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The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Ten Years On: The Ongoing Role of Government

Presentation to the Victorian Aboriginal Justice Forum, 20 September 2002

Darren Dick, Director- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Unit, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Acknowledgements -traditional owners (Wurundjuree people); those present.

I am here representing Dr William Jonas, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. Dr Jonas was unable to attend today due to a range of other commitments. He asked that I begin by thanking the Victorian Department of Justice for inviting the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to attend this morning and present to you our views on the status of government progress in addressing Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and related issues.

Before I do that, I'm going to provide some context with a brief overview of the role and functions of the Social Justice Commissioner.

The position of Social Justice Commissioner was created in 1992 within the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, largely in response to 2 major inquiries which had reported in 1991. The first was the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the second, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's National Inquiry into Racist Violence. Both of these reports identified systemic discrimination against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as existing across many areas of Australian society. Both reports also identified a need for ongoing mechanisms to monitor the human rights situation faced by Indigenous Australians.

Accordingly, the role of Social Justice Commissioner was established to provide this ongoing evaluative mechanism.

The Commissioner is empowered with a broad set of functions:

1. The production of an annual report to the federal Parliament on the status of the exercise and enjoyment of human rights by Indigenous people - the Social Justice Report;
2. The production of an annual report to the federal Parliament on the impact of the Native Title Act 1993 on the exercise and enjoyment of Indigenous people's human rights - the Native Title Report;
3. The conduct of activities which promote respect for, and enjoyment of, Indigenous people's human rights through research, education and other means; as well as which promote discussion and awareness of the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; and
4. Examining enactments and proposed enactments to see whether they recognise and protect the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.


The provisions of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 also make clear that these functions may be exercised in relation to matters at the state and territory levels, not just the federal level.

Under the legislation establishing the Human Rights Commission, the Social Justice Commissioner can also intervene in court cases to raise significant human rights issues at stake in litigation. The Social Justice Commissioner has done this twice so far - in the High Court native title cases of Miriwung Gajerrong and Yorta Yorta. The Commissioner can also apply to the Court to appear before it during a trial as amicus curie, or friend of the court, to again provide human rights expertise to assist with the Court's deliberations.

The main focus of the Commissioner's work, however, is inevitably the annual reports to the federal Parliament - the Social Justice Report and the Native Title Report. These have come to be seen by many as a 'report card' on governmental progress towards achieving social justice for Indigenous peoples.

What I am going to focus on today are issues that have been raised in the past two Social Justice Reports for 2000 and 2001 and which are relevant to deaths in custody issues. Broadly speaking, the 2000 report sets out a human rights framework for reconciliation - identifying the key pillars which governments must focus on to achieve meaningful reconciliation.

The 2001 report, which is the most current report - the 2002 report will be submitted to the federal Attorney-General later this year - evaluates national progress towards implementing reconciliation and seeks to draw lessons from the implementation process for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The report provides an overview of developments in the ten years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

The 2001 report also looks at welfare reform policies and the mutual obligation approach, gives examples of Indigenous community capacity building and governance initiatives, as well as reviewing developments in the juvenile justice systems in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

As many of you will no doubt acknowledge, while these issues are quite diverse they are not easily separated. And that is one of the main challenges that you no doubt face in this forum - how do you address over-representation in criminal justice processes when it is so integrally linked to processes of governance and community capacity building, to welfare reform and to the broader, systemic issues which the reconciliation process is meant to address? I will leave you today with some suggestions from a human rights perspective that the Social Justice Commissioner has identified as needing to take place in order to more effectively draw these varying strands together.

The issues raised in the 2 latest social justice reports are about to receive a great deal more coverage and consideration at the national level due to a Senate committee inquiry which has now been established in response to the recommendations of the Social Justice Report 2001. Basically, the 2001 report makes some very critical comments on the inadequate progress towards reconciliation. It recommends that a Senate inquiry be established to examine the adequacy of the federal government's response to key documents about reconciliation - including the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and the 2000 and 2001 Social Justice Reports.

