Statement at the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee Reconciliation Inquiry Media Conference
by Dr William Jonas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
The terms of reference for the inquiry into reconciliation that was established yesterday by the Senate directly responds to the concerns raised in my latest Social Justice Report to the Parliament.
Recommendation 11 of the report called for the Senate to establish an inquiry into national progress towards reconciliation. Recommendation 12 of the report called on the government to table a full response to the Social Justice Report in Parliament within 15 sitting days of having tabled the report. If the government failed to do so then the recommendation also called for the Senate to establish an inquiry into matters of concern arising out of the report.
It is notable that the motion establishing this inquiry was introduced on the 16th sitting day in the Senate after the Attorney-General's representative tabled the Social Justice Report 2001.
The timing of the motion indicates to the government that the Senate takes the concerns raised in the Social Justice Report about reconciliation seriously and that they will endeavour to hold the government accountable for its performance in this crucial area. And ultimately, that is what this inquiry is about. It is about accountability and making the position of the government on reconciliation transparent.
It is truly unfortunate that the Senate has had to establish this inquiry. Ultimately, this inquiry comes about because of the government's choice to not formally respond to the Social Justice Commissioner's annual reports which monitor their performance on Indigenous issues and make recommendations and proposals for improving their performance; combined with their failure to respond to the documents of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation more than two years since they were handed to the Australian people at Corroboree in May 2000 and some twenty months since the final report and recommendations were tabled in federal Parliament in December 2000.
In the Social Justice Report 2001, I express great concern that not only has the federal government failed to respond adequately or comprehensively to the recommendations of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation or the Social Justice Reports, but that they have also quite deliberately sought to shut down debate and avoid any engagement about them by stating that they are instead committed to 'practical reconciliation'.
Practical reconciliation amounts to 'business as usual'. It involves little innovation or change to service delivery arrangements to address Indigenous marginalisation in a holistic manner. It simply manages the inequality that Indigenous peoples experience, rather than providing a detailed, comprehensive plan for overcoming this disadvantage. It is a cruel illusion of equality that perpetuates Indigenous people's position at the bottom rungs of our society.
There is in fact very limited material available which explicitly identifies the government's views on these recommendations. We know generally that they are committed to 'practical reconciliation' but not specifically their response to the Council's documents or the Social Justice Report.
In pursuing this approach, the government has responded to only one of the six recommendations of the Council's final report - through the limited focus of the Council of Australian Government's framework for addressing Indigenous disadvantage. And we know that the various Ministerial Councils that operate within the COAG framework have committed to establish action plans and benchmarks, but we do not know:
- what is in these action plans;
- what are the targets which government are committing to meet;
- what role Indigenous people have played in determining the priorities and setting the targets; and
- particularly in light of the Commonwealth Grants Commission's extensive report into Indigenous funding need, how these actions plans address funding arrangements within departments, across departments and across governments.
More generally, we have little evidence whether government departments have engaged in any form of policy review to take into account the recommendations for change made by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and the Social Justice Commissioner.
We can expect that this necessary inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee will compel the government to provide us with this basic information that they have resisted providing to date. It will ultimately allow us to know what their level of commitment to the reconciliation process is, plain and simple.
Over the past two months I have conducted a series of regional launches across the country for the Social Justice Report 2001 in which I have expressed concerns about the lack of national progress towards reconciliation. I have been joined in those concerns by a great number of people at those launches. The level of interest that I have seen at these launches indicates to me that there is broad community concern and interest about reconciliation.
There is a serious danger that the reconciliation walks from 2000 will be the high watermark of support for reconciliation, as national attention slowly dissipates. Vital to the continued growth and success of the reconciliation process is a more active leadership role by the Commonwealth in order to prevent a repeat of the mistakes of the past, especially in regard to ensuring adequate accountability, transparency, effective monitoring and long term planning.
We must remember that the reconciliation process was implemented as an initiative of government, not of Indigenous people themselves, and one to which Indigenous people responded and acted in good faith. It is now long overdue for the government to demonstrate its good faith by providing a formal response to the documents of reconciliation.
Last updated 29 August 2002.
