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Land Rights

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The 1992 High Court decision in the Mabo case was a watershed-it established the legal doctrine of native title and overturned a legal fiction, the conceit of terra nullius. But 20 years on from the historic ruling what has been the effect on Indigenous artists?

Native title might be a shadow of land rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people but the Mabo decision stands.

We ask Torres Strait Islander artists who talk about the decision as a kind of impetus that drives their work, sometimes on a subconscious level.
This program was broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the High Court Mabo decision.

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The 1992 High Court decision in the Mabo case was a watershed-it established the legal doctrine of native title and overturned a legal fiction, the conceit of terra nullius. But 20 years on from the historic ruling what has been the effect on Indigenous artists?

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Land rights

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Land rights

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WALKABOUT Trailer (1971) - The Criterion Collection

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A young sister and brother are abandoned in the harsh Australian outback and must learn to cope in the natural world, without their usual comforts, in this hypnotic masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg. Learn more: http://www.criterion.com/films/522-walkabout

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Land rights

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land rights

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Land rights

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This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.

AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

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This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

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Fire management

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As Australia's bushfire emergency rages on, discussion over fire authorities' potential use of Indigenous and cultural fire practices has come under the spotlight.

But what are these practices? Where can they be implemented? And how can they help?

Indigenous leaders say there has been "huge interest" from farmers, landowners and communities wanting to learn about traditional burning

Cultural burning generally uses smaller, more controlled flames than hazard reduction burns, and has more applications than just reducing fuel load

Experts in the practice say much more investment in training is needed before cultural burning can be adopted in mainstream fire management plans

Oliver Costello, from Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation - a leader in the field - said traditional fire practitioners already worked alongside some state fire agencies to conduct burns - but on a "relatively small-scale".

His organisation conducts cultural burning workshops across Australiawith fire authorities, rangers, land councils, and property owners - and according to him, uptake has increased each year.

He said in the aftermath of this summer's bushfire crisis there had been "huge interest" from farmers, landowners and communities wanting to learn about traditional burning and how it could help.

"People are looking for solutions," he said.

"And they are turning back to land management techniques used for tens of thousands of years in this country."

One of them is Victoria's former emergency management commissioner Craig Lapsley.

Mr Lapsley, who resigned from the post in 2018, said the practice had "a lot of benefits".

The former CFA deputy chief officer is calling on the Federal Government to implement a national Indigenous burning program.

"It doesn't need pilots," he said.

"It needs [funding, action] and implementation."

So, how does it work?

Cultural burning generally uses small, cool, controlled flames, but there's no set formula for every burn, according to Mr Costello.

Local knowledge from traditional custodians guides how practitioners use fire: the size, shape, direction and duration of the burn.

"We look at habitat, look the vegetation, we look at the soil type, we look at the moisture levels, that determines how we burn, how hot we burn," he said.

"We might see vegetation we know shouldn't be there, and we'll go hotter in that one spot.

"There might be weeds or invasive natives that need to be removed from that country."

Ideally, a cultural burn helps prevent fire risks, rejuvenate local flora, protect native animal habitat, all while restoring the kinship to the land, he said.

It can also help make more "fire-resilient" landscapes as well as benefit native wildlife.

He said they were led by the authority of the traditional custodians, but burns were mostly carried out in cooler times, like autumn, winter and spring.

"In spring you've got a lot of mating, nesting, new plant growth we need to be extra careful about then," he said.

"You can burn all year round in some way, but you are very careful about what you're doing."

How is it different from regular hazard reduction burns?

According to Mr Costello, hazard reduction burns, conducted by state-based fire authorities, are generally focused on reducing fuel load or types of debris and vegetation that can feed a fire.

He said this approach focused on preventing property loss but could often be a "blunt instrument".

"It's just so focused on fuel reduction," he said.

"I've seen a lot of hazard reduction that isn't appropriate for that area.

"It can be way too hot; it can scorch areas that shouldn't be burned, [but] some isn't too off the mark."

Can it be used everywhere?

Mr Costello wants to see the practice used all over the country.

"We want to uphold our cultural lore, we want to make our sick country healthy," he said.

For Mr Lapsley, who led the emergency management response after the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires, there needs to be a national uptake of these practices.

"It has got to come to the front of the discussion, it hasn't been widely used, a lot of people hear about it but don't understand it," he said.

He said he had witnessed cultural burning in practice, and had seen the benefits up close in different locations around Victoria.

"It's got environmental outcomes, it's got conservation outcomes, it's got community values, it's fantastic."

"It needs federal support and state implementation."

'No silver bullet'

When it comes to land management and fire management, Mr Lapsley said cultural burning was one of the methods.

"[But] there's not one silver bullet," he said.

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Few Aboriginal fire experts are able to use their craft on country, due to current fire management policies and a lack of resourcing.

Cultural burners often need a number of local and state approvals, and usually can only access certain areas.

Much more investment would be needed to adopt cultural burning as part of mainstream fire-management plans, Mr Costello said.

"Most of the Aboriginal communities we work with do not have the resources to support their people to manage their land full-time, so that's a big problem," Mr Costello said.

"We need a three or four-year training program [and] we need investment from whoever wants to see this country healthy again.

"We can work together, there is a pathway here for everybody."

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There's been 'huge interest' in Indigenous fire practices, experts say - this is how they work

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As Australia's bushfire emergency rages on, discussion over fire authorities' potential use of Indigenous and cultural fire practices has come under the spotlight. But what are these practices? Where can they be implemented? And how can they help?

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Land rights

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The Central Land Council represents Aboriginal people in Central Australia | Central Land Council

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Agreements on Aboriginal land - mining and development

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Retired Sydney Swans footballer Adam Goodes was a lightning rod for the racist booing that marred the end of his sporting career because he was powerful and Australians "wanted to cut him down", veteran ABC sports commentator Charlie King says.

Veteran ABC broadcaster Charlie King challenges the AFL to recruit Aboriginal umpires to measure whether Australians have learnt from Adam Goodes's experience

The only Indigenous AFL/VFL umpire, Glenn James, experienced intense racism throughout his career in the late 70s and early 80s

King say Goodes became a target because he had power, "he was talented, respected, and proud"

Speaking on ABC Radio Darwin on Saturday, King challenged the head of the AFL, Gillon McLachlan, to meaningfully respond to the racism Goodes endured that was exposed by the documentary The Final Quarter, which aired on Channel 10 on Thursday.

King, a Gurindji man and Order of Australia Medal recipient, said Goodes became a target "because he had power: he was talented, respected, and proud".

"This is about Adam Goodes because of the powerful position that he held; we didn't like it, so we booed him and we wanted to cut him down," he said.

"I think that deep down, that was the problem with Adam Goodes in the eyes of some people - they didn't like the idea that an Aboriginal person could be powerful, and Adam Goodes was powerful, so they set out to crush him, and they did, they were successful in doing it."

He said the AFL should start recruiting Aboriginal umpires and give them a place on the field.

"Train them up, and within the next couple of years send an Aboriginal umpire out onto the Melbourne Cricket Ground to umpire a match, have 70,000 or 80,000 people there," he said.

"Give power to the Aboriginal person umpiring the game, and see then what sort of response we get from that crowd.

"See then if we've learnt anything from racial booing and try and do it when there's an Aboriginal umpire out there."

King said it was time the AFL listened to ideas from Aboriginal people and put their words into action.

"That's my challenge to the AFL," he said.

King criticises Bolt, Newman, and McGuire

King singled out three members of the media for what he said was their role in perpetuating the racism Goodes experienced on the football field: News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt, football commentator Sam Newman, and Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire.

"Andrew Bolt was just ferocious and horrible in his comments," King said.

"Sam Newman was disgusting and terrible, with what he was having to say.

"And Eddie McGuire, who continues to squirm out from any horrible comments he makes and still survives every day."

McGuire suggested on Melbourne Radio in 2013 that Goodes should be used to promote the King Kong musical. He later apologised for his comments.

He told Triple M on Friday that watching the documentary was "a bit of a kicking" for him.

"It's very confronting," McGuire said.

Newman did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

In a statement to the ABC, Bolt said Goodes was the only Indigenous player he had seen booed.

"If the boos were from racists, why are other Indigenous players such as Eddie Betts routinely cheered and widely admired?" he said.

"My criticism of Goodes is very simple: he singled out a 13-year-old girl who should have been protected, not publicly shown, identified and humiliated nationally as the face of Australian racism.

"I also thought Goodes was very silly to stage a kind of war dance and threaten fans with an imaginary spear.

To claim that such criticism is driven by racism strikes me as monumentally ignorant, malicious or self-serving."

Bolt said King had not identified "what it is that I said that was so terrible".

At the time of the incident involving the teenager, Goodes said he was sure the girl did not understand the implications of what she said. He called for the community to support her and not launch a "witch hunt" against her.

He has also previously said the dance he performed after scoring a goal against Carlton was a war cry created by a group of Aboriginal teenagers from the football development and leadership program, the Flying Boomerangs.

"People asked me the question if Lewis [Jetta] had've kicked the goal and done the same dance do you think there would have been the same reaction," Goodes said in an interview with ABC TV in 2016.

"Is there a stigma with me that I am trying to create trouble? Am I trying too hard to raise Indigenous issues? Am I not grateful enough for the position I already have?"

Since the documentary aired for the first time at the Sydney Film Festival last month, the chief executive of the not-for-profit GO Foundation, founded by Goodes and former Sydney Swans teammate Michael O'Loughlin, said people from across Australia had been sending in emails to apologise for booing Goodes.

No AFL Aboriginal umpires in decades

Glenn James, who umpired the 1982 and 1984 VFL Grand Finals, is widely considered to be the only Indigenous AFL/VFL umpire in the history of the league.

King said the on-field abuse James experienced was intense.

"I remember Glenn James doing that all those years ago," he said.

"I was down there about 1985 or something, Footscray were playing Collingwood [and] I sat there with the Collingwood supporters, and some of the comments: 'get him with a boomerang', 'he's gone looking for witchetty grubs' - all these stupid horrible things.

"You try and get an Aboriginal person to umpire again and they don't want to do it.

"But let's do it - let's find out whether we've learnt anything from what's happened to Adam Goodes."

The AFL did not respond specifically to King's comments, but noted it had already responded to the documentary, releasing a statement when it first aired at the Sydney Film Festival last month.

"We apologise unreservedly for our failures during this period," the statement said.

"We pledge to continue to fight all forms of racism and discrimination, on and off the field."

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Adam Goodes 'cut down' by racist booing because he was powerful, says commentator Charlie King

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Sports broadcaster Charlie King calls out Andrew Bolt, Eddie McGuire, and Sam Newman, and lays down a challenge to AFL to prove it has changed, in the wake of a documentary chronicling racism that led to the end of the Australian footballer Adam Goodes's celebrated career.

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Environment/ Land rights

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The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was the first attempt by an Australian government to legally recognise the Aboriginal system of land ownership and put into law the concept of inalienable freehold title. The Land Rights Act is a fundamental piece of social reform.

It has provided land for many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and so enabled them to maintain, and in some cases to re-establish, their cultural identity. The Land Rights Act has given some security to those who have moved back to set up outstations on their ancestors' country.

The Act has contributed to the peaceful and responsible development of the Northern Territory and helped avoid the violent confrontations between local indigenous landowners and developers experienced in other parts of Australia and other countries.

By providing legal title and a measure of control over some of our traditional lands, the Act has allowed us to determine the pace and extent of our involvement in the broader Australian society and economy.

The many resource development projects and commercial enterprises now operating on Aboriginal land show that respecting our land rights can be compatible with national economic development. Download the CLC publication The Land Rights Act Made Simple.

Traditional Landowners

The Land Rights Act defines 'traditional landowners' as a group of Aboriginals who have "primary spiritual responsibility" for sacred sites on a piece of land, and who are entitled by Aboriginal tradition to hunt and gather on that land. Traditional landowners are the key decision makers for their land, although Land Councils must also talk to affected communities.

Land granted

When the Act was passed, the former 'reserves' became Aboriginal land. The land was granted without the need for a land claim. It is referred to as Schedule One land.

Land Claims

The only land able to be claimed is unalienated Crown land - land that no-one else is using or has an interest in - or land which is wholly owned by Aboriginal people.

A successful land claim requires the Aboriginal landowners to prove their traditional relationship to the land under claim. This involves extensive research by anthropologists, and the claimants providing evidence before the Aboriginal Land Commissioner who is a judge of the Federal Court or the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.

The Commissioner must be satisfied that the claimants are the right traditional owners according to Aboriginal law.

The Land Commissioner makes his recommendation to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. He must also comment on any detriment to others that may occur should the land be granted and the effect a grant may have on existing or proposed patterns of land usage in the region.

The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs decides whether to recommend to the Governor General to grant all or part of the land under claim.

As a result of an amendment to the Aboriginal Land Rights act by the Hawke Government, no more land claims could be lodged after June 30 1997. However some claims before then are still outstanding.

Land Trusts

Land successfully claimed is granted under inalienable freehold title. It cannot be bought, acquired or mortgaged. Communal title is formally vested in Aboriginal Land Trusts comprised of Aboriginal people who hold the title for the benefit of all the traditional landowners.It is not held by Land Councils. The Northern Territory Government cannot 'compulsorily' acquire the land.

As the owner, the Land Trust may grant an interest over that land for homes for Aboriginal people or workers, for Aboriginal businesses, or for any community purpose.
However, a Land Trust cannot grant any interest until directed by the Land Council. Before giving a direction, a Land Council must:
* consult with and have regard to the interests of traditional owners
* ensure that traditional owners understand any proposal
* ensure any affected Aboriginal community has expressed its views
* comply with traditional decision making processes
* not give a direction without the consent of traditional owners.

So a Land Trust owns the land and the Land Council checks if traditional owners agree with proposals. The Land Council then directs the Land Trust to carry out the proposals and the Land Trust must follow the directions.

Land Councils

Establishment of Land Councils

The Land Rights Act established the Northern Land Council and Central Land Council. Anindilyakwa and Tiwi Land Councils were formed from areas within the Northern Land Council region.

Any Aboriginal person or association may apply to the Minister to form a new Land Council. If the Minister agrees with the application, and 55 per cent of people support it in a vote, the Minister may form the new Land Council (previously a new Land Council could be formed if the Minister was satisfied a 'substantial majority' supported it).

The Land Councils are representative bodies of elected Aboriginal people. The councils determine policy and employ expert legal, anthropological and land management staff to assist Aboriginal people in the claiming and management of their land, the protection of their sacred sites and the financial management of income received under the Act.

Mining

The Land Rights Act sets out how exploration 'looking around' and mining must be done on Aboriginal land. A mining company must provide details of its plan and a Land Council must consult with traditional land owners about that plan to explore on their land. Traditional owners have around two years to make a decision, which may be extended if the company agrees. (previously one year with provision for extensions)

If traditional owners say no, the mining company and any other company will be blocked for five years, unless the Land Council applies to remove this block. (previously could not apply to remove block but could remove block after two years in special cases)

If traditional owners say yes, the mining company and traditional owners must make an agreement about looking around. The company must provide further details and make a further agreement before mining, but traditional owners cannot block mining if they say yes to exploration.

Royalty or Land Use Money

All money paid to Land Councils arising from mining agreements or other land uses is held in trust by Land Council for traditional owners.

Land Council must pay these monies to traditional owners within six months of receiving the money as determined by the Land Council.

Monies will generally be paid to royalty associations which have rules about distributions to their members.

When a royalty association spends money, it must tell the person to who it pays the money what the purpose of the payment is.

All royalty associations must report the names of people receiving payments, and the dates, amounts and purposes of payments to the Land Council.

If a royalty association does not report to the Land Council, Land Council may suspend further payments to that royalty association.

The activities and operations of royalty associations receiving certain payments under determinations may be audited by the Australian Government Office of Evaluation and Audit.

These changes are designed to increase the accountability of royalty money. (previously royalty associations did not have to specify purposes for expenditure and did not have to report details to Land Councils)

Aboriginals Benefit Account

The Land Rights Act establishes the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA).

Payments are made to the ABA from the Commonwealth and the Territory based on how much mining has been done on Aboriginal land.
Of the money in the ABA:
* a proportion determined by the Minister goes to the Land Councils {previously 40% of the ABA money was guaranteed to fund the Land Councils}
* 30% goes to the areas affected by mining, and
* the balance is for the benefit of Aboriginals living in the NT and may be used for community grants and administration of the ABA. (previously the balance was set at 30% but now the balance could be higher if Land Councils receive less funding; previously this money could also be made as extra payments to the Land Councils but now cannot)
The job of the ABA Advisory Committee is to 'advise the Minister' about how to use the balance of funds for the benefit of Aboriginals living in the NT.
The Committee is made up of:
* a Chair appointed by the Minister
* one or two members appointed by the Minister who have land management or business expertise
* members elected by each Land Council.
The CLC currently elects five members to sit on the Advisory Committee.
The NLC has seven members on the Advisory Committee and the Tiwi Land Council and Anindilyakwa Land Councils have one each.
The ABA only has an advisory role, so it cannot tell the Minister what to do with money in the ABA, it can only advise the Minister about how it would like the community grant money to be spent.

