GBK Symposium on Regional Autonomy and Independence Gur A Baradharaw Kod (GBK) Torres Strait Sea and Land Council Torres Strait Islander Corporation

Introduction

Thank you Milton for your words of welcome. Thank you also for the blessings for a fruitful day of sharing through listening to each other and hearing each other’s’ words.

Jalangurru Mani ngarri balanggarri. Yaningi warangira ngindaji yuwa muwayi ingirranggu, Kaurareg yani U. Balanggarri wadjirragali jarraa nhingi – gamali ngindaji yawu muwayi nyirrami ngarri thangani. Ngalabani wathila nhingi muwayi wadbirragali yaningi: Saibailgal, Meriam Le, Maluilgal, Kulkalgal yani. Yaningi miya ngindaji Muwayi ingga winyira ngarragi thangani.  Balanggarri, yathawarra, wilalawarra jalangurru ngarri guda.

Today I stand on the lands of the Kaurareg people. There are many of us that have come, some from afar, strangers to these lands and waters, speaking other languages. The others from much closer, I acknowledge you and your ancestors, the Saibailgal, Meriam Le, Maluilgal and Kulkalgal peoples,  Today this land hears our/my language/s. Let us sit, talk and listen with good feeling.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate at this symposium. I would like to thank Chairperson Ned David, and CEO Robert Jansen of Gur A Baradharaw Kod (GBK) Torres Strait Sea and Land Council Torres Strait Islander Corporation, along with all the twenty-one PBC Chairpersons who represent the membership of GBK, for organising this important event. I would also like to acknowledge the other key leaders and organisations who are gathered here today and also those who are not able to be here: Mayor Vonda Malone of the Torres Shire Council, Mayor Fred Gela of the Torres Strait Island Regional Council, Mayor Edward Newman of the Northern Peninsula Area Regional Council, and Napau Pedro Stephen, Chairperson of the Torres Strait Island Regional Authority. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the other speakers and panel members, Tony MacAvoy QC, Professor Daryle Rigney, Professor John Borrows, Milton Savage and Cassie Lang.

For those of you who do not know me, my name is June Oscar, a Bunuba woman from Fitzroy Crossing in the Central Kimberley in WA. I am the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner based at the Australian Human Rights Commission. My role is to monitor, protect and advocate for the realisation of our unique and collective human rights as Indigenous peoples in Australia, including our rights to self-determination, participation in decision-making, protection of culture, non-discrimination, and our right to freely determine our political status and to freely pursue our economic, social and cultural development. This is my role and function in the interface with parties external to our own spaces. A part of doing this work is ensuring that governments and decision-makers are held accountable to our Indigenous voices.

As the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, it is my great privilege to humbly serve the peoples of Zendath Kes, and a responsibility which I take very seriously.

I first visited Zendath Kes in October last year as part of the Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) project that I am leading to elevate the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls. It is an absolute pleasure to be back here again so soon to this unique and culturally rich region, a region which has born strong and innovative leaders. Indeed, the fight for human rights by the people of Zendath Kes has been the catalyst for key changes not only here, but throughout Australia. As the homeland of native title, and as pioneers of regional autonomy, this region has been an inspiration to us all, both here and abroad.

Self-determination

We are here today to discuss the next steps - the future form - that regional autonomy might take in this region but before we do, I think it is important to acknowledge the challenges we face in this country and why it is that pursuing regional autonomy is of such critical importance.

At the heart of regional autonomy lies our right to self-determination - a right, the enjoyment of which, was taken from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as a result of the colonisation process, a process which we have consistently struggled against for 231 years.

While our enjoyment of this right has been undermined, it has never changed the fact that it is, and has always been, our right. Never too has it changed the truth that to undermine our enjoyment of self-determination is to undermine the basis for our enjoyment of human rights generally, and to deny us the foundation upon which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage can be effectively addressed. We know best what is in our own interests. We have the solutions.

