 the Australian context we're trying to actually do this one a little bit differently so that we can try to generate obviously there'll be a lot of questions particularly about reflecting on what we've heard this morning the international context and how that may be adapted or how that may play out here in in Australia so rather than having set speeches from the podium I could just ask each of our panelists here beginning with you Hilary and just moving along just to set out from what you've reflected on this morning how that may impact on the Australian context in four or five minutes and then we can we can take questions and have more of a more of a an organic discussion Hilary if you could begin well I'm conscious I'm I think I'm sitting in for Megan Davis who's ill and can't be here and I'm conscious I'm a very inadequate channeler of her views so here are mine I mean what I've taken from this very rich discussion today is first of all and there are some contradictory messages here so I've got five points I'll make each one one minute that you've got to look at the whole process as a journey and the idea that we've seen in the number of countries how there's often two steps forward and one step back I think Elsa mentioned you know the ideal of patience and we've also got the sense of the persistence we've got that from our Canadian colleagues and the slow progress and also the to be aware of the unintended consequences of reform I took that from our New Zealand colleagues secondly this is a little bit intention perhaps with that point the idea that obviously there's not one reform or one constitutional intervention we can make that will work we're only ever going to be dealing in partial solutions and I sort of like the idea that in a sense to get any real change one has to launch almost an armada of projects some are going to sail safely some are going to sink halfway but we just can't put all our eggs in one particular basket thirdly the I think came through in all the presentations the critical importance of establishing a norm a policy of consultation the idea that I think it was Patrick who gave us the pithy term nothing about us without us referring to Indigenous peoples and the way I thought that the Sami had established the right to be consulted is extremely a really powerful precedent one thing but maybe Fred Cheney I who I was chatting with in one of the breaks and I'm sorry he's not on the panel but maybe Fred can deal with this I one thing that's emerged in some of the conversations and Fred just tell me if I've got you wrong but he was saying well really talking about international language in the Australian context as soon as we refer to international language and talk of human rights this is somehow alienating to the mainstream so we're shooting ourselves in the foot of we invoke international or human rights law too much we've got to find other ways of identifying practical reform in Australia and I've been reflecting on that I think that was that was a response to perhaps the perhaps what Fred saw as the over emphasis on the international and human rights but I would just one thing I'd throw out there is the challenge is we've got in Australia apart from human rights standards very little to work with we've got very little in the current constitution very little in legislation and our courts they're occasional decisions like marbo but generally our courts don't have produced a really impoverished jurisprudence so I see it really as a dilemma about that and finally the point that I'd want to make is that legal reform or constitutional reform is only one thread in the fabric of change we can only we can't we've got to acknowledge that it's really valuable but it's not enough in itself and I was just thinking another sort of field that we haven't looked at at all it's not been the place for it but the field of education it seems to me is equally important as the legal one and I was just conscious being from the university the way that Indigenous studies at Australian universities is woefully underfunded under supported in a really parlous state and one very clear way of eventually changing our general culture of apathy in Australia might be to really seriously rethink the way that Indigenous studies are taught and understood and resourced in the education sector thank you ask me thanks very much I'd like to acknowledge that we're here on Ngunnawal land to acknowledge our elders from the different Indigenous nations here as well as from all over the world and to others who are well-wishers in this journey of ours I'd like to begin with 1992 with the the Marble case where the court the High Court at last dismissed this ugly notion of terranolius the good thing about terranolius it means is that there was nobody here to concede anything so we could never have conceded sovereignty so you know that's a good bit it's always good to see the glass half full what we need to do then is it is for the other side to assert how they have acquired sovereignty with the people they suddenly saw in 1992 so you know we have that the High Court and I know that my brother here or my uncle here Michael Mansell described that that decision as the High Court gives an inch and takes a mile and I do agree with him because we have conceded a lot in that and the High Court had to do that I guess to bring down his decision but in the idea of moving forward in that the High Court recognized these normative systems that lie outside the common law so what the High Court has done is to acknowledge Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander laws cultures as different normative systems that are not part of the common law so when we talk about these issues here we are talking mainly about reforming the the common law and the Anglo-Australian common law it has nothing to do with our systems our systems in as far as Anglo-Australian law is concerned is still intact and this is something with which we should reconnect with and we need time to do that so as we heard last night at dinner our Rajri uncles had a thousand mile walk to get here it is a thousand mile journey and I think constitutional recognition would be one step in that thousand mile journey for the connection to these normative systems I think we look to international law a little bit we understand the problems of Anglo-Australian law being a monist system in other words it does not recognize international law as self-effecting there are other systems which have to be incorporated into domestic Anglo-Australian law if law is to be opposable in our domestic courts but I think if we can have constitutional recognition and I think recognition is symbolic but it is also very deeply legal because recognition means you recognize these people you recognize their right you recognize their existence and so they have legal personality and incorporating the declaration of the rights of indigenous people into domestic law in Australia would also be really good because I think most Aboriginal people or most indigenous people in declaring the the the rights under international law recognize these as customary international rights which are which are Urga Omnes it applies to everybody including Australia and Australia can't say that it does not recognize the international laws so I think constitutional recognition as a symbolic act done beautifully plus the incorporation of the declaration of the rights of indigenous people giving us time to develop our own institutions to in the end have a form of self-determination which is acceptable to our people so thank you thanks ask me Michael thanks Stan what are the options to give Aboriginal people real self-determination or some real form of empowerment keep in mind that Aboriginal people have legal interests in two and a half million square kilometres of land in this country or one third of the land mass those lands could become the territory of a new state of Australia part of federation even if it was the case it wouldn't give it wouldn't establish an Aboriginal only state and it probably wouldn't even give us a majority in that