Editors --- "Second Report 1994 - Digest" [1996] AUIndigLawRpr 28; (1996) 1(1) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 80

Second Report 1994

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner,

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995

The Second Report 1994 is the second annual report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Michael Dodson, "regarding the enjoyment and exercise of human rights by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia". It covers the period from 1 July 1993 to 30 June 1994. The "Executive Summary" is reproduced below.

Executive Summary

Rights to Actions: Social Justice Policy

Social policy in this country is currently grappling with two fundamentally different paradigms: `welfare/disadvantage' and `rights/entitlements'. In this second year of my Commission I continue to challenge the paternalism and welfare mentality which have dominated this country's approach to Indigenous affairs while at the same time acknowledging a notable shift in attitude over the last twelve months. Now is the time for a decisive and comprehensive change in approach. Indigenous affairs policy must be unambiguously grounded in the recognition of rights. If the opportunities of the last years of this millennium are not seized, and seized in practice, in terms of our laws, institutions and programmes, Australia will begin the 21st Century as it began the 19th Century.

Human rights for Indigenous Australians are not abstractions but concrete realities, embodied in the actual lives of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders. Three years ago the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody provided unambiguous evidence that we were the poorest, sickest, worst housed and most locked up section of the Australian population. The Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner was established as part of the Commonwealth Government's response to that Royal Commission's recommendations with a specific mandate to monitor the ongoing human rights situation of Indigenous peoples. My overall conclusion is that the appalling findings of the Royal Commission still hold as accurate descriptions of the situation in 1993-4.

For many of us struggle has turned to exhaustion, exhaustion to desperation, and desperation to cynicism. In the face of a seemingly endless line of disappointments people come to believe that there is no answer. I do not believe that this is the case. We must, however, avoid the temptation to clutch at superficial explanations and automatic answers. There is no simple or single explanation for this stagnation although a number of `quick answers' are regularly put forward -- a lack of political will, inadequate resources, entrenched and institutionalised racism and the continued refusal to allow Indigenous peoples to control our own lives. In addition I identify this country's overly complicated and poorly coordinated `Indigenous affairs' bureaucracy as a key factor.

The answer lies in a combination of these factors in the context of a rights-based approach. Unless the framework changes, action in particular areas will ultimately make no significant difference. Indigenous affairs in this country have been suffocated by bureaucracy's failure to connect its work with peoples' lives. Part of the failure lies in a lack of clarity about exactly what different agencies can and should contribute to the process and how they can co-ordinate an effective collective response. Accordingly, I have proposed a `working model' for what the network of agencies involved in Indigenous affairs ought to be seeking to achieve, dividing the area into three broad categories: `What Indigenous peoples require for ourselves', `What the general Australian population requires', and `What governments require'. In exploring each I have suggested which agencies and organisations are best placed to act in particular areas.

Operating as part of this network, the Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner can maximise its effectiveness by understanding where it is located in the broader context and identifying exactly which section of the work it is best placed to achieve. The Office is in the unparalleled position of being able to call governments to account for their human rights performance in concrete and specific situations in terms of internationally accepted human rights benchmarks and to make recommendations as to actions which will better ensure the exercise and enjoyment of human rights by Indigenous peoples. The Commissioner's role is to identify the broad patterns and structural issues which underlie current problems and to insist upon the frameworks which will ensure that the programmes and services for which governments are responsible are conducive to the enjoyment of human rights.

To be truly effective, however, this Office must do more than clarify and define its roles and responsibilities. My Commission may have been formally established by legislation but two dimensional legal provisions totally fail to capture the humanity or complexity of our work and totally leave out the people that our work is about. It is all too easy for an organisation of this nature to merge into the bureaucratic culture, swamped by provisions, sections and subsections, and to forget our origins. At the core of my work are the Aboriginal men and women who died in prisons and lockups and the countless Indigenous families that have been ravaged by those deaths. My Office may be formally empowered by an Act of Parliament but there should be no doubt that it is the Indigenous peoples of this country who confer what authority I have and to whom I am morally responsible

The activities of the Social Justice Commissioner for the year broadly track the functions set out in my enabling legislation, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986, within the general context of monitoring and promoting the enjoyment and exercise of human rights by Indigenous peoples. However, I note that I am frequently identified as the logical calling point for a variety of concerns which I am neither set up nor empowered to deal with but which, in their immediacy, demand my attention.