Other

The Land Rights Act offers a range of further protections for Aboriginal land:
* roads cannot be built on Aboriginal land without the consent of traditional land owners
* damaging sacred sites is an offence
* entering Aboriginal land without a permit is an offence although in some cases permits for public areas in communities have been abolished
* the Northern Territory Government is given the power to make laws for the protection of sacred sites and permits to enter Aboriginal land.

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The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was the first attempt by an Australian government to legally recognise the Aboriginal system of land ownership and put into law the concept of inalienable freehold title. The Land Rights Act is a fundamental piece of social reform.

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Environments/ Land right

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Found 92 results for your search. Showing page 1 of 5.

1836

King William IV recognises the continued rights to land for Aboriginal people in South Australia's founding document, the Letters Patent. It was the first ever recognition of Aboriginal rights granted in Australia's colonial history. But the promise of legal entitlement to the land was never kept.

1961

At the Native Welfare Conference ministers agree to strategies to assist assimilation of Aboriginal people. These include the removal of discriminatory legislation and restrictive practices, the incorporation of Aboriginal people into the economy through welfare measures and education and training and the education of non-Aboriginal Australians about Aboriginal culture and history. After the conference, all states and territories amend their legislation.

The conference marks the beginning of a modern land rights movement and widespread awakening by non-Aboriginal Australians to claims for justice by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The South Australian Premier Sir Thomas Playford argues for integration rather than assimilation of Aboriginal people.

1963

1. Mining company BHP and the Church Missionary Society at Groote Eylandt, Northern Territory sign an agreement providing lump sum payments and royalties for use of land by BHP.

2. The Yolngu people of Yirrkala in Australia's Northern Territory (about 700 kms east of Darwin) sent a bark petition to the House of Representatives to protest against mining on the Gove Peninsula. On 28 August the petition is presented to the Governor General William De L'Isle. Although it is signed by more senior clan members, the federal government fails to recognise Aboriginal political structure and rejects the petition because of insufficient signatures.

3. Police evict residents at Mapoon, an Aboriginal community in far north Queensland. The people are forcibly taken to other reserves and their settlement is burned down, to allow Comalco mine the biggest bauxite deposit in the world.

1966

1. Stockmen and women walk off Wave Hill cattle station owned by British aristocrat Lord Vestey, about 700 kms south of Darwin in the Northern Territory, in protest against intolerable working conditions and inadequate wages. They establish a camp at Watti Creek and demand the return of some of their traditional lands. This begins a seven-year fight by the Gurindji people to obtain title to their land.

2. The South Australian Lands Trust Act is the first-ever Act in Australia to recognise Aboriginal land rights and provide land ownership and compensation to dispossessed Aboriginal people. The Act set up a trust composed of Aboriginal people. It enabled them to obtain specific title to reserves, where reserves existed.

1967

The Gurindji people petition the Governor General for 1,295 square kilometres of their land to be excised from the Wave Hill pastoral lease.

1968

Nabalco and the federal government sign an agreement giving Nabalco a 42-year special lease to mine bauxite near Yirrkala in the Arnhem Land reserve.

1970

1. Some people from Maningrida in the Northern Territory returned to a preferred traditional way of life on their home estates. These estates were called 'outstations' and later 'homeland centres'. By 1972 many people had moved back to their traditional homelands.

2. Limited land lease rights are given to Aboriginal people on Northern Territory reserves.

1971

1. Gumatj Elders Millrrpum and others take on Nabalco Pty Ltd and the federal government in the Gove land rights case following on from the Bark Petition. The Northern Territory Supreme Court ruled that Aboriginal people did not, under Australian law own the Arnhem Land reserve. This meant Nabalco could mine bauxite from the land.

2. Larrakia people 'sit-in' at Bagot Road, Darwin as a protest against theft of their land.

1972

1. Aboriginal activists pitch an Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside Parliament House in Canberra, demonstrating for land rights.

2. 1,000 Aboriginal people sign the Larrakia petition, one of the most important documents in the history of their struggle for land rights. Headed Gwalwa Daraniki, which means 'our land' in the language of the Larrakia people (the traditional owners of the Darwin area in the NT), the Larrakia petition called for land rights and political representation for the Aboriginal people of Australia.

3. The Whitlam government freezes all applications for mining and exploration on Commonwealth Aboriginal reserves.

1973

1. Mr Justice Woodward of the Aboriginal Land Commission delivers his first report, showing the way for a new approach to Aboriginal land rights.

2. The NSW Aboriginal Land Trust is set up to receive freehold ownership of former Aboriginal reserves.

1974

1. Second Report of the Aboriginal Land Commission ( The Woodward Report) is tabled, acknowledging Aboriginal people's link with the land; 'to deny Aborigines the right to prevent mining on their land is to deny the reality of their land rights'. His report is accepted in principle by all political parties and most states.

2. A Commonwealth Act establishes the Aboriginal Land Fund Commission to buy land for Aboriginal corporate groups. Since then many properties have been acquired throughout Australia. The fund was replaced by the ADC (Aboriginal Development Council) in 1980.

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Found 92 results for your search. Showing page 1 of 5. King William IV recognises the continued rights to land for Aboriginal people in South Australia's founding document, the Letters Patent. It was the first ever recognition of Aboriginal rights granted in Australia's colonial history.

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Environment/ Land rights

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"Deeply troubled" traditional owners in the western Pilbara have had their worst fears confirmed after Rio Tinto detonated explosives near culturally significant sites dating back more than 46,000 years.

Rio Tinto has confirmed the gorge's ancient rock shelters were destroyed in blasting over the weekend

Permission was signed off in 2013 and was known to "impact Juukan 1 and Juukan 2 rock shelters"

In 2014, an archaeologist found several "staggering" artefacts believed to be the earliest use of grindstone technology in WA

A Rio Tinto spokesperson said blasting in Juukan Gorge occurred over the weekend, and on Tuesday the company confirmed its ancient rock shelters were destroyed.

"In 2013, Ministerial consent was granted to allow Rio Tinto to conduct activity at the Brockman 4 mine that would impact Juukan 1 and Juukan 2 rock shelters," the spokesperson said.

"[Rio Tinto] has, where practicable, modified its operations to avoid heritage impacts and to protect places of cultural significance to the group."

Puutu Kunti Kurrama (PKK) traditional owners said the mining giant had detonated charges in an area of the Juukan Gorge, about 60 kilometres north-west of Tom Price, and feared two ancient, deep time rock shelters would be "decimated" in the blasts.

"Our people are deeply troubled and saddened by the destruction of these rock shelters and are grieving the loss of connection to our ancestors as well as our land," said John Ashburton, chair of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama Land Committee.

"Losing these rock shelters is a devastating blow to the PKK traditional owners."

Rio Tinto received permission to conduct the blasts in 2013 under Section 18 of the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Mr Ashburton said PKK traditional owners were frustrated by a system which they say does not consider new, important information once the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs gives consent under Section 18.

"We recognise that Rio Tinto has complied with its legal obligations, but we are gravely concerned at the inflexibility of the regulatory system," Mr Ashburton said.

Rio's spokesperson said the company had a long-standing relationship with the PKK people, and had been working together in relation to the Juukan area for 17 years.

In a statement, WA Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ben Wyatt, said he was not aware of the blast or concerns prior to the event.

'Terrible' destruction discovered 'by accident'

Traditional owners devastated by the loss of the 46,000-year-old cultural site said they only found out about the mining blasts by accident.

Burchell Hayes, a Puutu Kunti Kurruma traditional owner, said the group was told the site would be impacted after it asked to visit for upcoming NAIDOC week celebrations.

"While we would like to think we have got a good relationship with Rio Tinto, I think there is area for improvement and one of those is communication between the traditional owners and Rio Tinto," he said.

Mr Hayes said the blasting activity was just 11 metres from the two rock shelters.

"It saddens us that something that we have got a deep connection to has been destroyed," he said.

"It's terrible."

Mr Hayes said the community felt sorrow and sadness over the lost heritage.

"That site, for us, that's where our ancestors were occupying their traditional land," he said.

"From generation to generation stories have been passed down to us around that occupation.

"Even going through and doing excavations in those areas; to find the plaited hair and the artefacts and how they have been dated back to over 46,000 years - it's something we will always remember."

Mr Hayes said the destruction of the ancient sites would impact future generations most.

"Traditionally we hand that [heritage] down to the next generation, but in this case we won't have anything to show the next generation and to tell them stories about what has happened there and what's been passed down from our ancestors," he said.

"We can't undo what's already happened but what we can do is try and go back to Rio Tinto and talk to them on how we can protect the remaining sites in that area."

Place of 'staggering' artefacts

During an excavation in 2014, archaeologist Dr Michael Slack found several "staggering" artefacts including grinding and pounding stones, which were believed to be the earliest use of grindstone technology in Western Australia.

The research revealed sites of "high archaeological significance", but due to what PKK traditional owners have described as a "rigid regulatory system" the decision was not able to be turned around.

Dr Slack said he was surprised when he heard the news of Rio Tinto's blast at the site.

"It's always a bit upsetting to hear about a fantastic cultural site being lost," he said.

He said plaited hair dating back 4,000 years was also recovered, believed to be part of a hair belt worn by traditional owners, and a kangaroo leg bone dating back 28,000 years which had been sharpened into a pointed tool - the oldest examples of bone technology found in Australia.

The findings from Dr Slack and the team had dated human occupation in the region back more than four times what was originally understood.

"What we found were some really important discoveries," he said.

"We found early backed artefacts which were a little stone tool we think were halved into knives, and they appear in this site up to 10,000 years earlier than in other sites.

"This site was something special. It was a massive cave, it had such a rich cultural deposit, such an old occupation. And so significant in that respect that it's one of those sites you only excavate once or twice in your career.

"So myself and the other archaeologists and the traditional owners that all slogged it out for weeks and weeks, and sweated down the bottom of that pit, are all taking a moment and going 'wow that's just sad really. Unfortunate'."

Law that permitted mine under review

The WA Aboriginal Heritage Act (1972) is currently under review with draft legislation expected to be released for public comment.

The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill will be introduced into the WA Parliament for consideration this year.

The ABC understand Section 18 notices will no longer exist under the proposed changes.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt said the new heritage legislation would focus on mutual agreement between traditional owners and proponents.

"It will ... include a process to consider new information that may come to light, and allow the parties to be able to amend the agreements by mutual consent," he said.

"The legislation will also provide options for appeal should either party not be compliant with the agreement."

Dr Slack said examples such as Juukan Gorge proved the legislation needed to change.

"Everyone in this situation would take pause and think 'we could do better' in terms of the process," he said.

"A lot of people would be familiar that the legislation we operate under is almost 50 years old and it wasn't really designed for the pressures of development and heritage compliance that we're under these days.

"Hopefully we can rectify the situation in revised legislation, and there should be a process where things are only destroyed with full knowledge and that we know the results of all these excavations in advance of all these consents 'to destroy' being approved.

"This is not an unusual situation, it's just unusual that the site has proven to be so importantly archaeologically and culturally as well."

Problematic Section 18

In 2018, Fortescue Metals Group came under fire after it secured a Section 18 notice to destroy significant Indigenous sites in the nearby Spear Valley, 90 kilometres north-east of Tom Price, which dated back 23,000 years.

The destruction of those sites would have made way for a railway to service its new $1.5 billion Eliwana mine development.

After outcry from traditional owners about an administrative error with the Act, the Federal Government reviewed the decision and FMG later amended its proposal to continue development without impacting the cultural sites.

Mr Ashburton said the PKK people were now working with Rio Tinto to safeguard the remaining rock shelters in the Juukan Gorge.

Mr Hayes said changes to the Aboriginal Heritage Act were long overdue to better protect Aboriginal sites, and he urged other traditional owners to take another look at their own agreements.

"Our experience - it's something that we have learned from and we didn't believe that we would ever be in this position," he said.

"I would encourage other traditional owners to ensure that their mining proponents, whoever is doing any mining activity on their country, that they understand what they are getting themselves into and do everything they possibly can to protect their sacred sites."

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Pilbara mining blast confirmed to have destroyed 46,000yo cultural sites

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"Deeply troubled" traditional owners in the western Pilbara have had their worst fears confirmed after Rio Tinto detonated explosives near culturally significant sites dating back more than 46,000 years.

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Environment/ Land rights

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Posted December 21, 2017 14:27:18

At some stage in every Australian child's life, whether it is when we learn about the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Colosseum in Ancient Rome, an appreciation for the scale of human history develops.

It is an understanding of the incredible and enduring legacy of ancient civilisations that have come before us.

The physical remains are icons and the cultures they represent are awe-inspiring.

But very little is taught or known about the breadth of history on our own doorstep.

In fact, our own ancient sites seem to not only be unknown, but are actively destroyed.

In New South Wales, only three-and-half hours north-west of the most populated city in Australia, a large, flat rock sits perched on top of an inconspicuous hill in the middle of Yengo National Park.

Indigenous people from across the country engraved that rock as part of special ceremonies.

The carvings date back to the same time as the pyramids.

Just down the hill, there is a set of stairs that lead to a cave. Inside, there is a painting of a figure with outstretched arms and legs.

It is one of the most significant figures in Aboriginal culture: the creation spirit Baiame.

More than 4,000 years ago, people in the area painted Baiame using traditional ochres.

The spirit guided people from across the country to sacred sites, and the cave was used for ceremonies.

This cave - like many around the country - has been altered, repaired without cultural authority, and partially destroyed.

It has been wrecked by a sandblaster and wears deep cracks across its face from mine blasts.

The site was once protected by trees and scrub covering the front of the cave, but the National Parks and Wildlife Service cut them down when the cave was opened up for public display.

Wind and rain have since weathered the painting.

The cave had a lip across the bottom and was sandblasted to prevent tourists from getting too close to the painting.

But during the process of trying to preserve the sacred image, the legs on the figure and the bottom half of the cave were destroyed.

Not all the damage has been done with noble intentions.

Some of it seems plain disrespectful and suggests that little value has been placed on Indigenous heritage.

Aboriginal communities left to pick up damaged history

One story told by Waylon Boney - a man who has dedicated his life to cultural preservation - is about a photographer who outlined the figure with white paint to make it stand out more for his photos.

There is another story about someone engraving a smile on the face of an Aboriginal spirit.

Imagine if someone took a bulldozer to the Colosseum, or replaced a block at the pyramids with Lego - because that is what is happening here with our historical sites.

"We need to come together and start sharing these stories with each other, start getting behind each other, to protect these carvings and the sites," Mr Boney said.

"While ever we can't come together, then we won't be able to protect our culture and our heritage."

A report in the National Indigenous Times claims in NSW between 2005 and 2009, the State Government approved 541 permits to destroy or disturb Aboriginal heritage sites.

In Tasmania, vandals destroyed hand stencils that traditional owners estimate are up to 8,000 years old.

They scratched the hand stencils out on the eve of the anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report on the experiences of people from the Stolen Generations.

In the Northern Territory, a mining company was accused of deliberately destroying a sacred site that had previously been damaged as a result of mine blasts.

In some cases, Indigenous people are also prevented from accessing or practicing appropriate ceremonies to re-engrave or re-paint significant sites.

It is then left to national parks and wildlife services to do the work themselves - often without the cultural authority required to carry out the sacred work.

The legislation around site protection is growing stronger and there are examples of fines being handed out - the mining company Xstrata was penalised for the destruction of a site and fined $81,000.

Although it is only a drop in the ocean compared to the profit turned by the company annually, it is more than what has been done previously to reprimand companies that damage sites.

There is also criticism of the amount they were fined in terms how it compares to the cost of shutting down the production of the mine in order to avoid damaging sites.

Until there are stronger legislative protections, the burden of defending Australia's incredible history falls to communities, and individuals like Waylon.

One part of the strategy they have employed is education, because once there is a broader realisation of how special it is that Australia is home to the most incredible history - one that has outlasted the Ancient Egyptians and Romans - preserving that culture will not be considered a hindrance.

Hopefully it will be an absolute necessity.

Topics: community-and-society, land-rights, sacred-sites, aboriginal, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-culture, environment, conservation, national-parks, regional, singleton-2330, nsw

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Why does Australia let its ancient history be destroyed?

