Page 3730 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 November 2022
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final proposal is put forward. On this very important issue it is crucial to get the details right.
In taking this position we have taken our cue directly from the territory’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. My good friend and Ngunnawal elder William “Billy T” Tompkins—who I name with permission—was at Uluru in 2017 and put his signature to the Statement from the Heart. According to him, many other delegates did not put their names down on the statement, including the other Ngunnawal representative who was there with him. About 40 or 50 per cent actually left the room.
We have been told that this pattern is reflected right across the territory. There are Indigenous Canberrans who support the statement and its call for a First Nations voice, and there are other Indigenous Canberrans who, for various reasons, do not, including a belief that more words on paper merely decrease the likelihood that outcomes will genuinely improve—as they must. Some Indigenous Canberrans currently have no opinion and some are torn between two opinions. The Canberra Liberals respect all of these positions and have no desire to impose a single opinion or any kind of groupthink on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Amongst those who support the Uluru statement, not all support it wholeheartedly or for the same reasons, and not all trust the new federal government to get this matter right. Many are taking a “wait and see” approach. Like my colleagues and me, they want more details and a robust opportunity to engage with those details. This will provide an opportunity for all of us to assess the merits of what specifically is being proposed.
Throughout this process the Canberra Liberals will respect diversity of thought amongst the territory’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents. We are willing to give the Australian government space to develop this proposal, and we will, like many in the Indigenous community, await the details.
As my colleagues and I often point out, those opposite love to flirt with federal matters, whilst ignoring the messes in their own backyard. In her motion, Dr Paterson highlights some of the discrepancies from the Closing the Gap information repository. She chooses not to mention, however, areas in which the ACT has achieved no improvement, according to this same source. These areas include the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are born healthy and strong, the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in the child protection system, and the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in the criminal justice system.
To say that this Labor-Greens government is struggling to close the gap when it comes to criminal justice is a tragic understatement. According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last December, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males in the ACT are imprisoned at a rate 19.6 times greater than non-Indigenous males, and 17.5 times greater if age-standardised data are used. In either case, this is the worst ratio of any state or territory.
At the same time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females in the ACT are imprisoned at a rate 47.4 times greater than non-Indigenous females. Think about that:
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