Key points
- Pat Turner, the co-chair of the Joint Council on Closing the Gap, says the silence from all parties on most issues for Aboriginal people is “a national shame”.
- About 20 per cent of Australia’s homeless people are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, according to the most-recent data.
- More than 500 Aboriginal deaths in custody have been recorded since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody tabled its final report in 1991.
- The Coalition does not support raising the age of criminal responsibility for Commonwealth offences.
- Labor leader Anthony Albanese has committed to holding a national referendum on a Voice to parliament.
The leaders of the two major parties have said little about Aboriginal affairs during the election campaign, and what has been discussed has mostly revolved around the Indigenous Voice proposal. This is far from the most pressing issue, say some leaders of prominent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations.
Aboriginal affairs, particularly social issues, have barely been mentioned this election.Credit:Ben Plant
Pat Turner, the co-chair of the Joint Council on Closing the Gap, which seeks to equalise the health, life expectancy and education rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, said the silence during the campaign from all parties on most issues for Aboriginal people was deplorable and “a national shame”.
Turner, who is also the convener of the Coalition of Peaks, the national Aboriginal body which is working with the federal government on its Indigenous affairs policies, said the next government must make a stronger commitment to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
Among the pressing issues were a lack of guaranteed protection of Indigenous cultural heritage, the promotion and maintenance of First Nations’ languages, and the under-expenditure on Aboriginal health and housing.
Last week, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation identified a $2.8 billion gap in Commonwealth expenditure on health – a gap of more than $5000 in health expenditure per Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person – based on calculations by consultants Equity Economics.
Pat Turner, the co-chair of the Joint Council on Closing the Gap.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“It is no wonder that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to live lives eight to nine years shorter than other Australians,” Turner said. “It is no wonder that our children are 55 times more likely to die of rheumatic heart disease than non-Aboriginal children.”
She described the response of politicians to these realities as “totally inadequate”.
Turner said housing was the most critical issue and the commitment at all levels of government to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders lived in decent accommodation was “very low”. Last year was the first time housing was included among the key national socio-economic targets for improving outcomes for Indigenous people in Australia.
The responsibility for housing falls largely to state and territory governments, but Turner said the next Commonwealth government must provide a stronger co-ordinating and incentive role.
The most-recent national data, from 2016, revealed about 20 per cent of Australia’s homeless people were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who make up just 3.3 per cent of the total population. Indigenous people were seven times more likely to live in overcrowded conditions, and about a quarter of Aboriginal people accessing homelessness services were children under 10. More than half were under 25.
The Coalition has allocated $408 million to improving housing in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, plus $150 million via Indigenous Business Australia to help it deliver housing construction loans through an Indigenous Home Ownership Program. No funding for Indigenous housing was allocated to other regions. It has allocated $25 million to the Commonwealth’s first Closing the Gap Implementation Plan.
Labor followed the Coalition in putting $100 million towards the housing issue in remote Indigenous communities.
“Labor’s Housing Australia Future fund will deliver 30,000 social and affordable homes across the country. In its first five years, it will also deliver $200 million for the repair, maintenance and improvements of housing in remote First Nations communities,” Linda Burney, opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians, told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
But according to advocates, a shortage of Indigenous housing is often as urgent in urban areas as it is in remote communities. Victoria has the highest and fastest-growing rate of Aboriginal people seeking help from homeless services in Australia at 17 per cent. Forty-four per cent of this cohort turn up at service providers when they are already homeless.
As of 2021, Indigenous people make up 30 per cent of all Australian prisoners.
The Greens’ broad housing policy is a “massive home build” of about 1 million homes “geared towards areas of greatest need” which the party recognises are often First Nations communities.
“We anticipate that our massive home build, of 1 million homes over 20 years, will go a long way towards expanding access and affordability of housing to First Nations peoples,” a Greens spokesperson told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
PRISON COMPLEX
National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Legal Service executive officer Jamie McConnachie said the over-representation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system had also gone unmentioned during the campaign.
Protesters against Aboriginal deaths in custody in 2020.Credit:Rhett Wymans
McConnachie said she was “devastated” by the Coalition’s recent federal budget which continued a trend of underfunding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services and family violence-prevention legal services at a time when the rate of First Nations people in the criminal justice system was at crisis point.
McConnachie describes it as an “appalling lack of investment”.
Between 2020 and 2021, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoner numbers increased by 8 per cent. The number of First Nations people held in custody on remand also climbed. As of 2021, Indigenous people made up 30 per cent of all Australian prisoners.