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Posted December 21, 2017 14:27:18 At some stage in every Australian child's life, whether it is when we learn about the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Colosseum in Ancient Rome, an appreciation for the scale of human history develops. It is an understanding of the incredible and enduring legacy of ancient civilisations that have come before us.

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It's over 140 years old, but national anthem Advance Australia Fair has been rewritten by a group seeking recognition of Indigenous peoples in the Australian constitution.

The lyrics to Advance Australia Fair have been tweaked by Recognition in Anthem, a committee of Australians who hope the changes to the national anthem will become official

They want it to be more representative of all citizens, especially Indigenous Australians

The current anthem was signed off by former prime minister Bob Hawke in 1984, and voted on by referendum - prior to that, it was God Save the Queen

For the first time, the new lyrics were performed in front of a live audience on the opening night of the annual Desert Song Festival in Alice Springs on Friday.

The lyrics have been tweaked by Recognition in Anthem, a committee of Australians who hope the changes to the national anthem will become official.

Committee member Martin Haskett was in Alice Springs for the premiere, and said the re-write was designed to facilitate reconciliation.

"Our current anthem doesn't recognize Indigenous people of this country - the ambition was to create something that spoke to everyone in Australia," Mr Haskett said.

"We don't want anyone to not sing the anthem because it doesn't adequately represent them."

'For we are one and free'

The song, "Advance Australia Fair II - a Patriotic Song of Australia", includes completely rewritten verses and single word changes to the current anthem.

"For we are young and free" has been re-written as "for we are one and free" to reference 60,000 years of human occupation on the continent.

There have been countless drafts of the new lyrics, and Mr Haskett said it was now time to launch it.

"We want to see if it does resonate with people, and think it will," he said.

The new anthem was performed by local and international choirs, including the Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir, who performed one verse in Pitjantjara.

"It's great to be included," said one of those performers, Western Arrernte woman Marion Swift.

"I think the new version covers all different stuff - to include Aboriginals; it's lovely."

Mr Haskett said representation was very important.

"That acceptance in the Aboriginal community shows that it has a future," he said.

"We are launching an anthem about the whole of Australia, from the centre of Australia."

Celebrating Indigenous music

Morris Stuart is the Desert Song festival director and leads the Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir.

He said it was an honour to host the rewritten anthem's first live performance.

"It's recognising Indigenous people, and our festival has grown out of the hearts of Central Australian language," he said.

"All the stars have lined up - this is the most appropriate place to premiere this anthem.

"I think it's a rare and wonderful privilege ... Australia is up for looking at this national song and improving on it."

The Guyanan-born Mr Stuart said his background made him uniquely qualified to help facilitate this performance.

"For me, as a new Australian, and somebody who has a passion about this country and its history and the people who've created it - this is an honour," he said.

"It may be that only somebody like a new Australian could run with a project like this.

"I think this is going to feed into the story of what it means to be Australia."

Mr Stuart also re-arranged the song's choral arrangement for the performance in the hopes that it would help keep the new song sounding fresh and contemporary.

"If we begin the conversation by reflecting that we aren't young, as human occupation we are very old and we have incredible wisdom in that antiquity," he said.

"And also the third verse reflects the multicultural nature of Australia, as well as some of those values of mutual support and community.

"I actually think that it's very evocative of who we are and I hope that it starts a conversation."

Anthem should reflect the nation we've become

The current Australian national anthem was signed off by former prime minister Bob Hawke in 1984, and voted on by referendum.

Prior to that, Australia's national anthem was God Save the Queen.

"It's not something that has been there for hundreds of years, this demonstrates that there is no reason that it can't change again," said Mr Haskett.

"And change just as it did in 1984, to better reflect Australia's national identity - we think the anthem should reflect the nation we have become."

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Advance Australia Fair rewritten: Would you accept a change to the national anthem?

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The national anthem has been rewritten and performed for the first time in Alice Springs by a group that says it should be more inclusive of all Australians.

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Culture

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Welcome to NAIDOC.

We acknowledge all First Peoples of the beautiful lands on which we live and celebrate their enduring knowledge and connections to Country. We honour the wisdom of and pay respect to Elders past and present.

Continue

National NAIDOC Week 2023

The National NAIDOC Committee has announced NAIDOC Week celebrations will be held from 2 - 9 July 2023.
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Welcome to NAIDOC. We acknowledge all First Peoples of the beautiful lands on which we live and celebrate their enduring knowledge and connections to Country. We honour the wisdom of and pay respect to Elders past and present. Continue The National NAIDOC Committee has announced NAIDOC Week celebrations will be held from 2 - 9 July 2023.

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Australia's Wallabies sing anthem in indigenous language

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Australia's rugby team sang in a First Nations language for the first time at an international event.

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Culture

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Aboriginal cultural capability toolkit - VPSC

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Supports public sector workplaces to build their capability to attract, recruit, retain, support and develop Aboriginal staff at all levels.

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Culture

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Culture

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Deborah Mailman on her latest role in Total Control | 7.30

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Teenager Olivia Fox felt "incredible" and was "overwhelmed with pride" as she sang the national anthem in the Eora language at a Wallabies game.

Ms Fox, a proud Wiradjuri woman and student at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, led the rendition of Advance Australia Fair at Sydney's Bankwest Stadium on Saturday night, singing it in the First Nations language and in English.

Wallabies players were seen singing in Eora with the 17-year-old, in a first for an international sporting event in Australia.

"The feeling was incredible, you know, walking out onto the field I was just so honoured to be there in the first place," Ms Fox told SBS News.

"As soon as I started to sing the anthem, I was overwhelmed with pride.

"It's an amazing feeling, just to sing it."

Many rugby fans shared their excitement over the rendition on social media, with several saying they wanted to hear it more often.

"Best moment in rugby in (my) living memory," one Twitter user said. "I hope this becomes the norm for all sports teams in Aust," said another.

But others said that changing the language didn't change their problems with the song, with the anthem a source of contention due to its failure to recognise the culture and history of First Nations people.

In a since-deleted Instagram post, NRL star Latrell Mitchell reportedly wrote: "When will people understand that changing it to language doesn't change the meaning!"

"Be proud but understand what you're being proud of."

Mitchell and other Indigenous NRL players, including Cody Walker, Josh Addo-Carr and Will Chambers previously boycotted singing the anthem throughout the 2019 State of Origin series.

'I'm so proud'

Ms Fox said everyone would have their own thoughts and opinions but she saw Saturday's anthem as "a great step in the right direction".

She said it meant a lot for her to be able to sing in the Eora language for thousands of people.

"I want it to be heard ... I'm so proud to be singing this language, and the whole Indigenous community, I could feel them with me," she said.

"I didn't think it would have such a big impact but honestly, I'm really proud of just being Indigenous and being able to use my voice," she later said.

Shadow minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Linda Burney, said the rendition "was respectful, it was stunning, it was fabulous".

"What really impressed me is that the Wallabies had learnt the song in Eora and sang along in Eora. That was really very special, and very touching," Ms Burney told SBS News.

"I'm feeling quite emotional even talking about it."

Wallabies captain Michael Hooper also said the team was proud to be involved.

"We were practising (the Eora version) during the week and our guys were - there was never a question - proud to have the opportunity to do it," Hooper said.

"I think it sounded pretty good, too."

That is one incredible national anthem @wallabies! As an athlete every time the Australian anthem is performed it should be done this way. I would love to win a gold medal and hear this playing loud and proud, so so inspiring.
- Richard Colman AM (@RichardColman84) December 5, 2020

Among those to react on Twitter, Paralympian Richard Colman said he always wanted the anthem performed that way.

Cricketer and television presenter Trent Copeland said he "wanted to live in an Australian where THIS is our every day", while netballer Kimberlee Green said it was the best Australian sporting moment she had ever seen.

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'I was overwhelmed with pride': Olivia Fox reflects on her historic rendition of the national anthem

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Teenager Olivia Fox felt "incredible" and was "overwhelmed with pride" as she sang the national anthem in the Eora language at a Wallabies game. Ms Fox, a proud Wiradjuri woman and student at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, led the rendition of Advance Australia Fair at Sydney's Bankwest Stadium on Saturday night, singing it in the First Nations language and in English.

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Culture

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Aunty Wendy's Mob songs, interactive Performance & Training celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures

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Based on the Aunty Wendy's Mob songs, the Performance & PD Workshop is developed for Preschool and early Primary aged children & teachers. Children perform with Wendy and participate in song, dance, language and drama experiences that present contemporary, urban and remote images and ideas about Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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Aunty Wendy's Mob for Music, Books, Performance & Training | Aunty Wendy's Mob

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Children's songs and Picture Books celebrating Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children, families and cultures. Performance for Early Childhood, Preschools, Early Primary aged children. Teacher Resource Books accompany the CDs to give teachers the confidence to share the Aunty Wendy's Mob so

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Yulunga Traditional Indigenous Games | Sport Australia

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The Australian Sports Commission acknowledges Ken Edwards for the extensive and thorough research undertaken to collate the Yulunga: Traditional Indigenous Games.

To create this resource, Ken Edwards with the assistance of Troy Meston reviewed almost every available account of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander games from all parts of Australia.

The Australian Sports Commission recognises the traditional owners of the games and activities that formed the basis of this resource. This resource is dedicated to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

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Sport Australia is determined to have more Australians participating and excelling in sport, from grass-roots right up to the pinnacle of elite competition.

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Culture

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Closing the Gap - Prime Minister’s Report 2018 (pmc.gov.au)

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Culture

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Australia's Wallabies sing anthem in indigenous language

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Australia's rugby team sang in a First Nations language for the first time at an international event.

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Black Livers Matter

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strategic communications & public affairs

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Three in four people hold negative view of Indigenous people

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Most Australians tested for unconscious bias hold a negative view of Indigenous Australians which can lead to widespread racism, new analysis from The Australian National University (ANU) shows. People's bias is regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, religion, education level, geography or political leanings, according to the findings.

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Black liver Matter

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Black Livers Matter

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Historical injustice

Colonial attitudes and actions set in motion a series of events that continue to impact Indigenous Australians today, despite Indigenous people's efforts to resist and overcome the effects of colonisation. The social and economic impact of invasion, dispossession, marginalisation and control of Indigenous people has accumulated across generations, and has been amplified by policies and practices that have systematically disadvantaged Indigenous people. In many instances, this has resulted in the transmission of poverty, poor health and other forms of disadvantage from generation to generation.

Australia is the only Commonwealth nation where a treaty doesn't exist between the colonisers and Indigenous people. The absence of a treaty is at the very heart of the historical injustice in Australia. The continued lack of treaty with Indigenous Australians shows an ongoing denial of the prior occupation and dispossession of Indigenous people in Australia and a general disregard for a dispossessed people. It's a reminder that disrespectful colonial attitudes still haven't been addressed.

What's institutional injustice?

Institutional injustice is when government policies marginalise some people. This clearly occurred at the beginning of colonisation when Indigenous people were "legally" dispossessed and exploited. However, the formal structures and institutions of the time set up a legacy of discrimination against Indigenous people.

This is now played out in the current social statistics such as incarceration rates, NAPLAN results and employment rates. Some improvements have been made with the granting of certain rights in the 1960's and recognition of Native Title in 1993. However, these changes haven't been enough to reverse the negative impact past policies continue to have on Indigenous Australians.

Culture, identity and belonging

To understand the full extent of the challenges Indigenous people face today, it's vital to understand how the impact of colonisation on Indigenous culture has affected people. This is because Indigenous identity is inextricably linked to land and family. When Indigenous people were dispossessed of their land, they were dispossessed of a major part of their identity. The enormous impact of this was heightened when people were also separated from their families. This is a major underlying cause of many challenges Indigenous people face.

Social injustice

Indigenous Australians experience some of the worst discrimination in the country. This includes unfair and negative stereotypes such as being lazy, violent and alcoholic. Many Australians also presume that 'real' Indigenous people only live in the desert, when in fact a third of all Indigenous Australians live in major cities.

Instead of simply accepting what the media and society say, it's important to listen to Indigenous people about their identity as Indigenous Australians and what this means for them personally. Whilst being Indigenous means different things to different people, for many Indigenous people, it's about being connected to Country, community and culture. It has nothing to do with many of the myths and stereotypes about Indigenous Australians which perpetuate discrimination.

A shared wound, a shared solution

The colonial system not only affected Indigenous Australians, it also brutalised many of the early British convicts, who were removed from their land and families and subject to control, severe punishment, forced labour, abuse and harsh living conditions. However, since that time, many non-Indigenous Australians have accumulated significant socio-economic advantages as a result of colonisation, and these benefits have come at enormous cost to Indigenous people.

The injustice experienced by many Indigenous people is at odds with our national values, the things that make us proud to be Australian. It affects everyone living on this land. Because of intolerance, mainstream Australian culture has missed many opportunities to inherit aspects of rich Indigenous cultures and deep knowledge of the land we all live on.

Despite our disturbing history, there's significant good will in Australia. While considerable effort has been made to set things right, many attempts to address injustice and disadvantage are simply not working. That's why Australians Together focuses on respectful relationships and connections between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

We're passionate about addressing the wound in our nation by changing the way we understand one another. We know that coming together respectfully has the power to change everything, to address the wound in our nation and create a better shared future for Australians.

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Colonial attitudes and actions set in motion a series of events that continue to impact Indigenous Australians today, despite Indigenous people's efforts to resist and overcome the effects of colonisation. The social and economic impact of invasion, dispossession, marginalisation and control of Indigenous people has accumulated across generations, and has been amplified by policies and practices that have systematically disadvantaged Indigenous people.

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Back livers matter

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The Long History of Racism in Media Stereotyping Indigenous in Media Indigenous Prosperity in the Digital Age Where to from here? - Luke Briscoe is a proud Kuku-Yalanji man from Far North Queensland. He is a Digital Producer at NITV and founded the company to create innovative projects and STEM initiatives for social and environmental change.

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Racism in media provides a blockage for Indigenous prosperity in a digital economy

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The Long History of Racism in Media Stereotyping Indigenous in Media Indigenous Prosperity in the Digital Age Where to from here? - Luke Briscoe is a proud Kuku-Yalanji man from Far North Queensland. He is a Digital Producer at NITV and founded the company to create innovative projects and STEM initiatives for social and environmental change.

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Black livers Matter

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Culture

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Culture

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Black livers Matter

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More than half of the Indigenous people who died in custody since 2008 had not been convicted of a crime.

A Guardian Australia investigation has found that while 44% of deaths in custody were of sentenced prisoners, 56% were people held after being charged with a crime, people who died in a police pursuit or during arrest, or people who died in protective custody.

In contrast, the majority of non-Indigenous people who died in custody (51%) were serving a prison sentence.

Most of the Indigenous people who had not yet been charged were suspected of non-indictable offences, ranging from public intoxication to evading police. Those crimes typically carry sentences of less than five years.

Five people, including the Wiradjuri woman Rebecca Maher, had been remanded in custody for their own protection because police believed them to be intoxicated.

Maher died in the Cessnock watch house in 2016. She is the only Indigenous person to have died in New South Wales police custody since the introduction of the mandatory custody notification service in 2000. Police failed to notify the service.

Her family said an autopsy report showed there were no drugs or alcohol in her system. An inquest is scheduled for March.

In February 31-year-old Patrick Fisher died after falling from a 13th-floor balcony in a Sydney housing block while trying to avoid police attempting to arrest him for outstanding warrants. His family said he would have been concerned about being "bashed" by the officers.

Guardian Australia examined the circumstances of every Indigenous death in custody over the past 10 years, and compared Indigenous and non-Indigenous deaths over a five-year period. The analysis also revealed a split along gender lines.

Far fewer women die in custody compared with men. But women who died in custody were more likely to experience a lapse in procedure or to not receive all the medical care required.

In 2017 a NSW coroner found that a 21-year-old woman, who died in Emu Plains minimum security prison in 2012, may not have died if prison staff had correctly completed a perimeter check. The woman, referred to by Guardian Australia as "PB", died of a drug overdose after receiving heroin smuggled into the prison.

Had prison guards conducted a perimeter check as required, the coroner said, they may have noticed an open window in PB's accommodation unit which would have prompted them to check on the inmates in that unit, and discover PB in need of medical attention.

"The tragedy of this matter is that, apart from the failings by Corrective Services staff on the night of her death, had any of the other inmates in House 3 chosen to 'buzz up' there seems little doubt PB could have been saved," the coroner said.

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More than half of 147 Indigenous people who died in custody had not been found guilty

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More than half of the Indigenous people who died in custody since 2008 had not been convicted of a crime. A Guardian Australia investigation has found that while 44% of deaths in custody were of sentenced prisoners, 56% were people held after being charged with a crime, people who died in a police pursuit or during arrest, or people who died in protective custody.

