Maranguka Education, Employment and Training Community Summit

Acknowledgements

Jalangurru lanygu balangarri. Yaningi warangira ngindaji yuwa muwayi ingirranggu, Ngemba yani U. Yaningi miya ngindaji Muwayi ingga winyira ngarragi thangani.  Yathawarra, wilalawarra jalangurru ngarri guda.

 

Good day everyone. I acknowledge the traditional owners, the Ngemba peoples, of the land we meet on today. This is the first time the ears of this land hears my language. Let us meet and talk with good feeling.

 

Introduction

Thank you Matthew. Thank you for inviting me to address you all today. 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 in Sydney.

My role [as Social Justice Commissioner] is to monitor, protect and advocate for the realisation of our unique and collective human rights as Indigenous peoples in Australia.

In my former role, as CEO of Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre, I worried in community construction, elevating the voices of my community, leading change from the country, some key changes we led were introducing alcohol restrictions into my country, leading Australia’s first Prevalence research on FASD (Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) and working alongside Anne Cregan.

 

Wiyi Yani U Thangani

In my present role, I want to give you information on one of my key pieces of work - 18 months ago, I launched the Wiyi Yani U Thangani project, meaning Women’s Voices in my language, Bunuba. The aim of this project is to elevate the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls about their lived experiences – their strengths, their aspirations, and the challenges they face in their struggle for full enjoyment of their human rights.

 

This project fills a major gap in the representation of the voices of our women. It has been 32 years since the Women’s Business engagements in 1986, the first and only time our voices had previously been heard as a collective. Importantly, we have also heard from our girls whose voices are so critical to any conversation about the future of our peoples.

 

My team and I travelled to 50 communities in every state and territory. In this region we visited Dubbo and Brewarrina, and I would like to acknowledge and thank Charlee-Sue Frail for guiding us into these communities. We approached these engagements with no set agenda, or imposed framework. The 2,294 women and girls with whom we met, set the tone and determined the conversation.

 

It was clear from what we heard across Australia that, in the face of what can seem like overwhelming adversity and systemic discrimination, women and girls are considering multiple pathways forward shaped by their lived realities and expertise. Women have been clear that they and their families must be acknowledged as equal partners in designing policy and legislative frameworks that enable diverse solutions to take hold, and for communities to determine their own futures, on their own terms.  

 

Our children are our future. When a child is given the best start in life, that child succeeds throughout their life. The women and girls we have heard from have been unequivocal when it comes to the rights of their children to access culturally appropriate care and education; to be free from direct and systemic discrimination; and to remain deeply connected to their culture, families and communities throughout their lives.

Incarceration and Out of Home Care

The systemic challenges that face our peoples nationally are significant, particularly those challenges we face because of an increasingly punitive justice system.

 

Locking up our men, women and children for economic, social, mental health and disability related issues is dangerous; it fuels intergenerational crime and in some instances is life-threatening. There are many examples that show the negligence and prejudicial decision-making that takes place across the criminal justice system and related sectors. These damaging behaviours are compounded by a lack of effective rehabilitative and wrap-around supports, both within and outside of the justice system.

 

It is critical that this crisis is responded to now to break a generational cycle of incarceration that impacts not only those imprisoned, but also their children, families and communities.

 

 

Education

Likewise, our approach to education is in need of major reform.

Our right to education underpins our life opportunities and our ability to participate fully in society. It is also essential to realizing our rights to self-determination and the broader goals of our people to pursue our own economic, social and cultural development.

 

We need to acknowledge the strengths that children already bring once they enter the classroom and intensify the efforts around early years learning. The evidence tells us time and time again that if we do not set our children up right in the early years with the basic foundation of skills that they are unlikely to ever recover.

 

We know that learning begins at home and that parents should be supported to create an environment where their children can thrive. This is about recognising that efforts focused on the classroom alone and not the broader environment a child grows up in, are flawed.

The foundation of our learning can be found in the expression of our identities, in the imprint of our heritage and in the essence of our ancestors and their wealth of knowledge.

 

Efforts to improve the educational outcomes of our young people cannot be at the expense of who we are. We need to ensure that our children and young people have curricula that are enriched with our own cultures so that other skills can be scaffolded and enhanced.

 

We need teachers who approach their work in a way that places non-Indigenous knowledge alongside Indigenous knowledge and supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to incorporate Western ideas on their own terms, from a position of strength within their own culture.