new state but it would give us the greatest guarantee of access to empowerment that we've had in the last 200 years it would provide responsibility for law and order across that state on all those Aboriginal lands including customary law it would provide primary responsibility for health housing education those three core components over which Aboriginal people have been let down so badly by governments both federal and state it would give us a right to raise land taxes it would give us ownership of minerals it would provide us with a right to sit at coag instead of being invited there as an observer and it would give us a right to a share of the GST another option available to us is a national treaty and it is true that the national treaty can't provide the security that a state can because what the federal government gives in a national treaty it can later take away whereas with the statehood the federal government has the power to establish it but doesn't have the power to undo it all the same a national treaty could embrace some of the ingredients that we're talking about with a seventh state for example any treaty with Aboriginal people you would expect to have a land settlement and I at least would say that the category of land in Australia called crown land would disappear because it would revert in ownership to Aboriginal people there would no longer be a category of crown land under national treaty we would expect Aboriginal people to share sovereignty to share in the wealth of the country and the outcome of a national treaty should provide for Aboriginal people to run our communities and be seen as a prosperous people and have the capacity to look towards the future running our own affairs another option yet again that's even closer to home is to take hold of the Torres Strait regional authority and apply across to other parts of Australia to other Aboriginal communities in the Torres Straits an elected board of 20 members has the responsibility for running the affairs of the Torres Strait Islanders in that area 8,000 people and the Commonwealth every year gives it about 50 million dollars to do so yet another option is federal legislated delegated self-government powers to either discrete Aboriginal communities or to a collection of Aboriginal communities my point being that there are these practical options that are part of Australian democracy that are sitting there in front of us for us to consider so why don't we consider them in the minute that I've got left well the reason is because for 10 years we have been stuck in the rut of constitutional recognition which requires a majority of both houses of parliament requires a successful referendum which in turn requires a majority of the people in the majority of the states to end up with an advisory body so why is it this is the mystery why is it that Aboriginal people whenever we talk about real self-determination or real empowerment are always stuck with the most inferior models for us to debate either a constitutionally entrenched advisory body or a legislatively entrenched advisory body we've got a day and a half or day and a quarter or a day and a bit to talk about these other options and get our focus on in what I think is the right direction we've got a free thinking day and a bit and I think the challenge for us is to push the direction and the focus in that direction thank you Michael Bob thank you very much and this is the first time I've spoken so I'd like to also begin by acknowledging the traditional owners it was a pleasure to be at that opening ceremony with Matilda I think I've only been at 200 opening ceremonies by Matilda in my life but nevertheless this was one of the more entertaining ones and I enjoyed it thank you the in some ways I feel quite inadequate because although I've had a lot of experience talking to people from indigenous communities and had a one-stage a mad aspiration to be the minister responsible but we lost that election so that didn't happen but I don't have the depth of experience or knowledge of the other people here so what I thought I might be able to do is give some sense of the political context in which we might be able to go forward and let me draw from the experiences of some of the people who spoke earlier I think it was Brian from Canada who said constitutional change is very difficult and Hillary of course illustrated that in Australia that's probably why there's been no attempt to even no even attempt to change the constitution for 20 years since we had the failed effort to create the republic and I want to come back to an analogy about that in a moment but how do we therefore go forward maybe we shouldn't be going forward with the constitutional attempts and that's Michael's options and that's fine but let me talk about what might be a basis to go forward if we and some of the challenges if we are going down the direction of constitutional change and I think we do have objectively measured we do have a base to build on there was some polling published by essential media recently which said that 45 percent of people supported the idea of an indigenous voice to parliament only 16 percent were opposed to it now that means there are a lot of people have made up their mind but nevertheless there was quite a substantial body of support and 20 percent of those people supported it very strongly so I don't want to create an illusion that would be easy because we've seen those sorts of numbers before more than that percentage supported a republic when the debate started and it was fritted away but it's a base to build on and a substantial base and fortunately a very narrow base of entrenched opposition only nine percent of people were strongly opposed to the idea so there is a potential there long way to go but some potential so what are the what are the risks the risks are at the moment clearly there is some entrenched opposition from at least one of the major parties and that will be a problem until it's changed and you will always have one of the minor parties we you know which one I'm referring to will always oppose this any proposal of this character and I'm one of the few here old enough to remember that in 1967 both the major parties every newspaper supported breaking the nexus and the DLP remember them but fortunately we don't they've been long forgotten they opposed it and they won how could that happen but it shows that any strongly articulated opposition is going to make it difficult and we can be sure there will be at least some so that's one obvious risk but I just want to speak about a second risk and then I'll stop and because it's really about questions when you look at and it's a strained analogy except for one the one point I want to make when you look at the republic it was one of those examples where a lot of people supported in general but nobody supported it in particular or not sufficient what they what the opponents did was pick apart the details they said no we're not necessarily opposed to a republic we just don't like this version we don't like this aspect we don't like this detail and that's what will always happen when you put forward a proposal because of the nature of our constitution has to be a very detailed proposal because it has to go through the parliament and all those things as Michael said correctly and then you expose the proposition to the microscopes that are put on it by conservatives who oppose all change particularly change that's going to be to the benefit of indigenous people so I wanted to start with a positive about the level of support because otherwise you think I'm a real gloomy so and so because I've spoken about all the difficulties I do think there is a basis to succeed I think the level of support is encouraging but I don't want to pretend that it'll be easy it'll be very very difficult but I think there is a way forward and I think it's certainly worth further discussion for the rest of this forum and into the into the future thank you thank you Bob so this you know it's an opportunity now to have some discussion and to ask questions and as you think of