Pearls and Irritations

Australia’s first Aboriginal-led Royal Commission recently completed a month of public hearings during which Commissioners questioned Victorian government ministers and senior bureaucrats about injustices against First Peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems.

These historic hearings marked the first time an Aboriginal-led Royal Commission has publicly held to account the authorities that have exercised power over the lives of First Peoples for generations.

Throughout the hearings, government ministers and senior bureaucrats publicly reckoned with past and present injustice against First Peoples, in many cases responding to harrowing evidence given by Community members at previous Yoorrook hearings and in submissions to the Commission.

Seven government representatives made formal apologies for past and current injustice against First Peoples:

•     The Hon. Jaclyn Symes MLC, Attorney-General
•     Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Shane Patton APM
•     The Hon. Lizzie Blandthorn MP, Minister for Children Protection and Family Services
•      The Hon. Enver Erdogan, Minister for Corrections, Youth Justice and Victim Support
•      Kate Houghton, Secretary of the Department of Justice and Community Safety
•      Ryan Phillips, Acting Associate Secretary, Corrections, Department of Justice and Community Safety
•      Adam Reilly, Executive Director Wimmera South Region, Department of Families, Fairness and Housing

Many other witnesses who didn’t make formal apologies, acknowledged the suffering of First Peoples caused by government actions.

Yoorrook Commissioners emphasised that apologies without actions are hollow; that change must follow, and that change must involve self-determination.

Throughout the hearings, government ministers were asked to address what self-determination means – beyond consultative forums and transferring limited powers and resources to First Peoples’ organisations to participate in failing systems. Ministers were asked to envision what a comprehensive transfer of decision making, resources and authority to First Peoples would look like and what it would take to give First Peoples the power to control the things that affect their lives and communities.

You can watch recordings of all the hearings and read the evidence presented on Yoorrook’s website.

A source of great shame

In the lead up to the hearings, the Premier of Victoria, the Hon. Daniel Andrews MP wrote to Yoorrook Chair Eleanor Bourke to present the Victorian Government’s evidence. In his letter, the Premier stated:

“The Victorian government has reflected on the discrimination and mistreatment that First Nations peoples can often endure in the criminal justice and child protection systems…These injustices are not confined to history – they persist to this day. The ongoing over-representation of First Peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems is a source of great shame for the Victorian government.”

Witness after witness gave examples of this injustice and over-representation throughout the hearings. The Secretary of the Department of Justice and Community Safety, Kate Houghton, revealed that in the year ending 2022, 89% of First Peoples in prison in Victoria were on remand, meaning they were in custody awaiting their trial or sentence.

Secretary Houghton acknowledged a direct link to 2018 bail law reforms, agreeing the government had to be aware that an increase in the number of First Peoples in prison, due to changes to the bail laws would equate to an increase in the number of deaths in custody.

She also acknowledged that one of the primary drivers of over-representation of First Peoples in the criminal justice system is the existence of systemic racism.

Similarly, the Attorney-General, the Hon. Jaclyn Symes MLC acknowledged that “overt” and “disguised” structural racism, “inherited from our colonial past” still persists today in the state’s criminal justice system.

The Minister for Police, the Hon. Anthony Carbines MP, accepted that many police racially profile and act abusively towards First Peoples, and acknowledged the lack of accountability for the deaths of 34 First Peoples in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

The Minister for Corrections, the Hon. Enver Erdogan MP told Yoorrook Commissioners that three-quarters of Aboriginal children in youth justice are coming via the child protection system.

The Commissioner for Youth Justice confirmed that children in detention are being locked down frequently to cope with staff shortages.

The Associate Secretary of the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Argiri Alisandratos, told Commissioners that around 60% of child protection notifications for Victorian First Peoples families are unsubstantiated, with discrimination and stigma contributing to the number of reports.

Several bureaucrats testified to the limits of cultural awareness training currently given to public servants, including those working in child protection and other public-facing roles; the training is often short, online and not mandatory. Some cultural awareness training material used by police was also shown to be inappropriate and to denigrate First Peoples.

Other bureaucrats testified that there are inadequate metrics for measuring the success of strategies and programs aimed at addressing inequality and injustice against First Peoples across the child protection and criminal justice systems.

Opportunities for change

Throughout the hearings, ministers and bureaucrats committed to addressing injustice and making change. In particular, the Attorney General, the Hon. Jaclyn Symes, spoke about the Victorian Government’s commitments to raising the age of criminal responsibility and reforming bail laws.

The Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Shane Patton APM, acknowledged that the Aboriginal community will never have confidence that a police complaint has been impartially investigated if the investigation is done by Victoria Police. He agreed that the police oversight system would be strengthened by the independent investigation of police complaints and said he would be open to such a system.

Yoorrook is now completing a Critical Issues Report on the criminal justice and child protection systems that will synthesise evidence received through submissions, hearings, roundtables and other truth telling forums over the past six months.

The Commission will use this evidence to make urgent recommendations for change and reform. The report will be released around the end of August 2023.

Land justice

Planning is underway for the Commission’s next area of inquiry focusing on land justice. As set out in Yoorrook’s Strategic Plan, Yoorrook will examine issues including:

•   the centrality of Country to First Peoples’ identity, culture, physical and spiritual well-being and economic opportunities and the disconnection and devastation wrought by the forced taking of Country;
•    how First Peoples were dispossessed of their lands including through state sanctioned policies and laws; massacres and other violence;
•    the past and present benefits obtained by the colonising state, other entities, land holders and settlers through their dispossession of First Peoples of their Country;
•    the theft, misappropriation and destruction of cultural knowledge;
•    the ways First Peoples maintain/ed their culture and connection to Country despite attempts to suppress culture; and
•     ways to address and provide redress for past and ongoing injustice in relation to First Peoples dispossession of the Country now known as the State of Victoria.

Opportunities for public truth telling about land justice will be advertised in the second half of this year.

First Peoples can make submissions now on any area of injustice they experience, including land justice by going to the submission portal on the Yoorrook website.

Republished from Yoorrook Justice Commission May 31, 2023

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