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Australia needs to confront its history of white privilege to provide a level playing field for all

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Australia is routinely compared with other rich, developed nations. Its economy, schooling, health care, infrastructure and social values are regularly put up against those of Western Europe and North America, allowing intelligent comparisons to be drawn. Like is compared with like.

But when it comes to the ethnic composition of its population, these comparisons are distorted by history. The unspoken twist is that, until two generations ago, Australia practised a policy of racial exclusion.

The country's nation-builders placed a straitjacket on the ethnic character of Australia's future, reflecting the values of racial hierarchy of the post-Victorian age. This policy persisted into the 1970s and meant Australia remained, for a long time, in Asia but certainly not of Asia.

As a new publication, Re-Imagining Australia: Migration, Culture, Diversity from the UWA Public Policy Institute, argues, it is possible to see the results of this social experiment in 2020.

Very few older Australians beyond their 50s are of non-European descent, and this demographic feature is now hard-baked into politics and policy debates.

White Australians over 50 have also grown up as the first generation that has had to share legal rights and citizenship with Indigenous Australians. They have done so starting from a low base, but progress has been glacial.

Read more: Explainer: what is systemic racism and institutional racism?

Policies geared toward older, white Australians

These demographic changes also play a role in how evidence-based policies are formulated. For example, each new slew of proposals concerning health and social care, taxation and property ownership affects white Australians very differently from ethnic minorities.

This is because the former are generally older, better off and homeowners, so they are more reliant on (and exposed to changes in) these services and policies.

Equally, younger Australians are considerably more likely to be of Asian, African, Middle Eastern or Pacific Islander heritage, and are disproportionately affected by policy proposals in tertiary education, housing affordability and visa restrictions.

Read more: 'Death by a thousand cuts': women of colour in science face a subtly hostile work environment

By not taking these structural variances into account, there can be major gaps in policy-making.

For instance, during the COVID-19 crisis, the government's JobKeeper wage-subsidy program specifically excluded temporary skilled visa holders - substantial numbers of whom are from Asia (India, in particular). The uneven effects of the policy are not hard to see.

Dealing with the past

For much of the post-war period, Australia's leaders anguished over the need to populate or perish. But it remained a white past and a white future. Australia's major institutions, including politics, higher education, media, the arts and the public service, still fail to reflect the massive demographic shift in recent years.

As Paul Maginn, a senior lecturer in urban planning at UWA, observes in our report:

Not all migrant/minority communities enjoy the same level of respect, equality, freedom and opportunity as the wider white Australian population. If this were the case, then a truly successful multicultural nation would look very different.

The hangover is reflected in many things, not least the majority white population's sense of attachment to national cultural norms, symbols and practices.

As Farida Fozdar, associate sociology professor at UWA and another author of our report, argues, Australia's sense of national community has been founded on a solidarity that shuns diversity. To be socially cohesive is to imply a degree of homogeneity, and that constrains the task of re-imagining Australia.

Read more: Yes, it is time to rethink our immigration intake - to put more focus on families

Dealing with the past often sparks controversy, from the removal of statues such as Cecil Rhodes in Oxford and Robert E. Lee in Virginia to the calls for state reparations for historic crimes, such as the slave trade.

It is nothing less than embarrassing that in modern-day Australia, almost all senior roles in government or business are held by middle-aged white men.

One way of viewing this is they have grown up and prospered at a time when Australia was ethnically homogeneous - they grew to trust and work collaboratively with those "just like us". Rather like fish swimming in water, it is hard to notice that which is ubiquitous.

A less sympathetic view is they have never had to compete in a wider pool, and continue to behave rationally to restrict competition in order to maintain their privilege. Many mediocre, white men have been excused from competing as a result.

Diversity in leadership matters

Gross disparities in the complexion of those at the top matter for two reasons. One is the manifest unfairness in opportunities for ethnic minorities in education, employment, health care and housing.

The other reason is the creation of a reputational stain on those organisations that are slow to reform. Second-generation migrants may begin to question the "fair-go" mantra because they sense they are being overlooked, their patience stretched by standing politely behind those they can comfortably outperform.

The picture is stark in Australia's politics. As Juliet Pietsch, political science professor at Griffith University, notes in our report, only nine of 227 (or 4%) of federal MPs have non-European heritage.

Under-representation extends to senior leadership levels. Not a single Australian federal minister is from an Asian-Australian background. The only bright spot to this lack of Asian-Australians in senior roles is Penny Wong, the shadow foreign minister.

As UWA political science professor Ben Reilly writes, Australia lags well behind comparable countries, such as Canada and the UK, on this measure.

In the UK, four Asians have senior Cabinet roles and a tenth of the lower house is made up of ethnic minorities, while in Canada, over 15% of MPs and six out of 37 Cabinet members are minorities.

Read more: Australia should look overseas for ideas to increase its number of women MPs

How should governments address these issues? The conventional view has erred toward caution, noting the majority white electorate is easily antagonised by policies and gestures that appear to favour ethnic minorities in areas such as education, jobs and housing.

This outlook has dominated Australian politics and underscores the recent warning from Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute about the potential for immigration to polarise Australian public opinion and poison the country's politics.

But on the other side, Australia's reputation for fairness will be eroded in the eyes of its future generations. Young, educated, liberal, urban, white Australians may also object to discriminatory practices going unchecked and call for tougher actions by government.

The true extent of Australia's "fair-go" mantra will not depend so much on the transmission of older values and symbols to newer, more diverse Australians.

Rather, it depends fundamentally on their experiences in education and employment being free of white privilege. This will determine whether they truly believe there is a level playing field.

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Australia needs to confront its history of white privilege to provide a level playing field for all

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The absence of ethnic diversity in politics and business distorts and undermines the lived reality of a multicultural democracy.

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Black livers Matter

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A growing number of Australians believe it is important to protect an Indigenous voice in the constitution so it can't be removed by future governments, according to the latest two-year survey of attitudes to reconciliation.

The Reconciliation Barometer 2020 found that 81% of the general community (up from 77% in 2018) and 88% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (up from 86% in 2018) support aconstitutionally-enshrined representative Indigenous body.

But more than half (52%) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have experienced at least one form of racial prejudice in the past six months. The report said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's experiences of race-based prejudice had steadily worsened over the past six years.

The most common forms of racial violence included verbal or social media abuse, being prevented from renting or buying property and being refused entry to venues or service in shops.

The report said the "stark increase" in racial discrimination in 2020 may be a sign of how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and the policing of lockdowns, creating stress and tensions in communities.

Some 60% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents and 43% of non-Indigenous respondents agreed that "Australia is a racist country".

The Reconciliation Australia chief executive, Karen Mundine, said the results indicated the Black Lives Matter movement may have made respondents more aware of the pervasiveness of racism in Australian life.

"In 2020 we have seen increasing political and social polarisation due to uncertainty and disruption from Covid-19," Mundine said.

"The heightened awareness and sentiments around the global and local Black Lives Matter movements have translated into our research, as would be expected."

Almost 90% of the general community and 93% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people also said it was important to undertake formal truth-telling processes about Australian history.

Mundine said community attitudes to self-determination, representation and treaty-making were well ahead of those held by political leaders.

"This provides a basis for demanding more of our political leaders," Mundine said. "Change doesn't happen without governments, parliaments, corporate and civil society, and the broader community playing their part."

The report said that calls in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including for a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament, should be supported by parliaments, corporate and civil society, as well as the broader community.

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More Australians want an Indigenous voice protected in constitution, survey suggests

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A growing number of Australians believe it is important to protect an Indigenous voice in the constitution so it can't be removed by future governments, according to the latest two-year survey of attitudes to reconciliation.

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Black livers matter

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The latest Australian Reconciliation Barometer report has revealed a rise in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experiencing racism.

Fifty-two per cent of Indigenous people had experienced at least one form of racial prejudice in the past six months, up from 43 per cent in the 2018 barometer report.

Reconciliation Australia CEO Karen Mundine said this rise could be due to an increasing awareness of racism, but added that there isstill work to do to curb the discrimination Indigenous people face.

"We take this as a positive because the more people that are aware of things, what it means is that we're uncovering things that I think were already there, people are just more aware of it and I think that's a good thing," she told NITV News on Monday.

"Racism is not a good thing, experience of it is not a good thing, but when other people see it and are prepared to speak up about it, when we saw Black Lives Matter movements across the globe and particularly here in Australia, that again raised the issues.

"We know anecdotally people are more prepared to, and more Australians are having those conversations, and if we're going to address these issues going forward we need to start talking about this."

The barometer also revealed 60 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people agree that Australia is a racist country -up from 51 per cent in 2018.

43 per cent of non-Indigenous people also agreed that Australia is a racist country - up from 38 per cent in 2018.

Eighty-nine per cent of non-Indigenous people and 93 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people said they believed it is important for Australia to undertake a formal truth-telling process about Australia's history.

A majority of respondents -86 per cent non-Indigenous and 91 per cent Indigenous- also believe it is important to establish a representative Indigenous Body.

Ms Mundine said this could also be attributed to Black Lives Matter rallies in Australia, which she said raised awareness of racism faced by Indigenous people in this country.

"We can draw from that what's happening in the general community, how those global movements impact it and how people understand it," she said.

"There was also a question around how people see racism and thinking that Australia is a racist country and we've seen an increase there.

"I think that is about understanding what racism is. But equally what we see is people place greater importance on truth-telling, which is so fundamental to Reconciliation.

"We're also seeing rising support for a representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being represented by a body like that.

"These fundamental building blocks of how we create better outcomes for our people are there and, increasingly, Australians see their importance."

While Ms Mundine said there are definite positives in this year's barometer report, other findings are more concerning.

More Indigenous people reported having experienced racial discrimination in the past 12 months:

30 per cent in interactions with police (16 per cent in 2018)

24 per cent in interactions with local shop keepers and staff (18 per cent in 2018)

24 per cent in interactions with real estate agents (12 per cent in 2018)

22 per cent in interactions with doctors, nurses and medical staff (14 per cent in 2018)

Alongside the effects of the Black Lives Matter movement, Ms Mundine said these negative experiences with particular professions may be an illustration of how the stress and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people.

Although it is too early to tell for sure, Ms Mindine said she hopes these rates decrease in future years.

"We've seen a small rise in negative experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their engagement with police, hospital workers, shop keepers, and real estates in particular.

"I think in 2020, it's been such an unusual year - everyone is stressed, everyone has been managing or dealing with the effects of COVID-19 and the pandemic.

"I think it's really telling of when people are feeling a bit under pressure, when people are feeling a bit stretched in their daily lives how it heightens some of those underlying issues.

"I'd like to think this is a blip, I'd like to think that going forward, we'll see a reduction but it's a bit early to say.

"Nevertheless it's something for us to think about and how we can make those engagements better because they're so important to everyone's every day lives."

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Black Lives Matter movement has raised awareness & understanding of racism in Australia

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The latest Australian Reconciliation Barometer report has revealed a rise in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experiencing racism. Fifty-two per cent of Indigenous people had experienced at least one form of racial prejudice in the past six months, up from 43 per cent in the 2018 barometer report.

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Culture

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We nurture our culture for our future, and our culture nurtures us.

A report prepared by the Lowitja Institute for the Close the Gap Steering Committee | March 2020

Executive Summary

With this report - We nurture our culture for our future, and our culture nurtures us - we have sought to reflect the reciprocal and cyclical relationship between culture and wellbeing, whereby nurturing culture keeps us, and our future generations, healthy and strong.

Over the last twelve years, successive governments have failed to deliver the reforms needed to close the gap on health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

At the heart of this report is the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander empowerment as vital to wellbeing. The featured case studies have been selected to highlight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-driven approaches to health policy and program reform across four domains of the cultural determinants:

Self-determination and leadership involve practices and processes that incorporate not only self-governance and shared decision-making, but also rights to express and pass on culture, language, and relationships with Country. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Health Organisations and the Coalition of Peaks are examples of self-determination and leadership in action. Self-determination and leadership in health and wellbeing empowers communities through culturally centred processes of decision making and delivers solutions that respond to local context.

Indigenous beliefs and knowledge
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people hold complex and important knowledge systems. Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander holistic definitions of health and wellbeing in the way we deliver health services is critical to improving outcomes. Recognising the expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities in health research, policy and program development is key.

Cultural expression and continuity are great sources of strength and resilience for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The trauma of cultural disruption and suppression has had a profound effect on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's health and wellbeing. Ongoing racism within the health system and externally continues to contribute to this trauma. Measures to promote cultural expression as a health protective factor and ensure the cultural safety of the health system are two elements that can be progressed under this domain.

Connection to Country
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander society is interconnected with land, sea and Country. Identity, cultural practices, social systems, traditions and concepts of spirituality are all drawn from, and depend upon, connection to Country. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are uniquely affected by accelerating climate change and it is with increasing urgency that we must consider connection to Country in health and wellbeing policy.

These domains have been selected because of pragmatic limitations, not as a reflection of importance or priority against the remaining cultural domains of language, and family, kinship and community.

The interconnected relationship of the different domains means that they can never truly operate in isolation and we hope that evidence of the importance of the remaining domains is also relayed in this report.

As with the 2019 Close the Gap Report, we have relied on the narratives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to provide a strengths-based analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing. This is in recognition of the hard work, resilience and aspirations of Australia's First Peoples to keep their families, communities and Country strong.

However, a strengths-based approach does not overlook the relationship of power and inequality on health outcomes and the responsibility of governments in leading systems reform. The work of communities must be matched by governments through shared decision-making, equitable (and sustained) funding and a cohesive policy approach.

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We nurture our culture for our future, and our culture nurtures us. A report prepared by the Lowitja Institute for the Close the Gap Steering Committee | March 2020 Executive Summary With this report - We nurture our culture for our future, and our culture nurtures us - we have sought to reflect the reciprocal and cyclical relationship between culture and wellbeing, whereby nurturing culture keeps us, and our future generations, healthy and strong.

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Culture
The Australian Government

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Black livers matter
If you’re an Indigenous child, you’re 24 times more likely to be imprisoned than your non-Indigenous classmates. Amnesty’s ‘Community is Everything’ campaign aims to end this inequality.

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If you are an Indigenous child, you are 24 times more likely to be imprisoned than your non-Indigenous classmates. Amnesty aims to end this inequality.

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Black livers Matter

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At the time of writing, 439 First Nations people have died in police custody in Australia since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991. None of these deaths have led to a single conviction of any person involved.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
The Royal Commission was appointed by the Australian Government in 1987. It investigated the deaths of 99 First Nations people who had died in custody between 1 January 1980 and 31 May 1989. In response to growing public concern, the Royal Commission was made to examine and report on the social, cultural and legal factors linked with the deaths in custody of First Nations people. This was after the then Committee to Defend Black Rights began counting First Nations deaths in custody as part of their national campaign in 1987. It revealed one First Nations person died while incarcerated every 11 days.

The Royal Commission produced many reports, including individual reports for each death investigated. The Royal Commission found that First Nations people were more likely to die in custody because they were more likely to be in custody. Almost 30 years later and First Nations people are still far more likely to be incarcerated than the non-Indigenous population. The final report was signed on 15 April 1991 and made 339 recommendations. The recommendations focused on health and safety procedures for people in custody, liaison with First Nations community groups, police education and improved transparency of records. According to the Federal Government's own measures, most of these recommendations have either not been implemented or only partially implemented.
Overrepresentation persists
First Nations people are still overrepresented in all forms of custody. This overrepresentation is the most significant factor for First Nations deaths in custody. We cannot talk about deaths in custody without talking about the over-incarceration of First Nations people.

3.3% of the Australian population are First Nations people. But they make up over 28% of the adult prison population.

First Nations adults are 15 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous adults.

First Nations youth are 26 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous youth.

First Nations women are the fastest-growing prison population in Australia.

The rate of incarceration has increased by 45% since 2008. This confronting statistic highlights the presence of systemic racism in Australia's justice system.

Systemic racism

Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi scholar and poet. She says systemic racism involves thinking about racism as a system, not just an individual's prejudice or bias. Alison describes systemic racism as the 'architecture around which other forms of racism are enabled, supported and justified.' Systemic racism influences deaths in custody through:

over-policing of First Nations communities

the inability of First Nations people to secure bail due to inadequate legal support, social and economic disadvantage and culturally inappropriate bail conditions

negligence of prison officers and medical staff due to unconscious bias.

