Gunditjmara, Gunnai and Djab Wurrung senator Lidia Thorpe says the Australian Government needs to implement significant reforms on Indigenous child protection and deaths in custody to secure her full support for the Voice to Parliament.
Senator Thorpe, the Australian Greens spokesperson on Indigenous policy and senator for Victoria, said the federal government must implement the remaining recommendations from the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the 1997 Bringing them Home report on Indigenous child removals.
"That's what we have on the table with the government. We have said, we want to see those recommendations fully implemented," she told the ABC.
A review in 2017, 20 years after the Bringing them Home report was completed, found that the majority of the report's 54 recommendations had not been implemented.
Recent data shows Indigenous child removals continue to occur at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous child removals and the gap is not closing.
Of the 339 recommendations made in the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, a review in 2018 found only 64 per cent had been fully implemented.
The Australian Institute of Criminology's most recent data on Indigenous deaths in custody indicate there have been 527 lives lost since the Royal Commission ended in 1991. Since that figure was published, at least two more Indigenous people have died in custody.
The Commonwealth, states and territories would all be responsible for implementing the reforms from both reports.
"We want the Labor government to implement them to show good faith, before we make a decision on whether we support the Voice or not — it is certainly there as a negotiation tool," Senator Thorpe said.
The senator told National Indigenous Times the Greens have had "some wins" in negotiations with Labor over reforms.
"They announced funding for real-time reporting of deaths in custody in their last budget. But this doesn't go far enough, we want to stop First Nations people from going to prison in the first place," she said.
Senator Thorpe said the Greens were yet to finalise their official position on the government's referendum legislation currently in parliament.
"Negotiations are ongoing… We will consider the Senate Inquiry findings, discuss them as a Party Room and come to a position regarding how we vote. That's how we work," she said.
Tyronne Garstone, representative of Indigenous organisation Empowered Communities and also chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council, said that while Senator Thorpe's concerns are well-founded the Voice to Parliament could play an important role in bringing about much-needed change.
"30 years ago, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody awakened our national consciousness to the gross overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prison. At the time, and in the period since, there has been unequivocal political support for its recommendations," he said.
"The Greens are right to be concerned that such support has not translated into improved outcomes. The problem has only continued to worsen.
"However, that same Royal Commission accurately identified the most fundamental change needed to address deaths in custody. The Royal Commission clearly said that a method for empowerment, so Indigenous people can have a say in the decisions made about us was desperately needed."
Mr Garstone said the Voice referendum provides "the opportunity to enable all Indigenous people to take greater responsibility in finding solutions to the complex problems we face, including incarceration and child protection".
"A successful 2023 referendum has far more potential to deliver the positive changes we all seek. We call on the Greens to support constitutional recognition and enshrining a Voice to Parliament as a way forward," he said.
"The need for empowerment and self-determination has been the central finding of countless other inquiries and reports since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, including Bringing them Home."
