Rights of Indigenous Australians
The suspension of the racial discrimination act and mandatory detention in the NT have important implications for the National Human Rights Consultation.
I work as a social worker in an alcohol and drug program on a remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory. I am a non-Indigenous Australian concerned about how my Indigenous brothers and sisters are being treated in this country. It seems if you are black, you are treated differently, whether it is intentional or not.
The only way I know how to express my concern is to share some stories.
Before the NT Emergency Response first came into affect, people in the community were being told that they would be called into the Centrelink office to have a one-on-one conversation with a staff member so that the Income Management system could be explained to them in their own language using an interpreter. Later, I learned that this did not happen in all cases. Centrelink staff actually told me it was impossible to have an interpreter with them at all times, and sometimes an interpreter couldn't be located. I had people were coming into our office not knowing what Income Management was, how it worked and why it was happening to them. After I had explained it to them, some of the comments I received from community members was "Why is this happening to us black fellas"? "Why don't the rest of Australia have to do this?" "This is racist".
In the first few weeks of Income Management being introduced we had children coming into our office who were hungry because their parents couldn't access any money. There were issues with Centalink putting money onto people's cards, sometimes taking up to 3 days for it to be transferred. People were starving. People were going out bush to try to scrounge for food. There were more arguments as people went to family to humbug for food. Some old people were really confused about the system and were going hungry, not aware that Centrelink were holding money for them in a "bucket", waiting for directions from customers telling them where to send their money. A woman who had family problems and subsequently made homeless had no money to move to Darwin. When I took her to Centrelink we discovered she had $500 she did not know about. This client should have known about her money and who was controlling it. On another occasion, I was helping someone move to Darwin because she was homeless. She had no cash to pay for a taxi on her arrival in Darwin or to attend an urgent appointment with a housing authority, but Centrelink was holding a substantial amount of money in her "bucket". But she could not take this money in cash to use for taxis, so Centrelink booked a taxi for her using income managed money to attend her appointment. After she arrived in Darwin, the taxi failed to pick up the client and she missed her appointment because there was a communication problem between Centrelink and the Taxi Company about the pick-up address. This incident added significant stress to this client as she was convinced she would miss out on the property NT Housing had offered.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that "Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves". I was disgusted to see the process of "consultation" which occurred by government representatives over the Women's Safe House and Men's Cooling Off Place, an initiative of the NT Intervention. They brought with them already established plans for grey shipping container buildings and barbed wire fences, laying them out in front of the few community members in attendance asking "where do you want it?" and pressuring them to make a decision. There was no respect shown for ways that women were already responding to violence in the community, nor what they would want a safe house to look like. They had no choice about this. This is how the rights of Indigenous people making decisions for their own people is played out in communities.
I have started to see the effects of the new draconian mandatory sentencing laws come into affect recently in the NT. This week, I witnessed a young woman sentenced to prison for her second assault, a very minor incident which occurred when she became angry. It is something that could have happened to any one of us, but because this is the second time she has lost her temper, the magistrate had no option but to send her straight to jail. I was appalled. If this had happened to a white person in a big city, there would be outrage but because it happened on a remote community in a bush court, it passes hardly noticed. Jail is not the place for people who lose their temper and make a silly mistake. Mandatory sentencing laws will only serve to put more people in our prisons and they will all be black. Mandatory sentencing laws are biased against Indigenous people.
One community where I work is currenty considering signing a 99 year lease with the goverment, because leaders in the community feel this is the only way they are going to be able to get services to their people, in particular improved education, health and housing. Why is it Aboriginal Australian's have to sign over their land to get those things the rest of us automatically receive. This is not right. This seems to also contravene the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous children are being removed from families because there has not been the support afforded other people in society to maintain the family unit… there are people being ripped off by scrupulous art dealers because they have been unaware of their rights…..I could go on and on.
I am in favour of the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act in full, the abolishment of the NT Intervention and a way forward which includes proper consultation with Indigenous people about laws affecting their own lives.
This blog by lucyv has also been included in the National Human Rights Online Consultation.
