Aboriginal people Contents 11. Aboriginal people ................................................................................................. 11.0.3 11.1 Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts...................................... 11.1.1 11.2 Further information or help ................................................................................. 11.2.1 11.2.1 General ............................................................................................................. 11.2.1 11.2.2 Court Liaison Officers .............................................................................................. 11.2.1 11.2.3 Family Court Indigenous Family Liaison Officers....................................................... 11.2.2 11.2.4 Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (ALSWA)............................................ 11.2.2 11.2.5 ALSWA Court Officers ............................................................................................. 11.2.4 11.2.6 Indigenous Coordination Centres (ICC) .................................................................... 11.2.5 11.2.7 Aboriginal Visitors Scheme (AVS) ............................................................................. 11.2.6 11.2.8 Aboriginal Alternative Dispute Resolution Services (AADRS)..................................... 11.2.6 11.2.9 Victim Support Services........................................................................................... 11.2.7 11.2.10 Child Witness Service.............................................................................................. 11.2.7 11.2.11 Indigenous Women’s Congress of WA (IWC)............................................................ 11.2.8 11.2.12 Aboriginal Language Centres and Interpreting Services in Western Australia............ 11.2.8 11.3 Further reading/viewing....................................................................................... 11.3.1 11.4 Your comments.....................................................................................................11.4.1 11.0.2 ABORIGINAL PEOPLE NOVEMBER 2009 - FIRST EDITION 11 ABORIGINAL PEOPLE Many Aboriginal people coming into contact with the courts and the justice system suffer from a variety of social and economic disadvantages including low income, substance abuse, homelessness, semi-itinerant lifestyles, family disruption as a result of government policies such as those resulting in the Stolen Generations, and poor education and health. All of these factors create barriers to full participation in non-Indigenous society. Statistics show that Aboriginal people continue to be grossly over-represented in many aspects of the justice system, including Western Australia’s prisons and juvenile detention facilities. In response to the grave concerns held by the judiciary about the continuing over-representation of Aboriginal persons in Australian criminal justice systems, the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration commissioned the development of an Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts, first published in 2002. The Steering Committee which had oversight of the development of this Bench Book does not propose here to address the issues so comprehensively addressed in the recently revised Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts.1 Instead, other than providing a brief background to the development of that Benchbook, the focus of this chapter is on references to further information and reading, which the Steering Committee hopes will be of assistance to judicial officers and complement the detailed material already available in the Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts. The Steering Committee would like to acknowledge the following submissions and contributions: • Ms Hannah McGlade (28 March 2007);2 • Law Reform Commission of Western Australia (17 April 2007);3 • Department of Indigenous Affairs (8 May 2007);4 and • Magistrate Catherine Crawford (10 June 2009).5 1 Fryer-Smith S, The Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts (2nd ed) (2008), available at: www.aija.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=436&Itemid=165 (accessed 11 June 2009). 2 Ms McGlade submitted a copy of her article, “Aboriginal women, girls and sexual assault” (2006) 12 ACSSA Newsletter 6, available at: http://apo.org.au/research/aboriginal-women-girls-and-sexual-assault (accessed 11 June 2009). Issues raised, specifically the disadvantages faced by Aboriginal women generally and within the mainstream legal system, and the administration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services in particular, are discussed in chapters 7 and 8 of the Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts, and in sections 8.1.6 (Specific issues regarding additionally disadvantaged self-represented people), 10.3.3.4.1 (Aboriginal women) and 13.2.2.5 (Family Violence Prevention Legal Services) in this Bench Book. 3 Information about Aboriginal history, culture and customs, raised by this submission, can be found in chapters 3 and 4 of the Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts. 4 Issues raised by this submission are addressed in the Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts; see chapter 4.2 on the disproportionate rate of imprisonment and the nature of Aboriginal offending, in particular with reference to driving-related offences; and chapters 4.4 and 5 for information about language issues and how these can be addressed. See also section 9.3.2.1.2 of this Bench Book and the report of the Committee to Explore the Effect of Motor Driver’s Licence and Driving Laws on Remote Communities, Indigenous Licensing and Fine Default: A Clean Slate (2007), for more detail on the extent and impact of driving-related offences for Aboriginal people from remote communities in WA. 5 Information about language issues and how these can be addressed, raised by this submission, can be found in section 9.3.3.4.1 of this Bench Book and chapters 4.4 and 5 of the Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts. NOVEMBER 2009 - FIRST EDITION ABORIGINAL PEOPLE 11.0.3 11.0.4 ABORIGINAL PEOPLE NOVEMBER 2009 - FIRST EDITION 11.1 Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts The commissioning of the first Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts was informed by the recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody that judicial officers participate in appropriate cross-cultural training and development programs. These programs were to be designed to explain contemporary Aboriginal society, customs and traditions. Such programs should emphasise the historical and social factors which contribute to the disadvantaged position of many Aboriginal people today and to the nature of relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities today.6 The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found that it was critical that non- Aboriginal people change their attitudes towards Aboriginal people: Non-Aboriginal Australia must face the fact that for a very long time we have proceeded on the basis that Aboriginal people were inferior, were unable to make decisions affecting themselves, that we knew what was best for them, that we had to make decisions affecting them; it became second nature for us to have that attitude. It is very easy for us to adopt that attitude without even being aware that we are adopting it. This is true both for public officials and for private persons. It is an attitude which is very deeply resented by Aboriginal people, as would, indeed, be by us if [the] roles were reversed. I say very frankly that when I started upon my work in this Commission I had some knowledge of the way in which broad policy had evolved to the detriment of Aboriginal people and some idea of the consequences. But, until I examined the files of the people who died and the other material which has come before the Commission and listened to Aboriginal people speaking, I had no conception of the degree of pin-pricking domination, abuse of personal power, utter paternalism, open contempt and total indifference with which so many Aboriginal people were visited on a day to day basis. It is hard to convey the understanding because each particular story takes time and space to tell. Some of the stories are contained in the individual case reports. Let me refer to just two. I quote … the letter of a protector in Queensland who was quite shocked to receive a request from a newly-married Aboriginal woman to have from her bank account, of which he was trustee, four- fifths of her week’s earnings, even though he acknowledged that her employer — who was going to do the shopping — would be very careful in the disbursement of her money. He refused the request but as it was Christmas allowed here a little of her own money “to buy lollies with” (for which she had not asked). In one of the cases that I inquired into, a young boy was put in an institution because he kept running away from his home where there was a lot of domestic strife. He wanted to go to the home of his sister, a married woman, who lived on a reserve. The sister and her husband are to this day leading members of the community. The superintendent refused the lad permission to come on to the reserve to join his sister. His reasons included that the couple were thought to keep some beer in the fridge — at a time when it was lawful for them to do so — and they had some household items on hire-purchase, including a TV… This petty tyranny, escalating to interference with the most fundamental of rights to practise