This inquiry was established last month on a motion by Senator Ridgeway and the support of the opposition parties, and will report in March 2003. In addition to examining the adequacy of the federal government's response to the documents of reconciliation, it will also be examining the adequacy of benchmarks and targets adopted at the inter-governmental level under the framework of the Council of Australian Governments and various Ministerial Councils, as well as the extent to which government agencies have reviewed their policy development processes against the documents of reconciliation and have reviewed existing funding arrangements. I have brought a copy of the terms of reference for the inquiry and will leave them here for your information.

In the remainder of the time left to me, I am going to talk about the Commissioner's concerns about developments in the ten years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. There are four main areas that I want to consider:

i) What has happened in the 10 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody?

So first, what has happened in the 10 years (now 11 years) since the Royal Commission reported in 1991?

The most tangible indicator of progress since the Royal Commission is the extent of Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system. Has the rate of over-representation of Indigenous people and the number of deaths in custody been reduced? We could have reasonably expected that lasting improvements for both of these measures would have been realised within a timeframe of ten years and following the injection of more than $400 million of additional federal funding to meet this objective.

This has not happened. Indigenous people continue to be grossly over-represented in criminal justice processes, and the rate of this over-representation has in fact worsened - rather than improved - since the Royal Commission.

The number of Indigenous prisoners increased at an average rate of 8% per year between 1991 - 1999, compared with an increase in the non-Indigenous prisoner population of 3% per year on average. This has meant that in 1999 Indigenous prisoners made up 20% of the total prisoner population. This compares to 14% in 1991. Put differently, a group that constitutes just over 2% of the total population now consistently provides 20% of the country's prisoners.

The ratio of Indigenous to non-Indigenous prisoners has also regressed since 1991. The most recent statistics, for the March 2002 quarter, indicate that Indigenous people are incarcerated at 14.7 times the non-Indigenous rate. The figure for Victoria is 11.4 times the non-Indigenous rate - making Victoria the second best of all states and territories for which data is collected. [1] I should add that the use of the term 'second best' is not meant to be a compliment as it is still a disgraceful situation.

The rates for Indigenous juveniles are no better. The rates of juvenile detention have fallen significantly in the twenty years from 1981 to 2000, by nearly half for males and nearly two thirds for females. Despite this, Indigenous juveniles remain grossly over-represented in juvenile corrections and the rate of over-representation has increased.

In 2000, Indigenous juveniles were in juvenile corrections at a rate 15.5 times that of non-Indigenous juveniles, compared to 13 times in 1993 [2]. Since 1997, Indigenous juveniles in corrections have consistently made up approximately 42% of the total juvenile detention population [3] .

Perhaps most worrying of all, however, is the rise in imprisonment of Indigenous women in the decade since the Royal Commission. The total number of Indigenous female prisoners on a national basis increased by 262% between 1991 and 1999. This compares to a rise of 185% in the total female prisoner population [4] .

The rate of imprisonment for Indigenous women has also nearly doubled between 1991 and 1999 from 104 to 207 per 100,000 population [5]. It has since increased further to 270 Indigenous women per 100,000 in the March 2002 Quarter. The gravity of this situation is also indicated by the fact that at the end of the March 2002 quarter, Indigenous women were incarcerated at a rate 20.2 times that of non-Indigenous women. In Victoria the rate is 22.4 times the non-Indigenous rate. This rate of over-representation for Indigenous women (compared to total women) is significantly higher than the rate for Indigenous men (compared to total men). The ratio of indigenous female imprisonment is also comparable to the rate of imprisonment for non-Indigenous males. This is despite imprisonment generally being a male phenomenon, with males comprising approximately 94% of the total prison population. [6]

Yet despite this, Aboriginal women remain largely invisible to policy makers and program designers with very little attention devoted to their specific situation and needs. This is of critical importance, particularly because of the impact that imprisonment has on Indigenous families and communities (especially through separation from children).

This is a major challenge for this Aboriginal Justice Forum. It is too often assumed that as the raw number of Indigenous women affected is small that it is not a problem. Alternatively, it simply goes by unnoticed and slips through the cracks. The Social Justice Commissioner is currently conducting research looking broadly at how government agencies address issues relating to Indigenous women in corrections, and we would certainly encourage you to make this a real and substantial area of review as part of your activities. We would also note that the Royal Commission recommendations do not address these issues very well themselves, and are in need of updating in this regard.

