Focus Study - E, P, H, L factors

Question 1

The role and influence of historical factors

Answer 1

These relate to the ways in which Indigenous Australians have been treated by white settlers through history.

They include things that limited access to SVRs like dispossession from land, exclusion from public life

Question 2

The role and influence of political factors

Answer 2

These are forces from the social institution of government.

They include policies, and legislation that comes from state and federal governments.

The government has the power and authority to create these laws.

Question 3

The role and influence of legal factors

Answer 3

These are forces from the social institutions that enforce laws. It includes police and the court and prison systems.

This includes discrimination and prejudice by law enforcers towards Indigenous persons

Question 4

The role and influence of economic factors

Answer 4

Economic forces relates to finances at an individual and institutional level.

Includes provision of welfare

Includes cost of provision of access to SVR’s such as education, health care, housing.

Includes access to paid employment and education which is the gateway to improved quality of life.

Question 5

Legal factors statistics
- Intervention by foreign countries

Answer 5

ATSI people made up 32% of the average prisoner population in the June quarter of 2022, despite 3% of the population.

2009 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination requested that the Australian Government take action to ensure that the NT Intervention complies under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

Question 6

Legal factor example

Answer 6

Sydney Morning Herald newspaper drew on this same data to argue that the “majority of prison deaths for Aboriginal prisoners were due to natural causes”

For example, following the death of Veronica Marie Nelson, the carceral lobby sought medical expertise to claim that Veronica Marie died, not due to the negligence of Dame Phyllis Frost Women’s Prison but due to a rare disease known as Wilke’s syndrome.

Question 7

Historical factor: Exclusion example

Answer 7

A survey of more than 1,600 local residents and businesses that found nearly 60% of respondents wanted to see Australia Day celebrated on a different date

Question 8

Historical factor: Inclusion - Land Rights

Answer 8

1962 - the Federal Government gave Aboriginal peoples the optional right to vote.

1967- 90% of Australian voters supported the referendum to include Aboriginals in our census and allow federal government to make laws governing them.

1992 - Mabo
Mabo v Queensland (No 2) is an important decision of the High Court of Australia. The decision is notable for having recognised that some Indigenous Australians have proprietary rights to land, in a legal form of ownership referred to as “native title”.

1996 - Wik
On the 23 December 1996, four judges voted for and three voted against pastoral leases to not extinguish native title rights.

Question 9

Historical factors: Inclusion - Whitlam’s Government

Answer 9

1975- returned traditional lands in NT to the Gurindji people.

Passed the Racial Discrimination Act (1975) which outlawed discrimination against Aboriginal people

Policy of ‘self determination’ was adopted:
- Supported decision-making by Indigenous communities themselves
- Relinquished paternalistic control over the lives of Indigenous people.
- Empowered Indigenous people to claim back their land
- Abolished discriminatory practices that limited freedoms and opportunities.

Inequality suffered by Indigenous people, Whitlam argued, should cause Australians an ‘unrelenting’ and ‘deep determined anger’.

Question 10

Legal factors: Inclusion - Redfern Park Speech
- Quote by Prime Minister

Answer 10

Prime Minister publicly acknowledged the largely adverse impact European settlement has had on Aboriginal Australians.

After a year after the death of Aboriginal land rights campaigner Eddie Koiki Mabo the High Court recognised that Indigenous Australians had legal claims against the dispossession of their lands.

“We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice.”

Prime Minister Paul Keating

Question 11

Legal factors: Inclusion - The Custody Notification Service

Answer 11

Set up in 2000 to respond to recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
- 24-hour legal advice and RU OK phone line for Aboriginal people taken into police custody.

When police phone our CNS, clients receive legal advice from an ALS lawyer, ensuring their fundamental legal rights are respected and less Aboriginal people are imprisoned.

Until July 2016 there had not been an Aboriginal death in a police cell in NSW since the CNS was established.
- The CNS was not notified and an Aboriginal woman died in police custody.

Question 12

Historical factors: Inclusion - Murray-Darling Basin Indigenous River Rangers Program

Answer 12

World Ranger Day 2021, the Australian Government announced the establishment of 5new Indigenous river ranger groups.

The $3.1 million program empowers Indigenous organisations to improve waterway health, manage country and sustain the Basin’s valuable environmental assets.

The rangers, ranger coordinators and support staff will use their knowledge and connection to country to support environmental and cultural outcomes across the breadth of the Basin.

Question 13

Historical factors: Inclusion - Languages Policy Partnership

Answer 13

Approximately 150 ATSI languages spoken in Australia, with only 14 languages considered strong. Immediate action is essential to reverse this rate of loss.

Est. December 2022, will identify opportunities to work more effectively across governments with First Nations peoples to support the shared commitment to progress action on Target 16.

