Our first commitment must be to ensure that children and women can live without fear for their safety (2007)

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12 December 2007

Our first commitment must be to ensure that children and women can live without fear for their safety.

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

As an Aboriginal man, I am appalled by the reports of recent events in Aurukun. I am disgusted at the regular reporting of serious offences of sexual violence committed against our women and children.

As an Ambassador for White Ribbon Day for several years, I have continually emphasised that sexual violence is not and has never been part of Aboriginal culture. Nor can our traditional law be relied upon to justify such behaviour.

Recent events in Aurukun appear to highlight systemic failures in the justice system in Queensland for Indigenous people across the areas of prosecution of violent and sexual offences and the protection and care for the victims of crime. We are again forced to examine all the circumstances which allowed this travesty to occur and must continually remind ourselves that this is no isolated case.

The Queensland government is to be commended for moving quickly to review the treatment of all instances of abuse in the courts in Cape York over the past two years. Every Aboriginal person – woman, child and man – needs to be reminded that the justice system will apply to them, as perpetrator and will protect them as victims.

There can be nothing as debilitating to public order in a community than the indifference of those involved in upholding justice – be they police, prosecutors or judges.

It is a great tragedy that we still hear of incidents such as these given the focus and funding that has been put into Cape York in the past five years.

In November 2001, Justice Tony Fitzgerald reported to the Premier of Queensland into “the causes, nature and extent of breaches of the law in Cape York communities, as well as the relationship between crime and substance abuse.” The report recommended that there be “acknowledgment that serious violence and abuse needs to be subjected to the full force of the law and a clear message that violence will not be tolerated.”

In particular, significant resources were provided to the Cape at both the federal and state levels through the Council of Australian Governments whole-of-government trial which commenced in 2002. We must ensure that the money is impacting in communities in the intended manner.

As we move forward, let this latest incident not remain as just today’s sensational headline – let it be a clarion call for change.

All public officers – be they the judiciary, police, prosecutors, or service deliverers dealing with health, housing, care and protection or education – must be committed to providing equality of treatment for Indigenous peoples. Who said such officials could give up on Indigenous people and condemn them to unsafe conditions without the protection of the law?

Such failure is a breach of our international human rights obligations. The Racial Discrimination Convention, for example, requires equal treatment in the provision of the right to security of the person and protection by their government against violence or bodily harm.

Our current approach is too heavily weighted towards intervention at the end stages of the process – when offences have been committed and communities destroyed. There has been too little time and resources devoted to community education to build a strong anti-violence culture and awareness of the law, as well as capacity building within communities to better enable them to challenge violence from within.

And there is timidity by government officials when dealing with cases of assault and sexual abuse within Indigenous communities. The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, for example, is not an excuse for inaction.

Governments and the Indigenous community face a difficult challenge of first protecting children and victims of crime, and secondly breaking the cycle of offending behaviour.

Children and women deserve the protection of the law. Our first commitment should be to ensure that they can live without fear for their safety.