NAIDOC Week 2008 - Ministerial Event

NAIDOC Week 2008 - Ministerial Event

Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social
Justice Commissioner, HREOC

NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs

10 July
2008, Sydney

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation,
the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their
elders past and present.

I thank the Hon. Mr Paul Lynch MP, the Minister FOR Aboriginal Affairs and
the Department of Aboriginal Affairs for the invitation to address this NAIDOC
week event.

The National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee, which has
become known by its acronym NAIDOC, calls on all Australians at this time each
year to celebrate the survival of Indigenous culture and the Indigenous
contribution to modern Australia.

This year, by posing the question ‘advance Australia fair?’,
NAIDOC week aims to encourage people to reflect on the Australian principle of a
“Fair go” and what this means given the inequalities still
experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia today.

This year’s NAIDOC week theme lays down a challenge not only to the
community but importantly, to government, to deliver real change and
improvements in the lives of Aboriginal people.

I would like to take the opportunity today to talk about this challenge posed
to government, by talking about partnerships between Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people and Government, and what is needed in this regard to give
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders a ‘fair go’.

We have clearly reached a crossroads in Indigenous policy and service
delivery. Issues of Indigenous disadvantage and dysfunction are before our eyes
more frequently and more prominently than ever before, particularly in relation
to child sexual assault in Aboriginal communities.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in his Apology on 13 February 2008, “A
business as usual approach towards Indigenous Australians is not working. We
need a new beginning.”^[1] This
created a momentum for change and for action and provided an unprecedented
opportunity at this time, to galvanise government commitment into action. But
what it also heralded was government action in partnership with Indigenous
people.

Partnership is much more than simply consulting with the community.
Partnership is premised on the full participation of the community and having
the communities’ voices at the negotiating table. There is also an
enabling element, for government to strengthen the community’s capacity to
participate.

The ‘right to participation’ that is fundamental to partnerships,
is also central to a human rights based approach to developing policy and
delivering services. A rights based approach requires governments to:

• recognize and accommodate the cultural distinctiveness and diversity of Indigenous Australians;
  

• adopt a people-centred approach which values the full participation of Indigenous peoples in the process, from the very beginning of policy
  development, through to service delivery and monitoring and evaluation;
  

• involve the development of agreed targets and benchmarks, so we have
  a clear picture of what it is exactly that is trying to be achieved; and
  

• be supported by an evaluation framework to assess whether the rights
  of Indigenous peoples are being ‘progressively realised’, so that we
  can be confident that government efforts are effective, well targeted and taking
  place at the maximum level possible.
  

We have also seen the emergence internationally of respect for the
principle of free, prior and informed consent. This principle is
increasingly emerging as a practical methodology within the UN system for
designing programs and projects, which either directly or indirectly affect
indigenous peoples.

Substantively, the right of free, prior and informed consent is grounded in
and is a function of indigenous peoples’ inherent and prior rights to
freely determine their political status, freely pursue their economic, social
and cultural development and freely dispose of their natural wealth and
resources...and their legitimate authority to require that third parties enter
into an equal and respectful relationships with them based on the principle of
informed consent.

Procedurally, free, prior and informed consent requires processes that allow
and support meaningful and authoritative choices by indigenous peoples about
their development paths.^[2]

This principle has most recently been recognised in the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Applying this principle in practice will
require a more open and collaborative approach to policy development by
government departments.

Governments of all persuasions and at all levels have expressed a determined
commitment to address Indigenous disadvantage, particularly as they relate to
family violence and child abuse, and to contribute to a better future for
Indigenous people.

And yet the means by which they seek to achieve this have had, at best,
limited success. Much of the Much of the failure of service delivery to
Indigenous people and communities, and the lack of sustainable outcomes, is a
direct result of the failure to engage appropriately with Indigenous people and
of the failure to support and build the capacity of indigenous
communities.

Working in partnership means valuing the contribution of the
Indigenous communities, who will become the recipients of the government policy.
It seems obvious that the involvement of the intended recipients of the policy
need be involved in the formulation of the process, but it is a mistake that
previous governments have repeatedly made. Therefore an essential component of
effective policy and service delivery is the full participation of and
engagement with Indigenous people.

In light of this I want to commend the NSW government on its Two Ways
Together Partnership Community Program at a cost of $1.9 million. This
program I understand will provide a framework to underpin local community
governance arrangements; and guide local planning in Partnership Communities to
ensure evidence based practical service delivery responses and initiatives,
determined by the local community, that meet local needs.

It is a good example of how governments can work in partnership with
Aboriginal communities in new ways, and I hope that the vision intended for the
program - that Aboriginal people, the NSW government and government agencies can
work together to meet community needs - will be met.

I also commend the NSW Government on its recent budgetary commitments in the
areas of: developing and maintaining water and sewerage systems; expanding safe
families programs in Western NSW; enhancing the Aboriginal Communities
Development Program, Indigenous employment, and supporting Aboriginal languages
and cultural events.

However, in order for governments to continue to make effective Indigenous
policy, there must be in place, permanent infrastructure which guarantees, and
entrenches Indigenous participation in policy making.

I want to talk briefly about the need for a National Indigenous
Representative Body. Such a body must be made a fundamental component of the
Indigenous policy landscape if we are to make lasting progress in improving the
conditions of Indigenous people in our communities.

The absence of a grounded, rigorous process that assures the participation of
Indigenous peoples in determining the policy settings and ensuring that they are
being implemented, and where government’s are held accountable for their
performance, contributes to the lack of achievement and lack of focus of the
whole of government system. It leads to an imbalanced system that does not
recognise the necessity for partnership and mutual respect in order to achieve
the end goal.

Put simply, governments risk failure – and will continue to risk doing
so – if they develop and implement policies about Indigenous issues
without engaging with the intended recipients of those services.

A National Indigenous Representative Body enables the government to undertake
the process of engagement with Indigenous communities, and ensures their active
participation in policy making.

In 2007 I initiated research to identify the key considerations that will
need to be addressed in establishing a new National Indigenous Representative
Body. The research considers lessons learned from previous experiences of
representative Indigenous bodies in Australia and current mechanisms for
representing Indigenous peoples in Australia and overseas. It also outlines a
series of issues for discussion on the important features of a representative
body. The research report will be released shortly and I hope it will be useful
in deliberations by both Indigenous people and governments s to come to an
agreed model for a new National Indigenous Representative Body.

To conclude, this NAIDOC week I am urging everyone to use this week to learn
about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s history and culture as well
as understand what are the issues Aboriginal people currently face on a daily
basis.

I urge government to place Aboriginal issues at the forefront of government
policy, to be actioned by the highest levels of government.

Finally, I urge you to make a personal commitment to changing Aboriginal
disadvantage, to advance Australia fair.

Please remember, from self respect comes dignity, and from dignity comes
hope.

Thank you.

^[1] House of Representatives, Official Hansard, No. 1, 2008, Wednesday, 13 February 2008, p171.

^[2] Working Group on Indigenous
Populations, Standard-setting: Legal commentary on the concept of free, prior
and informed consent. Expanded working paper submitted by Mrs.
Antoanella-Iulia Motoc and the Tebtebba Foundation offering guidelines to govern
the practice of Implementation of the principle of free, prior and informed
consent of indigenous peoples in relation to development affecting their lands
and natural resources, UN Doc: E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.4/2005/WP.1, 14 July 2005,
paras 56-58, p15.