A report is provided on the major activities of my Office for the year. In addition, within each category, I identify the activities that ought to be undertaken in order to meet the relevant responsibility. A comparison of the two provides a concrete measure of the shortfall in the resources which have been made available.

As this Office and other monitoring agencies increasingly identify the inadequacies in existing policies and programmes, we can anticipate that governments will re-formulate policy and restructure programme development and delivery. While such initiatives should be encouraged, thoughtful and genuine restructuring is not to be confused with `pass the parcel', that party game in which governments are so well versed and which consists of transferring a failed programme or policy from one department to another. The idea is simultaneously to give the semblance of action, to leave the parcel with the new department just long enough to provide respite from public embarrassment for continued failure, and to keep the parcel moving without unwrapping it. But the parcel is a time bomb -- this approach solves nothing. If programmes fail, it is generally because they are ill-conceived or structurally flawed, inadequately resourced or inappropriately delivered. Unless the reasons for failure are revealed and addressed, the music will stop and someone will be left with the bundle.

As a relatively new Office, we are vulnerable to identification as the suitable agency to take on the parcel of responsibilities others have failed to fulfil. This tendency must be avoided. If programmes are not functioning adequately, my Office certainly can assist but its potential to rejuvenate programmes lies in its distance and independence. This is not a programme delivery agency and if it is to be drawn into this function it will lose the very independence which is its greatest asset. If additional responsibilities are to be transferred to this Office, they must conform with my basic functions of monitoring, evaluation and scrutiny as opposed to programme delivery. The Office must also be adequately resourced to effectively carry out additional responsibilities. I illustrate this point with reference to the proposed transfer of the coordination of the Access and Equity Strategy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from the Office of Multicultural Affairs to a separate unit located in this Office.

My Office finds itself in a situation not dissimilar to that which I have criticised in my discussion of the provision of health services to Indigenous communities where the actual health needs of any particular community must be re-organised in an attempt to fit into an existing programme.

The Commissioner must fit the human rights problems of Indigenous peoples into neat yearly packages ready for delivery shortly after the 30 June. No one would be so naive as to believe that reality will be amenable to such re-organisation. And at the end of the day, the cost is counted in the quality and effectiveness of our work.

It certainly troubles me that my function in life seems to be to lurch from one reporting requirement to the next. Given that my core responsibility is, however, to inform the Parliament about the human rights situation of Indigenous peoples, I face a significant dilemma. This matter requires careful consideration, examining the implications of various options and I will be raising it with the Attorney. An alternative arrangement would be for the Commissioner to provide two types of reports. The current yearly report could be replaced by a similar report to be provided at specified but less frequent intervals, for example, two in each five year term, one mid-term and one at the end of the term.

I noted in my first report that the litmus test of the Commonwealth Government's commitment to social justice for Indigenous peoples would be the adequate resourcing of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. I regret to say that to date the paper has not changed colour. To fulfil my mandate for evaluation and policy development, to be pro-active and not simply reactive, requires the type of detailed and close understanding that can only be developed through intensive research, negotiation and political footwork. It cannot be done on the cheap. All too often a compilation of photocopied reports is substituted for genuine monitoring because of inadequate resources. It would be a tragedy for the potential of this Office to come to no more than this. As it currently stands I have had to divert programme funds to employ additional temporary staff, a situation which is not conducive to an effective operation. Even accessing such measures, existing resources cannot be stretched to fulfil my mandate. To remedy this situation I propose a significant, but nonetheless modest expansion of the resources of this Office.

The Commonwealth Government must face up to the inevitable consequence of the existing state of affairs. It is faced with a choice: either the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner is an independent monitor that ensures compliance with human rights obligations or it is a letter box and stapling service sending out hurried responses to urgent demands. The Government should not delude itself about the implications of the choice it makes: if the latter path is chosen, the contribution which this Office can make to this country's human rights performance or to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples will be significantly diminished.

