This land was colonised on the basis of the legal lie called terra nullius which denied our very existence. We weren't recognised or heard, and our people experienced horrific violence. We resisted and survived, but the violent process of colonisation still disempowers and harm us.
A First Nations Voice, protected by and given authority through the Commonwealth Constitution, would shift us from a history of exclusion and dispossession, providing Aboriginal people the right to have our say and be heard on laws that affect us, to identify systemic and structural discrimination and provide solutions based on human rights.
As envisaged by the delegates at the Regional Dialogues, the National Voice should have a role in speaking to State Parliaments and can have a particularly important role in informing governments across Australia about the internationally agreed rights of Indigenous peoples.
Too often we are at the mercy of the government, our rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are typically neglected and violated. Governments, universities, and corporate Australia adopt the language of reconciliation and embrace gestures such as welcome to country, at the same time efforts appear more concerned with image than substance. In Western Australia there is systematic undermining of Aboriginal governance, which is highly damaging, a barrier to reconciliation and inconsistent with our human rights.
As a result, too many of our people are suffering today. The impact on children is especially frightening. In recent months we in Noongar boodja (lands) have fought the state over the abuse of Aboriginal children at Banksia Hill detention center (and now Casuarina men's prison). We cannot sit quietly by while Aboriginal children are abused, their very lives on the line.
All the children incarcerated from the mere age of 10 years have experienced trauma that is unimaginable to white Australia. Many of the children have neurological disability which has been undiagnosed and untreated. They are being locked alone in their cells and subjected to extensive periods of solitary confinement and 'rolling lockdowns' found to be unlawful by the Supreme Court. Not only is such conduct unlawful, it poses serious risk to children's psychological and physical health, including suicide. The government is fully aware of many of the youth are attempting self-harm in the face of such abusive violent treatment.
Recently we saw in the media video footage of several security guards attacking an Aboriginal youth, assaulting him, and using a restraint method known as 'folding up' which is so dangerous it was banned in Queensland. The government has been defending its conduct in the face of condemnation by the President of the Children's Court, former respected judges, the Inspector of Custodial Services (and two former Inspectors), the Telethon Kids Institute, and a class action involving hundreds of former child prisoners and continuing its hard line that these children are dangerous criminals, and this violent unlawful treatment is warranted.
Finally, in the face of our unrelenting campaign, the Premier of Western Australia Mark McGowan announced a 'summit', attaching various conditions including that the campaign to raise the age would not be discussed, nor the issue of mandatory detention laws which are responsible for WA's especially high rate of Aboriginal youth incarceration. Only 90 minutes was allowed, and no Aboriginal community leaders and Elders were even invited. On the same day the Premier also announced that the much-awaited Aboriginal cultural center in Perth would be funded by several mining companies - a matter was not even discussed with, let alone agreed to, by Aboriginal people.
Most recently former WA premier Carmen Lawrence also condemned the state's treatment of Indigenous youth, echoing Aboriginal leaders call for a redesign of the juvenile justice system "from the bottom up" and switching its focus from punitive to therapeutic and supportive.
Dr Lawrence also rebuked Mr McGowan and the WA government for excluding Aboriginal people from the summit: "The idea of a Voice to Parliament, the Australian community has finally woken up to the fact that we act every day in ways that are not necessarily sensitive to the needs and interests of Indigenous Australians and it's time to stop that."
The treatment of Aboriginal children in detention nationwide has been condemned by the national Human Rights Commissioners. The Voice – if it existed – could have also played a role.
Through guaranteed political participation, the Voice can provide a vehicle through which First Nations people could ensure that governments across the country, and the public understand the effect of these laws on us as individuals and communities, it could highlight how this treatment of children fails to respect the government's international obligations under UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
As these issues highlight, our rights to self-determination and participation are readily neglected in the absence of meaningful governance structures. Constitutional reform, a national Voice, would provide our people with ability to advocate and influence laws – including those laws which we need to see in place to protect our rights as Indigenous peoples.
Dr. Hannah McGlade is a Noongar Associate Professor of law and a human rights law expert.
