Using Human Rights to Shape a Socially Just Future

Local Community Services Association Conference - “Communities Shaping the Future”

Acknowledgements

It is with respect and gratitude that I acknowledge that we sit today on the lands of the Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation.

My people are the Gangulu from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland. On behalf of my Elders I also pay tribute to your Elders, both past and present, for their continued struggle for their country and their culture.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. The work that you do in Neighbourhood and Community Centres provides services to some of our most vulnerable citizens and strengthens the capacity of communities. Community Centres are so often the backbone of a community, providing simple services that people depend up, as well as promoting equity and social justice.

Today I would like to extend the way you may view your work and some of the tools available to you. The Local Community Services Association is explicit about its commitment to social justice, social inclusion and community development. What I want to add to this, is a human rights approach.

In my mind, all of you here today are human rights workers. Your work helps individuals realise their rights every day and you are ideally placed to help communities claim their collective rights. I will explain further and introduce you to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a tool to guide your engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
I will also speak briefly about the campaign for constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - one of my key areas of advocacy.

But firstly, let me start by giving you an outline of this position that I currently occupy, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Social Justice Commissioner, and a snapshot of my agenda.

2013 marks the 20th year since this position came into being as a result of the Native Title Act, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and a HREOC Inquiry into racial hatred.

Professor Mick Dodson was the first followed by Dr Bill Jonas, Dr Tom Calma and Ms Zita Antonios. When I first started in this position I was asked if any of these previous Commissioners had left any words of advice. I tell them ‘no’ but they all left really big shoes to fill. So it is with some trepidation and a big dose of humility that I began my work knowing that the bar has been set fairly high. What was going to be my agenda, my plan for these five years?

To begin with I have some statutory duties. I’m required to provide to the Australian Parliament an annual Social Justice Report and I also provide a report on Native Title. I’m also required to:

• review the impact of laws and policies with regard to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• promote an Indigenous perspective on issues and
• monitor the enjoyment and exercise of human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians

But in a real sense, I’m handed these general directions and it’s up to me to sort out my priorities in terms of how I do what the legislation requires of me.

As Social Justice Commissioner I have only six staff, so I quickly realised that it would be unrealistic to pick even one of the myriad of challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - housing, health, education to name a few and expect to fix it by January 2015.

I believe that fixing these issues will require the intergenerational commitment of the whole nation.

After listening and accepting the reality of the limitations of this position compared to the enormity of the task confronting us at the centre of my priorities is the belief that we need to firstly develop stronger and deeper relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the rest of the Australia.

Secondly, we need to develop stronger and deeper relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and all levels of government.

And, perhaps even more importantly, we need to develop stronger and deeper relationships between ourselves as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Relationships are built on understanding, dialogue, tolerance, acceptance, respect, trust and reciprocated affection.

Relationships are destroyed by misunderstanding, intolerance, and a lack of acceptance, a lack of dialogue, mistrust and a lack of respect.

I believe human rights are one of the most powerful tools to help build good relationships.  

Let me be honest, I have worked in Indigenous affairs for all of my professional life and when I was approached about this position as Commissioner I was hesitant at first because I didn’t see myself as a human rights activist. But as one of my closest colleagues pointed out, you can’t work in Indigenous affairs without being a human rights activist. Working on Indigenous issues means that you are working with human rights day in and day out.

All of the issues you deal with in your Community Centres, community development, poverty, education, health, protection of culture and languages, incarceration rates, protection of women and children, all of these issues are human rights issues.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the foundation document in human rights for all Indigenous peoples.

The Declaration contains a number of key principles underpinning the rights it protects. Those key principles can be summarised as:

• First, self-determination
• Second, participation in decision-making and free, prior and informed consent
• Third, respect for and protection of culture
• Forth, non-discrimination and equality.

In my opinion, the Declaration and its key principles and rights can help improve all the types of relationships I talked about earlier.

Firstly, the Declaration should form the basis of a new relationship of respect and engagement between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I have seen that there is a lot of goodwill within government and I believe there is a genuine intention to engage respectfully with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But government lacks the skills and knowledge – in particular the cultural competency – to do it properly. The Declaration is a good place to start getting the necessary practical guidance.  