First Nations peoples are equal parties with government in the Languages Policy Partnership and will work together to improve outcomes

Question 14

Historical factors: Inclusion - Language

Answer 14

On 23 December 2022, the Commonwealth announced the successful candidates for the Closing the Gap pilot program, which establishes partnerships between Indigenous language centres and local service delivery partners.

The recommendations were made in partnership with a panel made up of First Languages Australia, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation.

Question 15

Australia historical factors

Answer 15

British settlement in 1788 Indigenous Australians have experienced dispossession, marginalisation and exclusion

Myall Creek, NSW in 1836, or at Coniston, Northern Territory in 1928

Population of Indigenous Australians from approx 700,000 in 1788 to approx 93, 000 in 1900.

Assimilation policies broke down family relationships and undermined individuals’ connections to their Aboriginal heritage

Australia War Memorial, Aboriginal people are represented alongside wild animals, reptiles and birds

Question 16

Historical factors - perceptions towards ATSI people
- Quotes

Answer 16

Australian Day 2013, celebrating the founding of Australia. For Aboriginal, day of mourning.

“I’ve heard from the media that they’re drunk and they can’t get up and they don’t want to help themselves.”

“They get offered a lot of things but thats what they want. They like to live in that circumstance.”

Question 17

Historical factors - Rottnest Island

Answer 17

1838 camp, horrors and concentration
with 300 Aboriginals murdered and buried. camps of Aboriginals not mentioned. Pamphlet says “Play and stay.”

“We are refugees in our own countries”
“Australia must be the only country that makes a tourist hotel out of a place of carnage”

240$ a night to stay

Question 18

Historical factors - Uluru + living conditions

Answer 18

2,000$ night.

Fewer than 1000 new houses in 2008 by the Government in NT
- 70% identified as “caution yellow”
- BUT “We have nowhere else to live”

With overcrowding cross infections that all children are cromed to is rampant
- 70% ear infection, partly deaf
- 8-9 children on a single bed.

A government report a single cause of poverty for Aboriginal people is Housing

Following his apology, Kevin Rudd promised 700 million for Aboriginal Housing.

Question 19

Historical factors - NT Intervention
- Influence

Answer 19

National TV show “Lateline”
- Programs allegations centred on Aboriginal community in Mutijulu

“People who are in control are drug dealers, petrol warlords and the pedophiles” - Former Youth Worker/Gregory Andrews

Footage showing Aboriginal children sniffing petrol.
- BUT different community 100km away

Dr Hilary Tyler (co-author Central Australian Specialists report)
- After 11 000 health checks of children that had been performed only 1 child was found with a health condition that wasn’t otherwise known - not sexual assault

Question 20

Historical factors - NT Intervention

Answer 20

To launch the policy, federal government with the assistance of the Labour Party suspended the Racial Discrimination Act

Patricia Morton-Thoma (film producer and acted)
- Grab people off the street who they believe need protection. Protective custody

Govt crashing into the Mutitjulu community to obliterate pedophiles.

Question 21

Historical factors - Stolen Generations

Answer 21

Jay Creek, Northern Territory

The policy was assimilation. Influenced by the eugenics movement which had links to Fascism

One official described it as “breeding out the black.” Genocide

Australian men could choose which Aboriginal girl they liked

Many would become domestic servants in middle-class homes and undeclared system of slave labour

1920s-1950s they were easy prey for sexual predators. Rape and sexual exploitation were used by white used against Aboriginal women and children

Question 22

Historical factors - Apology

Answer 22

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd 13th February 2008

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks (Alyawarr/Arrerte elder) “It was not an apology on the murder, rape, eveyrthting aboiginal Australians. It was an apology for stealing so many of our kids with the same intentions of assimilating them”

Question 23

Historical factors - Suicide

Answer 23

Robert Eggington, a warrior of the Nunga people of Western Australia
- Healing centre in Perth called “Kootamiara Quab”
- Lost their own son Bob.

Young Aboriginal men, loss of identity, culture and heritage plays a key role in the sense of where their self-worth is diminished

Robert and Selina have made this a memorial room and covered it with photographs of Aboriginal people and their families all touched by lives that got cut short

Question 24

Economic factors - School + Living conditions
- Quotes

Answer 24

$44,128 for every Indigenous person
- 6 years at high school means the government spenders about $48,000 per non-ATSI student and this is just for their period at secondary school

Same as a documentary John Pilger filmed 28 years ago. Same sack, lack of basic services, trachoma and it is all entirely preventable

Salil Shetty (Secretary General, Amnesty International)
“Shocking that you can have this level of poverty, lack of basic facilities in one of the richest countries in the world”

Question 25

Economic factors - Living conditions
- Example
- Quotes

Answer 25

Mr Davie aged 47 died heart attack in his humpy. 20 miles from the clinic.
- Doctor compared the conditions with 19th-century Dickensian disease.
- That Australia shamelist not conquered trachoma which even poor countries like Sri Lanka has conquered

⅓ of Aboriginal people are dead before the age of 45
- Otitis media (ear infection) delays learning

Question 26

Economic factors - Mining industry

Answer 26

2007 a campaign called “Top and Secret 2” launched by the NT govt for new mineral deposits.