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody:

Commonwealth Response to Implementation of Recommendations

In 1991 the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody published 339 recommendations designed to improve the situation of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders within the criminal justice system as well as to provide a vision for economic, social and cultural change for Indigenous peoples. Three years have passed since the presentation of the Royal Commission's recommendations and two years since the Commonwealth presented its commitment to implementation and the promised funds. Speedy implementation of the recommendations could be very constructive in the progress towards reconciliation. On the other hand, if promised implementation does not take place, it will fuel the cynicism felt by many Indigenous peoples whose expectations have been frequently raised in the past, only to be disappointed. An honest evaluation of governments' responses to the Royal Commission's recommendations is now long overdue.

The Commonwealth Government's 768-page, two-volume first report on the implementation of these recommendations is, however, nothing more than an exercise in waste and futility. It is a self-serving account of bureaucratic activity designed to bury failure in a sea of words, reports and committee meetings rather than expose it to public scrutiny and discussion. Instead of continuing the vision, urgency and statesmanship articulated by Prime Minister Keating at Redfern Park in December 1992 the report is a monument to the worst tendencies of bureaucracy run wild. It should be emphatically rejected as a model for all such future reporting and monitoring.

Amongst its numerous failings are its complex and disjointed format; its repetitive, padded, vague and uninformative language; its confused and contradictory assertions; its misleadingly favourable account of events and developments; its frequent tendency to miss the essential point of a recommendation and its general lack of frankness in acknowledging mistakes and difficulties.

It is of little value to recount or list bureaucratic activity without explaining its content and meaning, its outcomes and the problems it reveals. Bureaucratic activity is not, as much of the Report seems to assume, an end in itself. As those who have watched the television series `Yes Minister' know, there is a widespread tendency for bureaucracies to put the best face on their activities.

The Report recounts extensively, repetitively and irritatingly the motions that have been gone through -- the committees that have been established, the references of questions to those bodies, the meetings (if any) that have been held, the reports that have been written, the programmes that have been adopted and the funds that have been allocated. But rarely does it tell the reader the result of those motions -- what the meetings decided, what conclusions the reports reached or how the programmes are working. I am irresistibly reminded by these descriptions of the sex life of elephants: much trumpeting, a lot of activity at a high level and no outcome for three years.

There is no better example of bureaucratic activity proceeding without regard for human needs than the fate of Recommendation 5 which proposed simply that governments provide counselling to relatives, kin and family of those who had died in custody. The proposal necessarily called for urgent implementation as counselling would be of the most value in the early stages of trauma.

A simple urgent human problem, the counselling of bereaved families, which should have been attended to within weeks at a modest cost, became a $2 million project with no counselling delivered two years later in most States. Far from cringing at the exposure of this incredible delay, the Report boldly proclaims that `[t]his program has necessarily involved a long lead time as extensive consultations between the States and the Northern Territory and the relatives of the deceased have been required' [Vol 2, p 10]. Nowhere in the Report is there any indication that time was of the slightest concern except as a boundless dimension within which bureaucratic activity could be played out. A problem, requiring only a swift, inexpensive response, was converted into a bureaucratic monstrosity, while the time for helping those who suffered slipped away. The little people had been trampled by the preoccupied elephants.

The Report's cavalier treatment of those recommendations related to the criminal justice field is deplorable in the extreme. In the Report the Commonwealth claims credit for successful leadership in this area or declares its intention to maintain pressure on States and Territories. There is however no evidence to support this claim.

Perhaps the most dismaying example is the Report's treatment of Recommendation 92 which called for recognition of the principle of imprisonment as a sanction of last resort. Part I of Volume I of the Annual Report provides evidence that in fact imprisonment is increasingly used as a sanction against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The figures on Indigenous imprisonment indicate that in the three States which had claimed implementation of Recommendation 92 the actual rates of imprisonment have risen significantly. In New South Wales from 1105 to 1670 of the total prison population in that state, in Victoria from 798 to 1047 and in South Australia from 1339 to 1860. In Western Australia both the numbers and the rate have increased significantly. Only Queensland showed an actual decline in the number imprisoned and in the rate of imprisonment. In the Northern Territory, the numbers increased but there was a slight decrease in the rate.

