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Commissioner Pru Goward's appointment to the position of Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Commissioner was announced on 29 June 2001. She commenced her term on 30 July 2001.

The recognition and protection of native title and the participation of Indigenous people in decisions affecting their land are critical priorities within a human rights framework.

The Commission is a national independent statutory body established under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. It has a President and five Commissioners. The five positions are currently held by three persons.

Dr William Jonas commenced duty as acting Race Discrimination Commissioner in September 1999 in addition to his duties as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

In its final recommendations, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation proposed that there be a legislative requirement for the Social Justice Commissioner to monitor progress towards reconciliation on an annual basis. In the Social Justice Report 2000 it was noted that while legislative amendment to this end was desirable, this task could be undertaken under my existing functions. Accordingly, I undertook to provide an annual evaluation of progress towards reconciliation as part of the social justice report.

Thank you for the opportunity to make submissions to the Ministerial Inquiry to identify strategies to increase resource exploration in Western Australia - the Bowler Inquiry. Enclosed is a copy of my submission which contains several recommendations.

Last year’s Social Justice Report noted that to date there has been insufficient attention by governments to processes which ensure greater Indigenous participation and control over service design and delivery as part of an overall strategy to redress Indigenous disadvantage and economic marginalisation. I observed that:

On 27 July 2000, the Commonwealth government and the Northern Territory Government signed an agreement for the establishment of a juvenile pre-court diversion scheme in the Northern Territory (NT). This agreement arose specifically as a response to the continued criticism of the NT’s mandatory minimum imprisonment laws and their impact on juveniles and Indigenous people. By establishing the pre-court juvenile diversionary scheme, the NT has belatedly joined most other states and territories in Australia in providing such options for dealing with juvenile offenders.

1.1 Background to this report 1.2 Compliance with human rights obligations 1.3 Conduct of visits 1.4 Overview of immigration detention facilities 1.5 Response by Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs

In recent years a mutual obligation approach has been adopted to reform public policy on welfare and employment issues. There has been much discussion about the applicability of this approach within an Indigenous policy context. It is seen by many as consistent with Indigenous cultural values such as reciprocity and an emphasis on community, as well as suggesting an antidote to the damage caused by intergenerational poverty, of which long-term welfare dependency and a crippling short-term local cash economy are often features.

<h2>3.1 Introduction</h2>

A stable and enduring basis for a dynamic and long term relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people over land is emerging through negotiation and agreement-making. Native title agreements are increasingly seen as an important tool in defining the rights of native title holders over their land. But here, as in other aspects of native title, there is concern that there are currently no mechanisms to safeguard human rights principles. Substantive, just and equitable outcomes are only achieved if there are minimum standards in place to recognize and protect these principles.