UN urges Australia to pay reparations to indigenous communities
Updated
An independent United Nations observer has branded a mainstay of Canberra's approach "racist", and in breach of international obligations. The UN's special rapporteur on indigenous rights and freedoms is American law expert Professor James Anaya, and he's given his initial findings, after a 12-day tour of urban and remote Australia. He also says Canberra should pay reparations to the country's indigenous people, something the Labor government has previously ruled out.
Professor Anaya focused on the divisive Northern Territory Emergency Response, which saw race discrimination laws suspended so that a raft of restrictions could be imposed on Aboriginal communities facing dire social troubles. He says the laws should be reinstated now, while Canberra says it will reinstate them soon.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Professor James Anaya, Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights
- Listen:
- Windows Media
ANAYA: The Aboriginal communities are vibrant living communities where Aboriginal culture still is a feature of Aboriginal life. Those communities are under stress after a couple of centuries of oppression, dispossession of lands, I think it's understandable that they would be suffering the conditions that they in fact are, in social and economic terms - high levels of violence, alcoholism, poverty and so forth. But the good news is that they are vibrant communities in terms of their own continuing sense of identity and resolved to overcome the problems they face.
MOTTRAM: To what extent do you think Australia has been successful in tackling the issues that you see?
ANAYA: Well obviously there are still significant problems and the policies of the last decade or so apparently have done little or nothing to address the entrenched problems that existed before and they continue in some instances and apparently have been exacerbated. And so something new is needed and I'm happy to hear from the government and learn that they are attempting new initiatives and have devoted significant resources to addressing the issues. My concern is that those issues really be grounded in local solutions, as I believe they must, to succeed. As a philosophical matter it is important that indigenous peoples genuinely be in control of their own destinies as all other peoples want to be, to be able to make the choices that determine the important issues in their lives, and also as a practical matter I think that experience shows across the world unless people are actually in control of the solutions for their problems, it is very difficult for those problems to be resolved.
MOTTRAM: The big question facing the Australian government presently is in the Northern Territory with the so-called Emergency Response, the intervention. Your take on that seems to be that it is simply not acceptable, why is that?
ANAYA: In its current configuration it's not compatible with Australia's international human rights obligations in my opinion. I have stressed though that some measures are required in order to address the stress that indigenous peoples, particularly women and children are suffering in the Northern Territory. My point is that the broad sweep of the measures in place, the outright ban on alcohol in all designated areas, the quarantine of benefit income within the so-called income management regime, the compulsory leasing scheme; all these things that are targetting specifically indigenous peoples, but not non-indigenous peoples are discriminatory and simply go too far. They need to be better configured, reformed in order to not be discriminatory to the extent possible and to actually be in furtherance of indigenous people's self-determination to the extent possible.
MOTTRAM: Now the current government is saying that it wants to maintain the intervention if it is to continue those measures, it believes they are effective. Can it do that and be consistent with its obligations internationally?
ANAYA: Well my understanding is that the Australian government is committed to actual reforming of the intervention and changing it so that in fact it does come into compliance with Australia's international human rights obligations. I welcome that initiative to reform the elements of the intervention. And again I'm not saying that there shouldn't be some form of intervention, some form of special initiatives, special measures taken to address the situation. I'm just saying that the current configuration, the broad sweeping measures, extreme measures that are in fact racially discriminatory, that in fact undermine indigenous self-determination in a sweeping sense, aren't consistent.
MOTTRAM: Because one aspect here that stands out very starkly for indigenous people was the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, the anti-race discrimination laws federally and in the Northern Territory. Is that something that should be changed immediately? The government is committed to changing it but over time?
ANAYA: Yes it needs to be done right away I think. The government needs to apply both the international non-discrimination standard and its domestic counterpart, and that standard needs to guide and frame the government policies to address the problems of Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory and elsewhere.
MOTTRAM: Australia is in this region, the Asia-Pacific, the dominant democracy. It is held up as an example, a good example of how to do business in terms of issues like human rights. To what extent does Australia's approach to indigenous issues colour that record?
ANAYA: It does colour it, but let me say that this is the case for any modern democracy where we find indigenous peoples; Canada, the United States, Norway, Sweden where there are indigenous Sami people. These are democracies that have in many ways paved the way for the building of democratic institutions in the world, yet each of these countries has failed to adequately respect the basic human rights of the indigenous peoples in those countries, and it is a mark against them and hence it is necessary for these countries to take seriously these rights and take seriously the obligation to embark on affirmative measures to address those concerns. Now Australia has expressed a willingness to do that and I welcome that, I think that's extremely positive. And I do hope and expect that it will move forward with that expressed intention and do so in a way that is compatible with international standards.
MOTTRAM: And just finally one of the issues that this government has ruled out is the issue of paying reparations to indigenous people. What's your view on that?
ANAYA: My view is that the government should pay reparations or at least should do everything to give very careful consideration to reparations. I think that the presumption is heavily in favour of reparations and if it's not going to do that there needs to be a very, very good reason.