those first questions I'd like to just direct the first one to Michael Michael has actually come up here today and given me this book so that I can give it a plug and I don't mind Michael Mansel treaty and statehood Aboriginal self-determination can I recommend actually that people read this it is a it is a profound attempt to grapple with the complexities of dealing with what is Aboriginal claims to sovereignty in the context of Australian liberal democracy and who would have thought that the person often branded an Aboriginal radical in the media was really a conservative constitutional federalist I was thinking John Howard could almost if he was an Aboriginal person because fundamentally Michael what you're saying here and and you say very explicitly in the book is that you are grappling with this question of accepting the legitimacy of the sovereignty of the state and you say it is possible for Aboriginal people to qualify their participation in Australian democracy so as not to be seen as accepting the legitimacy of the system and this is where the idea of this state comes from tell us about how you frame this idea because we hear the word sovereignty a lot and it's often a very amorphous term how you frame the reality of the existing Aboriginal sovereignty today as opposed to what it would have looked like in 1787 how it lives with the reality of the sovereignty of the Commonwealth well of course not sovereignty 200 years ago for white people all indigenous people isn't the same today as it was then you know for white sovereignty in Australia you've got the Commonwealth government that shares sovereignty with the states the states and the Commonwealth shares sovereignty with the high court that can't be removed by either the states or the federal and so their power is limited Aboriginal sovereignty can we can look back and see what was it what were the attributes of Aboriginal sovereignty in 1788 we can then bring them into the negotiating room and say okay which of these attributes are just not practical to apply today okay once we've done it leave them out and that should leave intact the lifestyle the houses the jobs of white people who say listen we don't want to get the discussion a while ago in the previous session we don't want to give anything up to the blacks you don't have to you retain your institutions your courts your legal system you keep all them you retain them intact but there's a lot left outside of that that Aboriginal sovereignty can say well look that's what we had before you lot came here and we should have that back and it won't hurt your lifestyle it won't take away your jobs and it won't destroy your institutions and so it is a matter as I've done in the book of trying to identify what those features are and they're the sorts of discussions I think that should take place because we know that whether it's a treaty or any other national discussion anything that's going to take away from the lifestyle or the enjoyment that white people take for granted 24 million of them a lot of them they are not going to sit down negotiate if anything harms those interests so we have to accept that Aboriginal sovereignty is not what it was in 1788 but it will embrace land it will embrace a sharing of political power designated seats in the parliament or or a Torres Strait Regional Authority arrangements it will also give Aboriginal people rights over housing education and so on so sovereignty will be diminished but what is retained can be important and provide the basis for us going forward that isn't it more than that Michael because you you're actually saying that Indigenous sovereignty as it exists today can be located within those very institutions the institutions of the of the constitution the institutions of our parliament's institutions of our federalism that that in fact is the expression of Indigenous sovereignty those things that Aboriginal sovereignty is not antithetical or hostile to those institutions indeed like you know just on the representation you know the argument of democracy is that the makeup of parliament should reflect the people that the parliament's governed and yet until recently we've now got four Aboriginal delegates inside the parliament so I don't know why we're talking about a voice to parliament we've already got a black voice inside the bloody thing but anyway everybody else who wants something to come from outside on advisory capacity we've got decision makers these people can can vote on legislative can't you of course you can you can vote on this stuff and you can move motions and you can move private members bill even while you're in opposition so you know there is this stuff and and all right it is true and I'm sure our current members in our presence will concede that if you put there by a political party you are compromised because you have to you have to consider the interests of the political party that put you there and their voters as well as try as best you can to progress the interests of your people which they do and they've got a very delicate balance to to consider but if we are going to have representative democracy it ought to apply to Aboriginal people why is it that we are the most powerless people in the country when this is our bloody country they came here and took it over it doesn't matter about the numbers you can't say because we are greater numbers you people are powerless representative democracy means that everybody should be represented and we should find ways for that to occur whether through designated seats the political party's opening up the doors or whatever yeah let's take up the questions as I say I suggest people read this it's almost as if what an Indigenous voice would have looked like or what Indigenous input would have looked like if Aboriginal people were involved in in the debates around Federation if there was an Aboriginal input into Federation I think you'll find a lot of the arguments articulated in the book let me take I'll take three questions and then we can bounce them off the panel first one here yeah thank you so in the interest of kind of looking at kind of radical but practical options I just wanted to say that land is a really important basis for starting to think around jurisdiction but the history of colonisation and settlement in Australia was very uneven so I wonder if part of the story could be around reparations around urban settled areas and that that could take the form of a property tax so we already have land taxes every time property transactions go forward why can't a proportion of that go into you know go into a fund that starts to address some of these governance issues thank you there's another question will you take before we yep one here mine is to Michael in particular um with the ideals of not changing white fellas lifestyles including the laws do you think it would be beneficial to the 28 percent of New South Wales prisoners who are Indigenous to bring in our old-fashioned law as in LO IE as part of the treaty or Makarata to assist with the high detention rates of our people thank you is there one more before we yeah Linda thanks Stan and thank you everyone there actually is that's how the New South Wales land council got established in 0.5 percent of the land tax but my question to the panel is that the notion of a national treaty there are a number of treaty negotiations going on now but a national treaty part of what gets put to you well who do you make the treaty with because we're you know 500 different nation states and that's to me something we need to really think through thank you Linda let me put the first question of treaty to you as mix I know you've given a lot of thought to this idea about how we give form to this but if if there was a national treaty as Linda said who would have been negotiated with I think the notion of a treaty the question is what does a treaty mean and normally when we talk about treaty we think about treaty in international law terms of you know the Vienna convention on the law of treaties something that is regulated between sovereign equals we don't necessarily