Open Letter to Prime Minister Turnbull on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

Dear Prime Minister Turnbull

In a few days, you will be tabling your first Closing the Gap report in Parliament. It’s an important day for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and for our nation.

Making genuine progress on closing the gap will be one of the hardest challenges you face as Prime Minister. In December the Productivity Commission’s National Indigenous Reform Agreement: Performance Assessment 2013–14 found only one of the six ‘Close the Gap’ targets is being met with child mortality rates reducing. Improving access to preschool, life expectancy, and reading and numeracy rates are all stalling. In addition incarceration rates are skyrocketing.

This lack of progress means that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and community members are clearly frustrated at report after report documenting policy failures.

Part of the frustration is with Government actions that have hurt Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and with Government’s failure to act when it’s mattered most. Under your predecessor, support for services was cut and many Aboriginal organisations lost crucial support in a disastrously managed transition to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy. Your Government continues to oppose justice targets as part of Closing the Gap. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were denied their own conventions on Constitutional Recognition, and since that decision was reversed progress has been slow. A cashless welfare card ‘trial’ that is set to roll out in March will disproportionately impact Aboriginal people in remote communities.

There are growing voices in the community that there is unfinished business, and that on-going issues of racism and the self-determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples all need resolving if we are truly going to Close the Gap.

Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander peoples were the first occupants of this land, and they have an ongoing and unbroken connection and traditional ownership of this country. No treaty was ever made between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and European settlers, or as many people would call them, invaders. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Constitutional Recognition has been seen by many as a step towards addressing this unfinished business, but the lack of meaningful progress on Constitutional Recognition is yet another let-down. As Government has dragged its feet, debate in many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities has moved forward, to what meaningful change can be expected from Recognition and the need for broader change.

There are so many questions about what form Constitutional Recognition will take. Just as importantly, there are many real questions about what difference recognition will make in practical terms. How does recognition fit into settlement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples? What is the point of recognition with so much failed policy and so many funding cuts to services? So the question must be: how can Australia achieve real change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples?

The Australian Greens believe that Constitutional Recognition should not be purely symbolic, and must be supported by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We support treaties which recognise prior occupation, and the sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. So the question many people are now asking is, how do all these issues interact?

Since the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition reported in early 2012 the debate has moved on. Although the Panel traversed the issues of sovereignty and agreement making (treaty/treaties) and concluded the time wasn't right to address them, many people now want to see these issues addressed.

If you show genuine leadership, Prime Minister, it can bring a change in policy-making, and the way Government interacts with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. When Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are genuinely included in policy-making and negotiation, then we can see meaningful progress on closing the gap, and on addressing our national unfinished business, that is embraced by Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples and all Australians.

Without leadership from you, Prime Minister, we cannot close the gap. It will only continue to grow. Without Prime Ministerial leadership, there is a very real risk that debate won’t advance –  that debate will become a reminder of unfulfilled potential, rather than a way of bringing Australians together.

 *Copy of letter attached*