 

These truths are captured poignantly in a documentary film ‘In My Blood It Runs’ by director, Maya Newell. The film, which will screen at the Sydney Film Festival follows the life of 10-year old Dujuan, an Arrernte/Garrwa boy living in Alice Springs who is a child-healer, speaks three languages yet is 'failing' in school. This film resonated with my own personal experiences as a grandmother struggling to guide young members of my own family through systems which are often not built for them, and which fail to recognise all of who they are, to build upon on their strengths, and allow them to walk in two worlds.

 

Being fluent in two worlds allows for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to take knowledge and best practice from both worlds and apply innovative programs and meaningful solutions in specific sectors. 

 

As we emerge from our schooling, training and education is a critical pathway to economic and social change for our peoples. We must invest in enterprises and training that directly address the needs of our local communities, and ensure that courses are designed and delivered in ways that leverage our strengths and create pathways to realistic and appealing job prospects.

 

Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Strategy

In our struggle for our rights, we must take strength from the knowledge that our peoples governed themselves over tens of thousands of years. Today, 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 focused on ‘caring for others’.  We know best what is in our own interests. It is we who have the solutions.

 

You, the community of Bourke are taking on this challenge through your Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Strategy. I know my predecessor Mick Gooda, and the National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell,  actively advocated that government should support the ‘Maranguka Proposal’ back in 2012,[1] and Commissioner Mitchell and I continue to wholeheartedly support what you are doing here.

 

Through this strategy, Bourke is clawing back autonomy that has been stripped away over time, and delivering results that leave no doubt that increased investment (including justice reinvestment) into community-driven solutions is the only way forward if we are to effectively address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage.

 

Like any major program of change, the type of transformation that Bourke is undergoing presents a lot of hard work and a continuing struggle to have your voices heard, your strengths and achievements recognised, and your right to determine your own futures respected.

 

I want to congratulate your community for embracing this challenge, and for leading the way in making a success of this country’s first Justice Reinvestment project. It is through shared struggle that we can grow stronger together.

 

Today

As we commence discussions today, I think it is important that we keep our shared vision in mind.

• What are the outcomes we seek?
• Who are we doing this for?
• How are we going to get there? 

Systemic change is no small challenge and it can sometimes feel overwhelming to take on problems of such magnitude. Nevertheless, we can get there if we focus on the steps we know we need to take along the pathway to our destination.

 

Hold strong to your cultural values, maintain clarity of purpose, do not waiver in your determination, and you will succeed.

 

Thank you

 

 

Supporting Statistics

Incarceration

•  From 1997 – 2017 there was a 133% increase in Australia’s prison population,[2] and it is Indigenous Australians who remain persistently overrepresented, making up 3% of the general adult population but 28% of the prison population.[3]

Juvenile Detention

• On an average night, our children between 10-17 years make up more than half (55%) of all children in juvenile detention.[4]

Out of Home care

• Nationally Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 9.5 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home-care.[5] 

School Attainment (remote)

• Our children are between three and five years behind their peers by the time they reach Years 5 and 9[6];

 

School Attendance (remote)

• Approximately 80% of children are not going to school once they reach the age of 12[7]

 

 

 

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[1] Australian Human Rights Commission, Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited, Just Reinvest NSW, Justice Reinvestment in Bourke: Briefing Paper, (August 2013). At http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sEQCutP6ixEJ:www.justreinvest.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Justice-Reinvestment-in-Bourke_Briefing-paper-Aug-2013.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au (viewed 9 November 2017).

[2] Joshua Robertson, Australia’s Jail population hits record high after 20-year surge, (11 September 2017) Guardian  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/11/australias-jail-population-hits-record-high-after-20-year-surge

[3] Joshua Robertson, Australia’s Jail population hits record high after 20-year surge, (11 September 2017) Guardian  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/11/australias-jail-population-hits-record-high-after-20-year-surge

[4] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Youth detention population in Australia 2016, (13 December 2016), Australian Government. At http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129557387&tab=2 (viewed 9 November 2017).

[5] Australian Institute of Family Studies, Child Family Community Australia, Child protection and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children: CFCA Resource Sheet, (August 2017), Australia

n Government. At https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/child-protection-and-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children (viewed 9 November 2017).

[6] Bruce Wilson, A share in the future: Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory, 54.

[7] Bruce Wilson, A share in the future: Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory, 137.