Page 3925 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 29 November 2022
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The Our Booris, Our Way final report in 2019 stated:
Our children should be safe with their parents, strong in culture and proud of their identity. In exercising our self-determination, we also need to be responsible as parents to care for our children and to seek support if we know our children are at risk. We acknowledge that for this to happen we need to have trusted and culturally appropriate early support services that are easy to access.
The ACT Greens support the full implementation of the recommendations in the Our Booris, Our Way review. I also want to thank the committee for the years of work that they have put into this. This Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s commissioner is an important part of those recommendations. The right of First Nations people to self-determination underpins the way that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s commissioner will work, including its framework, powers and functions.
The Jumbunna Institute, Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt and Associate Professor Paul Gray facilitated a co-design process to design the new commissioner in 2021, including hearing from young people at Bimberi Youth Detention Centre. True co-design work takes time and requires significant commitment from the community members who are part of the process. I am always thankful for the time they take to inform the ACT government about the work we need to do. Listening to and supporting our First Nations community has been the best way to achieve the right outcome in designing the role of the new commissioner. We must continue in our commitment to listen, understand and support our First Nations people.
Larissa Behrendt described self-determination in 2002 as “a vision of increased Indigenous autonomy within the structures of the Australian state”. Acknowledging that this always was and always will be Aboriginal land, that sovereignty was never ceded and that the work of truth, treaty and voice continues in our journey towards true reconciliation, there is a lot we can do right now that creates space for self-determination within our existing structures. This commissioner is one such example. It is right that the commissioner will be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person and will be appointed through a process that involves the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in the ACT. This provides a level of transparency that is important in establishing such a fundamentally important new, independent office.
The commissioner will have the responsibilities and powers to make recommendations to intervene or join proceedings on individual cases and to make recommendations and advocate on systemic issues. The commissioner will act in the best interests of the child through a cultural lens, understanding the importance of connection to family, community, culture and country. I cannot stress enough how important it is to understand that what affects one child within the Aboriginal community has effects on everyone in the community, and that understanding identity and relationships with community and cultural responsibilities is fundamental to a child’s wellbeing and requires strong connections to country.
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