concede sovereignty as as many Aboriginal people don't so the question is who are the sovereign sovereigns who are going to to enter into treaty who are these sovereigns are going to treat Tony McAvoy who was here our first senior council not sure if he said he put forward a model of a United Nations like body for Indigenous people in Australia who get together and who in a sense create a parliament that can self-determine the content of a treaty I mean saying we need to enter into a treaty is a pretty empty statement the question is not whether we enter into a treaty but what it is we put into a treaty you know you can have an empty treaty which said well we give everything to everybody else I mean that's not much we need to have a treaty that has really good content that looks forward to what you know what people might want in the future and not bind our current generations by what people say is powerlessness of Aboriginal which I don't accept I mean you know that that is a statement which I don't concede I mean people can think whatever they want I guess individually so this idea of a treaty is firstly how do we get people together how do we agree who the sovereigns are who are going to enter into a treaty and then to agree on a treaty framework like the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which will allow these parties to come together and to treat but we also need to have recognition of these individual legal personality for the sovereigns who are going to enter into a treaty so if you think about it in terms of international law it's a fairly complex question and I might just stop there because Hilary is it we're seeing a process already underway in Victoria South Australia is dipped a toe into water and then back out again the Northern Territory has been floating this I think there are murmurings in New South Wales at some point down the line as well are these treaties better negotiated at a state level than they are at a national level because you can identify and contain the issues far more pertinently I'm sure there are many in the room who are more expert on this than I am but but I think one of the issues is that the first of all of course the states have limited jurisdiction and so they would only be able to deal with a particular sort of narrative issue so I'd see that as one as one issue but certainly I know in Victoria that well the law has just passed now to establish an elected body which would do the negotiations so that's one answer that's not necessarily satisfactory but there are always going to be there'll always be questions about who is who is actually who is negotiating but I but I would be it'll be very interesting often in Australia we see that states sometimes as we have say with bills of rights we've got the state sort of experimenting with these and then hopefully that creates some pressure at the national level so it may be that politically that turns out to be quite a good idea because if it works then that might create the momentum and the confidence to have it at the national level. Now go to one of the other questions Michael and put this to you I know you've been involved in this in Tasmania but this question of imprisonment rates and clearly there's a disparity when you look at the rates of Indigenous people locked up in our institutions but this idea of including and you mentioned Aboriginal law LORE but there's also LAW and the way that that can be used to try to mitigate the the high numbers of Indigenous people locked up and to the extent that's already happening anyway the innovations around sentencing and court hearings and that how Aboriginal communities have been more involved in that process. Not enough though we've seen that state and state governments who primarily and responsible for criminal laws have dipped their toes in the in the waters of trying to find ways to divert young Aborigines and Aboriginal re-offenders away from prison but it's very ad hoc. I've always advocated that unless the states or the federal government using their Aboriginal affairs power legislate to impose a responsibility on the courts to look at the diversion programs before their sentence they must tick off on all of these things the imprisonment rates will stay or increase as they have done over the last 20 years. 27% of the population in Western Australia is the West Australian prison is Aboriginal and they're 3% of the population out of 1279 prisoners 1270 prisoners in the Northern Territory 1100 are Aboriginal. I mean that's pretty bloody extraordinary and I think unless you legislate to impose a requirement on the judges and the magistrates those imprisonment rates will continue. Bob you mentioned that you know you had aspirations to be Aboriginal affairs minister we've seen how much damage that can do to anyone who's had the job you might have survived there but when you give your mind to these issues and it's not just I suppose I want to conflate a couple of those questions but it's not just the question of indigenous incarceration but there's a whole raft of measurements that we now look at as part of closing the gap in this entrenched socioeconomic disadvantage and then fold into that that question of reparations as it was put there but I suppose more broadly the question of distribution or redistribution of funds that in a more effective way given how much money is is spent on on indigenous affairs either directly or indirectly so two parts of the question that that ongoing difficulty in closing the gap with your politician the Rex politicians had on and the second of redistribution of money that may better deal with some of those demands well the the question about closing the gap is I mean I really welcome the fact that we're now setting targets and measuring performance against them but I'd rather we were making a bit more progress it's better that we're measuring it than that we're not but we're not actually achieving very much now that should build some demand to do more and I said I'm very pleased that we are now setting targets and measuring performance that gives us some objective measure but it is a pretty sad it tells a pretty sad story including about incarceration rates which Michael speaks about I mean I think as a country it's not only about indigenous people we just put too many people in jail all together a small number of people not in for long enough but too many people in prison all together and that particularly affects indigenous people because of some of the minor infractions for which they get put in jail particularly in the Northern Territory particularly non-payment of fines the question about the the reallocation of money I mean in a sense that's what the ATSIC model was supposed to be about it was supposed to say we're going to hand the responsibility for allocation of indigenous money to these elected representatives that wasn't why it failed it failed for other reasons but I think there is a potential to do to have some reallocation within the money we spend on indigenous people but probably the other aspect that is very unpopular and probably I can say it now because I've left the parliament is we probably don't spend enough you know I mean it's not a question of saying what percentage of the population are they what percentage of the people suffering disadvantage are they and it's a very high percentage and we should be doing some more about that but it's a very easy thing to say and acknowledge a very hard thing to do ask me just to final thought for you and then I'll ask if there's any more questions but that idea of reparations the issue of property tax was raised there how does that factor into any negotiations around treaty how much is that part of the package of your life reparations compensation I know with the New York agreement in western Australia there was a significant compensatory element as part of that deal as well so to what extent is that factored into negotiations around treaties I think you can see them as independent contracts of people entering into contracts under common law because these are all common law