Yet for far too long the powers that be in this country have suffered under the illusion that non-Indigenous decision-makers, however enlightened they may be, have the ability to craft and implement policies that will deliver human rights and social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The policy failures of successive governments are clear and evident, so why then does this belief persist?

Certainly, many politicians and bureaucrats have professed to believe in the idea of “doing things with us, not to us”, and have been at pains to emphasise their efforts to “consult” with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on particular issues that align with their agenda. Nonetheless, with very few exceptions, the reality tends to fall well short of meaningful partnership and genuine power-sharing.

Power-sharing

You will no doubt recall that the Uluru Statement’s call for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice was met with rejection on the basis that it would interfere with the principle of “one person one vote”, yet this axiom does not fully represent the way that Australian democracy really operates.

Power-sharing with minority groups is not a foreign concept in Australia. In 1901 the Commonwealth came into being with this imperative embedded within its architecture. Not only do States govern a significant proportion of their own affairs, the bicameral structure of the Australian Parliament furthermore affords States an equal number of Senators regardless of population disparities. States are also privileged by the rule that, in order that they pass, Commonwealth referenda must carry not only a majority of votes, but a majority of votes in four out of six States. Furthermore, where referenda have specific application to any particular State, a majority of voters in that State must vote ‘yes’ in order for the referendum to succeed.

We must ask ourselves why it is, for example, that Tasmania with a population less numerous than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as a national group has been afforded such rights, while Indigenous peoples in this country have been expected to acquiesce to rule by the 97 percent, and are yet denied the modest request of a Voice to Parliament.

We must ask why it is that protections against the political marginalisation of a settler colony established in 1825 are enshrined in the Constitution, yet it has proven so difficult for Australian governments to recognise us and our rights as First Peoples who have governed ourselves here for tens of millennia.

Institutional racism

The truth is that racism, discrimination and marginalisation are entrenched across our institutions, organisations, and public spaces. The very institutions that should support us, often undermine us. This reality has arisen from the colonial origins of this nation and the historical and ongoing injustices which have never been rectified. It has left a legacy of intergenerational trauma and poverty, contributing to feelings of powerlessness and disenfranchisement.

Even in the aftermath of one of our greatest triumphs in contemporary Australia – achieving the extraordinary legal milestone of native title, which overturned the lie of Terra Nullius – we remain constrained by western legal frameworks and notions of governance. And where we can choose to use cultural governance and decision-making to manage our PBCs it is given as an option, in a piece of legislation, written in someone else’s hand, under someone else’s law, captured within the legal mechanisms that drove colonisation.

As Indigenous Peoples in Australia we manoeuvre between two worlds of governance and decision-making. But there is no framework in place to assist us in doing this. The truth is in the moments when we do reclaim our rights to land, language and culture, we are constantly having to negotiate within the conditions and expectations of Western society. Our way of being and knowing is always secondary to doing things the Western way.

Like myself, most of you gathered here have worked in the PBC setting. You will have seen firsthand the competing interests and demands that families and groups must deal with as we make difficult decisions about connection to country, and land management and use. Many of these demands are the need to respond to the perpetual crisis and conflict that arise out of conditions of poverty, disenfranchisement and unresolved trauma. This leads to anger and sadness, and tensions and disputes between our peoples, which too often come to dominate our decision-making spaces.

But despite all of this, colonisation has not broken us. It is the system that is broken. With the evidence laid bare, we cannot go on with business as usual. We must take a stand together.

Taking a stand (personal experience in Fitzroy Crossing)

I know very well what can be achieved by taking a stand. Before I was appointed as a Commissioner, I was a community leader in Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Not so long ago, my community was not in a position to unite our voices over a common agenda. Our societal cohesiveness had almost broken down through the impact of wide spread alcohol abuse, unresolved historical trauma, and the continued marginalisation of Indigenous voices from structures of civic governance and seats of power.

In 2006 the Valley experienced an overwhelming sense of tragedy. In that single year there were 55 alcohol related deaths including 13 suicides. In the face of immense community grief and emotional pain I felt the burden of leadership like never before.  We had to take decisive action.

