Previous Submission
We ask the Review Board to note the attached detailed submission CAALAS and NAAJA made to the Senate Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities.2
In summary, this submission stated that it was imperative that the Government reinstate the full protections of the Racial Discrimination Act and that this was an issue of principle, but also of profound practical effect because Aboriginal people were experiencing increased racial discrimination by institutions and members of the public.
We also discussed our concerns about:
- anecdotal reports from Aboriginal people that they have experienced an increase in discriminatory treatment by police;
- the lack of information given to community members about the profound legislative and policy changes, contributing to people feeling disempowered;
- an increase in violent offending that we believe may be linked to an urban drift;
- the profound lack of services to deal with complex social issues, such as high and harmful levels of alcohol consumption;
- the impact on already disturbingly high incarceration rates of Aboriginal people, particularly where 21% of Aboriginal prisoners are in custody for driving offences and the new police stations are unable to provide any motor vehicle registry services;
- the special coercive powers of the Australian Crime Commission being available with respect to Indigenous people;
- the lack of services available for both victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse;
- the preclusion of customary law and practice from decisions on sentence and bail;
- the trend in prosecutions, being an increase in prosecutions of consensual relationships involving teenagers and young adults, and not an increase in prosecutions of sexual abuse of pre pubescent children;
- the lack of attention paid to the complex issue of the high incidence of teenage pregnancies in the Northern Territory;
- the discrimination inherent in the model of income management which has been rolled out in the Northern Territory;
- the serious income management implementation problems experienced by Aboriginal people;
- the lack of appropriate services to address with the financial literacy and family relationship issues which income management purports to deal with;
- the resource implications for ATSILS given their historically very poor levels of funding.
2. http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/indig_ctte/submissions/sublist.htm.