08-01-2022, 03:35 PM
In theory the idea of an indigenous voice commenting to the government of the day on proposed legislation affecting indigenous people is excellent. My concern arises from implementing such a voice in a way that truely represents the indigenous communities.
The media tends to falsely project the idea that indigenous communities for the most part agree on any given subject. Given that there are many clans with different languages and customs, including inhabitants of remote communities with little or no knowledge of the English language or of life outside their own community, what would be the means of selecting truely representative indigenous people?
On another loosely related matter that really gets under my skin is the fact that the eloquent, university educated indigenous people who are rightly pushing for the voice, conveniently ignore the elephant in the room, namely, the domestic violence and child sexual abuse which is between two to five times higher, and higher again in remote communities, than in the non indigenous population.
They must be aware of the situation. Back in January 2011 the Australian Institute of Criminology published a paper "Non-disclosure of violence in Australian indigenous communities." The Conclusion stated:
The high levels of violence and abuse seen in some indigenous communities are closely linked to a wide range of other problems such as community disfunction, marginalisation, disempowerment, poverty, alcohol and substance use and other social behaviours.These are major problems with difficult solutions that are well beyond the range of this paper ..........A number of the inquiries and reports cited in this paper show that violence and abuse are so prevalent in some communities that they are seen as inevitable, as something to be tolerated and not disclosed. People in all communities have a fundamental right to live without the expectation that they, or those around them, will be violently victimised. Moving past this to an expectation that victimisation is atypical and intolerable is undeniably necessary.
Surely there are enough problems outlined there, and in many other inquiries and reports, requiring practical solutions that one would expect indigenous supporters of their rights to be clamouring for government funding for further research. But where are they?
As a side note, quite some years ago in my professional occupation I accompanied a federal committee examining the working conditions of indigenous women on cattle stations in Queensland, NT and Western Australia and observed firsthand the poverty and absolute hopelessness of the people. An anthropologist from UNSW who specialised in indigenous customs and practices who accompanied us said the problems are insoluble.
The media tends to falsely project the idea that indigenous communities for the most part agree on any given subject. Given that there are many clans with different languages and customs, including inhabitants of remote communities with little or no knowledge of the English language or of life outside their own community, what would be the means of selecting truely representative indigenous people?
On another loosely related matter that really gets under my skin is the fact that the eloquent, university educated indigenous people who are rightly pushing for the voice, conveniently ignore the elephant in the room, namely, the domestic violence and child sexual abuse which is between two to five times higher, and higher again in remote communities, than in the non indigenous population.
They must be aware of the situation. Back in January 2011 the Australian Institute of Criminology published a paper "Non-disclosure of violence in Australian indigenous communities." The Conclusion stated:
The high levels of violence and abuse seen in some indigenous communities are closely linked to a wide range of other problems such as community disfunction, marginalisation, disempowerment, poverty, alcohol and substance use and other social behaviours.These are major problems with difficult solutions that are well beyond the range of this paper ..........A number of the inquiries and reports cited in this paper show that violence and abuse are so prevalent in some communities that they are seen as inevitable, as something to be tolerated and not disclosed. People in all communities have a fundamental right to live without the expectation that they, or those around them, will be violently victimised. Moving past this to an expectation that victimisation is atypical and intolerable is undeniably necessary.
Surely there are enough problems outlined there, and in many other inquiries and reports, requiring practical solutions that one would expect indigenous supporters of their rights to be clamouring for government funding for further research. But where are they?
As a side note, quite some years ago in my professional occupation I accompanied a federal committee examining the working conditions of indigenous women on cattle stations in Queensland, NT and Western Australia and observed firsthand the poverty and absolute hopelessness of the people. An anthropologist from UNSW who specialised in indigenous customs and practices who accompanied us said the problems are insoluble.