The Royal Commission's central finding was that Indigenous people did not die in custody at a greater rate than non-Indigenous people but in proportion to their size of the custodial population. Given the above figures on incarceration and the increasing rates of over-representation over the past 10 years, it follows that Indigenous deaths in custody are likely to have continued during the past decade at a substantial rate and one similar to that in the decade leading up to the Royal Commission.

A total of 115 Indigenous people died in custody in the period from 1990 to 1999, compared to 110 people in the period from 1980 to 1989 [7]. This constituted a slight fall in the average annual rate of Indigenous deaths in custody from 4.4 persons per 100,000 to 3.8 [8]. But over the ten years from 1990 to 2000, 18% of all people who died in custody were Indigenous. [9]

Ten years on we should not be facing a situation where rates of over-representation have worsened like this and deaths in custody have not been significantly reduced. As the Social Justice Commissioner noted in the Social Justice Report 2001, 'The lack of concern and urgency from governments to rectify this is distressing. As the Royal Commission stated, this situation would not be tolerated if it occurred in the non-Indigenous community'.

ii) What can we learn from the implementation process for the Royal Commission?

So what can we learn from the implementation process for the Royal Commission to date?

The responsibility for implementing the Commission's findings rested with governments and their service delivery agencies. The first recommendation of the Royal Commission made clear that governments should do this through a process agreed in partnership and after consultation with Indigenous organisations. $400 million was allocated by the Commonwealth government for the implementation of the Royal Commission's recommendations. Each jurisdiction produced an annual implementation report for a period of 6 years. Towards the end of this process there was also a national Ministerial Summit to examine the status of the implementation of the recommendations.

In the Social Justice Report 2001 the Commissioner noted that 'this implementation process, while superficially appearing extensive, has been spectacularly unsuccessful.'

In particular, the Commissioner identified a number of what he called 'fundamental flaws' in the reporting process. In brief, these are as follows. First, it did not result in accurate evaluations of progress at any level due to the lack of independence and evaluation in each annual government report.

Second, governments generally took a 'public relations approach' to the reporting process, re-packaging existing programs as an implementation response at the end of each year. The NSW Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council, in its review of the NSW government's implementation process, nominates this as the principal problem with implementation of the Royal Commission's recommendations. This is because of the 'decentralised and retrospective nature' of the government reporting process:

responding to a recommendation at the end of a reporting period has meant that agencies have responded with activity that most closely matches recommendations rather than pro- actively examining how to implement the specific requirements of a recommendation. [10]

This makes a critical examination of the response meaningless and does not allow long term planning. This approach has also meant, and this is the third problem, that the implementation process has been piecemeal and ad hoc. There have not been whole-of-government responses to all the recommendations, integrating programs across departments and between levels of government to ensure coordinated outcomes.

The fourth problem is that the focus of the reporting process has not been on an assessment of pre-agreed, negotiated outcomes which measure real achievements. It has been simply responding to individual recommendations in isolation from the rest of the report [11] . Ultimately, it means that the 'implementation report' is nothing more than a piece of empty government rhetoric, and is treated by government as an end in itself.

In reviewing 96 deaths in custody in the first 7 years after the Royal Commission, the previous Social Justice Commissioner - Mick Dodson - identified a six stage plan for implementation of the Royal Commission recommendations by government departments. The 6 stages are:

1) Reviewing current activities;
2) Developing policies and programs;
3) Setting goals or targets;
4) Allocating responsibility for implementation;
5) Ensuring adequate communication and training supports the plans; and
6) Establishing evaluation mechanisms. [12]

The implementation process for the Royal Commission has rarely moved beyond this first stage.

