Aboriginal Health in Aboriginal Hands Winnunga News ISSN 2206-3080 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021 Inside this Issue: My Hope For The March 4 Justice And Beyond… 2 CEO Update Notice of Motion Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory 5 The last month has been one of major contrasts for me. Aboriginal Advocates It has seen the completion of our new purpose-built health Furious Government Rejected Proposed AMC facility and the beginning of its occupation and commissioning. I Inquiry 7 cannot overstate just how important the new building is to ACT Policing’s Claimed Winnunga AHCS and the Aboriginal community. It will have a Commitment to major impact on our capacity to not only continue to meet the Julie Tongs OAM, CEO Ombudsman Report needs of our clients but to expand and improve the range of Trashed Within a Week 9 services we are able to offer. Incoming Government Brief for Minister For Corrections The building itself is one of which we can all be proud. and Justice Health 11 Importantly we can rejoice in the fact that it is ours. It belongs to Sad News for Long-time Aboriginal peoples now and forever. Winnunga Doctor 12 I thank the BUILT Team (our head contractor), and all the sub-contractors who have Government Must combined to deliver an outstanding building. It is notable that despite the stringencies Investigate Systemic Racism in Canberra’s Prison 13 of COVID19, the bushfires/smoke and hailstorm, the building has been delivered on time and on budget. It has been a pleasure to work with everyone involved with the Senator Pat Dodson Seeks Appointment of construction. I wish, in particular, to acknowledge the unfailing respect shown in the Parliamentary Committee design and construction of a building of the highest standard which so effectively on Makarrata 14 reflects our culture and community. Calls for Independent Inquiry 14 I also acknowledge the decision to fund the construction of the purpose-built health facility for the Aboriginal community of Canberra was supported by all three Parties in COVID-19 Vaccinations for the Legislative Assembly and I thank them for that. I also acknowledge the significant Winnunga Clients 15 contribution of the current Federal Government to the project as well as Winnunga Winnunga AHCS New AHCS’s own direct contribution. Building 16 Staff Profile 18 I look forward to welcoming, in the near future, all members of the Aboriginal community of Canberra to the official opening of the new building. As I mention above my joy at the completion of our fantastic new health and community services facility has been tempered by the constant, almost daily, reminder of just how far we are yet to travel to achieve equality and justice for Aboriginal peoples resident in the ACT and surrounding region. The most recent stark emanation of this has been, of course, the revelations relating to the forcible strip search of a vulnerable Aboriginal woman in the AMC. I have expressed in the most forcible terms, my abhorrence at the treatment of this woman and also my disappointment at the response of the Government to the allegations, most particularly its refusal to take seriously allegations of racism levelled by the subject of the strip Do it with us, not to us Aboriginal Health in Aboriginal Hands P A G E 2 search. I do not resile from anything I have said in relation to this matter. The Government’s dismissive response to calls for an independent inquiry into the matter has, predictably, fuelled the already high levels of cynicism within the Aboriginal community about its commitment to addressing Aboriginal disadvantage in Canberra. That this cynicism is not just understandable but fully justified is affirmed by a review of almost any data set relevant to the status of Aboriginal peoples resident in Canberra. I have, for example, included in this newsletter an extract from the incoming Government brief prepared by ACT Government officials for the Minister for Corrections and Minister ‘...the ACT’s for Justice Health. dubious As you will see from that Government briefing paper there is barely a single piece of data record in relevant to justice, corrections or incarceration which does not reveal the ACT to be the addressing worst performing jurisdiction in Australia in relation to the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. the needs of the Aboriginal Unfortunately the ACT’s dubious record in addressing the needs of the Aboriginal community is not limited to just justice issues. It extends across the board. community is QUOTE OF THE DAY not limited to just justice “If you’re protesting against racism, you’re going to upset some racists.” issues. It Sasha Baron Cohen. extends across the My Hope For The March 4 Justice And board.’ Beyond Is That We Consider The Plight Of Black Women in Australia The Guardian, 15 March 2021 by Latoya Aroha Rule We must heed the pleads of those who spent their last moments on concrete floors, crying out to be treated humanely. “Imagine if white women surrounded Parliament House to call for justice for dead Black women … ” It’s something I tweeted while I considered the question posed to me about my attendance at Monday’s March4Justice rally in Canberra: “If we drive down from Sydney we could camp at the embassy for the night, sib?” I wondered for just a moment about gender; my own, its sociopolitical context, the expectations attached, and to be frank- how gender equality sometimes feels like an oxymoron when positioned alongside race and class. Do it with us, not to us Aboriginal Health in Aboriginal Hands P A G E 3 My Hope For The March 4 Justice And Beyond Is That We Consider The Plight Of Black Women in Australia (cont’d) Quite honestly, I question why people are fighting for gender equality between cis men and cis women when equality has not yet been achieved between Black and white women in the first instance, let alone women who are transgender and/or non-binary and gender non-conforming people. To assume parity is to negate the experiences, the stories, the histories, the research and the ongoing privileges for others that deny Black women access to Nathan Reynold’s family after the inquest into the death in custody of safe Black space – by rendering Black the Aboriginal man. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP women invisible, largely through the subjugation of Black women in places like prisons and police cells. It’s this enduring, hierarchical process that poses questions to me like: “What happens after the rally?” Women’s liberation marches have been growing since the 1960s in Australia, just as the incarceration rates and deaths of Aboriginal women in custody have steadily increased. I make this point not to deny the labour of Aboriginal women within the women’s suffrage movement and thereafter, but to illuminate the ongoing dilemmas and to emphasise where change is necessary. I make this point to highlight the women whose names should be on all our lips and who we should be demanding justice for. This April will mark the 30th anniversary of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody; a royal commission that investigated 99 Black deaths in Australia– 11 of them were of Aboriginal women. The eldest woman was 58 and the youngest girl was only 14. The following is a list of their last names, respectfully: Ms Barnes Ms Binks Ms Blankett Ms Egan Ms Jones Miss O’Rourke Ms Short Ms Tiers the Yarrie sisters the Aboriginal woman who died in Ceduna in 1983 Do it with us, not to us Aboriginal Health in Aboriginal Hands P A G E 4 My Hope For The March 4 Justice And Beyond Is That We Consider The Plight Of Black Women in Australia (cont’d) In the last 30 years, there have been multiple other deaths of Aboriginal women, many in custody: Ms Baxter Ms Dhu Ms Tilberoo Ms Day Ms Nelson Ms Maher Ms Daley Ms Thorne Ms Pickett Ms Clarke Ms Wynne There are so many more. Just over a week ago three more Aboriginal people died in custody, one of them a 44-year-old Aboriginal woman in Sydney. It is likely that her family and community will have to sit before a coroners court to undertake emotional, physical and spiritual labour while deep in grief. This is labour that affects generations of women. My brother died in custody, leaving behind my 10-year-old niece. She now must navigate further intergenerational trauma as she goes on in life. Another great tragedy for my mother and my family, yet somehow, we all continue to survive. It’s easy to see the impetus for Black women and Black people more generally to be on the frontline, calling for justice. Many of us have devoted our lives to our families’ justice campaigns. But can we continue to name it “the frontline” if officers are standing on it too? And, simultaneously, standing on us? Am I really expected to join arms alongside a woman who in a few weeks could be in in a uniform, and asked to provide evidence in my sibling’s coronial inquest? Calling for justice for Black women requires a call to end the systems that oppress Black women; a call to end the over-representation of Aboriginal women in custody, a call to end deaths in custody, a call to abolish the carceral state, and even more so, a call for decolonisation. This demand must come from non-Aboriginal women as well. To quote the Gunnai-Gunditjmara senator, Lidia Thorpe: “To those whose skin colour affords them greater safety and justice– it’s time to stop looking away from systemic racism and stand with us and say no more.” My hope for Monday’s March4Justice and beyond is that all women will consider the needs of Black women and will heed the tireless pleads of those who spent their last moments on concrete floors, crying out to be treated humanely.