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Human rights principles require that Indigenous people's relationships to land, based on traditional laws and customs, be given legal recognition and protection. International legal principles also recognise that Indigenous peoples have economic, social and cultural human rights. Native title, as it is constructed through the Australian legal system, has a limited capacity to meet these human rights standards.

Climate change has been regarded as a diabolical policy problem globally. The potential threat to the very existence of Indigenous peoples is compounded by legal and institutional barriers raise distinct challenges for our cultures, our lands and our resources.[1] More seriously, it poses a threat to the health, cultures and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples both here in Australia and around the world.

State, Territory and Commonwealth native title policies (1) direct the way in which governments conduct negotiations with native title claimant groups and the scope and content of the agreements they make as a result of these negotiations. Such policies may influence whether negotiations will be confined to native title rights and interests as they are legally defined, or whether they address the broader economic and social development needs of the claimant group.

In my role as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner I am required to produce two annual reports on Indigenous human rights issues – the Social Justice Report and the Native Title Report.

Indigenous children throughout Australia remain very significantly over-represented `in care' and in contact with welfare authorities. Their over-representation increases as the intervention becomes more coercive, with the greatest over-representation being in out-of-home care. Indigenous children appear to be particularly over-represented in long-term foster care arrangements. A high percentage of Indigenous children in long-term foster care live with non-Indigenous carers.

In order to establish what is provided for Indigenous young people with cognitive disabilities and/ or mental health problems, information was requested from all relevant government departments across Australia.[213]A letter was sent to departments requesting:

A central function of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is to undertake education programs that increase public awareness and generate discussion of human rights and anti-discrimination issues within Australia.

This timeline focuses on one particular aspect of the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families. This material identifies some significant laws and practices that made removal lawful and includes writing and artwork from members of the Stolen Generations and their families which illustrate their experiences of these policies. This section uses as its primary resource Bringing them home, the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.

A central function of HREOC is to undertake education programs that increase public awareness and generate discussion of human rights and anti-discrimination issues within Australia. HREOC’s legislative responsibilities are: