The parliamentary inquiry into racism is welcome. But truth cannot stop at racism alone. If we are serious about justice, we must also confront the misuse of power carried out in our name.

The violence we know too well

The federal parliamentary inquiry into racism, hate and violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, announced on 4 March, is both necessary and long overdue. The Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs—chaired by Senator Jana Stewart—will investigate the rising tide of racist incidents that have shaken communities across the country.

It comes after an alleged terror attack at an Invasion Day rally in Perth earlier this year, a reminder that the hostility directed at our people has not disappeared into the past.

Racism in this country has always carried the potential for violence. It lives in the threats shouted from passing cars. It lives in the abuse hurled online. It lives in the quiet fear that follows us into public spaces where our very presence is treated as provocation.

For too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people this is daily life. It is the weight of history pressing against the present. This inquiry is right to confront that reality. It must hear from the communities who live with this hostility and ensure the country understands the consequences of racism that too often passes without consequence.

But if this inquiry is to mean anything beyond another report delivered to Canberra's packed policy-shelves, it must be brave enough to listen to truths that extend beyond the more obvious forms of racism.

The truth that makes us uncomfortable

There is another reality many Aboriginal people know well but rarely speak about publicly. Harm against our communities does not only come from outside.

For generations, Aboriginal people have been asked to remain silent about wrongdoing within organisations that claim to represent us. We are told criticism will weaken the movement. We are warned that public scrutiny will give comfort to racists. Unity is invoked as a shield against accountability.

The result has been silence where truth and justice should live. Sometimes, even in truth and justice's very name.

Across the country, community members have watched institutions built in the language of empowerment drift away from the people they claim to serve. Concerns about governance, funding decisions, and conduct, are raised quietly and then quietly buried. Those who persist are labelled disruptive or disloyal. The message becomes clear. Speak carefully or not at all.

This culture of silence protects institutions more than it protects communities.

Truth telling cannot be selective. If we are serious about justice we must be prepared to speak about every form of harm that affects our people, even when it occurs within organisations that carry the banner of Indigenous advocacy.

When power leaves the community

The promise of self-determination has long animated the struggle for Indigenous justice in Australia. The principle is simple: decisions affecting our lives should be made by our people and our communities.

Yet in many parts of the 'Indigenous affairs' landscape, power sits somewhere else entirely.

Over the past decades, a complex industry has grown around Indigenous policy and advocacy. Many of those working in this space are dedicated and ethical. They stand beside communities and use their influence to advance justice.

But there are also organisations led or dominated by non-Indigenous stakeholders who build careers speaking for Aboriginal people while remaining largely insulated from the communities they claim to represent. Government funding flows. Books are written. Conferences are visited. Careers selectively advance.

Meanwhile, the voices of local communities struggle to be heard within structures supposedly designed to empower them.

When accountability moves upward to governments, donors and institutional reputations—rather than downward to communities—something foundational has been lost.

That is not self-determination. That is paternalism dressed in the language of allyship.

The limits of corporate reconciliation

Australia has spent nearly three decades speaking the language of reconciliation. Governments, corporations and institutions have embraced the language of acknowledgement and partnership. Statements are issued. Advisory groups are formed. Strategies are drafted.

Much of this work is well intentioned. Some of it has brought real progress.

But too often, reconciliation has become a performance rather than a transformation. Corporate statements replace structural change. Consultation replaces authority. Symbolic gestures stand in for the redistribution of power.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are invited to 'advise', yet rarely empowered to decide.

The failure of the Voice referendum in 2023 revealed the limits of reforms designed within the existing architecture of Australian political power. The country learned how fragile consensus can be when the deeper questions of authority and sovereignty remain unresolved.

If reconciliation is to mean anything in the years ahead, it must move beyond symbolism and confront the harder question of who holds power over First Nations lives.

Speaking the truth without fear

The parliamentary inquiry now underway offers a rare opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to speak honestly about the realities we face.

That honesty must include experiences of racism and violence from outside our communities. It must also include the stories that have too often been left unspoken within the Indigenous affairs sector itself.

Speaking about misconduct or mismanagement within organisations that claim to represent Indigenous interests is not betrayal. It is responsibility. Silence serves no one except those who benefit from the absence of scrutiny.

For too long, Aboriginal people who challenge powerful institutions have stood alone. The inquiry should ensure those voices are protected and heard.

Sunlight does not weaken justice. It strengthens it.

Returning power to our hands

At the heart of this moment lies a simple principle that should guide every discussion about Indigenous affairs: Nothing about us without us.

Justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people cannot be reduced to the absence of racism. Justice requires the presence of real authority within our communities. It requires governance structures that answer directly to the people whose lives they shape. It requires the courage to dismantle systems that place decision making in the hands of those who speak about Indigenous empowerment while exercising power themselves.

The inquiry must open the door to that conversation.

Racism must be investigated with urgency and seriousness. Violence against our people must be condemned without hesitation.

But truth cannot stop there.

If we are serious about justice in this country, we must examine every structure that shapes our outcomes, including those that operate in our name.

Only then can the promise of self-determination move from rhetoric to reality. Only then can power truly return to the people who have always carried the deepest responsibility for this country.

Jesse J. Fleay is a Boorloo-born Noongar writer and academic living on Naarm. He lectures in Politics and International Relations at Monash University. Views are his own.