Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate calls on the Government to expand the remit of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner to include the monitoring and reviewing of the implementation of the recommendations of the 1992 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in all jurisdictions.

The date 28 September 1983 will forever be tarred as the day 16-year-old Yindjibarndi boy John Pat died in a police cell at Roebourne Police station in Western Australia. It is a date that is a constant reminder of the oppression and injustice that our people continue to face. In the aftermath, the officers responsible were acquitted of his death. The anger and activism that followed were the catalyst for the four-year inquiry that led to the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Every year since, John Pat's family, friends and supporters gather to commemorate his life, and every year they are forced to grapple with how little has changed since.

There is a memorial stone for John Pat outside Fremantle Prison which has the following engraved on it:

This stone stands witness to the courage of the Aboriginal peoples in their fight for human rights in Australia.

…   …   …

In memory of all Aboriginal people who have died in custody … Their families and communities had the courage to speak out for justice.

This led to the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

The commissioners investigated the deaths of 99 Aboriginal people and reported in May 1991, making 339 recommendations to right the wrongs which led to their deaths.

This memorial signifies a commitment by the people of Western Australia to ensure the effective implementation of the recommendations for the benefit of all.

Following the royal commission, in 1992 the government announced it would provide $7 million to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission—what we know as ATSIC—to improve coordination between the Commonwealth, states and territories and to monitor progress by governments in implementing the recommendations of the royal commission.

This was recommendation 1, and it came from a Labor government who were willing to listen to our people and the families of those who had died in custody, and, more importantly, they were willing to act by properly resourcing First Nations led bodies to do the work of overseeing the implementation of that royal commission. This work that ATSIC did was crucial, and it was done by predominantly First Nations people—as the closest we've gotten to a self-determined body—and the work that ATSIC did monitoring the implementations of the royal commission was an integral part of this. It put fires in our belly and gave our people a sense of control and understanding that our rights were being respected.

In 1992 the Keating government also announced that it would establish the office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, who would head up a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice unit within the Human Rights and Equal Community Commission, now called the Australian Human Rights Commission. The social justice commissioner was tasked with preparing an annual state-of-the-nation report on the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This related to recommendations 211 and 212 of the royal commission. At the time of establishment, the commissioner was and is responsible for reporting on and promoting 'the exercise and enjoyment of human rights by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons'. Of course, reporting on human rights frequently involved considering the implementation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommendations, but it was not a specified responsibility. The first commissioner was Mick Dodson, who said in his first report in 1993:

Given that many of the recommendations focus on issues which relate to the exercise and enjoyment of human rights by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, there is an obvious and most important relationship between the work of my Commission and the implementation of the Royal Commission's recommendations.

He also commented on the royal commission, noting that ATSIC was responsible for monitoring. He said:

It would be wasteful and inappropriate for my Commission to attempt to duplicate the work of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission's unit.

In subsequent years, the social justice commissioner highlighted different aspects of the royal commission in their work. In 1996, they produced a report that assessed the coroner's reports into the 96 Aboriginal deaths in custody that occurred between 1989 and 1996, which found that each death was characterised by breaches of, on average, 8.5 recommendations and that rates of Indigenous death in custody had increased. The report cast severe doubt on the accuracy of self-reporting, against the recommendations by justice agencies, which all claimed to have implemented them. Does that sound surprising—government agencies claiming that they've ticked the box and implemented the recommendations, despite our people continuing to be murdered at the hands of the state?

When we talk about First Nations rights, we are talking about First Nations lives. Every death in custody is a murder at the hands of the state. There are 555 recorded deaths of First Peoples in custody since the royal commission. But we know that, if you counted all of the other circumstances where violence has been committed against our people by police, security officers and the violent colonial system, this number is much, much bigger. Yet no-one has ever been found guilty of an Indigenous death in custody in Australia—not one person. The numbers speak for themselves, yet all we hear is that the recommendations have been implemented or that they're irrelevant.

ATSIC was defunded in 2005, and, since then, the crucial work of coordinating across jurisdictions to ensure our people stop being killed by the state has been abandoned. Almost 20 years later, we are still waiting for justice. Monitoring the implementation of 339 recommendations endorsed by the Commonwealth government is a huge task. To do so adequately and to ensure that the implementation substantially fulfils the intentions of the royal commission is an even greater task. The social justice commissioner plays an important role in upholding and promoting our rights. It would be well suited to play a role in preventing any more of our people dying in custody but must be properly resourced to do this.

This year marked 40 years since the death of John Pat. The government continues to maintain that many of the recommendations are either outdated or not able to be acted upon by the Commonwealth. The last review was handed down in 2018 by Deloitte. It was widely dismissed by experts as misleadingly positive and largely worthless, which allowed the government to hide behind the veneer of simply having introduced policies and programs which it claims have addressed recommendations. Deloitte did a desktop review and counted even the slightest action towards a recommendation as that recommendation being fully implemented, even if it had absolutely no impact on the lives of our people in prisons. It was just a tick-a-box-process desktop review. Even worse, this kind of gammon review helps governments to dismiss any calls for justice and to wipe their hands clean of responsibility. Our men, women and children continue to be over-policed and over-represented in every aspect of the criminal justice system. In the words of journalist Amy McGuire, a Darumbal and South Sea islander woman:

For Aboriginal people, every death, every injury, every grieving mother, is remembered. They are not just numbers. We remember and we watch and we protest in the face of this national silence.

…   …   …

There is nothing shocking about racist violence perpetrated by police, … it is normalised. It is seen as legitimate violence … that was not only used to steal the country and assert white dominance, but also maintain it through the oppression of Aboriginal people.

We know the fundamental cause of these deaths is the criminalisation of our people and the conditions created by over 250 years of racist colonial domination. I will not stay silent on this. The families of those who have been murdered will not stay silent. The people on the streets will not stay silent. We will fill your ears with our pain until they bleed.

The royal commission is something that will save people's lives. Those recommendations are important to our people. We know which recommendations are the responsibility of the state and the Territory. We've pulled out the recommendations that belong in this place. We've done the work. We have to save lives—black lives. Black lives still matter. You might not have seen a protest for a while, but black lives still matter. We can make a difference in people's lives and change things through this parliament and just do the right thing. All we're asking in this instance, through this one recommendation, is that someone actually take responsibility for oversight of a royal commission that cost this country a lot of money to run, had a lot of good people involved and had a lot of good solutions. We just need to get on with the business of implementing the rest of those recommendations. We know that the states and territories are responsible for removing hanging points, and we hope that—well, no, I'm not going to use the word 'hope'. There's a whole chapter on that in Chelsea Watego's book Another Day in the Colony. I suggest you all read it. By removing hanging points, where our people are hanging themselves in states' and territories' systems is something that we can also influence from this place.

Can we get on with implementing the recommendations? Can we give someone the responsibility? The social justice commissioner is there, all ready, and we have an Aboriginal woman in that job who is more than capable of fulfilling this role, but we also know that resources will need to be a part of that process so that they're not overwhelmed with what is, hopefully, coming for them. Thank you.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd just indicate that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner is an independent statutory office holder. It's not for the government or the Senate to direct her about how she exercises her functions. I don't think anyone would disagree that the report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody relates to the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The commissioner is already able to, and in fact often does, promote the implementation of the recommendations of the royal commission within her existing functions. On that basis, I indicate that government will support the motion.

Question agreed to.