Together, we took an unprecedented step. With the support of our elders we lobbied the Director of Liquor Licensing seeking an initial 12 month moratorium on the sale of full strength take-away liquor across the Fitzroy Valley. We met with fierce resistance, especially from some members of our own community who were addicted to a destructive lifestyle, but we were unrelenting in what we knew was a necessity to break a circuit of chaos and grief. 

In the aftermath of the restrictions we had to come to terms with, and confront a community in varying and complex states of trauma. Turning towards the future, we then took the very difficult and painful step of asking; but what of our children? 

As most of you will know, alcohol has a pernicious effect when a mother drinks during her pregnancy. Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) “represents a group of permanent disorders caused by exposure of the unborn child to alcohol in utero.” FASD not only impacts an individual’s social and emotional development and their capacity to learn and remember, but in a region such as ours, built on histories of oral inheritance and extensive family interconnectedness, it threatens our entire cultural and social cohesiveness.

In 2009 we initiated the Lililwan Project, a community consented and informed prevalence study of FASD across the Valley. It was a ground breaking move, the first time in Australia that a study such as this had been conducted. What was more it was community owned and controlled. We then designed and implemented the Marulu strategy which provides holistic prevention and therapeutic services to reduce prevalence and support families affected by FASD.

While my community has made significant progress, our ability to do so is precarious, and our struggle continues. As it is true for other communities like ours across this country, we cannot hope to move along the path of self-determination and entirely overcome issues such as FASD, while external centres of power continue to exert their authority over us. All of our communities must build a different relationship with government. A relationship that doesn’t involve unilateral decisions or rely on the good will and patronage of certain friendly ministers and bureaucratic champions.

Drawing on our strengths

To be in a position to do this, we must take strength from the knowledge that our peoples governed themselves over tens of thousands of years. Today, in this Western modernity, the great challenge before us is to re-centre ourselves and draw on our deep well of knowledge to reconstruct our societal frameworks, to reassert our foundational principles and practices.

We can only develop the enabling structures for this society by engaging with each other through the principles that we call in my Bunuba language Marurr – embracing, Jalngga – healing, Wanjawurru – giving. This is our values base as Indigenous peoples, centred on healing and ongoing collaboration, not individualism and competition. These principles are what bring us together, they are what help us reunite so we remain connected, and can account for everyone. Leaving no one out, and no one behind.

We must draw upon these strengths to address our powerlessness. It is from a strong and unified position that we can reconstruct our societal institutions and frameworks and engage in the processes necessary to review our relationships and reconcile our place in the Australian nation.

We know that to be afforded seats at the tables of the colonisers will not suffice. We must stand our ground and accept nothing less than to take our seats at the tables of a reconciled nation that acknowledges our place and our rights.

Furthermore, we must be steely in our resolve to reassert our right to re-build and preside over our own tables of governance, crafted in our image, at which it will be for us to determine how and when and for what purpose external stakeholders take their seats alongside us.

Key milestones in the journey to TSI regional autonomy

As has been the case throughout the long journey that has brought you to the present day, it is such a sense of resolve that has driven you, the peoples of these lands and seas, to lead the way in advancing regional autonomy in this country.

It has been a 147 years since the first round of annexation by the colony of Queensland in 1872, and from the very beginning you have asserted the right to self-government.

You asserted your rights throughout the period of the Mamoose system from the 1880s, through carrying out the maritime strike of 1936 which brought some of the worst excesses of the period of “Protection” to an end, and through participation in the First Inter-islander Councillors Conference which informed the passing of the Queensland Torres Strait Islanders Act of 1939 which legally recognised Torres Strait Islanders as a separate people for the first time.

Alongside your Aboriginal brothers and sisters, you were active in campaigning for the 1967 Referendum.

In the 1970s when there was a question of partition of some of these islands into the new Papuan state, this region remained intact within the borders of Australia with leaders such as the late George Mye advocating for the region in its entirety to seek greater independence in its own right.