contracts so I guess whatever reparations we enter into they're going to be governed by the common law or the treaty of the legislative regime that operates in that jurisdiction I think the broader question of reparations is about ownership of land the issues of sovereignty issues of self-determination and I think a lot of these problems that we're trying to address with band-aids really should be addressed through self-determined people finding their own solutions other people imposing solutions seldom work I think I'm not sure whether people would agree with me but I think most people would think that solutions that are in that in here in their own existence in their own kind of ontologies are the ones that are going to work rather than somebody else's solutions that are going to be put on them and so I think you're constantly set up to fail if you're relying on other people to to find solutions for you so I think the issues of self-determination are crucial to the overcoming of these problems perhaps not tomorrow but maybe in the not too distant future questions anyone yeah there's one again we'll take a couple on the run just one at the back here if I can just remind people as well anyone stream watching live streaming you can also send a question through on the Slido SLI dot do and we can there's one coming in here a bit now so we'll get to our to ask those as well yeah go ahead yeah I'd like to hear a little bit more about the regional authority idea because it seems to me that we're quite used to well let me put it this way Aboriginal people it seems to me often choose to work in sort of regional networks or regional arrangements and we've seen that in a number of jurisdictions recently New South Wales South Australia a couple of examples the same in the Northern Territory in relation to the big land councils that cross major regions so it seems to me that that's a very a very natural way of organising and I also think that there's some issues around different sorts of government's arrangements that we're quite used to in Australia that go beyond state and federal and even local government like catchment management authorities things that have jurisdiction but they're not exactly sort of state bodies or federal bodies so it seems to me that there's a whole lot of ways in which we could start to talk about these regional bodies and agreement making at that level um so I'd like to hear more about that from Michael and I also wonder where the PBCs fit in all of this discussion because in you know the native title um process the whole native title system uh it recognised or un-custom but then didn't really allow the political expression of that in the way it's been interpreted so PBCs are left there have some well resourced others very poorly resourced and yet they they potentially have a very important role I think in all this Liz thank you um if I might I wanted to respond just to some of the points to be made first off I come from Queensland I grew up under the Bealcapitas regime I would be very worried about treaties and negotiated at the state level I think we already have a problem in Australia about Aboriginal people having rights other people having different rights and so on depending on how you've negotiated your native title and so on and I think that that's the risk of a state-based treaty why it should be national even if it's just the framework for a national treaty that allows people to negotiate more localised things within there and in some way that was a structure of ASIC with the idea of regional councils decentralising decision-making back to the region so I just wanted to to um to make that comment on that one the question that Linda asked about how would people uh be used to negotiate a treaty well how do people develop a constitution how does it happen it's not everybody sits down in a room and drafts it you elect representatives they do a draft it's then sent around by you know where people look at it and there's a vote held on it and then depending on that it goes forward so it's not like that it's it's an impossible process to have a treaty signed off in in the arrangements and my last comment I'll make I'm sorry for making comment rather than directing a question but um when I when I asked the question before which was badly put I was referring to things like in the declaration and in the outcome document for world conference indigenous peoples they called upon states and states commit themselves to establish independent impartial mechanisms to resolve disputes between indigenous peoples and the states at the moment indigenous peoples take your complaints forward and then the state decides whether it will accept it or not or resolve it what it will do it's how can you reach an agreement with a body that is basically adjudicating on it that the reason for these impartial bodies in Australia we tried to establish a national native title tribunal to be an independent body but as it turned out under our constitution it couldn't act as a court in order to resolve matters and so on but it was at least meant to be a purpose designed body to deal with these disputes and now all these matters go to the federal court and we run into what it is the roots of colonialism in this country the way the courts are established the fact that they rely so much on the black letter of the law rather than trying to merge into the change that has happened with indigenous peoples being acknowledged as holding rights and the last thing I'll mention is that another recommendation that's from the declaration from the outcome conference is that states commit themselves to raise the awareness in the parliamentarians in the judiciary and the bureaucrats about rights of indigenous peoples because what you'll find if you've got our parliamentarians put the hand up to any who know about the declaration or might have looked at the declaration and so on you see be very very few hands indeed going up so I think that our problems there are environmentally of their root problems which need to be addressed if we're going to do these things that we're aspiring to do thank you and we have a question that's come through on slide I was well which I'll also put and I might put this to you Bob because you know as someone who served in the parliament this questioner asks if you want to have a long standing voice isn't it a bit dangerous to say that we have First Nations people in the House and Senate so then we don't need a voice in the Constitution and I think that was part of the argument wasn't it that the Prime Minister had put in rejecting the idea of the Uluru statement and the voice in the Constitution was that what we already have indigenous people in our Parliament does one negate the other or how can the two actually work together well I think the two can certainly work together I take seriously the fact that after the consultation process the people who met at Uluru said a voice to the parliament was a priority for them not for me to say they're wrong if that's what they think is their priority then I'm happy to try to argue for it that's that was the approach I took the reason I reported on the polling as I did so I think there's no incompatibility and the fact that I think I really welcome the fact that we have an increasing number of indigenous members in the parliament not only in the federal parliament but in several of the state parliaments and the more the better but it doesn't in any way conflict with the idea of having a voice to the parliament that's a matter that I really just accept the choice that the indigenous people made after their consultative process that that was their priority to have that written in the Constitution so if that's what they want I'm happy to support it but Michael you were at Uluru that you have raised that question haven't you about well if there is why is there a need for a voice department when you have a voice in the parliament would those things not be complementary or and it also raises the question doesn't it that those indigenous members of parliament are also representing broader