This is an absolutely central issue. Most of the recommendations of the Royal Commission were dedicated, directly or indirectly, to the reduction of the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in custody, yet here we have not merely an absence of reduction but an ongoing increase. The figures should give the Commonwealth the gravest concern and at least call into play its proclaimed leadership role. What response do we find from the Commonwealth? Far from prompting appropriate initiatives it drops Recommendation 92 from the Report entirely.

The Report also fails to encapsulate the sense of urgency which necessarily flows from the continued, undisputed but unacceptable rate of arrest, imprisonment and deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. One would never guess that many of the Royal Commission recommendations are designed to save lives, or to avoid another generation of Aboriginal children growing up stunted by ill health and poor education, or to retrieve people from lives crippled by crime or alcohol. There is no consistent approach to the Commonwealth's responsibility for issues impinging on the administration of other levels of government and no real recognition that the problems which gave rise to certain recommendations still require attention.

Even in the case of very concrete issues which could mean the difference between life and death for a prisoner, responses do not seem to be driven by anything more than the slow grind of bureaucratic mills.

The Government Response Monitoring Unit claims that it is not its responsibility to evaluate implementation of the Royal recommendations, its duty is to provide information which the reader can evaluate. Such abdication of responsibility is totally unsatisfactory. What is more, even if one accepted its view, the Monitoring Unit has not produced a report which would enable readers to make their own judgements about the adequacy of implementation. The Report is not even readable.

If Indigenous people are to confidently recognise Governments as organisations capable and willing to redress the violation of their rights immediate clear, frank and factual `warts and all' reporting which acknowledges the inevitable difficulties, deficiencies, false starts and mistakes that will accompany the best of achievements is urgently required. Our trust can be built by frank and open acknowledgment of the facts, just as it can be destroyed by glossy accounts which do not connect with life as we experience it.

Indigenous Health

We have all heard the statistics -- the figures of death, and of disability.

Our rate of death is three to six times that of the general Australian population. Our infant mortality rates are three times that of the general population. Our life expectancy is 18 to 20 years less. Every few years such figures are repeated, but it seems that a certain kind of industrial deafness has developed. The human element in this is not recognised. The meaning of these figures is not heard -- or felt.

Politicians pay fleeting visits to remote communities, stumble around in the mud and the blood and peer into a few humpies. They utter `shock, horror' before returning to Canberra and their television sets. Nothing changes. Anger turns into cynicism: `Blackfellas must be a good screw because people keep coming back time after time to do us over'.

The health status of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders puts Australia in breach of its international obligations. In reality Australia attains two standards of health -- one for non-Indigenous Australians which complies with an internationally acceptable level of health and one for Indigenous Australians who are deprived of essential primary health care and of basic shelter and housing and who do not enjoy internationally acceptable standards. Australia's performance rates poorly, even when compared with other countries where Indigenous peoples have suffered invasion and colonisation -- we have a life expectancy below that of other comparable Indigenous populations.

The resignation with which most Australians accept these scandalous figures heightens the incongruity of the situation wherein the strategic principles which must underlie any improvements in Indigenous health are widely accepted, yet improvement never seems to come. There does not appear to be a raging debate between competing models of health care. Amongst government and non-government, Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals and organisations there appears to be much common ground. The causes and treatment of the major diseases which ravage our peoples is not a medical mystery. The general principles of effective prevention of these diseases are not in dispute.

The limitations of a pure medical model -- a clinical, curative approach -- are generally recognised. Vaccination programmes, good access to specialist services and health research are acknowledged as important elements in tackling Indigenous health issues but they are seen as adjuncts to a model of primary health care which embraces health education and preventative strategies based on behavioural and environmental factors.

A holistic, inclusive definition of health is commonly accepted. The importance of Indigenous health workers, community involvement in health programmes, proper consultation and local decision-making are commonly recognised. The principle of self-determination is recognised as pivotal to better health.

