While it’s easy to imagine those child removal policies as a relic from an earlier time, we need to acknowledge the devastating impact of this legacy that is still present in the lives of many Aboriginal people today.
We see the effects of intergenerational trauma in the unacceptable number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care, gross over-incarceration, the gap in health and life expectancy, and widespread poverty. Members of the Stolen Generations suffered cultural loss and many forms of abuse.
Sadly, Victoria remains the only state that does not provide any form of redress to the Stolen Generations, despite ongoing advocacy in the 21 years since the groundbreaking report Bringing them home was tabled in the Australian Parliament. In this state, we’ve fallen behind on redress, despite leading the nation in other important efforts to acknowledge and uphold the rights of Aboriginal people.
One of the mechanisms available to recognise and protect Aboriginal people’s cultural rights is the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. The Charter describes the right of Aboriginal people to enjoy their identity and culture, to use their language, and to maintain their kinship ties and special relationship with their traditional lands and waters.
When we reflect on the experiences of the Stolen Generations and the destructive impact of those policies on Aboriginal culture, it’s clear why the explicit protection of Aboriginal rights under the law is so valuable and necessary.
At the Commission, we’ve heard from a woman in a public hospital who was denied access to an Aboriginal liaison officer and prevented from visiting her dying mother.
We’ve heard about a public school that refused to display the Aboriginal flag at important events.
In another instance, police attended a property where Aboriginal people were conducting sorry business. The police arrested the residents and interfered with a memorial space.
Today, we can recognise the cultural rights that underpin these stories and that there are mechanisms under the Charter to protect them; but there was no such acknowledgement or protection of these rights when the Stolen Generations were removed, and the loss of those elements of cultural practice should be properly acknowledged.
While a redress scheme for the Stolen Generations is an immediate priority, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission also supports Aboriginal peoples’ inherent right to self-determination. Formalising this right would support Victoria’s Aboriginal communities to freely determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural development, strengthen their own institutions, and exercise autonomy in their internal and local affairs.
We’ll continue to advocate, in partnership with Aboriginal communities, for self-determination to be included in the Charter as a standalone right.
Practically speaking, including a right to self-determination in the Charter would require the Victorian Government to recognise the collective identities of this state’s nations, language groups, clans and communities, and to support Aboriginal communities to make their own decisions.
While including a right to self-determination in the Charter would once have been considered a radical shift in the relations between Aboriginal peoples and government, today it would simply build on the Victorian Government’s demonstrated commitment to self-determination as the guiding principle in Aboriginal affairs.
Victoria is also leading the nation in committing to treaties with Aboriginal peoples, by being the first state to commit to a treaty process through legislation. This is Victoria’s central example of self-determination in practice. It also provides an opportunity for the recognition of past wrongs, reconciliation and truth-telling.
In his apology in 2008, former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd described the Stolen Generations as a "blemished chapter in our nation's history", stating that "the time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future".
Enshrining a right to self-determination and providing meaningful redress will go some way to building this future.
Related resources
Aboriginal Cultural Right in Victoria: The Commission has created a series of resources to explain how these rights need to be considered by public authorities, and what that means for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
You can also watch our new video with Jill Gallagher AO, Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner, and Uncle John Baxter, an Aboriginal disability advocate, about Aboriginal cultural rights and their significance for Victoria’s Aboriginal communities.
Media contact
Peter Davies
Mobile: 0447 526 642
Email: Peter.Davies@veohrc.vic.gov.au