Accompanying this flawed process of reporting over the last decade has been a nationwide trend towards tougher 'law and order' policies. Such 'tough on crime' approaches to criminal justice have ranged from zero tolerance in the Northern Territory to truth in sentencing in NSW, to crackdowns on activities in public spaces across the country with the introduction of alcohol dry zones (such as recently introduced in Adelaide) to laws which provide police with additional powers to move people along or remove them to a safe house for their own safety, right through to provisions allowing police to remove people who are drunk into protective custody to the continued prosecution for summary offences such as offensive behaviour and language.

The impact of this approach has contradicted efforts to address Indigenous over-representation in custody. At the same time as 'promoting or reporting on activities which aim to reduce Aboriginal contact with the criminal justice system… major government initiatives, policy and legislation seem to increase that contact' [13]. The most obvious and offensive example of this is the existence of mandatory sentencing regimes in the Northern Territory and Western Australia alongside government commitments to enforce the principle of imprisonment as a sanction of last resort (which is recommendation 92 of the Royal Commission).

The Social Justice Report 2001 provides examples from across the country of this problem, including one from Victoria citing recently completed analysis of police records in Victoria from 1993 to 1997. These demonstrate that many of the key concerns identified by the Royal Commission have not been addressed. In particular, public drunkenness and summary offences such as indecent language, resisting arrest and offensive behaviour remain a significant factor in Indigenous over-representation in custody, accounting for almost one quarter of all processings of Indigenous people during the period. [14]

Indigenous offenders were also more likely to be dealt with through more formal processes such as arrest, rather than through cautioning, across all offence categories [15]. In relation to summary offences, for example, Indigenous juveniles were arrested 36.1% of the time, compared to just 15.4% for non-Indigenous juveniles; with Indigenous juveniles cautioned just 4.6% of the time compared to 35.6% for non-Indigenous juveniles [16]. This is despite recommendation 239 of the Royal Commission (for police to give preference to forms of processing other than arrest) and the existence of Victorian government instructions to police that alleged offenders should be processed according to the seriousness of the offence, with arrest only to be used in extreme circumstances and as a last resort.

The inadequate level of implementation of the recommendations by all governments, accompanied by the introduction of regressive laws and policies that contradict the main goals of the Royal Commission, have most certainly contributed to the lack of progress in addressing Indigenous over-representation in the criminal justice process over the past decade. Efforts need to be redoubled to turn this situation around across the country.

iii) Addressing the broader context of Indigenous marginalisation and socio-economic disadvantage

The Royal Commission continually emphasised the central importance of addressing the underlying issues which contribute to the likelihood of contact by Indigenous people with the criminal justice system. Addressing the racial and economic exclusion faced by Indigenous people - through the oppressive control exercised by the State over every aspect of their lives and the resultant entrenched socio-economic disadvantage - was the longer term imperative identified by the Royal Commission, necessary for any change to be lasting.

Time and again since the Royal Commission, all governments have agreed on the necessity to address the underlying causes of over-representation for long term change and have committed themselves to this purpose as a matter of urgency and priority.

At the National Ministerial Summit on Deaths in Custody in 1997, for example, all governments except the NT agreed:

To address the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system… in partnership with Indigenous peoples, (by developing) strategic plans for the coordination of Commonwealth, State and territory funding and service delivery for Indigenous programs and services, including working towards the development of multilateral agreements between Commonwealth, State and Territory governments and Indigenous peoples and organisations ... The focus of these plans will address: underlying social, economic and cultural issues; justice issues; customary law; law reform; funding levels and will include: jurisdictional targets for reducing the rate of over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system; planning mechanisms; methods of service delivery; monitoring and evaluation. [17]

State governments have resisted attempts to specify a timeframe for the coordination of Commonwealth - State funding and service delivery arrangements and the development of multi-lateral agreements, or even, as proposed by the federal Attorney-General, to commit to the resolution to the 'prompt' development of strategic plans for such coordination. It is now 5 years since the Ministerial Summit and there don't appear to be multilateral agreements or detailed benchmarks - negotiated appropriately with Indigenous peoples - in any State or territory (perhaps with the exception of Queensland under the 'Ten Year Partnerships' program and the outcomes identified in the Justice Agreement) despite the Justice Agreement framework.