Throughout the 1980s you gained ground with greater local powers, Deeds of Grant in Trust, and the establishment of the Island Coordinating Council and Independence Working Party Committee.

1992 saw the Mabo decision, and in 1994, the Torres Strait Islander Regional Authority was established, pioneering steps which saw some commentators drawing parallels with the development in Canada which culminated in the emergence of Nunavut as a separate autonomous territory by the end of that decade.

In 1997, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Inquiry into Greater Autonomy for Torres Strait Islanders consulted with you and made a number of recommendations intended to build upon this foundation. While these recommendations have largely gone un-actioned due largely to a lack of political will by Australian governments, they represented an important milestone and have helped to inform the decisions that you have made together since.

Today you have consensus on the establishment of a self-governing territory, and a unanimous decision by the Torres Strait Regional Authority, Torres Shire Council, Torres Strait Island Regional Council and the Northern Peninsula Area Council to pursue a remodelling of the Torres Strait governance model and to bring the vision of “One Boat” - the unification of governance under one body - into being.

These are all great achievements, and achievements for which you are not the only beneficiaries. What happens here has implications for the rest of us as well. It demonstrates what is possible, it steadies our resolve, and it inspires us to action.  

 Forms of regional autonomy

Looking to the future, there are many forms that self-government could potentially take, and many international examples to consider drawing ideas from.

At one end of the spectrum, there are states such as Kūki 'Āirani or the Cook Islands and Niue who are states in ‘free association’ within the Realm of New Zealand. All of Niue's and the Cook Islands' nationals are automatically New Zealand citizens and New Zealand is officially responsible for defence and foreign affairs. However, these responsibilities confer New Zealand no rights of control and can only be exercised upon request.

Slightly further towards the middle of the spectrum is Kalaallit Nunaat or Greenland which is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, with a parliament and local control of health care, schools, and social services.  This level of autonomy has also allowed for Greenland to withdraw from the European Economic Community to maintain control of fishing in its territorial waters. In 2008 Greenland voted to expand home rule in 30 areas, including police, courts, and the coast guard, to have a greater say in foreign policy and a more definite split of future oil revenue, and to make Greenlandic the sole official language. Under the proposal, further moves towards independence would mean that Greenland's block grants from Copenhagen - which make up about two thirds of the annual budget - would eventually be phased out.

In the middle of the spectrum is the Territory of Nunavut which is a semi-autonomous territory of Canada represented in both houses of government.  The Territory has an annual budget provided almost entirely by the federal government.

Towards the other end of the spectrum are Nunavik, the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and Nunatsiavut which, like Nunavut, have used land claim agreements as a basis for developing institutions of self-government. However, they are territorially and politically embedded within existing constituent units of the Canadian federation – the provinces of Quebec, Labrador and the Northwest Territories. As such, these regions are not represented as entities unto themselves at the federal level.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the question as to what form regional autonomy takes in Zendath Kes is one for the people of this region to determine collectively. My role is to humbly support your chosen processes and to elevate your voices.

I note that there also remains the question as to each group’s autonomy from one another - whether the region should govern itself as a confederation of island communities or a federation working through the five sub-regions. There is the question as to the southern border, and a further the question as to how and in what ways Torres Strait Islanders based on the mainland will be represented.

These are important questions and the task ahead for the peoples of Zendath Kes will be complex. Like with anything really worth having, the path to greater self-determination will be hard. There will be points of disagreement between groups with different priorities, and it may be difficult to reach consensus. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that you will prevail so long as culture is kept at the heart of decision-making. Only then will you each be able to make the compromises you can live with on your own terms.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the women of this region without whose voices the Wiyi Yani U Thangani project I am leading would never have been complete. It was a very great privilege to hear their stories of strength, and about the importance of culture in their lives. It is clear that the women of the Torres Strait play vital roles in all of your communities, whether it be as leaders, professionals, or as nurturers raising strong children to inherit the strength and courage of their forefathers to realise your collective vision of self-determination.

Thank you