Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Great. Thank you. There is a witch-hunt that is currently wrapped up in this motion about PBCs that has come before the Senate. We should be turning our minds much more to supporting our PBCs and our Aboriginal organisations, helping them to understand what corporate governance looks like and their responsibilities and their duties. But it is not our job in this place to create a system that only fits one size. What has been a conversation piece over and over in this place and is actually worded in this motion is cultural governance protocols and their intersection with corporate governance. This is a system that has been created by the mainstream. It hasn't been created by us. Corporate governance is not our language. There is not a translation for that in my language in the two clan groups that I'm part of, in the Noongar and Yamatji areas. It's not a thing. Cultural protocols and governance are.

It's about respect. It's about understanding who our old people are, who we consult with, what we're there to protect and when we work collectively in the best interests of our people. The compliance driven system wasn't created by us. We have one of the oldest systems in the world. In my part of Noongar country—I proudly live on the lands of the Wajuk people, but I'm connected to two groups, which are the Yuat people north-east of Perth and the Kaniyang people in the great southern area of Western Australia—our traditional systems have been proven to have been there for 30,000 years. It is the High Court determination that allowed that to be proven.

Corporate governance has to be taught to our people. I spent my time in the gnalla kaartdijin position in the leadership centre, when the native title determination for the Noongar claim was determined. My job was to look at how I could bring some of that AICD training into its translation, into succession planning by having our old people doing the business and our young people sitting behind being educated—our lawyers, our accountants, our people who had interest, our young people that were going to come up and take over. That was my job, to make sure that they were fully trained. I did that because I understood what the Western system required for accountability. But we should be asking the NIAA and government departments how they are walking beside some of our PBCs when they make the transition from land councils to prescribed body corporates in this country to help them manage their own affairs under self-determination and be able to do that work. We should not be wanting to bring them into another Senate inquiry that is driven from a different perspective and that has an already sketchy relationship determined through this committee.