The Ministerial Summit commitment was also not the first such commitment that had been made to coordination of service delivery, reduction of Indigenous disadvantage and participation of Indigenous organisations. The National Commitment to improved outcome in the delivery of programs and services for Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders had been made by the Council of Australian Governments in 1992 [18]. It committed governments to negotiate national benchmarks and targets, and to put into place adequate statistical collection, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms after consultation and with the participation of Indigenous communities and organisations. A revised national commitment was made by the Council of Australian Governments in November 2000 through their National Communiqué on reconciliation [19]. The Victorian Aboriginal Justice Agreement also makes this commitment.

To date, these commitments have not been implemented. Government programs and inter-governmental coordination continue to lack sufficient accountability and transparency. Many Indigenous people remain justifiably sceptical of the nice words in documents such as the recent spate of justice agreements across the country. Very few of these agreements, for example, have reached the stage of specifying detailed targets and plans of action.

In addition, we have seen very little response and action at any level of government to address the recommendations of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. These recommendations, and those of the Social Justice Commissioner's 2000 report, are now the subject of a Senate inquiry. I would suggest to you that they raise a number of matters of integral concern to this forum and that this Forum ought to push for the development of a formalised, public policy framework for responding to reconciliation at the State level and in a holistic manner.

iv) The importance of governance and community capacity building - justice perspectives

A focus on these broader structural issues would also lead to greater consideration of governance and capacity building processes in Indigenous communities. The Social Justice Commissioner has placed particular emphasis on this issue. At a conference earlier this year, titled 'Indigenous Governance', the Commissioner also mapped out the relevance of governance and community capacity building processes in responding to the justice agenda.

In brief, the Commissioner has argued that:

In setting out a human rights framework for reconciliation, the Social Justice Report 2000 noted that addressing Indigenous marginalisation is a pre-condition for Indigenous people to be able to enjoy basic citizenship entitlements. Indigenous participation in decision-making is crucial to achieve this. But reconciliation must go beyond simply providing equality of opportunity in terms of 'sameness'. It must provide for the acceptance, recognition and celebration of the unique, distinct societies and cultural characteristics of first Australians.

The report also noted that implementing measures to overcome Indigenous disadvantage, while certainly a great challenge, requires no great innovation from an institutional or constitutional perspective. The more difficult part of the process is changing decision-making and service delivery processes to accommodate Indigenous cultural characteristics and aspirations, including through supporting and rebuilding the capacity for Indigenous self-government and autonomy.

Processes of separation through the criminal justice, juvenile justice and care and protection systems, combined with dysfunctional behaviour such as violence and abuse in communities, are the hard edge where the lack of equality and extreme marginalisation of Indigenous people in Australian society is felt the most.

Historically and at the present time, the criminal justice and care and protection systems operate as a key agent for the management of inequality in Australian society. The criminal justice system, for example, is extremely poor at dealing with the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and makes a negligible contribution to addressing the consequences of crime in the community. One of the consequences of this, and a vital factor that is often overlooked, is that Indigenous victims of crime and communities are poorly served by the current system.

Accordingly, the current system disadvantages Indigenous people from both ends. It has a deleterious effect on Indigenous communities through over-representation of Indigenous people in custody, in large part due to historically derived disadvantage and ongoing systemic discrimination, combined with the lack of attention it gives to the high rate of Indigenous victimisation, particularly through violence and abuse in communities. Reform to criminal justice processes, including through community justice initiatives, must be responsive to these factors.

The Social Justice Commissioner has argued that there currently exists an overly restrictive level of control by government of Aboriginal people. It is a different type of control than the system of reservations, missions and forcible removal policies that existed during the assimilation period. Instead, it is based on a perpetuation of the marginalised position of Indigenous people, combined with a denial of any collective or historical dimension to Indigenous people's experiences, and through the steadfast refusal of government to relinquish control over decision-making processes, be it through the tied nature of ATSIC funding or the refusal to entertain any form of differential treatment or cultural pluralism.