More than 500 Aboriginal deaths in custody have been recorded since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody tabled its final report in 1991, and governments have not implemented all its recommendations.
McConnachie says her organisation is seeking a commitment of at least $390 million for its First Nations Justice Package, which includes 20 per cent more funding to reflect service demand. Among the claims is pay parity with national legal aid, whose staff receive 20 to 24 per cent more than those working for Aboriginal services, McConnachie says.
The over-representation of First Nations people in the nation’s criminal justice system is the result of a complex fabric of intersecting issues, and as with housing and health, many of these underlying issues sit with state and territory governments. But they require urgent co-ordination at federal level, advocates say.
McConnachie says Indigenous legal advocates want all Australian governments to implement the human rights treaty known as OPCAT — Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment — which would protect Aboriginal people detained in prison or police cells from torture or other cruel punishments like prolonged isolation and seclusion, particularly of juveniles and children.
Another key complaint is the age of criminal responsibility, which remains in most jurisdictions at 10 years old. In 2019-2020 alone, 499 children aged between 10 and 13 were imprisoned, with 65 per cent Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children. Advocates including McConnachie say the age should be raised to 14, the global average.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended 14 as the minimum. In November last year, the council of Australia’s attorneys-general agreed to a plan to raise it to 12 but the ACT is the only jurisdiction so far to have committed to raising the age from 10 to 14.
The Coalition does not support raising the age of criminal responsibility for Commonwealth offences and says the jurisdiction largely remains with the states and territories. It has put $9.3 million of its Closing the Gap funding towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services “for expensive and complex cases and to support criminal justice reform through participation in coronial inquiries”.
Labor says it will commit $79 million to expand Justice Reinvestment initiatives such as the Murunguka project in Bourke, which offers community-driven support services as an alternative to imprisonment. Labor has promised to fund 30 or more communities to establish these initiatives, and to providing more funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services. Labor has pledged to establish an independent national justice reinvestment unit, and to provide $13.5 million for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services to ensure First Nations families who have lost a loved one in custody can access culturally appropriate legal advice and representation in coronial processes. It wants to establish consolidated real-time reporting of First Nations deaths in custody at a national level. Labor has also committed $1 million to build capacity and support the leadership of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, and will restore $3 million in funding to support the work of the National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum.
The Greens say they will raise the age of criminal responsibility to “at least” 14 and would set up independent prison and police oversight — mechanisms repeatedly called for by police and prison abolitionists and Indigenous prisoner advocates. The party also pledges to implement all the recommendations from the royal commission, as well as those from the Royal Commission into the Detention and Protection of Children in the Northern Territory.
INDIGENOUS VOICE
The discussion of the Indigenous Voice at this election was largely driven by the Greens’ decision to modify its endorsement for the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
At the outset of the Greens’ campaign, leader Adam Bandt described the sequence of Voice, Treaty, Truth — that the Uluru Statement advocates – as a “mistake”. Speaking on ABC Insiders mid-campaign, the Greens leader then maintained that his party supported Uluru “in its entirety”, but with the significant caveat that truth-telling should come first, followed by Treaty, with a Voice component coming last.
Greens leader Adam Bandt with Senator Lidia Thorpe.Credit:Paul Jeffers
The Greens had based its view on the Victorian treaty process, Bandt said. The same week, the co-chair of the state’s First People’s Assembly – the Indigenous representative body responsible for developing the rules under which Treaty will be negotiated in Victoria – agreed with counsel assisting the Yoorrook Justice Commission that the relationship in the state between the Assembly and the Treaty and truth-telling processes were “largely a replication of what was asked for in the Uluru Statement from the Heart”.
The Morrison government’s position since 2019 has been to provide an alternative to the model of a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to parliament. It recently committed $31.8 million to establish regional and national advisory bodies to help develop a non-legislated Indigenous “Voice to government”. It has not ruled out a referendum on Voice – the only way to bring about constitutional change – but says it will only do so when the time is right and a clear consensus has been reached.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese has committed this week to holding a national referendum on the issue in his first term. He said he would deliver on the Uluru Statement from the Heart “in full”, including the establishment of a Makarrata commission to work with the Voice to parliament on a national process for Treaty and Truth-telling.
“Labor is the only political party committed to implementing the Uluru Statement in full. An Albanese Labor government will move quickly on a referendum to constitutionally enshrine a Voice to parliament in our first term. Five years after the Uluru Statement was presented to the Australian people, there should be no more delay,” said opposition spokeswoman Linda Burney.
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