The Royal Commission found that the high rates of First Nations deaths in custody were directly linked to underlying factors of poor health and housing, low employment and education levels, dispossession and destructive government policies. The Royal Commission concluded that the biggest factor putting First Nations people into contact with the justice system was their unequal position in wider society.
Deaths in custody
The Royal Commission defines a death in custody as:

A death, wherever occurring, of a person who is in prison custody, police custody or detention as a juvenile;

A death, wherever occurring, of a person whose death is caused or contributed to by traumatic injuries sustained, or by lack of proper care, while in such custody or detention;

A death, wherever occurring, of a person who dies, or is fatally injured, in the process of police or prison officers attempting to detain that person; and

A death, wherever occurring, of a person attempting to escape from prison, police custody or juvenile detention.

Under this definition at least eight First Nations people have died in custody since the beginning of 2020. This is a distressing number, and numbers are only part of the story.

Here is an interactive database put together by The Guardian (a warning to First Nations readers that this link shows images of deceased persons). It tracks every known First Nations death in custody in Australia from 2008 to 2020. The database also records the characteristics of First Nations deaths in custody, with their most recent analysis revealing:

Agencies failed to follow all their own procedures in 41% of cases where First Nations people died.

In 38% of the deaths, medical care was required but not given.

Only 51% of First Nations people with a diagnosed mental health condition or cognitive impairment (such as a brain injury or foetal alcohol syndrome disorder) received the care they needed.

These statistics show that First Nations people are dying in custody from treatable medical conditions at a higher rate than non-Indigenous people. And that they are much less likely to receive the care they need.
Justice reinvestment and self-determination
Justice reinvestment is a strategy for reducing the number of people in prison by moving funds from corrections budgets into early intervention, prevention and diversionary initiatives. For First Nations communities, this could be community-led truth-telling and decision-making. Shifting decision-making power from governments to communities, systemic policy and legislative reform, and decolonising the legal system are all important steps to self-determination, and therefore reducing the high incarceration rates of First Nations people.

Proud Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman and lawyer, Teela Reid, acknowledges the complexity of First Nations deaths in custody. She highlights there is no single solution to reduce First Nations overrepresentation. She does however, advocate for self-determination and changing colonial institutions that maintain systemic racism. Teela challenges the central role of policing in First Nations communities and calls for greater police accountability. Teela has worked on the proposal for Walama Court - a court designed to divert First Nations people away from the criminal justice system by involving Elders and threading traditional knowledge and lore into the decision-making process.

'Walama Court is a legally and economically sound proposal aiming to help First Nations people return to their community, come back to Country and reconnect with their cultural identity, rather than lose themselves inside a prison cell. It seeks to ensure First Nations people and their stories are heard, and justice is properly and holistically administered.'

Another example is the Nunga Court. The Nunga Court is Australia's first Aboriginal Sentencing Court. It is located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the remote north of South Australia. Aboriginal Sentencing Courts in South Australia are governed by a Magistrate, who is assisted by First Nations Elders. They provide an opportunity for First Nations court users to have their voice heard in a culturally supportive space. Family members and support persons can also speak directly to the court. The aim is to facilitate rehabilitation.

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The consequences of colonisation are far-reaching and extend through multiple generations. They continue to play out in the interactions between First Nations people and the justice system. Dispossession of land, disruption of culture and kinship systems, removal of children, racism, institutionalisation and poverty are all contributing factors to First Nations overrepresentation, and therefore, deaths in custody. Lack of police accountability and transparency concerning First Nations deaths in custody in Australia are both signs of a deep, systemic issue.

No criminal convictions have ever been made for any perpetrators in Australia. A holistic and systemic approach is needed - one that prioritises justice reinvestment and self-determination.

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At the time of writing, 439 First Nations people have died in police custody in Australia since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991. None of these deaths have led to a single conviction of any person involved. . Learn more about this from Common Ground.

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Better education outcomes for Indigenous students

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Better education outcomes for Indigenous students

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Education

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'We found many examples of promising policies and practices ...' ©Shutterstock/ESB Professional

Indigenous students face tough challenges in most education systems, but they do so much better in some schools than in others and in some education systems more than in others. So it is worth studying this in more detail, which we at the OECD have just done, analysing education outcomes of Indigenous students in Canada, New Zealand and Queensland, Australia.

What struck us most is that pockets of excellence and promising practices rarely translate across schools and even less across education systems. It seems that individual schools and education systems seldom learn from each other on what it takes to improve education for Indigenous students.

Australia achieves relatively strong education results at an aggregate level, yet many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students experience poor educational outcomes. And the picture is similar in other countries. And despite clear government intent in most of these countries to improve, gaps in education outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students remain significant and stubborn.

Promising policies and practices

We found many examples of promising policies and practices at a system-level and at school and community levels. We also found examples where the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is on track to close or has been closed. We learnt how such improvements have been achieved, and what has helped and what has hindered improvements.

We also learnt about the perspectives of Indigenous students and their parents, as well as teachers and school principals. Indigenous students told us how much difference teachers can make in their lives and their engagement in education. Students said they feel supported when their teachers:

care about them and who they are as Indigenous people;

expect them to succeed in education; and,

help them to learn about their cultures, histories and language/s. While teachers may not be experts in these areas, some still help their students to access Indigenous elders or other resources that they can learn from.

Of course, it always depends on how you define success. The Indigenous leaders and parents we met in the course of our work want their children to be strong in their Indigenous culture and identity, to achieve academically and to be well-prepared as global citizens for a changing and increasingly interconnected world.

The wellbeing of students is the most critical student outcome of all. Student wellbeing goes far beyond education, but it is influenced by the school environment, such as whether students feel safe and included in school life. Student wellbeing provides a foundation for participation and engagement in education, which supports student achievement.

The issues affecting Indigenous students are complex, deep and longstanding. However, the fact that education outcomes vary so much amongst Indigenous students, and the many successful examples, show that these issues are not intractable. So, while the effects of intergenerational poverty and trauma are real and take an immense toll on students and their families, they do not necessarily prevent Indigenous students from succeeding in education. And it is education that provides hope and promise to address disparities, not only in educational opportunities but also across a wider set of inequities.

In addition, it is clear that teaching practices that work for Indigenous students also benefit non-Indigenous students. So there is no trade-off to be made. In fact, non-Indigenous students are equally engaged and appreciative of, for example, learning about the culture and history of the Indigenous people of their local area.

Actions leading to sustained improvements

Improvements for Indigenous students have been achieved through focusing on several or all of the following six areas.

School leadership: School principals can make all the difference - or not. In schools where Indigenous students are achieving well, there is generally a highly effective and committed school principal who has done 'whatever it takes' to ensure Indigenous students are at school, engaged in learning and making sound progress. Approaches in such schools tend towards a 'whole-of-child' perspective, that puts students' overall wellbeing as the key priority. Effective principals also set high expectations for teachers and take responsibility for monitoring Indigenous students' academic progress, to ensure expectations of progress are being met and that any needed interventions are put in place in a timely manner.

We asked a principal of an outstanding school in New Brunswick, Canada, what advice he would give to other principals to bring about improvements for Indigenous students. He replied that it is simple: 'It's our responsibility to find the resources we need ... these are children, who want to learn.'

This principal has worked for 10 years alongside the local Indigenous community, with teachers and with the local education ministry to put in place effective supports for Indigenous students at his school. And the results are overwhelmingly positive, from student wellbeing, participation and engagement, to students' academic results.

Support for teachers: It may not be realistic for every teacher to meet Indigenous students' needs relating to language, culture and identity, but there is much that can be done to help teachers to feel confident and competent in establishing positive relationships with their Indigenous students. Teachers who think of themselves as cultural beings will open the door to thinking about their students as having their own culture, which in turn can profoundly influence their thoughts and behaviour. And teachers will also need cultural content knowledge about Indigenous students.

Teachers are sometimes not aware of the assumptions they are making about their students, especially if there are cultural or linguistic differences between themselves and their students. However, such assumptions can change when teachers become aware of their preconceptions, including the impact these have on their students.

Teaching can also be enhanced through the deliberate selection of learning activities, curriculum content and assessment mechanisms. These can be used in many ways to make learning more relevant and engaging for Indigenous students, such as the use of the history and geography of the school community.

Some people argue that Indigenous students will achieve better learning outcomes when they are taught by an Indigenous teacher. This may be so and I would certainly advocate for diversity in the teaching workforce, to better reflect the heterogeneity of student populations, but it is unrealistic to rely on this as a sole strategy. Such workforce initiatives take time to be realised and meanwhile, there are Indigenous students in schools who need their teachers to be well-prepared and able to meet their learning needs.

Early learning: Providing high quality, early childhood education and care (ECEC) for Indigenous children sets them on an early pathway for success. High quality ECEC is culturally responsive to the needs of Indigenous children and their families, supports Indigenous children to be confident and curious, and builds both social and emotional skills and early cognitive skills. It also means working in partnership with Indigenous parents to better meet their children's needs. Such ECEC is best provided in Indigenous communities, where Indigenous children live, and should be both accessible and affordable for their parents.

Extra support for students: There are many ways to provide extra support to individual students. A model that works well for schools with a number of Indigenous students is through employing Indigenous Support Workers. Such staff can address barriers faced by Indigenous students and identify opportunities to enhance their engagement and success in education. More specifically, such staff can contribute to ensuring regular attendance of Indigenous students at school, supporting teachers in building sound relationships with Indigenous students and their parents, initiating new curriculum resources, and leading professional development for teachers and whole-of-school activities to grow the cultural competence of staff and students together.

Other models include providing tailored tuition to Indigenous students, additional to regular classroom activities. This can focus on areas of need, such as language development, or on areas of particular interest to Indigenous students, including cultural and sporting activities.

Engaging families: Where respect, trust and positive relationships have not always been part of historic or recent experiences between Indigenous communities and schools, Indigenous families are likely to be wary of engaging with school staff. However, where bridges are built and mutually respectful relationships are formed, the benefits for students can be significant. Schools that work alongside parents as partners can achieve gains for students in many areas.

There are a number of successful models where schools have effectively engaged Indigenous families in their children's education. The most effective are those that link teachers with parents on education goals for their children and where parents are supported to play a very active role in their children's engagement and learning at school.

Monitoring and reporting: Monitoring progress and having the data to do this helps education leaders and stakeholders to see whether the package of initiatives in place has sufficient breadth and reach to shift overall student outcomes. Without evidence to monitor progress, it is easy to become convinced that progress is being achieved, especially if the new initiatives have wide support. Such data also helps to build capability at both system and school levels, in the expectations for success and the skills required to affect change. Such information can also build demand amongst parents and students, in terms of their expectations, voice and influence.

How sustained improvements have been achieved

We have seen five common elements in how sustained improvements in outcomes for Indigenous students have been achieved in education:

Building respectful and trusting relationships with Indigenous communities;

Setting out a deliberate and specific intent to improve;

Taking action on several fronts, at system and local levels;

Positively affecting sufficient numbers of individual Indigenous students; and,

Continuing to apply effort over a sustained period of time.

Relationships: A starting point for success lies in establishing respectful and trusting relationships with Indigenous leaders and communities, both at a system governance level and at an individual school level. Schools that achieve sustained improvements for Indigenous students recognise the key role of Indigenous parents, leaders and other community members and actively build relationships with these important people in their students' lives. In some cases, formal agreements are reached between education leaders and Indigenous leaders, such as Education Enhancement Agreements in Canada. These set out common objectives and commitments, such as the expected provision of education for Indigenous students. These agreements have been a basis for increasing student enrolments in education and in increasing attendance rates, where both the Indigenous community and the school take actions to achieve improvements and monitor their joint impact over time.

Deliberate and specific intent: A common way to motivate and instigate action is to set targets for the level of improvements to be achieved within a given timeframe. Targets alone are not sufficient to achieve progress, but they help jurisdictions to address the question of 'what will it take?' to achieve the objectives they set and to monitor progress over time. Without such targets, it is easier to focus only on the actions being taken, rather than on the impact of those actions.

The Australian Government's Closing the Gap framework is an excellent example of specific, time-bound targets to reduce disparities. And, while progress against the Closing the Gap targets is disappointing, at least the need to do more and better is not in question.

Action on several fronts: Addressing deep, intergenerational and systemic issues takes more than one or two initiatives or policy changes. In schools that have achieved significant improvements, a number of strategies and actions have been implemented, rather than a single or small number of responses. This is also the case for system-level improvements, such as on participation rates and qualification attainments. System change requires multiple actions on as many fronts as possible.

And, while system-level actions are necessary, they are seldom sufficient to change the educational experiences and outcomes of individual students. System-level efforts can initiate and enable change at the local level, but it is the quality, breadth and depth of the local provision that determine whether there is an impact on students.

Affecting sufficient numbers of Indigenous students: The effort made needs to be commensurate with the improvement goal and the size of the target population. Thus, a highly effective approach that only affects 10 per cent of Indigenous students will not bring about a system-level shift. However, 10 tailored initiatives that each affects a different 10 per cent of Indigenous students may have a system-level effect.

To change the experiences of individual students, it is necessary to work directly with each student and their family or community. Individual needs are diverse and change over time, so continuous tracking is essential, especially for students at risk of disengaging. In this way, schools and education advisors develop a better understanding of the barriers and risks that students face, barriers that may not be apparent with such individualised data. Such monitoring and individual case management was clearly part of the reason for Queensland's success in lifting Year 12 Certification rates. The proportion of Indigenous students in state schools gaining Year 12 Certification increased from 42.1 per cent in 2008 to 97 per cent in 2016. In the same time period, the rate also improved for non-Indigenous students, from 71.3 per cent to 97.8 per cent.

Applying effort over a sustained period: Education systems that have not been designed to recognise and respond to the needs and contexts of Indigenous students will take time to adjust. Schools and jurisdictions that have achieved sustained improvements for Indigenous students have pursued consistent objectives for at least a 10 year period. The strategies used to achieve the objectives have sometimes been refined or changed over this period, but the basic objectives have been retained. However, three to five years is a reasonable timeframe in which improvements should be visible. If improvements are not seen in this period, it is likely that the strategies used are not sufficiently targeted to changes in practice, are not comprehensive, or are not adequately resourced to make a difference to students' actual experiences.

How can this help Australia?

The 10th anniversary of Closing the Gap will occur in 2018. The nine years to date has shown pockets of promise and improvements, including some shifts at a system level in education. However, it may be timely for Australian states and territories to consider a more systemic approach to working together to accelerate change. Through sharing successes, setbacks and insights, and opening themselves to challenge, Australian states and territories would have a better chance of making greater progress, for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
References
Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2017). Closing the Gap Prime Minister's Report 2017.

OECD (2017). Promising Practices in Supporting Success for Indigenous Students, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264279421-en

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Better education outcomes for Indigenous students - Teacher Magazine

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Indigenous students face tough challenges in most education systems, but they do so much better in some schools than in others and in some education systems more than in others. So it is worth studying this in more detail, which we at the OECD have just done, analysing education outcomes of Indigenous students in Canada, New Zealand and Queensland, Australia.

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Education

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Lois Peeler, principal of Worawa Aboriginal College in Healesville, said she was unsurprised by the NAPLAN results because they were "not a good thing for measuring our Aboriginal cohort".

"The results cannot be an accurate measure," she said. "They do not factor in that many students do not have English as their first language and most of the topics and contexts are highly unfamiliar to many Aboriginal as well as non-Aboriginal students. Commitment to mainstream and Aboriginal society and values is rarely understood."

Dr Peeler, who has family links to the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve on the NSW-Victorian border, said students often arrived at her girls' boarding school in year 7 with a rich knowledge of their first language but limited English language and numeracy skills. Others arrive with highly interrupted schooling.

Worawa Aboriginal College combats these issues by devising personalised learning plans and dividing students into learning streams.

"Balancing the commitments of two very different cultures is complex and many students have cultural obligations that are vital," Dr Peeler said.

"Aboriginal students are reflected in the curriculum and learning environment at Worawa, but there is a long way to go in mainstream education, including NAPLAN, in this regard.

"We focus a lot on being able to express and be proud of your cultural identity. Pride in your culture is important for anybody's wellbeing, I think. It helps academic results but also in preparing the girls to navigate their way through the mainstream or return to their communities as leaders."

John Guenther, an Aboriginal and remote education expert with Darwin's Batchelor Institute, said despite Victoria's 2019 results, Aboriginal education outcomes in the past 15 years had steadily improved, particularly through year 12 completion rates.

He echoed Dr Peeler's statement that governments should not overemphasise NAPLAN results, and said concerning attendance rates should be viewed as a structural issue in schools, rather than a sole problem of students or families.

"We can ensure our teachers are culturally aware of the diversity in their classrooms, particularly our First Nations kids," Dr Guenther said.

"There are systemic issues - we have to change the language we use, so we don't call Aboriginal children "disadvantaged", which labels them as something other than normal and discourages them from going to school. There's no real rocket science: it's partly about respect, raising awareness and putting structures in place to help students be their best."