These matters were broadly agreed upon by the Working Party, comprised of Commonwealth, State and Indigenous community representatives, which prepared the National Aboriginal Health Strategy in 1989. However, in my opinion this apparent position of agreement and the common use of the same terminology to describe health models hides a critical divergence of perspectives. This divergence of perspectives means that the same terms carry very different practical implications.

The perspective on health held by Aboriginal people at community level is usually fundamentally different to that held by those who design and administer health programmes. The characteristic quality of a community-based Indigenous perspective on health is to locate health in a very specific setting. It is a perspective shaped by an intimate knowledge of particular communities, the resources, life styles, relationship patterns and human behaviours which have such a strong influence on the health status of those communities. The local reality of the circumstances in which our people live is the central starting point of the Indigenous approach; not the reality of such a remote community as Canberra.

This clash of perspectives reveals profoundly different understandings, and has immediate implications as to the practical action which needs to be taken if genuine shifts in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health are to be achieved. The split in perspective not only shapes but is reinforced by the process of formulating government health policies and programmes. It is a process which fractures the avowed concept of a holistic approach to Indigenous health. It reflects a departmental perspective which analyses health problems in terms of the general incidence of diseases derived from national statistics, global goals and targets are then identified and, finally, particular disease-related programmes are devised to be delivered at a local level. It is essentially a planning perspective looking from the top of the system down. If there has been any Indigenous input into this process, it is unlikely to have come from local Indigenous people but from bureaucrats a long way away.

The yawning gap between local health perceptions and needs, on the one hand, and centrally-devised government health programmes, on the other, leads to such absurdities as funding for buildings but not staff, funding for short term needs only, or no funding at all for some essential services. Such anomalies are not isolated instances -- they are the rule, not the exception and occur because the needs of the centralised bureaucracy are placed above the needs of human beings.

Collaboration between different levels of government (Commonwealth, State/Territory and local), and between different government departments at the same level, in delivery of health care to communities is almost non-existent.

It is crucial to appreciate how this process is viewed from ground level -- how such health programmes are seen from the bottom looking up. Seen from this level, separate programmes shower down onto Indigenous communities. An immense amount of energy is expended at the community level simply attempting to identify the programmes, to differentiate the levels of government and the different departments from which they are sourced and, then, to harness them in a manner which might achieve a timely, concerted impact. The endeavour to draw the benefits of multiple individual programmes with their various eligibility requirements and funding cycles into a co-ordinated, community-specific, holistic approach is more likely to induce stress-related disease rather than to relieve it.

While the conceptual basis of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy remains sound, there is much truth in the assertion made by members of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) during a meeting with Commonwealth Department of Health officers in Darwin, that it has never been put into effective practice.

The National Aboriginal Health Strategy (NAHS) included structures for implementation which if undertaken would have avoided many of the perspective problems I outlined above. They have been allowed to atrophy and become irrelevant. As a result, a community level perspective on Indigenous health matters has been excluded from the formulation of policy at almost all levels. The NAHS has consisted for some time now of merely an unco-ordinated series of individual programmes, with no clear goals, no strategic rationale, little emphasis on outcomes and negligible Indigenous control. It has been seriously underfunded from the time of its inception, to the point where it receives only one-tenth of the funds necessary to implement it. The recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody that the NAHS be adequately funded has been completely ignored by the Commonwealth.

The lack of effective leadership by the Commonwealth has allowed most of the States, Territories and local government to discriminate against their Indigenous citizens in the provision of basic services and infrastructure. For the sake of a clean water supply, a working sewerage system or a garbage collection service, my people are dying. These are things which all non-Indigenous citizens of Australia expect as a matter of right.

Past written promises by governments of a commitment to improve service delivery to Indigenous communities have proved hollow.

In summary, when we look back at the reality of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy we find that the structures initially established to ensure its implementation and co-ordination have become largely non-functional; we find that the level of funding has been less than one-tenth of that required; and we find that the programmatic nature of funding, split between numerous governments and departments, denies a locally-based Indigenous perspective on health matters. Given this, are the reasons behind the current state of Indigenous ill-health still such a mystery?

