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

Today the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee report is being tabled here in the Senate, which is 2½ years in the making and the result of Australia's first federal inquiry that sought to address violence against First Nations women and children and to identify its systemic causes. My hope always in this process was that this report would honour the lives lost and those still missing or disappeared and, in particular, their loved ones and the communities impacted by the serious crimes due to the systematic failures. This report could elevate the solutions from the community level to the Senate—the place that reviews all the laws of this country—and finally expose to the Australian public the magnitude of this issue and understand the consequences of these lived experiences.

We've heard from loved ones who felt silenced and forgotten and of the losses of dignity and humanity and, in too many cases, the loss of life. This report is about deliberate actions and failures of a system that has at its heart racially and gendered violence. It is in fact a form of genocide when the system doesn't properly respond to save the lives of First Nations people, and there must continue to be outrage about this happening in a modern-day country like Australia.

In 1967, this nation voted for us to be counted, but as it stands, when we are murdered, missing or disappeared, we are not. People shared with us the most painful experiences of their lives with some hope that something could be done to prevent suffering in the future. I feel immense love and respect for the people who have spoken to us, and all I can do is thank you for giving us your time and your generosity in sharing your experiences.

I talked about triggering this inquiry in the first speech that I made in this place, and, many months later, I want to thank Senator Anne Ruston and former minister Ken Wyatt who helped the Senate motion to be co-sponsored by me and my former colleague Senator Thorpe, which made way for this inquiry. I always believed that First Nations communities, loved ones and families needed a formal mechanism to share with the nation the loss, grief and suffering that needed to be told. I want to be very clear that this report does not, in fact, go far enough. I'll talk about that in a moment. I want to acknowledge all of the families that gave evidence to us and, in fact, all of the families of missing and murdered First Nations women and children across this country. We have an evolving pattern which now involves our men.

The inquiry was conducted by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References group made up of three Liberal senators, two Labor senators and two Greens senators. Senator Paul Scarr, I'd like to thank you for your work as the chair. Senator Nita Green is the deputy chair, and, despite what's been said in the media, I did not chair or co-chair this inquiry. I'm not even a standing member of that committee. In fact, I was subbed into that committee for this inquiry. The standing member is my friend and colleague Senator David Shoebridge.

I would like to acknowledge him for his unwavering support for me, both personally and professionally, and acknowledge many others who have provided individual support. I don't have enough time in this short 10 minutes to acknowledge and name all of them but I am grateful, because this time has been trying and, at moments, very painful.

People were and are still suffering the losses of loved ones, without support from the institutions that are supposed to help people when they are in need. This situation must not be allowed to continue. There is a moral duty for people in this place who make the laws to make institutions work for everyone in the way that they're actually supposed to.

I brought my own lived experience into this committee's process. In fact, I travelled to Canada and talked directly to the Native Women's Association, who triggered their own inquiry with nearly 500 media articles. I want to respectfully acknowledge their journey in this speech here today, within the Australian Senate. They are still working through some of those systemic challenges.

I also shared, during my short speech on the motion that was moved to commence this inquiry, that my own cousin was murdered by a man in her home town in regional Western Australia. There was an atrocious response to her murder by the police. The department, the director of public prosecutions and the justice system had a profound impact on my life and also that of my family. I know many others within my communities, and across Australia more broadly, have had and continue to have a lack of response and worse experiences, which we heard as part of this inquiry and which brought me to tears and still stay with me.

At the start of this process, the committee prepared for its work ahead by meeting with some of the Canadian commissioners from their inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous First Nations women and girls. We also met with many First Nations academics and subject matter experts, and I want to thank them for their guidance; they provided some vital information to us.

Acknowledging the work that has been put into the committee's inquiry, it has to be said that the outcome in the majority report is not what I, my team and the Greens expected. We are extremely concerned that the report's recommendations are not reflective of the urgent change and investment that is actually required. Problems have, in fact, been identified, but the recommendations don't contain many solutions. Where solutions are presented, they are presented far too broadly and are open to interpretation. They are not connected to any outcomes. There are no performance indicators to make sure that progress can actually be measured.

Speaking of measurement, the glaring omission is the targets for improving data gathering. Even though this Labor government had a budget allocation to do this, there is no direction provided in the recommendation to address this. We simply don't know how many First Nations women and children have been murdered and continue to be missing, because we don't capture any of that necessary data. The majority report does provide some suggestions, but there will be no targets and no performance indicators to hold anyone to account if this important data cannot be gathered, collated and shared across jurisdictions.

I take this opportunity to thank a dear friend of mine, Paul Girrawah House, who provided ceremony for us here in the grounds of Parliament House. He gave me a very special word, dhulabin: to walk straight and talk straight. At this moment, I want to acknowledge the cultural load that was placed upon me as a committee member and on other First Nations people who have contributed to this process, which has been immense. There are no First Nations people on this committee apart from me, and this leaves us in a position of constantly having to explain the cultural factors that contribute to the institutional failure. It's possible that this has contributed to some of the omissions in the recommendations. In fact, today I met with the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, and asked if she was provided any information or sought any advice. Her response was that she had no idea. That was an unacceptable and damn negligent response from this government.

The committee received 87 submissions and conducted 10 public hearings over the 2½-year period. There was no shortage of people willing to contribute and tell their stories. In fact, people were aching to tell their stories because no-one wanted to listen, and we heard shocking stories of people being ignored, ridiculed, dismissed—all when they wanted some help and for someone to care about the fate of their family members.

Much has been written about the harrowing nature of the stories heard during the inquiry. And it's important that we hear about the suffering. It's our job to stop the suffering. It won't happen until we get frontline government services to care, and sometimes the message we get is that some people don't care. I'd like to continue to point out that in my own jurisdiction the WA police did not even have the decency to turn up to the inquiry.

Senator Shoebridge and I have added our own additional comments to the end of the report, and these comments contain some of the additional recommendations we'd like to put forward to flesh out what's actually required in the future. Put some real targets in place. Get some clear data so that we can actually hold people to account, particularly to do their job. We want to see Closing the Gap target 13 attached to this. Powerful people in this place do not want change, and I see this through this report.