Dr Peeler suggested Aboriginal students' poor attendance figures were a result of recurring pressures inside the school gates and at home.

Students at Worawa College come from communities across Australia. Credit: David Callow

"Some of the circumstances that Aboriginal families find themselves in can stem from intergenerational trauma, the socioeconomic position of families. The effect of that on students would have certainly been exacerbated this year as they spent more time at home and more technology was required," she said.

"I have to say that racism continues to play a part in this in schools too, because we [Aboriginal people] are a minority. Our numbers in most cases in mainstream schools are very small, so kids being kids will point out the differences. Your desire to go to school drops when you feel you are targeted or exiled."

Tuesday's $49 billion state budget included a relatively modest investment of $105.7 million this year specifically for Aboriginal initiatives, while a total of $1.2 billion will be plunged into educational improvements such as school upgrades across Victoria.

There are about 15,000 Aboriginal students in Victoria.

Education Minister James Merlino said $7.4 million had been committed to increasing Koori engagement support officers in schools and improving the Koori literacy and numeracy program for Aboriginal primary school students.

"While we have made significant improvements, we know there is a lot more that needs to be done," he said.

"That is why specialised and targeted education supports will be provided throughout 2021 to ensure students that may have fallen behind are supported to catch-up."

Mr Merlino added that figures for Aboriginal students achieving in the top two NAPLAN bands had grown since 2015, though this measure was not included in the budget figures.

The Victorian government's targets for Indigenous education are separate from the national 'Closing the Gap' targets, which were first set in 2008 and just two of them - early childhood education and Year 12 attainment - were achieved by 2019.

The scheme was effectively dumped for a new a new national agreement between Indigenous organisations and governments around Australia. Efforts to meet targets for school attendance, child mortality, employment, life expectancy and literacy and numeracy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people failed.

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Victoria misses targets for improving Aboriginal education

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Lois Peeler, principal of Worawa Aboriginal College in Healesville, said she was unsurprised by the NAPLAN results because they were "not a good thing for measuring our Aboriginal cohort". "The results cannot be an accurate measure," she said.

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Black livers matter

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Australia's record on Aboriginal deaths in custody is a driving force behind protests due to go ahead this weekend in Australian cities, as people turn out to march in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement globally.

Today, Guardian Australia has published an update to Deaths Inside, our database of all Indigenous deaths in custody from 2008 to now.

We found there have been at least 434 deaths since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ended in 1991.

Our most recent analysis, based on today's figures, shows:

Agencies such as police watch-houses, prisons and hospitals failed to follow all of their own procedures in 41% of cases where Indigenous people died.

The proportion of Indigenous deaths where medical care was required at some point, but not given, was 38%.

Mental health or cognitive impairment was a factor in 42% of all deaths in custody. But Indigenous people with a diagnosed mental health condition or cognitive impairment, such as a brain injury or foetal alcohol syndrome disorder, received the care they needed in just 51% of cases.

Indigenous women were less likely to have received all appropriate medical care prior to their death compared with men, and authorities were less likely to have followed all their own procedures in cases where an Indigenous woman died in custody.

In 2018, Guardian Australia's reporting team collected and analysed all available coronial data and other sources to build this searchable database. The aim was to make the information as accessible as possible, and monitor systemic issues such as the provision of appropriate medical care.

A year later, in August 2019, we updated it again. On several measures, we found things had grown worse.

Full Story podcst

Australia's shameful record on black deaths in custody

Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp3

On Monday, the family of David Dungay Jr, who say the 26-year-old Dunghutti man died in similar circumstances to George Floyd, expressed solidarity with protesters on the streets of major US cities following the death of the unarmed black man. At the same time, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, told a Sydney radio station he was glad such things didn't happen here.

"As upsetting and terrible that the murder that took place - and it is shocking, that also just made me cringe - I just think to myself how wonderful a country is Australia," he said.

"There's no need to import things happening in other countries here to Australia. Australia is not the United States."

On Thursday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data showing the daily average number of Indigenous people in prison had risen 5% from the second half of last year, from 12,322 to 12,902. The proportion of Indigenous people who were in prison on remand - meaning they had not been convicted or sentenced - had gone up. This is concerning because we found that more than half of the Indigenous people who have died in custody since 2008 had not been convicted of a crime.

Of all states and territories, the ABS said, Indigenous imprisonment rates were highest in Western Australia.

At least seven Aboriginal people have died in police and prison custody, and yet more previously unreported deaths have come to light. Two of those deaths were police shootings, both resulting in murder charges currently before the courts.

In South Australia, we learned of one family who have been waiting more than five years for the results of a coronial inquest into the death of their loved one, a 68-year-old man who died in Yatala labour prison in April 2015.

The inquest into the death of Wayne Fella Morrison, a Kokatha, Wirangu and Wiradjuri man who died in the same prison in 2016, has been delayed for two years because 18 prison employees claimed legal privilege against answering self-incriminating questions.

We focused on Indigenous deaths because Indigenous people are disproportionately represented at all levels of the justice system. Just 2.8% of the Australian population identifies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, but Indigenous adults are 15 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous Australians, and juveniles are 26 times more likely to be incarcerated. The fastest-growing prison population is Indigenous women.

Over-policing and incarceration rates mean that while non-Indigenous people die in custody at a slightly higher rate than Indigenous people, the chance that an Indigenous person living in Australia will die in custody, or lose a family member in that way, is significantly higher.

In the case of Tanya Day, a Yorta Yorta woman who was put in a police cell, officers told the coronial inquest they were acting out of concern for her welfare, yet only one officer considered - then dismissed - seeking medical treatment. The coroner, Caitlin English, noted: "Ms Day's death was clearly preventable had she not been arrested and taken into custody."

The information in this database is from published coronial findings. Where an inquest is yet to be held or unfinished, the information is drawn from media reports, press statements by police or justice departments, and occasionally interviews with families. We have endeavoured to link to primary sources wherever possible.

We also collected five years of data from 2010 to 2015 on the deaths in custody of non-Indigenous people to see how the trends we observed in Indigenous deaths in custody compared to broader trends.

"The fact is that the royal commission released almost three decades ago said that to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody we must stop putting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison," the Change the Record co-chair and CEO of the National Aboriginal legal service (Natsils), Cheryl Axleby, said.

"Overwhelmingly state and territory governments have failed to take the necessary steps to do this."

Repealing punitive bail laws and decriminalising public drunkenness are overdue legal reforms, Axleby said.

Both Natsils and Amnesty have called for an end to the "practice of police investigating police".

"There needs to be an independent body that investigates these incidents and a fundamental overhaul of our approach to justice in this country," Amnesty's Indigenous rights adviser, Rodney Dillon, said.

Labor's Linda Burney said it was unacceptable that Indigenous people remain overrepresented in the justice and out-of-home care systems, and is calling for the government to respond to the Australian Law Reform Commission's Pathways to Justice report.

"Given the scale at which Indigenous Australians are incarcerated, the government cannot afford to rule anything out," Burney said. "The most critical aspect of all this is to reduce the interactions of Indigenous Australians with the justice system, which is placing our people at great risk of harm."

The federal Indigenous affairs minister, Ken Wyatt, said he was working with the Coalition of Aboriginal and Islander peak organisations on "more ambitious" incarceration and detention targets, in a refreshed Closing the Gap agreement at the end of July.

Wyatt said the responsibility for reducing deaths in custody was shared with the states, which have responsibility for police and jails.

"I have seen what can be done when we come together and work constructively to achieve our goals," he said. "I would ask that everyone continues to treat each other with respect and tolerance."

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Aboriginal deaths in custody: 434 have died since 1991, new data shows

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Australia's record on Aboriginal deaths in custody is a driving force behind protests due to go ahead this weekend in Australian cities, as people turn out to march in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement globally. Today, Guardian Australia has published an update to Deaths Inside, our database of all Indigenous deaths in custody from 2008 to now.

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Education

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This Aboriginal pedagogy framework is expressed as eight interconnected pedagogies involving narrative-driven learning, visualised learning processes, hands-on/reflective techniques, use of symbols/metaphors, land-based learning, indirect/synergistic logic, modelled/scaffolded genre mastery, and connectedness to community. But these can change in different settings.

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This Aboriginal pedagogy framework is expressed as eight interconnected pedagogies involving narrative-driven learning, visualised learning processes, hands-on/reflective techniques, use of symbols/metaphors, land-based learning, indirect/synergistic logic, modelled/scaffolded genre mastery, and connectedness to community. But these can change in different settings.

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The federal government this week unveiled the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Under the strategy, all Australian governments committed to 16 targets, three of which are directly related to early childhood and school education.

They are:

to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in early childhood education to 95% by 2025.

to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains (physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, communication skills and general knowledge) of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) to 55% by 2031.

to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (aged 20-24) with a year 12 or equivalent qualification to 96% by 2031.

These new targets have been determined by Aboriginal people themselves. But there are some things they miss, including the way success is measured.

Read more: New 'Closing the Gap' targets will cover attachment to land and culture

A blunt instrument

The population-level data the AEDC provides is supposed to tell us about the school readiness of all Australian children across the five developmental areas outlined earlier. In 2018, 35% of Indigenous children were deemed to be developmentally on track, compared with 57% of non-Indigenous children.

Yet we know the display of developmental traits is complex, situational and subject to cultural bias. Some items in the in the census are subject to individual teacher judgements - such as, "Would you say this child is interested in mathematics?"

These have been critiqued for their focus on " culturally white concepts ". We could improve the learning experience for students by recognising their knowledge, culture and language and incorporating this within teaching.

In measuring mathematical abilities within the AEDC for example, using the natural environment to assess concepts (rather than, say, building blocks) would see more Indigenous children score highly on this indicator.

Early childhood education

The enrolment target for preschool is high and some might say, optimistic when we look at the current statistics. In 2018, 84.6% of Indigenous children were enrolled in early childhood education compared with 88.8% of non‑Indigenous children. Based on these figures, not even non-Indigenous children are meeting the target.

Yet continued focus on preschool enrolment is welcome. We know quality early childhood education and care is one of the most effective ways to remediate disadvantage.

Read more: We have 16 new Closing the Gap targets. Will governments now do what's needed to meet them?

A lack of access to quality preschool in remote communities is an ongoing issue. We must ensure high-quality preschool is accessible for families if we are to expect them to attend consistently. Mobilising preschool and school services to communities has been shown to be a sound strategy at increasing attendance.

Enrolment in preschool does not guarantee attendance, much less engagement. It matters more than mere enrolment that children and their families are welcomed and included as partners in building children's success at school.

Wins must be sustained

The new targets miss primary school and middle school (Years 6-9) education altogether. Yes, they focus on the all important years before a child turns five and again what happens in the senior years of schooling, but early childhood and economic research shows that " facilitating environments have to follow facilitating environments " to be most effective.

The cumulative effects of early childhood investment can only be maximised if the attention and investment is continued. According to the OECD, this becomes especially important in disadvantaged circumstances.

At Charles Darwin University and the Menzies School of Health Research, we have been looking at what happens to Indigenous students in the NT as they move through school. In this yet unpublished study, we have recently discovered almost one-third of Aboriginal children in remote and very remote areas that attended preschool did not participate in Year 3 NAPLAN.

The data suggests this is the same group of children that had poorer preschool literacy and numeracy skills at age 5 on the AEDC. So somewhere, we are missing them. There is little point having a target for school attainment if we have lost them along the way.

To make progress, we need to better understand and address the complexity of factors that undermine educational attainment.

Read more: Here's what teachers look for when kids start school

Schools and preschools must be more than a place to learn by being more responsive to, and inclusive of, families and elders. They can do this by valuing the learning and teaching they bring to build on what the children already know.

Supporting the provision of basic needs where necessary, such as access to healthy food and transport to and from school, helps achieve the new targets by recognising that closing the gaps is not possible by one strategy alone.

We also need an approach that integrates services, such as education, health and housing. For example, previous research found that Aboriginal children living in communities with overcrowded housing missed seven weeks of schooling each year.

Before we see these targets being met, and the gap truly narrowed, we must address the root causes of the existing inequity and the factors that undermine the educational attainment, engagement and success for Indigenous Australian children.

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There are 3 new Closing the Gap education targets: here's what they miss

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The federal government this week unveiled the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Under the strategy, all Australian governments committed to 16 targets, three of which are directly related to early childhood and school education. They are: to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in early childhood education to 95% by 2025.

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Education

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If a teacher's success is measured by their students' achievements, then Thomas Shadrach James must be one of the most successful teachers in Australian history.

He taught in a small schoolhouse near the Murray River on the border of Victoria and New South Wales.

The government at the time ruled that the children he taught should not receive more than three years of education.

But James's students would become some of the leading Indigenous activists of the 20th century.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this article contains images of people who have died.
His standing in the community was such that he became known as Grandpa James.

"He didn't talk about reading and writing, he talked about leading and writing," his granddaughter Robynne Nelson says.

Roll call

Thomas Shadrach James's students included:

Doug Nicholls: Athlete, pastor, activist, governor of South Australia

Margaret Tucker: Writer, activist, co-founder Australian Aborigines League

William Cooper: Community leader, activist, co-founder Australian Aborigines League

Jack Patten: Journalist, activist, first president of the Aborigines' Progressive Association

Bill Onus: Entrepreneur, actor and activist

Geraldine Briggs: Activist, first president of National Aboriginal and Islander Women's Council

'A very clever boy'

James was born in 1859 on the African island of Mauritius, then a British colony.

His Indian parents arrived on the island to work as indentured labourers on the sugar plantations.

James's father then became a catechist, or educator, for the Anglican Archbishop. Later, to pay for his son's education, he worked as an interpreter for shipping companies and the government.

Ms Nelson, who travelled to Mauritius to learn more about her grandfather's early years, says James was "a very clever boy".

"Even at the age of 14, he was working with his father to educate other children," she says.

But tragedy struck the family. First James's younger brother died, and then his mother.

Soon after, James's father remarried. His new wife was a young woman, not much older than James himself.

"This became a real divide between him and his father," Ms Nelson says.

"He ended up wandering down along these shipping yards, befriending a ship captain - and ended up jumping on a boat and coming to Australia."

A spiritual calling

James worked in Tasmania as a teacher before moving across Bass Strait to study medicine at Melbourne University.

But his plans to become a surgeon were thwarted when he contracted typhoid fever, which gave him the shakes.

Then, a walk along Melbourne's Brighton Beach in 1881 changed his life.

He came across a group of people singing - a choir of Yorta Yorta people from the Maloga Aboriginal Mission, near Echuca-Moama on the Victoria/NSW border.

"That day I felt the Lord had spoken to me," he later wrote.

He met the mission's founder, Daniel Matthews, and offered to teach there.

Soon, he was living on the mission near the Murray River, teaching in a small wooden hut.

Teaching 'over and above' the law

Maloga Mission was part of a system of reserves the NSW government used to "manage" the Indigenous population, La Trobe University emeritus professor of history Richard Broome says.

"Aboriginal people were to be transformed from their traditional ways into black Christian farmers," Dr Broome says.

The government dictated that Aboriginal children only receive three years of education, until they were nine years old.

"They had an imagined destiny for these children as rural labourers or domestic workers," Dr Broome says.

In 1886, a local journalist who spent a week at Maloga Mission reported that "for all practical purposes the pupils are better educated than the majority of state school children".

James wrote about his approach, saying such results were "attainable by speaking to the scholars themselves and seeking at all times to make their work in school a pleasure".

Dr Broome says James would have given his students a sense that they could succeed if they worked hard.

"He built their self-esteem," Dr Broome says.

"He would have believed also, through his Christian message, that they had the right of equality before God."

Ms Nelson says James's classes went "over and above what the law allowed".

"He was teaching them to grow up to be leaders," she says.

"He taught them about India and the Raj and how the people rose up - how the pen was mightier than the sword."

And his classes weren't just for the kids.

The Scholars Hut

At night, under candlelight, James taught special classes for the adults of the mission.

"What he was doing was giving the skills of activism," Dr Broome says.

"The ability to advocate to government on your own behalf, to write petitions, to write letters."

The night school became known as the Scholars Hut, and many of the Yorta Yorta men living on the mission put the skills they learned there to good use.

"They started writing letters off to the governor, asking for farm blocks they could farm for themselves," Ms Nelson says.

At the same time, Maloga's days were numbered.

The mission, run by Matthews and his wife Janet as a private enterprise, was underfunded, and Matthews became increasingly overbearing.

"He was a paternalist, he [thought he] was going to guide the Aboriginal people to a better life," Dr Broome says.

"But, of course, the young men knew what they wanted and they started to request land from the government - and started to arc up against his control."