The overall health status of Torres Strait Islanders is not fundamentally different from that of Aboriginal peoples in this country when compared to Australia's non-Indigenous population: the death rate for Torres Strait Islanders is 2. [9] per 100 000, compared to a death rate of 3. [0] for Aboriginal Queenslanders.

Some steps are being taken in the direction of empowerment of Torres Strait Islanders to act upon their situation. A Torres Strait Health Strategy has been developed out of a local health workshop, which is driven largely by Torres Strait health workers. Health Action Groups have also been formed to engage in community-level strategic planning and action.

An adequate level of expenditure is a necessary factor, but is not by itself sufficient to achieve real, lasting change: qualitative issues are also crucial. For fundamental progress to take place over this issue, the perspective driving the process must change. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are quite capable of taking control of their own health care, if they have the opportunity to do so and some assistance which does not bring about their disempowerment. The success of the Aboriginal Medical Services, despite woeful funding levels and little overt government support, is a prime instance of this.

To move the specifics of a community from the margin to the centre of one's vision allows the potential for community residents to critically discuss their situation and devise strategies for intervening in the plans which non-Indigenous society has for their community. History shows that non-Indigenous society has always had `plans' to intervene in Indigenous life and most of those plans have made us sick. Yet there are examples of successful community-level action where people have taken charge of their own health concerns.

In this context, genuine community planning is the most viable option for Indigenous people to take control of their health situation. I emphasise `genuine' here -- there are many plans for communities, but there are very few plans by communities. The hope of community planning is that the legacy of history -- the legacy of fragmentation, of violence, of disease, of loss of country -- can be overcome. In this sense, planning allows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to debate and intervene in their own future rather than be subjected to decisions taken by others. The role of governments in this situation is essentially to respond to plans devised by the community, not to drive them.

However, just as planning offers some hope that the legacy of history may be overcome, so history acts to stifle effective planning and change by encouraging fragmentation and division. What we call `communities' are usually conglomerations of different groups which have been forced to live together by non-Indigenous authority, often away from their country and heritage. One result of this is that the established pattern of social equilibrium -- the delicate and finely-balanced web which connects everyone to everyone, and everyone to country, in particular ways is fundamentally disrupted. This has hurt us so deeply that we struggle to pick up the pieces, to spin new strands to repair the hole in our web.

If we understand this, and if we understand that this can potentially be overcome through informed reflection and unity in action, our `health problems' become just one subset of the overall problem of achieving genuine self-determination in our lives. Community planning, then, holds the potential to answer the question `How do we want to live?' and as such has a clear political dimension.

It is against this background that the various government initiatives in the direction of community and regional planning need to be assessed. My survey of such initiatives leads me to conclude that at all levels of government -- Commonwealth, State/Territory and Local -- the `official' planning processes go nowhere near meeting the needs of Indigenous communities. Further, some work directly against meeting the needs. As I have emphasised above, it is a matter of recognising that Indigenous people make meaning and gain perspective in their lives in different ways from non-Indigenous people and hence that unless planning mechanisms are based on this they are bound to fail.

There is nothing new about calls for radically greater Commonwealth expenditure on basic health infrastructure. Since the publication in 1989 of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy, it has been apparent that merely to provide Indigenous people with the essential services which most Australians take for granted -- a water supply, a sewerage system, a house, and so on -- will run to billions of dollars. This has been confirmed by a more recent ATSIC Housing Survey. So the bottom line is that a commitment to equal provision of such facilities for all Australians needs to be immediately implemented by the Commonwealth.

I acknowledge that tackling these qualitative issues presents a new challenge for governments. It is not easy to see things from another person's perspective; to devise intervention strategies for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to overcome the legacy of history; to put Indigenous communities at the centre of the action, not merely on the side as peripheral players. Difficult as it is, we should make no mistake that this is what must happen if Australia is to enter the third millennium without being subjected to an international shame job.

