More than 100,000 Australian Electoral Commission staff will receive Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural competency training following allegations that a First Nations family was mistreated by polling staff during the 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum.
Last year, Barkindji Koori man Murray Benton, his brother and their mother filed a claim in the Federal Court against the AEC, alleging they were left feeling criminalised and traumatised by the conduct of polling staff while voting in the referendum.
The family alleged Mr Benton's mother and brother were told by AEC staff to remove their Yes23 campaign shirts inside the polling booth.
When they attempted to raise their concerns and lodge a formal complaint, they claimed they were accused of being aggressive and threatened with police action over the alleged theft of the very form they had been given to submit the complaint.
Following the resolution of the Federal Court proceedings, the AEC agreed to implement a series of reforms aimed at improving cultural safety and accessibility across the electoral system, including providing cultural competency training to all 100,000 temporary election workers before the next federal election.
Furthermore, the AEC will make the previously voluntary training mandatory for its more than 1,000 ongoing staff and also establish a dedicated telephone support line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples during election periods.
Mr Benton said the case was never about assigning blame, but about ensuring no other First Nations family experienced what his family did "when exercising something as fundamental as their democratic right to vote".
"The measures agreed to by the Australian Electoral Commission represent meaningful, practical change," he said.
"Cultural competency training for more than 100,000 election workers and stronger support for First Nations voters are vital steps towards ensuring our electoral system is safe, respectful and accessible for everyone."
He said the outcome demonstrated the importance of speaking up when people experience discrimination.
"Lasting change is possible when institutions are willing to listen, reflect and work in genuine partnership with communities to strengthen the systems that serve us all," Mr Benton added.
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The family was represented by the National Justice Project, with its CEO, George Newhouse, saying the outcome showed that when First Nations people raise concerns and are heard, and institutions are willing to listen and respond accordingly, "meaningful reform is possible".
"Access to justice begins when people are supported to speak up about discrimination and have clear pathways to hold institutions accountable," he said.
"Individual complaints can lead to systemic change, and tools like Hear Me Out and the Call It Out Racism Register help make sure those experiences are properly documented and can be used to drive change."
Professor Larissa Behrendt said the outcome should be recognised in the context of the long history of First Nations people being excluded from Australia's democratic processes.
"We must stop to recognise the significance of these outcomes given the reality that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been historically excluded from Australia's democratic processes, and the right to vote was hard fought across generations," she said.
The reforms come as the Senate inquiry into racism, hate, and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continues to hear evidence from government agencies, academics, legal organisations and Indigenous groups about the racism faced by First Nations people across the country — much of it ignored by mainstream media organisations.
The 2024 Australian Reconciliation Barometer found 54 per cent of First Nations respondents reported experiencing racism in 2024, up from 39 per cent in 2014, whilst the Australian National University's 2021 Prevalence of Everyday Discrimination and Relation with Wellbeing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Adults in Australia study found "consistent links between discrimination and a broad range of negative health outcomes".
The latest Call It Out Annual Report also documented racist and derogatory language, dismissive treatment by public services and physical assaults, with more than a quarter of reported incidents targeting Indigenous Australians involving children and young people.
Professor Behrendt said racism and exclusion are "not something of the past".
Rather, she argued they "continue to have real consequences for how safely our people are able to take part in public life".
"That is why it is so important that it is called out and challenged wherever it happens," she said.
