University of Sydney

Mick Gooda
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner
Australian Human Rights Commission
 

Acknowledgements

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

My people are the Gangulu from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland. We all have Elders so 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 about politics and human rights. As you would know there is a lot of discussion about human rights in the political debate at the moment, which is a great thing because human rights is not something that many Australian’s feel is relevant to them. Human rights is often associated with poverty and serious violations so as a first world country where the majority of people are doing ok, it is often only those who do experience disadvantage or discrimination that do engage regularly with human rights. Unfortunately in countries like ours, the common view is if I am not affected by it, I don’t need to know about it.

There was that quote from Plato that said “The penalty for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” So, I’m not sure if your decision to study politics means that you are either a) smarter than everyone else, or b) just willing to take up the challenge to govern. If you can make a career in politics in whatever form that takes, whilst promoting equity, social justice and human rights I’m sure you will make a positive contribution for all Australians.
Today, I will explain my role as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner based at the Human Rights Commission, and introduce you to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a tool to guide your thinking about, and 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.

The role of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner was created by the federal parliament in December 1992, in response to three key inquiries which contributed to raising awareness about the extreme social and economic disadvantage and injustice faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: the Native Title Act; the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; and a HREOC Inquiry into racial hatred. The position sits within the Australian Human Rights Commission, or what was then known as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, as the Commission is Australia’s National Human Rights Institution or human rights watchdog. Many of the challenges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples face are human rights issues, captured in international human rights Conventions. And because Australia is a signatory to those Conventions, we have a legal obligation to address them.

2013 marked the 20^th year since this position came into being. Professor Mick Dodson was the first Social Justice Commissioner 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 told 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 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.

For those who don’t know me, I have worked in Indigenous affairs all of my professional life. 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. In a similar vein, you cannot be born Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and not be political. Our lives, our histories and our futures are political, so unfortunately, it is difficult for us to escape that. But it also means that where other Australians may not have human rights at the forefront of their thoughts on a daily basis, issues associated with human rights and politics occur for us regularly if not daily so we are naturally born into a world where human rights and politics are constant elements in our lived experiences, and place us well to create and influence positive change.

All of the issues you will come across in politics can be framed within a human rights context.
However, given the tight resources given to the Commission and the amount of work that needs to be done, and the fact that I have only five staff, 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, stronger futures and racism 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, I decided that if we were going to address these enormous challenges together we would need to do some work on our relationships. Relationships are built on understanding, dialogue, tolerance, acceptance, respect, trust and reciprocated affection. But relationships are easily destroyed by misunderstanding, intolerance, and a lack of acceptance, a lack of dialogue, mistrust and a lack of respect.

So relationships became the focus of my agenda. At the centre of my priorities was the 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.
I believe human rights are one of the most powerful tools to help build good relationships.

And speaking of useful tools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the most significant achievement in the protection of Indigenous peoples rights. The Declaration is a relatively new international human rights standard or instrument. While it took over 20 years of negotiations between the world’s governments and Indigenous Peoples to finalise, it was only adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007 and endorsed by the Australian Government in 2009.

In my opinion, the rights contained in the Declaration, and the key principles which underpin those rights, can help improve all the types of relationships I talked about earlier.

These 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

• Fourth, non-discrimination and equality.

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

During my time as Commissioner, 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 I do believe that government lacks the skills and knowledge – in particular the cultural competency – to do it properly. The Declaration is a good place to start providing 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.

As I said earlier, 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.

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. And this includes people in positions of power or political influence. Primarily human rights are the responsibility of governments. They make the laws and policies both internationally and domestically, that achieve human rights outcomes, like the right to life, the right to education, the right to health, the right to participate in decisions that affect you or to participate in a democratic system of government. As I said earlier, I think that we have some work to do with government to ensure that the laws and policies they are creating on our behalf are informed by community experiences and suggestions about how best to address particular issues.

The current debate around amending the Racial Discrimination Act is an example where the diverse views and experiences of our communities need to be considered to ensure the result provides for laws and policies that accommodate the rights of all – not just the loudest or most influential voices in our communities.

Industry and Business can also play an important role in setting standards for themselves that promote, protect and realise human rights not just in their own backyards but more broadly across their communities. Many of our multinational corporations here in Australia, like KPMG, Westpac and Rio Tinto to name a few, have joined the UN Global Compact which is a leadership platform for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible and sustainable corporate policies and practices for business and industry. Just recently, in December last year, the Global Compact Network Australia (GCNA) launched The UN Global Compact’s Business Reference Guide to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This guide is aimed at helping business understand and take action to respect and support the rights of indigenous peoples. They also launched an Indigenous Engagement Working Group with a number of leading Australian companies to advance understanding and action in the Australian business community.

In a practical sense, it might be as simple as making sure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are involved in decision making and are actively consulted about policies affecting them, or that they are involved in developing the research questions undertaken by universities. It might be seriously considering some of the cultural barriers that make accessing a school or a service challenging for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and then developing a plan to address this. It might be thinking of a way your community can celebrate the vibrancy and resilience of your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, or making sure that a development plan does not desecrate a sacred burial ground, or use Indigenous peoples knowledge’s for commercial purposes without them benefiting also.

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 of promoting understanding about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights and building a positive relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader Australian community 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; but also our futures that are yet to be written. And when I say ‘our’ histories, cultures and futures here, I am not just talking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, I am talking about all of us who now call this country and these lands home.

In February 2013 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.

The Act of Recognition is a welcome development but it is only a first step. I and others have urged 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 raise awareness on the issues that arise as a result of the current version of the Constitution. A public education campaign is being run by Reconciliation Australia who 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. We will need to get it out across our spheres of influence: our families, schools, universities, workplaces, and communities.

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, and improving the human rights landscape in Australia.

I want to finish by encouraging you all to familiarise yourselves with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its application. When you are engaging in policy, legal debates or even just social or community conversations, take those opportunities to educate people about human rights, and how together we can make positive changes that result in appropriate and adequate opportunities and standards for all Australians.

Be mindful that human rights are everyone’s business, and as we live in one of the most successful democracies in the world, we have a right and a responsibility to hold our governments accountable to the obligations they have in this regard.

Finally, be confident that your keen interest in politics and human rights will help to shape stronger communities into the future. I thank you for your interest, and your time today.

^[1] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2012 (Cth), s 4