43.
[2] See Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the United States of America, UN Doc CERD/C/USA/CO/6 (2008), para 29. At http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/CERDConcludingComments2008.pdf (viewed 20 January 2010).
[3] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Resolution 61/295, UN Doc: A/61/L.67 (2007), preambular para 18.