Similarly, to date it is fair to say many Indigenous community justice initiatives have emerged as a crisis management response to the inadequacies of the current system. They seek to deal with a situation, however fragmentary or temporarily, in order to avoid contact with formal criminal justice processes, over which there is a great level of mistrust. Such community-based processes are generally an add-on to the existing system - tolerated and allowed to operate in tandem with the mainstream system, yet not given the legitimacy or support necessary for them to challenge the fundamental basis of the mainstream system or result in any reconfiguration of relationships and responsibilities. Power is ultimately retained by the relevant authorities within the formal system.

It is necessary to alter the current situation and seek to change the power dynamic so that it is more equitable. There needs to be recognition from governments of the legitimacy of Indigenous community justice and governance structures, with efforts directed towards supporting, enhancing and in some cases reconstituting or recreating these systems. The recently introduced circle sentencing trial in NSW, as well as the Aboriginal Courts here in Shepparton and in Queensland are excellent examples of the type of recognition necessary. There remains much potential in terms of recognition of customary law, and the establishment of greater Indigenous community control over matters integrally related to justice outcomes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, at the Human Rights Commission we are aware that these are weighty words and that they are difficult issues. But at core, we also have to acknowledge that the current situation is one with a dark history and that justice is owed to Indigenous communities as a consequence.

When the Social Justice Commissioner held regional launches across the country for his latest social justice report there were a number of people who spoke at these launches who really brought home what is at stake. One respected Aboriginal man in Western Australia said that he looked forward to growing old and being considered an elder, and living in peace - not having to worry whether his kids will be pulled up by police or subject to any form of harassment. 'Living in peace' is how he described his vision. Another person, at the Melbourne launch in fact, stated that they believed that things are getting harder for Aboriginal people in communities. These are the realities that have to be acknowledged and worked towards.

I hope that this presentation stimulates you and motivates you to that task. The Social Justice Commissioner continues to take an interest in developments in Victoria as everywhere else, and on his behalf, we wish you well in the process of adding substance to the commitments made in the justice agreement.

Thank you.

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Corrective services Australia - March Quarter 2002, Cat. No. 4512.0, Table 5, p21.
2. Australian Institute of Criminology, Persons in juvenile corrective institutions 1981-2000, AIC Canberra 2001, Table 3 and Figure 2. This over-representation rate reached as high as 17 times the non-Indigenous rate in 1997: Australian Institute of Criminology, Australian crime - facts and figures 2000, op.cit, Figure 59.
3. Australian Institute of Criminology, Australian crime - facts and figures 2000, op.cit, Figure 59.
4. Australian Institute of Criminology, Women in prison - Numbers soar, Media Release, 1 October 2000. See Also: Margaret Cameron, Women prisoners and correctional programs, Trends and issues in crime and criminal justice - Number 194, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra 2001, pp1-2. It must be noted, however, that the female prisoner population is extremely small and constitutes approximately 6% of the total prison population.
5. ibid.
6. Australian Institute of Criminology, Women in prison - Numbers soar, op.cit., p1.
7. Williams, P, Deaths in custody: 10 years on from the Royal Commission, Trends and Issues in Criminal Justice -Number 203, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra 2001, p2.
8. ibid, p5.
9. Collins, L and Mouzos, J, Australian deaths in custody and custody-related police operations 2000, Trends and Issues in Criminal Justice -Number 217, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra 2001, p2.
10. Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council (NSW), Where to from here? 10 years after the Royal Commission, some suggested direction for Aboriginal justice planning, AJAC (NSW), Sydney 2001, p9.
11. ibid.
12. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Aboriginal deaths in custody : 1991-1997, p257.
13. Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council (NSW), Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: Review of NSW government implementation of recommendations, AJAC NSW, Sydney, 2000, p8.
14. Gardiner, G, Indigenous people and the criminal justice system in Victoria: Alleged offenders, rates of arrest and over-representation in the 1990s, op.cit., pp 92-93.
15. ibid, pp78-79.
16. ibid, p50.
17. ibid.
18. For a discussion of the National Commitment see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Social Justice Report 1999, HREOC Sydney 2000, Chapter 1.
19. This is discussed in more detail in chapter 6 of the Social Justice Report

Last updated 5 February 2003