constituencies when I was at Uluru I made the statement that I supported the outcome of the Uluru statement I still do I don't support the interpretation of what was presented at Uluru because one of the things that keeps cropping up is this notion that because the word constitution is somehow in there it's magic even if the parliament and the people of Australia supported a constitutionally entrenched advisory body that doesn't guarantee its existence because under the constitution there is a provision that says there shall be an interstate commission no interstate commission exists because the parliament has a constitutional power to establish it if it chooses but if it doesn't want to it won't so there are these complications and at Uluru everybody was talking about forms of empowerment the interpretation of the voice to parliament subsequently was reduced to an advisory body you have a look at the Uluru statement nowhere does it say we want an advisory body nowhere Hilary can I get you to just reflect on what lesard raised there and then I'll come back to this question of regional authorities but lesbians talking there about and he raised this question earlier and that is the ability of indigenous peoples to deal with an unyielding state and that in effect reaching agreement involves negotiating with the body that is in fact the adjudicator of that how do indigenous groups navigate that and what are the mechanisms effectively for either or how limited are the mechanisms for doing that now and how could that how could that be improved yeah well I think that's an important point and and perhaps as an international lawyer one thing I would say is that I think international pressure that that's one route and I was thinking as I know you're aware of this says but you know Australia especially now we're a member of the human rights council we've paraded credentials as you know this this human rights respecting country seemed to me that there were there was remarkably little pressure on Australia at that point during its campaign to question that partly because there was exactly the number of nominees for the seats it wasn't a real election at all but there is the universal periodic review a procedure of the human rights council where Australia is often challenged on its situation if this happens every four and a half years and it seems to me that marshalling the pressure also I I think Victoria spoke about using the UN human rights treaty bodies as another form where Australia has to turn up under the various human rights treaties there are various pressure points I think there that could be used in a more perhaps strategic and consistent way now I just want to finish and we're almost done but the final question and I think it wraps up where we began and Michael this was an opportunity for you to flesh out some of those ideas that are contained in your book and this question of the regional authority or as a state as as you put it and as it was put by the question it was a natural way of organizing and there are a whole range of different authorities and organizations that exercise degrees of control within our within our political system but if I could just sharpen that question a little bit and then I'll get Bob to finish on a reflection on the how politically feasible it is but the idea and you know what it's like in these hit things hit the headlines in the media the black state the idea of some form of separatism the idea that the people are being segregated how do you deal with the political reality or the the the reality of dealing with this in terms of convincing an Australian public or making a political case when you're running into those immediate headwinds can I just jump in then and say the Nunavut arrangement is a provincial state in Canada it's a public public state it's not a private indigenous state so anybody lives there anybody who lives there has the same capacity on a non-discriminatory basis as anybody else like in here in the ACT or in Victoria or in Western Australia to participate in that state nowhere in the Australian Constitution does it say any state or any government or any territory must be dominated by whites it doesn't say that it simply says the people and Aboriginal people should count and therefore if we're looking at applying the principles of democracy and taking on board the text and the essence of the Australian Constitution we should be entitled to a range of options if statehood is too frightening for Aboriginal people to consider don't walk away from a treaty don't walk away from the Torres Strait Regional Authority model let's have a look at those models next let's not just go for the lowest common denominator of putting ourselves down by saying we have a right to be governed and they have a right to govern and just to clarify Michael in terms of the geographical location of the state where would you envisage that state being and carved out of which existing territory well I know where the parliament could be and the first thing it could do is change the colour of the outside from an all white or black or foot Aboriginal designs and wouldn't that be great and look if you have a look at the map that's in my book or done by Markham and who's John Altman it shows all of the land interests are pretty much in the central part of Australia the land that no one else really wanted and dispossession is still an issue for those who have got very little land including in Tasmania but for those people who have got some legal interest in their lands recognised why shouldn't they have the empowerment to run those lands and their communities the same way as white people run their lands and their cities and towns the way they choose it's simply asking for the application of fairness across the board Bob just a final comment from you how would that politically fly given what you know about the Australian electorate and how difficult it is to get any reform through it no the idea of a separate state is not going to fly even though I understand the underlying principles but the Torres Strait Regional Authority model has got something going for it and that is something that works in the Torres Strait I've been up there and seen in the past not for a few years but it was working quite well and I just want to pick up one other point there that went to again from the questioner about pbcs because they are bodies that are given a lot of responsibility after native title is granted and they've and unless they happen to be very fortunate they wind up not having the resources to do the very important job they're given we say hooray we've given native title here you are and then we walk away and they wind up with a shaky old chair and an old desk and nothing else to do enough and no other resources to do the job so I think that's a very important question it's not doesn't go to these big questions we're dealing with in this forum but it's a very important question we need to do something about thank you very much please thank you panel now we're moving to the final stage of our of our session our final session today looking at the future if i'd introduce Brooke boney from triple j news presented at the abc and amygia noble if they could come forward some of the younger leaders here among us who are imagining their lives the journey of their lives reflecting on the sacrifices that have gone before them and where they would like to see what is the future that they imagine for us here in our country's australians as indigenous people uh Brooke boney is our first speaker from abc i'd like to start by acknowledging that we're meeting on the traditional length of the nanowall and nambry people and as a gamilaroi woman pay my respects to their elders past and present it's these elders that I thank every day for the life I have now and for the fortunate position that I find myself in and the other elders in the room as well who've worked so incredibly hard to pave a way for me and other young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and that's what i'm here to talk to you about the youth what we inherit