Dave Sweeney (Australian Conservation Foundation)
“It makes a profit of around a billion dollars a week. Just under $52 billion dollars a year”

2010, Gina Rinehart speng 22 million dollars on ‘axe the tax’ campaign to stop a proposed tax
- Succeeded. Labour party Julia Gillard reduced the tax to almost nothing.

The revenue loss is estimated at 60 billion dollars. - Enough to end Aboriginal poverty

Question 27

Political factors - Inclusion of ATSI
- Govt interventions

Answer 27

The 1967 referendum empowered the Commonwealth Government to implement policies and laws relating to Aboriginal Australians.

Provision of government funding for services such as legal aid, housing, education and health services, to be administered by the states and Aboriginal communities.

Warren Snowdon (Minister for Indigenous Health)
- Claims he made significant policies addressing chronic disease management since 2007

Question 28

Political factors - Lack of intervention by govt
- Example

Answer 28

Aus Day 2008, Mr Ward died in police car 56 degrees. Driven 300 miles.
- Took 2 years to do nothing

Margaret Quirk (WA Minister for Corrective Services)
- Made staff undertake cultural sensitivity training
–> About Aboriginal culture, what the issues were, from a correctional service persepctive.

Gerry Georgatos (journalist)
- 14th prison, WA applauded. The prisoners are going to be all Aboriginal prison from less than 3% of the population
- Black Australians most imprisoned on earth

Question 29

Political factors - NT Intervention
- Impact of the intervention

Answer 29

2007
- Their aim: “…was to save Aboriginal children from pedophiles”
- People who refused to hand over the lease of their land were denied basic services like decent housing and sanitation
- Government Jobs Scheme that employed thousands in remote areas eliminated
- Benefits and pension was restricted and people could only buy essentials with a basics card
- Income quarantined = Starvation
- Attempted suicide + self-harm quadrupled

Question 30

Political factors - Reoccurance of the Stolen generation
- Example

Answer 30

Within a year of Rudd’s apology 37 Aboriginal children were taken from their families allegedly from neglect.
- Given to white and lost contact with their family
- New Stolen Generation

North of Queensland 200 babies were removed from their mothers in the hospital hours by Child protection services.
- No explanation of process

“Northern Territory Coordinator-General for Remote Services Report” (June 2011 to August 2012)
- In 1 year govt spent 80 million dollar on surveillance and removal of children compared to 500, 000 on supporting impoverished families.

Question 31

Legal factors - Laws to include ATSI people

Answer 31

1967 referendum
Apology in 2008
Recent discussions about including First Australians in constitution
Racial Discrimination Act (1975)
Mabo Decision, which overturned the notion of terra nullius (land belonging to no one)1992
Wik Decision of 1996.

Question 32

Legal factors - Exclusion from the 20th century

Answer 32

The justice system allowed removal of children from families and traditional lands, and included some control over marriage and employment.
- Paternalistic - father-like

Younger Indigenous people, are 24x more likely to be in detention than non-Indigenous youth
- Impact of the Stolen Generations, police behaviour, a lack of understanding of legal processes and the absence of appropriate legal representation.

Question 33

Legal factors - Protective custody

Answer 33

27 yr old Mr Brisco died from intoxication, asphyxia and his treatment by the police who ignored cries to help him.

Incarceration 6x that of non-black people. Compared to last 10 years for Apartheid in South Africa = W.A. 8x more.

1981 Eddy Murray died in police custody in NSW town. No one was prosecuted. A second inquest found that his sternum has been smashed

Question 34

Legal factors - Workers’ right

Answer 34

Arthur from Wee Waa worked as Cotton Chippers. Paid just over $1 an hour

Cotton Chippers went on strike. Hundreds marched through the towns.
- Better working and living conditions.

The local newspaper called them “communist troublemakers”

Question 35

Legal factors - Black deaths in custody
- Propaganda

Answer 35

“Stop black deaths in custody”

Propaganda. “Less than 3% of the population should claim 50% of our land?””

Newspaper ads.
- “You thought it was your home, think again.”
- By targeting iconic places “Have you loved this? Your kids might not get a chance to, Aboriginal people will lock it up…You will need permits to go to your favourite beach cuz the blacks will take it”