The policy implications of my findings are:

* a direct fiscal relationship between the Commonwealth and Indigenous peoples at ground level;

* a significant strengthening of the network of Indigenous health workers and Aboriginal medical services and facilitating their aggregation into regional structures;

* encouraging the development of a whole-of-community strategy or plan based on critical debate and analysis at community level and establishing inter-departmental mechanisms for a whole-of-government response to such a plan or strategy;

* drastic increases in the provision of Commonwealth-sourced funds for essential infrastructure development; and

* mechanisms for tying the provision of appropriate and accessible health-related services by the States and Territories to accountable outcomes.

It is a matter of forging a partnership which is not based on condescension, glib talk or promises which are never implemented. It is a reconciliation which is not based on exploitation, but on mutual recognition of rights to a satisfying life, for which good health is a prerequisite.

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody:

Recommendations 211 and 212

It is a time of rapid political and social change in Indigenous affairs. In the wake of the High Court decision, Native Title legislation and the subsequent consultation and negotiation on the Land Acquisition Fund and the Social Justice Package it is now, perhaps more than ever, critical for Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders to know our rights. As stressed by the Royal Commission in 1991, an understanding of the existence and content of anti-discrimination laws is particularly important -- discrimination is not just a legal phenomenon.

The role of community education in this situation is imperative. It must raise public awareness that laws exist and then provide knowledge about the means of taking advantage of those laws.

For the last 206 years `education' provided to Indigenous peoples has been prescriptive and instructive in its format. It has been characterised by product delivery in the form of glossy pamphlets, posters and specific syllabi. Contemporary sensitivity to `cultural appropriateness' has generally meant little more than adding `Indigenous' seasoning to existing recipes. However, it is not simply the product that is dubious -- the whole process of developing community education is problematic. The usual routine is that a centralised institution, which is considered `culturally appropriate', produces an educative resource. It is then `delivered' to a community. The institution controls what information is disseminated, what form it takes and how it is delivered. Yet, when I look around at the fruits of the expertise, I am dumbfounded by how totally inappropriate and wasteful these products are. The production of T-shirts or fridge magnets is somehow seen as sufficient to both `educate' and to provide a means for Indigenous peoples to participate in a political system founded on the utter denial of our human rights.

This welfare-based blueprint for education is not only contrary to the spirit of self-determination but clearly ineffectual in informing Indigenous peoples about our rights. The Royal Commission findings and recommendations are a testament to this ineptitude. The continued arrest, imprisonment and death in custody rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples reflect the ineffective bridging of the information gap which yawns wide between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous institutions. The continued failure of community education was evidenced over and over again in the National Report on Racist Violence which found that awareness inside Indigenous communities about anti-discrimination legislation was extremely low and that consequently Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were rarely using the legal system to enforce their rights.

The emphasis in community education must be on the process, not the product. `Process' has become a buzzword frequently used but rarely explained. What I mean by process is the way in which community education happens -- the way that communities find out what they need to know and go about gaining that knowledge. Process, as opposed to product, implies that what happens along the way is valued -- not just getting to a pre-arranged finishing line. The development and use of educative commodities must never be allowed to repress the vitality and value of the process a community adopts to bring knowledge to its members. It is through communities developing their own processes that self-determination is realised.

The `product' developed in the context of the community must be imbued with the spirit, knowledge and character of that community.

I recognise that the development of such a process of community education is a daunting challenge which requires the most innovative and creative of efforts.

The major difficulty in bringing such a project to fruition is the essential dichotomy which exists between Indigenous knowledge and the bureaucratic culture of the dominant system. The only way to overcome this problem and develop a valuable resource is to involve as many Indigenous people as possible in creating it and in guaranteeing that their experiences and views are adequately reflected in the final product.

The evolution of a locally based, flexible framework will finally give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the opportunity to take real part in the development and acquisition of knowledge inside their communities. It will also result in the effective dissemination of information as foreshadowed and required by the Royal Commission in Recommendation 211.