and what we pass on I worked on the recognize campaign with an incredible group of men and women who spend their whole lives whole careers committed to bettering other indigenous people's lives and one of those people is unni jackie huggins you know how there are some moments some key moments during intense periods of work that just really stay with you well unni jackie is a part of one of those moments for me we were traveling around northern new south wales and it's one of the most beautiful locations in the world and if you've ever been there then you'll know what i'm talking about we were holding some town meetings and we were carrying with us the spirit of the 67 campaigners and we talked about their struggles and we talked about how much easier it was for us we weren't sleeping in the same room we weren't scraping money together to get around or eating devon sandwiches not that I'd be entirely opposed to that because I do like devon sandwiches it was gruelling though people both indigenous and non-indigenous attacked us and they were long days and we're away from our support networks and our families and people who loved us but at the end of it as I was about to get on a tiny plane and come back to sydney unni jackie grabbed me and took my hands in hers she lent in and she said look brook it can be really difficult working for our people sometimes it's thankless and sometimes I worry about what's going to happen in the future and then she looked me in the eyes and she said but when I look at you I know that we're going to be okay that we're in safe hands and I nearly bloody cried it was one of the most and it still is one of the most lovely things that anyone's ever said to me I've thought about it a lot over the last few years and what I've landed on is that I'm in the position that I'm in now or I speak to two million young Australians every week because of women like unni jackie there's a Maya angelo quote that I love and that is that your crown has already been paid for by the people who came before you there's infinite wisdom in everything that great woman has said but this one in particular fits this story this time for us I love it because it gives me the strength and confidence to push on when things get tough because I know that all of you have worked so incredibly hard to put me here and it gives me a sense of purpose as well and to continue to fight for our rights because I know that I have to pay for the crowns of the people younger than me but it also makes me think about what it means to be bestowed with such an honour to wear a crown to be someone who's chosen when I say civil rights what do you think of one man right Martin Luther King his voice his words his bite when I say 1967 campaigners what do you think of was the group of them all of them traveling around the goodwill of our fellow Australians towards us the mood the vibe of it and this is where we're different in our struggle and this is where we must be different in our struggle indigenous ways of knowing and being have always and will always be community based when one rises we all rise when one falls we pick them up no single one of us deserves a crown individually we must all wear that crown with pride and confidence knowing that our ancestors struggled to pay for it but keep it safe so that we can pass it on there were many legacies of the recognize campaign some of them were good and some of them were not so good the goodwill of the Australian public towards us at that time was palpable and I think it still is this is one of the incredible legacies of the timing of that campaign that people care about us it's cool again to care about the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people I talk about this stuff in Bondi or on the radio and instead of people feeling uncomfortable or rolling their eyes they say yeah no duh it's a no brainer one of the negative things and I'm sure I don't have to tell you this after all it's why we're all here is the fracturing of our community and our leadership despite everyone having the best intentions and all wanting the best for our people we've found ourselves in positions at opposite sides of the table instead of sitting in a circle we've found ourselves struggling for civil rights in a way that is not ours people thinking about that crown the final and I would say one of the most enduring and important legacies of that campaign is the fact that there were a group of incredible young people who were taught how to campaign in a really sophisticated way by Tanya Hosh, Tim Gartrell and Marquette Capolson we know how to engage governments and politicians we know how to speak to mass audiences we know how to engage with our own leadership and run road shows even though we might get yelled at and I know that I'm younger than you and I'm not in a position to be telling anyone what to do or how to do it but I am in a position to ask favours to ask things of you and what I'm asking for is some kind of unity whatever form that might take whatever differing opinions there are within our community we need to push forward in the same direction we need to make the most of the time that we're in with all of that goodwill with all of that skill within the and the wherewithal to take advantage of that so that we can inherit something that's worth pathing on thank you thank you our second speaker is Amelia Noble good afternoon my name is Amelia Noble I would also like to start by acknowledging that we are on Ngunnawal and Nambri lands I'd like to pay my respects to elders past and present and to recognize that sovereignty over this land and indeed over all the lands that we now call Australia has never once been ceded as a non-indigenous person I think it's also important to acknowledge that I stand here as a beneficiary of the theft of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands territories and waters of the brutal and systematic assaults on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives languages and cultures the whitewashing of the last 230 years of this country's history and the many ongoing injustices faced by our first nation's peoples it is an extraordinary privilege to live on this country on Aboriginal land and I'm immensely grateful to the organisers for the opportunity to attend this forum and to listen listen to and learn from so many extraordinary leaders both from here in Australia and overseas I've been asked to reflect as Stan mentioned on what a change would would mean to Australia and to discuss the kind of future that I would like to see as a young non-indigenous person I'm very aware of the fact that this forum is about learning from first nation's peoples from around the world and most importantly it's about following the extraordinary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in this country to me one of the necessary and basic preconditions of making space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices is that non-indigenous people learn to listen rather than to be the ones doing the talking the telling and the deciding I don't think it's my place to discuss what reforms should look like and I certainly lack both the wisdom and the experience to do this in any case as a result I will try to keep this very brief and and we'll simply try to reflect the reflect upon the type of society that I hope to live in and why the discussions that are happening here today and tomorrow matter to me as a young person in Australia one of the things that I would like to see in the future and this has already been touched upon few times today is an Australian society that is willing to interrogate the systems structures and institutions that we live within one that is willing to hold up a mirror not only to our past but also to our present I find it disconcerting that is often that it is often those whose lives are most deeply affected by the failures of our colonial systems and structures who also bear the burden of persuading the non-indigenous majority and the people in power to acknowledge the failures of our systems to listen follow and to change