'Our home'

The campaign by the Scholar's Hut students resulted in the government announcing a new reserve, five kilometres upstream from the Maloga Mission.

The reserve was given the name Cummeragunja - meaning "our home".

"Our people moved there from Maloga in 1888 with the promise of land that the governor was going to give to our Aboriginal men," Ms Nelson says.

Twenty 40-acre farm blocks were given to residents and the mission became a productive, thriving farm producing wheat, wool and dairy, with the residents working towards self-sufficiency.

By this time, James was married to Aboriginal former student Ada Cooper, and the couple had children of their own.

They'd moved with the other residents away from Matthews and his mission to Cummeragunja, where James took on an expanded role in the community, not just as a teacher but as church minister, cricket coach, choir leader, football team manager, linguist - and healer.

Yorta Yorta elder Alfred Turner, also known as Uncle Boydie, says if anyone at Cummeragunja took ill they would call upon Grandpa James.

"Any time of night, he would go and attend to them," he says.

Ms Nelson says James's medical approach was informed by his Indian heritage, his study at Melbourne University, and Aboriginal bush medicine.

"He was also the dentist, by the way, but that was pretty rough going," Ms Nelson says.

The Cummeragunja Walk-Off

In 1907, the NSW Aborigines Protection Board took back the land blocks they'd given to individual farmers on Cummeragunja. Later, the land was leased to white farmers. The community protested loudly, to no avail.

Then, in 1909, the Aboriginal Protection Board began taking Aboriginal children from their families - and Grandpa James was powerless to stop them.

"When the authorities would come onto the mission, he'd tell them all to run and hide, down the riverbank, their own secret places to hide," James's granddaughter Rhonda Dean says.

"[Later] he would take them home to his place with Grandma Ada, and he would go over the lesson that day, because he didn't want them to miss out, even though, Mum said, there was much sadness for those that had gone.

"He was able to give them that courage to go on - and that we'll fight later to get our girls back."

Over the next three decades successive administrators subjected Cummeragunja residents to increasingly restrictive and dehumanising conditions.

Farming profits were taken from the community, residents needed a pass to enter or exit the mission and workers were given measly rations. Housing and sanitation were inadequate.

More stories from The History Listen:

Finally, in 1939 - 17 years after James's retirement - the deteriorating conditions at the reserve led to the Cummeragunja Walk-Off.

Hundreds of people met and decided to permanently leave the mission in protest. James, in his late 70s and living across the river in Mooroopna, took the minutes for this historic meeting.

Regarded as the first-ever mass strike by Aboriginal people in Australia, the walk-off has been described as a defining moment in Australian Indigenous activism.

The leaders of the strike were former students of Thomas Shadrach James.

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This teacher believed in his students when the government didn't. They changed Australia for the better

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If a teacher's success is measured by their students' achievements, then Thomas Shadrach James must be one of the most successful teachers in Australian history. He taught in a small schoolhouse near the Murray River on the border of Victoria and New South Wales.

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8 ways  framework of Aboriginal Pedagogy

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8 ways  framework of Aboriginal Pedagogy

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Education

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Education

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Since the death of George Floyd in the United States on 25 May, the Black Lives Matters (BLM) movement - active since 2013 - has drawn global attention to issues of racism across multiple institutions.

Schools are certainly no exception.

In Australia's education system, racism has been having a profound affect on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, whether it's through a decline of educational outcomes and engagement or on their mental health.

To address this, governments, schools and communities have been striving to improve Indigenous Australians' learning, and life, outcomes.

This push took an important step in 2008 when State and Territory Governments committed to targets aimed at closing the gap in Indigenous health, education and employment.

However, there has been little progress in achieving this, with some areas stagnating and others even going backwards.

The 12th Closing the Gap report, released in February, revealed that Indigenous students' education targets, especially in the areas of school attendance and literacy and numeracy, are veering off track.
Racism dragging outcomes down
According to experts, the stagnation in the educational outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students runs much deeper than poor grades and engagement.

Indeed, an increasing body of recent research has shown the depth and impact of racism on the education opportunities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

In 2019, a landmark study by the Australian National University (ANU) and Western Sydney University, surveyed 4,664 primary and secondary students across 23 schools in NSW and Victoria, revealing an alarming trend of racism in schools.

It found that nearly a third of NSW and Victoria students from non-Anglo or European backgrounds in years five to nine have experienced racial discrimination.

Another study, published in 2016 by Professor Gawaian Bodkins-Andrews of the D'harawal nation, identified the pervasiveness of racism in the practices and conceptualisations of schooling.
'Schools must fight all of racism's insidious diversities'
Professor Bodkins-Andrews said that whilst justified, schools' zero-tolerance approaches to racism - often only framed as micro-aggressions between students - rarely consider the impact of racism on students themselves.

"There are decades of empirical research repeatedly telling us that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth who experience racism are at higher risk of disengaging from and feeling hopeless about school," Professor Bodkins-Andrews told The Educator.

"They are also at higher risk of having lower aspirational and achievement outcomes, suffering from emotional-behavioral-conduct problems, suffering from stress, depression, and anxiety, and suffering from suicidal ideation".

Professor Bodkins-Andrews said schools must commit to acknowledging racism and "fighting it in all its insidious diversities within and outside school itself".

"Schools must ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are aware that their school will stand against racism, that the students will be given meaningful support from all school staff, and be given opportunities for counselling - both cultural and therapeutic," he said.

"School leaders must ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are given space to be proud of the Country they are on, their Mobs, communities, families, and identities".

To do this, Professor Bodkins-Andrews said there must be a strong Indigenous presence within the school, not only through meaningful community partnerships, but through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers, administration staff, and senior management itself.

"Discourses about racism are too often limited to micro-aggressions, such as name-calling, that frame racism in some individualistic-singular-point-in-time behaviour that is reduced to debates about 'intent', rather than the active perpetuation of a system built on racism itself".

Professor Bodkins-Andrews pointed to several examples of this racism, including James Cook's 'claiming' of what is now known of 'Australia' to a nation that has no recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in its constitution, a largely unrecognized history of slavery and the segregation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from education, among many others.

"The only way to shift a mindset is for that mind to be open to another perspective, another lens, another truth," he said.

"Unfortunately, too much shoot-from-the-hip resistance to truth-telling, and therefore truth-seeing".
Standing strong in the face of adversity
Dr Janice Scott Cover is proud to be a black, female leader in the world of education with four decades of experience a teacher, mentor, and assistant superintendent to the Palm Beach County School District - one of America's largest.

When asked what Australia's leaders, both in and outside of education, could learn from her own initiatives to help disadvantaged students, she pointed to the importance of improving teacher efficacy through ongoing training in pedagogy and competence - something she did with great success at her "chronically underperforming" school.

"Students took responsibility for learning used data to develop academic and behavioural goals; parents and the community became partners in the educational process," Dr Cover told The Educator.

"I lead the monitoring and implementation of the comprehensive school-wide plan that swiftly and dramatically changed the trajectory of the school".

She said that while the process was difficult, she learned that "leadership matters and clear communication of expectations is critical".

Having watched the BLM movement swell enormously since its inception in 2013, Dr Cover said she is proud of the "persistent, smart, confident and articulate young people who stood bravely despite fierce opposition and personal attacks".

"This shows that education matters and educators must intentionally provide classroom opportunities for free expression," she said.

"Get students involved in the development of school rules, include debate about cultural and historical events in the curriculum and give voice to students through student lead organisations".

Dr Cover believes history classes should include civics lessons and show stories of young people who have spearheaded significant changes in civil rights.

"The Black Lives Matter movement is on track to take their place in history".
How can principals make a difference?
Dyonne Anderson, president of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Principals' Association (NATSIPA) says the BLM protests present school leaders an opportunity to bring about an important attitude shift within their school and local community.

"This is an opportune time to allow all students to discuss and critically respond to a global issue that is not new for anyone of colour but especially for our First Peoples of this land," Anderson told The Educator.

"How can we even begin to discuss Black Lives Matter when within our own country there is denial of what our whole history entails?"

Anderson also pointed to the issue of hypocrisy when addressing the issue of racism in the United States.

"The injustices, the inequities and the racism of a country that eliminates this perspective is founded on untruths and lies, yet we feel they have the right to enter into the debate of racism in America," she said.

"Our schools have a responsibility to teach a true and accurate account of current events and history to present an unbiased view so that students can engage in conversations to really delve down to the core values, attitudes and behaviours to assess, evaluate and shape their own views".
"Be the change you want to see the world"- Mahatma Gandhi
Anderson said Australia has a National Curriculum (currently under review) that includes Aboriginal Histories & Cultures as a Cross Curriculum Priority, which she called "a hit and miss approach".

"How can we be viewed as an educated society if we are not educated? How can we so arrogantly enter into any debate on race when it comes from a place of ignorance and falsity?" she said.

"Our current Prime Minister stated that there was never any slavery in Australia yet evidence proves otherwise".

Anderson said an accurate and all-inclusive account of events and worldviews that encapsulates "warts and all" accounts from both sides allows all Australians to be informed of facts and impacts.

"Teachers have a responsibility to teach responsibly so that students can critique accordingly," she said.

"School principals have an opportunity to engage in robust conversations with school staff, students and communities to tackle racism and to eliminate the damage and harm it causes".

Anderson said that Australian cannot afford to shy away from prejudice and the damaging impact it has.

"We must confront it, name it and address it. It is never acceptable".
New initiative gives strong glimmer of hope
A new anti-racism program aimed at 10-12-year-olds is showing positive results. The Speak Out Against Racism (SOAR) program includes teacher training and development, classroom activities and an audit of school policies and practices.

The program's lead researcher Associate Professor Naomi Priest, from The Australian National University (ANU), said a new analysis of the program shows students and teachers felt it raised teacher confidence to discuss and address racism, and increased students' awareness of racism.

"The SOAR program is unique as it is a multicomponent sustained program that explicitly focuses on race and racism," Professor Priest told The Educator.

"SOAR is evidence based and supports primary school children to develop the socio-cognitive skills they need to navigate discussions and issues of race and racism, including building empathy, perspective taking, and self-efficacy to intervene as well as developing their racial literacy and awareness of racism and anti-racism".
A big value-add to other key programs
Professor Priest said the program also supports teachers and school leadership to develop their knowledge and skills in this area, and in having conversations about these issues with children in a safe and developmentally appropriate way.

"Many teachers, families and community agencies have been telling us and our colleagues that there is a key gap in resources that specifically address issues of race and racism," she said.

"They tell us that SOAR is highly complementary and important value-add to other programs such as Reconciliation Australia's Narragunnawali program, Stronger Smarter, and other anti-bullying and socio emotional learning programs".

Importantly, SOAR has been evaluated rigorously, including surveys of school students before and after the program so that change can be assessed over time as a result of the program.

"Including comparison schools in the evaluation, that is schools that did not receive the program, means we can assess if the change seen in the surveys is due to the program or not," she said.

"We also conducted qualitative interviews and focus groups with teachers and students who were part of the program so that we could understand their experiences and views about the program and how they saw the program impacts".
Looking ahead: Principals must lead by example with a "no excuses policy"
Anderson said it is never too late to listen and learn from those who experience racial attacks, and work with communities to build a "collaborative and restorative model" to eradicate racialism.

"Our future is in the hands of our young people and as a nation we have an ethical and moral obligation to create a better future for all despite race, religion, sexual orientation and gender," she said.

"Schools must equip students with the skills to recognise bias and to be courageous to expose it. Can we live together and not feel fear of attack or persecution due to our difference? Do we fear authority?"

She said this reality for some is "the difference between life and death".

"Our school leaders build the leaders of the future by investing in programs and approaches that connect our young people to each other where we can empathise with hardships and wrongs with a moral and ethical purpose to improve life circumstances free of racism," she said.

"This is our better future. It is time and it is the right thing to do".

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Racism in Australian schools: a stubborn scourge

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Since the death of George Floyd in the United States on 25 May, the Black Lives Matters (BLM) movement - active since 2013 - has drawn global attention to issues of racism across multiple institutions. Schools are certainly no exception.

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Do Teachers care about Indigenous History

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Do Teachers care about Indigenous History

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Education

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Australia's true story has a history that is over 60,000 years old. A history of evolution, development and significant people. A history that is generally excluded from our school education system, despite learning about the past being a compulsory academic discipline. While the current curriculum provides the opportunity to reconfigure Australia's poor understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders history, culture and perspectives, there is still very little utilisation in primary and secondary schooling.

Lead by the report, Melbourne Declaration on Education Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA), the Australian Curriculum was released in 2008 by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, to set the direction for Australian schooling for the next decade from its commencement in January 2013. Within the national curriculum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as one of three content areas of particular significance as part of the cross-curriculum priorities.

In 2008, MCEETYA highlighted the significance of Indigenous content in the following statement,

"As a nation, Australia values the central role of education in building a democratic, equitable and just society that is prosperous, cohesive and culturally diverse and that values Australia's Indigenous cultures as a key part of the nation's history, present and future"

Currently, a school student's access to knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and perspectives depends entirely on the commitment, enthusiasm and energy of the individual school, principal and teacher. Depending on the enthusiasm of the school and teacher, a student's engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and perspectives range anywhere from a quick screening of Rabbit Proof Fence to a comprehensive program and learning on country with the local mob.

Depending on the enthusiasm of the school and teacher, a student's engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and perspectives range anywhere from a quick screening of Rabbit Proof Fence to a comprehensive program and learning on country with the local mob.

All Australian students deserve to have a genuine opportunity to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to gain a rich and well rounded knowledge of Australia's true history, and develop a respect for diversity and an understanding of cultural difference, and enrich students' ability to participate positively in the ongoing development of Australia.

Christopher Pyne's view towards the ACARA cross-curriculum priorities that "it's difficult to see in maths and science how those three themes are necessarily relevant", ignores the evidence that the best way for students to learn about Indigenous peoples, cultures and histories is through genuine, relevant and embedded content across all levels and subjects. It is statements like Pyne's which only prove how important it is to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and perspectives into classroom pedagogies. Clearly, the Former Minister for Education was unaware that there are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have longstanding scientific and mathematical knowledge and traditions across physics, astronomy, environmental science, chemistry, number systems, navigation and more.

Granted, a significant number of non-Indigenous teachers reported that they felt unskilled and anxious about teaching Indigenous culture and perspectives in their classrooms. But rather than putting the 'Jillora' and dot painting in the 'too hard' category, it is essential that our teachers participate in cultural competency training to develop culturally appropriate content and communicate this knowledge to their students. Teachers can now benefit from a new online resource that tackles a number of common issues regarding cultural sensitivity when talking about Indigenous peoples and culture or teaching Indigenous studies.

The resource was launched at an Australian Council of Deans of Education forum last year, to coincide with the call to boost the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers. Dr Peter Anderson, the Director of Indigenous Education and Leadership at Monash University said that, "Most teachers are a little tentative about engaging with this space... They don't want to cause any offence, or say the wrong thing". This initiative also aims to help all teachers identify and respond to racism, understand their own prejudices and boost their expectations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

With more Indigenous students ever recorded in Australian schools and our Indigenous population growing faster than any other group in the country, younger generations must be correctly informed on First Nations' history and affairs. Being ignorant on the affects of European invasion, Aboriginality and 'light-skinned-ness', or who the man on the 50 dollar note is, cannot remain in the national conversation. Indigenous education should not be a token at the education system's leisure when all children have the right to an education.

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Do our teachers care enough about Indigenous Australia to bring it into the classroom?

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Australia's true story has a history that is over 60,000 years old. A history of evolution, development and significant people. A history that is generally excluded from our school education system, despite learning about the past being a compulsory academic discipline.

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Education

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Working with Indigenous Australians for Conservation

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For tens of thousands of years, Indigenous Australians managed the land. They hunted, gathered food, lit fires and fished in the ocean and rivers. Coming off the land after European settlement caused not only huge cultural and social dislocation and difficulty for Aboriginal Australians, it also proved a disaster for conservation. Problems caused by changes to fire regimes were compounded by the devastation caused by introduced species like cats, foxes and camels.

Indigenous people in conservation around Australia

A revolution is quietly occurring across outback Australia, far from the eye of most Australians who live in urban areas. Indigenous Australians are returning to their lands to manage them for conservation and improve the lives of their families.

These rangers are supported by a variety of organisations including The Nature Conservancy and, in particular, the Australian Government. In places like Fish River Station, Martu Country and Fitzroy River region, Indigenous Ranger programs are having a profoundly positive effect on people's lives and achieving long-term environmental, economic and cultural benefits for people and Country.

