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Hannah McGlade: The time has come for WA to change its approach Indigenous reform

Hannah McGladeThe West Australian
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The rates of Aboriginal child removal have been consistently rising over the last decade while the rate of removal of non-Aboriginal children has been steadily declining.
Camera IconThe rates of Aboriginal child removal have been consistently rising over the last decade while the rate of removal of non-Aboriginal children has been steadily declining. Credit: Don Lindsay/The West Australian

This week I participated in the 14th session of the United Nations’ Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which focused on two important human rights issues — the rights of Indigenous children and Indigenous people and self-determination.

These issues are especially relevant to our State.

Aboriginal child removals, race discrimination and homelessness, incarceration and deaths in custody, and damage to Aboriginal heritage sites are all particularly severe this side of the country.

While our ALP Government purports to respect Aboriginal human rights, they are not listening to the serious concerns of Aboriginal constituents or showing any real understanding of our human rights commitments.

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We have two current Bills in progress concerning heritage and child protection that are especially worrying and place at risk our reputation and commitment to human rights and reconciliation.

These legislative reforms are critical to race relations and the State’s relationship with First Nations People in our State and should not proceed in their current form and in the face of widespread Aboriginal opposition and concern.

It’s well and truly time for the State Government to adopt a more considered approach to Aboriginal people and race relations.

The Bills are being opposed by Aboriginal land councils and Aboriginal child welfare bodies because they present an unacceptable risk of facilitating continued human rights violations in relation to Aboriginal child removal and the destruction of Aboriginal sites.

Leaving no one behind in our wealthy State requires greater understanding and commitment to Aboriginal people’s human rights.

Aboriginal family-led decision-making (AFLDM), a process that properly allows Aboriginal families participation and decision making in child welfare, is a best practice model adopted in Victoria and Queensland but our State has refused to recognise it as law.

We have the highest level of child removal in the country with Aboriginal kids now making up 56 per cent of all the children in care.

The rates of Aboriginal child removal have been consistently rising over the last decade while the rate of removal of non-Aboriginal children has been steadily declining.

Aboriginal families, and mothers, speak frequently of experiencing discrimination and feeling very unsafe, judged and treated in an abusive manner by the child protection department.

The proposal for AFLDM has been supported across the sector and by the Law Society of WA yet the minister will not allow it in law even though the Bill states that Aboriginal self-determination is recognised.

The Aboriginal Heritage Act for 30 years has also permitted widespread destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites in the name of “State’s interests” — it does this by giving the minister the final decision on whether or not a Section 18 application be approved.

On only a few occasions, perhaps just three times, has the minister refused to allow permission to damage or destroy sites.

Repeatedly we have witnessed ministers approve the destruction of significant sites, including world significant sites such as Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara, which was an international disgrace.

Aboriginal people’s traditional culture and cosmology is deeply connected to land, sites and ancestral dreaming or creation stories, and the continued violation of sacred places has been described as genocidal.

In 2018 then minister Ben Wyatt (who has since left Parliament to work with mining companies) consulted with Aboriginal people about a new office for Aboriginal people to improve accountability of State mechanisms and giving people a real voice to address the issues that we are seeing play out.

This body would play a similar role, it was suggested, to the national Aboriginal Social Justice Commissioner, through advocacy and addressing systemic reform.

No progress was made on the Office of the Aboriginal Advocate and it appears to be yet another broken promise.

The recent WA election gave the ALP a unique opportunity to make progress on its legislative commitments, but not in a manner that disregards Aboriginal people and our fundamental human rights.

The ALP was the first political party in Australia to develop a reconciliation plan, and we urgently need to see this commitment, made at the Federal level, being given effect in WA politics.

This year’s theme of reconciliation called on us all to be brave and act in the face of systemic and structural discrimination.

This important theme must be upheld and given more than lip service by government, to act for the benefit of all.

Our official international commitment to human rights, including the sustainable development goals, means that we commit to leaving no one behind.

Leaving no one behind in our wealthy State requires greater understanding and commitment to Aboriginal people’s human rights. It requires government to truly listen and work in genuine partnership with Aboriginal people, including women, as we protect our lands and our children for our future.

We cannot agree to the proposed reforms knowing we are nothing as Indigenous people without our children and sacred lands.

Dr Hannah McGlade is a Noongar human rights and social justice advocate, a member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues and an Associate Professor at Curtin university.

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