while I was a student at ANU I spent some time working for an Aboriginal Legal Aid organization in Darwin where one of our clients was a 21 year old Aboriginal man who I'll call Jack Jack had spent almost a third of his young life in jail and after a number of requests was finally transferred from our springs to the Darwin Correctional Centre so that he could be closer to his family two days after Jack arrived in Darwin a fight broke out between inmates in a different section of the prison one of the inmates blamed the fight blamed the fight on Jack and without a moment's consideration the authorities made the decision to increase Jack's security classification to maximum security and he was moved back to our springs almost a fifth over 1500 kilometers away from his family without the opportunity to be heard at the time of the incident Jack was in an entirely different wing of the prison there was no evidence to support the other inmates claim and no possibility that Jack could have been involved Jack had written multiple letters to the prison asking to have his point of view heard but they all went unanswered his lawyers hands were also tied because the Northern Territories Correctional Services Act vests the commissioner and their delegates with broad powers to do anything they consider appropriate to maintain the security and good order of the territory's prisons the laws of the Australian state mean that the decision Jack was hoping to appeal a type of decision that can have very real lasting and sometimes catastrophic consequences for prisoners and their families can be made without evidence fairness hearing or any independent oversight it is non-indigenous people who vested correctional officers in that prison with unbridled decision-making power it is non-indigenous people who created and who enforce the justice system that imprisons Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at a rate 12 times higher than that of the rest of the population it is non-indigenous people who are responsible for the hosts of other failures within our systems including the justice system yet it was Jack and his family who were asking the important questions how did these laws come about what do they mean who do they affect how do they affect people and how can they be changed whether it's the prison system the justice system the health education or child protection systems or whether it's the constitution and the very structure of this democracy the systems impose on the first nations people of this country as everyone would know are causing ongoing harm and it is the first nations people of this country who have been working to convince Indigenous Australians to address the consequences of the colonial project as professor Mick Dodson so eloquently remarked last night it is Aboriginal people who are left to pick up the wreckage and when it is finally accepted that a system is deficient or harmful and the task turns to addressing the source of that injustice to change the law we see a shift all of a sudden it is non-indigenous people who have the opinions and voices that matter most our prime ministers cowardly dismissal of the proposal from Uluru for an advisory body in parliament is one such example of this paternalism in practice those who live in an imposed system and who often suffer its harshest consequences and who as first nations should have the power to determine what their futures look like lose their voice and the failings of the colonial system are instead reframed as an Indigenous problem this is all despite the fact that it is most often Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have taken the necessary steps to think outside the box and to re-imagine and rethink how our democracy functions one of the things that I'm most grateful for at my time as a student at ANU was the opportunity I provided to learn from academics like uncle asmy wood and Mary Spiers Williams who are here who opened my eyes to the importance of reimagining what our society can look like as law students we learnt not only why the justice system was failing and causing harm but also that it is possible to reimagine how and imagine how it could look differently we learnt that a classroom or a parliament does not have to be a four-world building we were taught to value the knowledge passed and transmitted through song dance art and story just as much as the knowledge transmitted in books and journals we were given insights into Aboriginal dispute resolution processes processes which from the outside seem far more just and more effective than our courts we became aware that structural change can't happen with creativity and without challenging the status quo we learnt that we must decolonize this society we must decolonize our institutions our universities our schools and our democracies so in terms of my aspirations for the future as a young person I think they're quite simple first and foremost I want to live in a society where non-indigenous Australians follow Aboriginal leadership where laws and policies that affect our first peoples are written and amended by our first peoples I want to live in a society that is okay with being self-critical that is prepared to record readily recognize its faults a society that is alert to its failures and shortcomings and that is willing to interrogate them a society where Jack has a voice and a society that does not need to be convinced that his first peoples of this country Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the most important voice in con conversations about governance about sovereignty and in imagining what a different future could look like thank you thank you Emilio that concludes our session for today we're going to be gathering outside for a reception as well I think just as we close today it's important to reflect on what we've heard and some of the the ideas that have been presented and I think one of the things that really leaps out to me is that we've heard today that we are not alone that the struggle that we've gone through in Australia is a struggle that's been mirrored in other parts of the world we heard earlier today about the change the political innovations in countries like Mexico and Peru Ethiopia and Bolivia we heard about the New Zealand Maori experience the impact of the Treaty of Waitangi the the seats that are set aside for Maori people in their parliament we heard about the Sami parliament and how that transcends state borders and co-exists with the with the the parliaments of those particular countries I think we're also reflecting on the fact that this meeting today is happening at a time when the very idea of liberal democracy in the world is under attack and that we also remind ourselves that we can have a meeting like this because we live in a country where we have the freedoms to be able to meet like this liberal democracy as we know is far from perfect as Winston Churchill once said it is the worst form of government except for all the others and I think it's important to reflect on the fact that there are many parts of the world with increasing authoritarianism in our world today there are many parts of the world I've lived in them and reported on them where we could not have this meeting and we could not make the comments that we've made today and I think that's important to remember a few songs we heard earlier in the day as well I am you are Australian and Hilary recited a few words from Yothi Indi's Treaty and I think it's an important important to actually close on the final words of that song now two rivers run their course separated for so long I'm dreaming of a brighter day when the waters will be one and I think that's important to remember as we reflect on what we were doing here today that you've come here with in good faith with the idea of improving this democracy and making it a fairer place for everyone we'll be back again tomorrow we're going to break into our groups tomorrow and have detailed discussion about what we've put forward today so thanks to everyone who's participated fantastic day and thanks for hanging in thank you