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It is now more than 5 years since the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission completed its national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families with the publication of Bringing them home.

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.

It is very fitting that we discuss native title in the context of a treaty just one month after a very significant native title decision, the Miriuwung Gajerrong decision [1], has been handed down by the High Court. 406 pages of honed legal reasoning cut through almost the entire history of non-Indigenous land law in Western Australia to decide the final shape that native title would take for the Miriuwung Gajerrong people.

1. In what follows I have not ventured into the history of proposals for a treaty between the aboriginal peoples of Australia and the Government of Australia. Others here will know this much better than I. Nor do I wish to suggest in detail what such a treaty might contain, if it were possible to bring it about. My purpose is to address the nature of treaties in international law, the possibility of treaties between state and non-state parties, and some contemporary forms of treaty-making in the international arena that might offer some helpful models or analogies.

The terms of reference for the inquiry into reconciliation that was established yesterday by the Senate directly responds to the concerns raised in my latest Social Justice Report to the Parliament.

I would like to welcome you all to Parliament House this morning and thank you for coming along. I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on Ngunnawal land, and I pay my respects to the Ngunnawal People as represented here by Matilda House.

This is an acknowledgement that has been made by many other speakers today, and to commence my presentation what I want to do is to reflect on what it means to provide such acknowledgement, because it has a lot to do with the topic for this session.

Both are written by Dr William Jonas, who is here today. As you would know he is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

Social Justice Commissioner Dr William Jonas… Minister John Ah Kit…Commissioner Hill …Professor Bin Salik … Ladies and Gentlemen… Good evening.

The right of Aboriginal people to control what happens on their land was acknowledged in the Woodwood Commission report into the protection of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. The report recognised that ownership of land was a meaningless concept if the owners were not able to control access to their land.

I'd like to welcome the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to Arrernte country. In particular, I welcome Dr William Jonas, the Social Justice Commissioner. We are here this afternoon to launch the Social Justice and Native Title Report 2001.

The two reports launched in Adelaide today provide a scorecard on how Australian governments are meeting their obligations to ensure that Australia's Indigenous peoples can fully exercise their rights and interests.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land we meet on today. I would like to thank them for allowing me to speak on their country.

Today's launch here in Sydney is part of a national program of launches that I have been undertaking in recent weeks in order to bring issues of human rights significance raised by my latest social justice and native title reports to the attention of Indigenous and other interested communities and organisations. So far, launches have been held in Melbourne, Perth and Broome, with launches in the next week in Alice Springs and Adelaide; to be followed by Brisbane and Darwin after that.

We're here today for the launch of two reports: a report on social justice and another report on native title. These reports are to be launched by their author, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Social Justice Commissioner, Dr William Jonas.

The title of this session on the conference program is 'The history of human rights in Australian law'. I have chosen to slightly change the topic for a number of reasons. The main reason is because Indigenous peoples' struggle for recognition of their human rights remains to a large extent unfulfilled. Consequently, it is not, and has never been, well reflected in Australian law. Second, because human rights continue to be poorly and rather patchily implemented in our legal system.

On 14 May 2002 the Attorney-General tabled the Social Justice Report 2001, my annual review of the exercise of human rights by Indigenous Australians, and the Native Title Report 2001, my annual review of native title developments, in federal Parliament.

Opening address to the 'Indigenous peoples and racism' Conference A Regional Meeting for the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance by Dr William Jonas AM , Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner , Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 20 February 2001

This morning about 20,000 Australians woke up in a prison cell. What will their day bring? Most of you know far more about that than I do and that is precisely why we have called upon your expertise for today's workshop.