Many of the bureaucratic and funding problems, which plague government departments in the implementation of the Royal Commission's recommendations, and which I describe in Chapter 2, have dogged the NCEP in the past twelve months. I believe it is essential that my reporting on the community education programme highlight these difficulties and expose the `warts' the implementation of Recommendation 211 has developed.

The result of such reporting is, amongst other things, a portrait of an underfunded programme.

I have no reason to believe that the Commonwealth is not genuinely committed to informing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples about the law and to the successful implementation of Recommendation 211 and this being the case Cabinet must put up the dollars and cents.

The responsibility has landed squarely with the Commonwealth as, precious little support has been shown by State and Territory governments, even though they are explicitly mentioned in Recommendation 211. State and Territory Government Ministers have failed to even respond to my invitations to consult on the national programme.

I have no intention of falling into the wasteful trap of institutionalisation that has characterised the past and has failed to `teach' Indigenous peoples about their rights and how to use them.

International Perspectives

Indigenous policy is an international field where Australian approaches are affected and sometimes determined by global experience. Likewise, Australia's successes and failures in this field may become precedents elsewhere. Such international exchange of ideas and experience is common in a great many fields today. However, the same people who welcome new tastes in popular music or medicine may be more resistant to having their social and cultural prejudices called into question.

The notion that the United Nations and other international bodies are alien and interfering is wrong. Australia supports, participates in, and contributes to these forums and their decisions only become part of Australian law or policy when Australians design and enact domestically appropriate implementing measures.

International agreements provide for the good order of many aspects of daily life from postal service and air travel to safe food and the control of life-threatening disease. Part of life in today's world requires being a good international citizen. Countries which stray from generally agreed standards in matters of human rights and the treatment of minorities attract international pressure, or censure such as limits on trade and other forms of co-operation, or, in extreme cases, the intervention of peace-keepers or multi-national policing by troops. Australians can hardly expect to criticise and comment on the conduct of others abroad but remain free from scrutiny of our own conduct.

Australia is one of a number of `first world' countries notably including New Zealand, USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland who are wrestling with similar problems of recognition and redress of grievances of Indigenous peoples. Of those countries, the ones in the Northern hemisphere, together with Russia, are increasingly working together -- both governments and Indigenous organisations -- to share expertise and solve problems with the benefit of each other's experience.

Australians could gain many benefits in their search for solutions to Indigenous needs by drawing on the accumulated experience and policy debates of other countries. That foreign experience and argument often anticipates our own. What is more: there is a common pattern in relations between European peoples and Indigenous minorities on all continents. Political and constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples, and a rights-based approach to policy, are priority areas for such comparative study.

Meanwhile, places as remote as North Norway and Arctic Canada are showing interest in aspects of Australian Indigenous experience as different as diamond mining, marine rights and health care. Other matters like sacred sites, park management and increasing reflection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural elements in national society are well advanced in comparison with many other countries.

Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders may also be adversely affected by overseas development. Of particular concern, for instance, are the recent rejection of Sami (Lapp) rights by the Norwegian official body set up in 1980 to advise on such matters, as well as similar problems next door in Sweden. Similarly, the prospective disposition of Indigenous territories in Canada's province of Quebec against the will of Inuit, Cree, and other peoples in the event of secession is troubling. Australians should make clear to the Canadians and Scandinavians that their actions could threaten the situation of minority peoples all over the world, the more so coming from countries which have often been progressive in rights matters in the past.

Internationalism and its practice are much more than an annual trip to a United Nations meeting in Geneva or New York. With computer and telecommunications technology, cheap and quick air travel, and access to funds transforming the possibilities for international Indigenous co-operation and learning, it is important that Australians overcome the tyranny of distance and get full benefits. My Office intends to conduct and publish several studies in the next year to provide some practical examples of what is useful and possible.

It is important that in the broadening national debate on our institutional and constitutional arrangements and our national culture and identity, that Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders are not forgotten as they were when the Australian colonial governments and later federation were created. We must overcome the curiously defensive tone and talk of redress in much of the public discussion on these issues so far where Indigenous peoples are concerned. Australia can and should be a leader in international Indigenous progress. To achieve that will be the over-arching priority of my Office in the coming years.