The Declaration can also be used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to guide the development of healthy, respectful and inclusive relationships within our communities. For example, we can ask, are our representative organisations obtaining our free, prior and informed consent? Or how are they ensuring people participate in decisions that affect them?

And the Declaration should also be used as a tool for reconciliation generally – for building relationships based on respect between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the broader Australian community.
The Declaration outlines how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be valued in the broader, non-Indigenous society, in order for our human rights to be enjoyed equally with others.

One of the main challenges I face as Social Justice Commissioner – and the Australian Human Rights Commission faces more generally – is communicating to the Australian public what ‘human rights’ mean in practice.
Human rights are not just abstract concepts that exist in documents such as treaties, conventions and declarations alone.

Human rights provide governments with a set of minimum legal standards which must apply equally to all people. A human rights framework provides parameters – universally agreed parameters – for a society to foster dignity and equality of all citizens. And equality means substantive equality – equality in outcomes, not just in writing.

Fortunately, most Australians are lucky enough to take human rights for granted. But for those rights to be realised by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, additional support and focus is often required.

So what does this mean in your daily work?

I think if you keep coming back to those four principles I just mentioned- self-determination, participation in decision-making and free, prior and informed consent,  respect for and protection of culture  and non-discrimination and equality you get a good idea about the what this means in practice.

I challenge people from all walks of life to apply these four principles to the work they do with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It might be as simple as making sure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are involved in your decision making and actively consulted about your services. It might be seriously considering some of the cultural barriers that make accessing your service challenging for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and then developing a plan to address this. It might be thinking of a way you can celebrate the vibrancy and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in your community.

These are just ideas, ultimately, what I am saying is that putting the Declaration into practice is not a program of work, nor is it a tokenistic checklist. It is an approach. It requires attitudinal shift, self-reflection and the willingness to actively listen and engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

At the bigger picture level, another way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights is through the campaign for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australia Constitution.

A referendum to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution is an opportunity to redefine our national identity based on recognition, respect and inclusion and to change the role of government in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ lives.

We know that a successful referendum will encourage reconciliation among all Australians and enable practical improvements to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Reforming the Constitution will also provide an opportunity for all Australians to acknowledge and be proud of our histories and cultures that existed – and continue to exist – before the Constitution was written.

In February we witnessed a historic step toward a referendum when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 (Act of Recognition) was passed unanimously through Federal Parliament. The Act of Recognition provides acknowledgement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique place as Australia’s first peoples. It also prescribes that a review will be commenced considering proposals for constitutional change, their likely levels of support in the community and likelihood of success. [1] This report must be completed by 27 September 2014 and tabled in parliament within 15 sitting days.

The Act of Recognition is a welcome development but it is only a first step. I urge the Government to build on the work of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Expert Panel). The recommendations acknowledge the need to couple recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as Australia’s first peoples with reforms to address the provisions of the Constitution which permit, enable or anticipate racial discrimination.

The success of constitutional reform lies in the hand of every day Australians and our ability to organisations like yours. A public education campaign is being run by Reconciliation Australia.

Reconciliation Australia has recruited Tim Gartrell as the education campaign manager. He is a well-known and experienced campaigner, responsible for Labor’s successful Kevin 07 campaign. Reconciliation Australia also have the support of a range of individuals and organisations across the political divide.

At the moment, before we know what the referendum question will be, the aim is to try and build popular support and momentum.

This will need to be a community movement; we will need to take the whole community with us.

If anyone here is looking for resources to do your own bit of community education and campaigning, ANTaR has put together some very useful material on their website and I highly recommend you take a look. The You Me Unity website was established by the Expert Panel specifically as a tool for engaging the public on constitutional recognition. It continues on as a space for this public conversation and also hosts useful educational material.

There is a long way to go on constitutional reform. But I believe in the innate decency of the Australian people to walk with us on this next important stage of our national journey towards reconciliation.

I want to finish by saying your work promoting human rights helps to shape stronger communities into the future. I thank you for your work and your time today.