It's not only outback Australia where The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is supporting Indigenous people. In the lower Murray-Darling Basin, a consortium led by TNC helped aquire a property named Gayini for its Tradional Owners represented by the Nari Nari Tribal Council. We're helping conserving precious wildlife and protecting significant cultural heritage over this vast 87,816 hectare property. It neighbours Yanga National Park and the Great Cumbung, creating a much larger protected area that native species can call their home.

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Working with Indigenous Australians for Conservation | The Nature Conservancy Australia

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For tens of thousands of years, Indigenous Australians managed the land. They hunted, gathered food, lit fires and fished in the ocean and rivers. Coming off the land after European settlement caused not only huge cultural and social dislocation and difficulty for Aboriginal Australians, it also proved a disaster for conservation.

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Black livers matter

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Anti-racism protests across Australia amassed tens of thousands of supporters over the weekend. The murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a police officer in the United States on May 25 provided the catalyst for a global wave of solidarity with the black community to condemn police brutality and demand meaningful change. But neither Floyd's murder, nor the anti-racism movement that it has sparked, should be considered surprising or spontaneous deviations from the circumstances found in local communities the world over. In Australia, the glaring issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody has become the obvious parallel drawn - 432 deaths since the Royal Commission in 1991, and not a single conviction. As in the United States, these crimes have occurred against the backdrop of centuries of structural and cultural violence.

The nature of the unequal interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within the structure of Australian society today prevents equality not only from being realized but from even being imagined. In understanding the dynamics of this reality, and if we hope to make progress toward equality and reconciliation, we should understand violence as tri-faceted in its manifestations, including not only direct (meaning physical) violence, but also structural and cultural aspects. Structural violence refers to violence that is embedded economically, socially, or legally, manifesting as unequal opportunities to realize quality of life, security, and self-actualization, whereas cultural violence is revealed in the social legitimization and justification of structural and direct violence.

The Indigenous peoples of Australia have suffered direct, structural, and cultural violence since colonization began over 200 years ago. While the exact numbers are contested, it has been estimated that there were between 300,000 and 1 million Indigenous peoples living on the Australian continent at that time, dispersed across over 200 nations - many of those lives were lost in direct combat and massacres at the time of British settlement. Today, the Indigenous peoples of Australia compose only 2 percent of the country's population, making up a miniscule minority in their own lands - and life expectancy for Indigenous communities is some 25 percent below the rest of the Australian population. Australia has been accused of ethnic cleansing and of breaching the principles outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - according to the United Nations Convention on Genocide, Article II, assorted historical policies of child removal and forced assimilation are considered genocidal.

It was only as recently as 1967 that Indigenous Australians were recognized as citizens - and in almost all contemporary statistics, Indigenous people are in much worse circumstances than other groups in the country. One of the most shocking examples is that today, the average lifespan for Indigenous Australians is 20 years less than the non-Indigenous population, despite both groups residing in what has been called "the wealthiest country in the world." Furthermore, it is worth noting that Indigenous identity itself never existed until the colonial event to juxtapose it - since then, Indigeneity has transformed from a colonial construct into a politicized identity, as Indigenous peoples continue to struggle for recognition of their basic rights.

It should be understood that continued suppression of Australian Indigenous peoples, appearing today in the form of structurally and culturally violent policies and attitudes, is required to maintain the security of the settler colonies' original interest. The nature of the settler-colonial context is an example of cultural violence itself - the land was declared terra nullius, meaning "land belonging to no one," from the outset, justifying the immediate atrocities committed as well as the subsequent dehumanizing structures that continue to characterize the settler-Indigenous relationship. The settler-colonial context in general - and the conflicts that arise from it - are distinctive in that their primary interest was, and is, in securing permanent control of the land through dispossessing native populations, achieved by suppressing the significance of Indigenous presence. In the Australian case, the significance of Indigenous people's territorial dispossession is compounded by their deep cultural and spiritual interconnectedness with their ancestral land.
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How Indigenous Australians have been affected by historically embedded structural violence is evident in that they are often required to hand over land rights in exchange for basic services that other Australians get without strings attached.

Indigenous rights that are protected in the Northern Territory Land Rights Act (1976) prevent the government and private companies from accessing rich uranium deposits - a concession that exemplifies a huge opportunity cost for the mining industry that is largely responsible for Australia's national wealth. With this in mind, relatively recent events such as the Northern Territory intervention of 2007 - in which the government enacted a unilateral military occupation of NT communities' land, quarantined 50 percent of Indigenous welfare payments, suspended the Racial Discrimination Act, and subjected Indigenous children to non-consensual health checks under the pretext of protecting them - can be interpreted as a strategic continuation of the original colonial-imperial agenda.

The mining industry is the biggest contributor to Australian GDP growth, and comes into direct conflict with Indigenous land rights, posing a significant struggle over the control of resources that support the maintenance of mining profits. Legislation such as the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976) in the Northern Territory has in some instances allowed the Indigenous community to influence development decisions - or at least share in the capital benefits - but in general, the legal, policy, and institutional environment remains hostile to Indigenous interests, heavily favoring those of mining corporations. Amendments to the Native Title Act made in 1998 imposed stricter requirements for registering Native Title claims, and simultaneously removed the "right to negotiate" from the renewal of mining leases. Not by coincidence, the NSW Office of the Environment and Heritage shows that between June 2012 and June 2013 there were over 99 applications for the destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites for development purposes - all of which were approved.
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Importantly, mineral development prevents and excludes Indigenous people from being on country, hunting and gathering, and carrying out rituals. Their capacity to negotiate with developers is severely undermined by government non-funding of Native Title Representative Bodies, which exist to support traditional owners in negotiations with commercial interests, leaving many Indigenous individuals and organizations with no choice but to rely on project developers for funding. This dynamic fundamentally alters the negotiating process. Ultimately, mining companies are driven by aspirations for capital accumulation that override their ostensible commitment to corporate social responsibility norms.

The media continues to facilitate the structural and cultural violence that permeates the relationship between settler and Indigenous Australians. Conventional reporting structures that rely on official sources and dualistic tug-of-war conceptions of conflict situations often ignore the root causes of conflict, the diversity and legitimacy of various stakeholders' perspectives, and the complexity of myriad processes taking place. In the Australian media, Indigenous peoples are often portrayed as less successful in society, encouraging perceptions that this is the outcome innate group traits such as substance abuse or lack of initiative, rather than a consequence of broader structural factors and policies that prevent Indigenous peoples from realizing their goals. This effect is multiplied due to the comparative size of the Indigenous population to the rest of the country in Australia, as well as the intense concentration of media ownership in the country, which undeniably promotes elite and private interests. A feedback loop is created when culturally violent attitudes are distributed, justifying the structurally violent system, creating more circumstances that can be reported in a way that compound both. The inevitable outcome is a reinforcement of status-quo ideology, and a barrier preventing conflict comprehension and conflict resolution.

A primary obstacle to the reconciliation process in Australia is achieving acknowledgement among the wider public that the conflict is still happening. The official reconciliation process has been a mostly top-down approach, reflective of the colonial project from which the current system derives. It has failed to seriously address the injustices that have been done - primarily, the forced dispossession of land that lies at the heart of the conflict. It has been largely symbolic, emphasizing apology and forgiveness over structural and relational change - in other words, official reconciliation has failed to address the causal connection between structurally entrenched social disadvantage and the original dispossession of land that occurred. Nuanced contextualization that accounts for the historical abuses that have characterized the Indigenous-settler relationship is essential in order to understand the nature of the contemporary conflict and explore options for holistic reconciliation and conflict transformation.

Reconciliation itself has been criticized as a replacement for calls for sovereign recognition, and for characterizing historical events as "past injustices" that are unrelated to contemporary realities. While the process ostensibly aimed to address structural injustices affecting Indigenous communities, it failed to locate these structural injustices within the historical colonial context of land dispossession and the imposition of policies that continue to control Indigenous destinies. Former Prime Minister John Howard advocated a "practical reconciliation" agenda, in which policies would be implemented to target social inequalities in areas of employment, education, housing, and health - suggesting that reconciliation efforts should "focus on the future." This discourse emphasized friendship and forgiveness - an idea that is beneficial to those seeking to reinforce a unified nation-state, but fails to recognize Indigenous calls for justice.

Since the 1960s, there have been several nonofficial political campaigns centered on the concept of land rights and self-determination of Indigenous Australians and challenging the established history of the settler society. One of the most iconic - inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights movement - was when a group of students took part in a peaceful protest known as the "Freedom Rides," travelling around New South Wales fostering awareness about Indigenous sovereignty. These representations of the continent's history spurred growing demands for recognition of Indigenous rights and sovereignty, directly challenging the state's reputation as a liberal democracy, and called for the establishment of a treaty such as had been the practice in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. In 1988, the largest-ever protest for Indigenous rights occurred in Sydney during the bicentennial celebrations and aimed to raise awareness about the original custodianship of the continent. While over 20,000 Indigenous Australians congregated in solidarity and protest of the previous 200 years of treatment, their presence was ignored by media reports - which instead chose to cover the many ships gathered in Sydney Harbor for the government-sponsored Australia Day celebrations.

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In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the symbolic use of Indigeneity as a part of the Australian nation-building project - discounting the truth of Indigenous Australians and appropriating the country's controversial history by establishing a false connectedness between settlers and the land, thereby weakening Indigenous claims to sovereignty. Instead of addressing the unequal relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, the government promoted a nationalistic rhetoric that preached a "unified Australia" at the expense of Indigenous voices. It was a presentation that was beneficial to the state - facilitating the mythic character of the Australian nation as the "lucky country" in a way that dismissed the perspective of the Australian Indigenous population. In effect, it masked Indigenous dissent in a cover of self-congratulatory celebrations that were aimed at allowing settler Australians and the Australian state to stand proud with their identity, at the expense of the message that 20,000 Indigenous Australians that had gathered for. There is glaring opportunity for the media to play a more effective role in acknowledging history and facilitating discussion about the context underpinning the present situation.
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In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized to the stolen generations. The apology was greatly important for many Indigenous peoples and provided a sense of healing and symbolic justice. However, the over-emphasis on the apology in the media has allowed politicians to dodge meaningful reforms toward actual justice for Indigenous Australians. In February 2015, Rudd reflected on his apology, noting that as a country, "our achievements have been meager... the purpose of the apology was not to provide the nation a fleeting feel-good moment... it was to harness our collective energies for breaking the cycle of Indigenous disadvantage for the future."

Permeating structural and cultural violence against Indigenous Australians has not been sufficiently addressed, and this hinders progress toward reconciliation and conflict resolution. The settler-colonial context, which manifests today in structurally violent attitudes and culturally violent policies with the media as a key player in maintaining the status quo, prioritizes national business interests that exacerbate the original injustice of Indigenous land dispossessions. A comprehensive understanding of the nature and context of the conflict, facilitated by dialogue and respect, is essential, along with an acknowledgement that the present situation is derived from the historical and contemporary denial of Indigenous rights, freedoms, and human needs.
Pascale Hunt is a writer specializing in environmental justice and sustainable development.
It is understandable - given the history of structural, cultural and direct violence in Australia - that many Indigenous peoples feel that they will not have true justice until they are granted substantive land rights, sovereignty, and the ability to control their own destinies. While it may be too late in the game to turn over the extent of reparations that is deserved, the reconciliation process could undoubtedly involve more substantive, structural change that would make a real difference to the living conditions, dignity, and identities of Indigenous peoples, and contribute toward mending the broken relationship between settler Australians and the original custodians of this land.

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Time for Australia to Say 'Indigenous Lives Matter'

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Advertisement Anti-racism protests across Australia amassed tens of thousands of supporters over the weekend. The murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a police officer in the United States on May 25 provided the catalyst for a global wave of solidarity with the black community to condemn police brutality and demand meaningful change.

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The Black Lives Matter movement in Australia | SBS Life

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My mother and I were driving through Redfern, a historically black neighbourhood in Sydney with Aboriginal flags visible in the windows of nearby flats and Indigenous children playing in the parks. As we passed the local grocery store, my mother commented, "I wouldn't want to shop there. Too many Aboriginal people, I would be afraid."

I had just started my first year of university and was in the process of politicising myself. I'd joined the strike for the staff enterprise bargaining agreement, I was running in student union elections and - perhaps most significantly - for the first time I was experiencing racial consciousness. Every few weeks I would think of another experience: a comment here, a memory there, that reminded me of the fears I had lived with because of my race, my Asianness, for years.

I couldn't let my mother's comment go.

"You can't say that, I would go shopping there," I said.

She became angry. And couldn't understand why her fear wasn't justifiable. We got into a big fight but eventually resolved that as long as she didn't say those things around me, we wouldn't fight about it again. A gingerly-reached compromise.

It resonated with me emotionally that white supremacy in Australia had a starting point: the oppression, dispossession and genocide of Indigenous people

That was the first time I connected the dots and realised that my experience of racism was part of something much bigger than myself. It resonated with me emotionally that white supremacy in Australia had a starting point: the oppression, dispossession and genocide of Indigenous people, and that if I was against racism and how it had affected me, then I was against what my mother had said.

As my consciousness continued to grow, I learnt that racism isn't just about individual people, it is a system. A system so much larger than my experience that it touched thousands of different people - refugees and asylum seekers, Muslims, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The more educated I became on its violent manifestations, from Aboriginal deaths in custody to Islamophobic hate-crimes, the more spurred to action I was.

During my time at university, the Black Lives Matter movement was uncovering a new death by police brutality every other month, and class inequality and racialised poverty became the topics of many of my university assignments.

When an open letter to Asian parents on the topic of Black Lives Matter went viral on Twitter in 2016, the memory of my fight with my mother rose to the surface. The letter articulated so well, the intergenerational longing for understanding I had craved in that moment, so clouded by ignorance and anger.

In Asian communities across the world, there exists a fundamental lack of understanding and empathy towards black people, born of our own histories of colourism and fuelled by our hearty embrace of 'meritocracy'

"When someone is walking home and gets racially targeted by a police officer, that is an assault on all of us, and on all of our hopes for equality and fairness under the law," the letter read, "Our struggles, while not all the same, are interconnected."

In Asian communities across the world, there exists a fundamental lack of understanding and empathy towards black people, born of our own histories of colourism and fuelled by our hearty embrace of 'meritocracy' - if we can, why can't they? We are either apathetic, or worse, active participants in the racist discourse that blames Black people for their experiences of prejudice and poverty.

I jumped at the chance to organise an Australian version of the letter, published a month after the US version, to explain the specific context of anti-Indigenous racism to Asian-Australians. Asian communities have often been used as a 'model minority', to juxtapose Indigenous struggles against their ability to climb the socio-economic ladder and aspire to 'white acceptance'. With this letter, I wanted to highlight the differences between our histories - not to divide us, but to bring us together in the fight for justice and equality.

Asian communities are in a unique position to both understand racial discrimination and have access to certain social privileges, yet too often we neglect to use our empathy and resources to support our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Instead, we are encouraged to keep our heads down, become doctors, lawyers and engineers, and settle into apathy and complacency, all the while remaining vulnerable to racial abuse and discrimination.

Through becoming aware of the role Asians play as part of the settler-colony in Australia, over time, my mother has come to understand these concepts, too

I first joined the Anticolonial Asian Alliance (AAA) as an online space to discuss anti-racism. But I quickly realised that the pan-Asian solidarity group was rallying offline too. We painted banners, attended the 2018 Invasion Day Rally, and continue to contribute to social justice campaigns for Indigenous rights.

The Australian Black Lives Matter movement is still fighting against Aboriginal deaths in custody, anti-black racial profiling and hate crimes and police brutality. By supporting black struggles, we hope to build meaningful relationships between immigrant communities and Aboriginal communities - a spirit of solidarity nurtured through educating ourselves, our families and communities, both in simple conversation and political activism.

Through becoming aware of the role Asians play as part of the settler-colony in Australia, over time, my mother has come to understand these concepts, too. From sending me Robert Mugabe speeches on WhatsApp to discussing Muhammad Ali interviews about media representation, my mother has embraced who I am as an anti-racist person.

These days, we no longer let these issues come between us. And through some tough conversations, we figured out a way to grow together. This is the work of community building, this is how we show up for each other and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander folks. This is how we pave the way for a brighter and more empathetic future.
Bridget Harilaou is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who writes extensively about politics and race, they tweet at @fightloudly.
This article was edited by Candice Chung, and is part of a series by SBS Life supporting the work of emerging young Asian-Australian writers. Want to be involved? Get in touch with Candice on Twitter @candicechung_

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Why Asian Australians should call out racism beyond their own culture

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My mother and I were driving through Redfern, a historically black neighbourhood in Sydney with Aboriginal flags visible in the windows of nearby flats and Indigenous children playing in the parks. As we passed the local grocery store, my mother commented, "I wouldn't want to shop there.