Standing up for rights

[Music] This is in IAZAS Podcast. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, culture and community. We pay our respects to elders past and present. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this podcast contains voices and names of deceased persons. Hello, I'm Craig Richey, a Dungurie man with connections to the Bureau of Pi Nation. I'm the CEO of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies or IAZAS as we are more commonly known. Welcome to our Voices of Power series, a joint production between IAZAS and the Church of Trust. The Trust supports Australians from all walks of life to travel abroad to explore issues of importance and to bring that knowledge back for the benefit of their communities. Over six podcasts will be hearing from Indigenous Church Your Fellows on the turning points that have inspired them in the fight for First Nations rights in Australia. I'm a Church Your Fellow myself and today we'll be hearing from Indigenous Fellows Cara Kirkwood, Hannah McGlaid, Danisha Duff and Michelle D'Sham. In this first episode standing up for rights we'll be looking at the big moments in activism and the everyday acts of our people to pursue our rights as First Nations peoples. So let's get started and enjoy listening. Hi, I'm Vick Sems, I'm a Bidjigal man from Botany Bay on the eastern side of this Sydney area in the eastern suburbs and my people have been there since time immemorial and we're there to not so much greet the First Fleet but to oppose it. And I was born on that land, born on country. There was no delivery hospital for me. I was delivered by an old Aboriginal lady and I'm sort of the last man standing who's actually born on my country. I think about tyrannolias because it's those two words that have completely defined us in almost a kind of strange bubble. It's like this great lie because we were here. If you're talking about attempts to completely break down a culture and society that's completely destructive and that has lasting legacies on communities now. Old people are dying before they get to see whether they're allowed back on their country or not. The fence is a holding you out. When you take off the layers you realise that self-determination was really something that was guided by the government of the day. You know, self-determination can look like this but it can't go as far as that. It's a really difficult path that we have in this country because we understand these rights. We know what self-determination is but our governments, many of them are not listening. The governance that we learnt was from a sepranthender, a singular person who was responsible for a mission. And then that person was responsible to a state act so Aboriginal people became inactive in the governance of the community. We're just sick of talking about it. We want to commit man who want to get on with it. We want to be at the table and we want obviously to improve the circumstances of our families and communities. That's what it comes down to. That puts into words some of the reasons why First Nations people are fought so hard for justice. From the moment the British first set foot in our lands. We are the heirs of that fight today. We are looking forward but we also look back to the people and events of the past for inspiration and strength. Churchill Filler, Michelle DeZong, is a cook who yelling "Gee" woman from far north Queensland. She was drawn into the fight for rights as a young girl as she listened to elders such as her father and Eddie Marbeaux. Discuss racism, discrimination and politics around the families kitchen table in town, in the 1980s. Given the mere fact of settlement itself and the perspectives around whether people saw evidence of a civil society in itself speaks volumes about the disregard for the intrinsic nature of our culture. What people were looking for was infrastructure and agriculture and things like that. Without recognising that even within our tribal nations there's a really complex level of knowledge and experiences and systems and processes that create the opportunity for nations to survive. Michelle says that ignorance and disregard had a far reaching effect. Even growing up I know that in my own family there were times when there was an inclination to diminish your indigenous heritage or Aboriginal heritage as a survival mechanism. And so even in families the implications of having that long history, having a period of time where that was I guess silenced or marginalized but now coming out the other side and seeing that people are really proud of that heritage and that connection I think is where I see us at the moment. Churchill Fellow, Cara Kirkwood agrees, Cara is a Mendenjani, Bidjara and mythical woman from Queensland. She thinks Britain's claim that Australia was Tertanolius, implying this land was uninhabited before the occupation was the most destructive aspect of the British takeover. To think about sovereignty brings me back to two words that I linger on intensely in my mind often and it's Tertanolius. And I think about Tertanolius particularly because it's those two words that have completely defined us in almost a kind of strange bubble where we were here. It's like this great lie because we were here but we were declared not to be here so we can't have sovereignty now or then or whenever after being here for at least 60,000 years. But you know it's a very strange place to be and it's a very frustrating piece of policy that we somehow can't work around all the time. Our leaders, communities and families have been standing up for rights, equality and justice for over 200 years now. And we talk into the air and they talk into the air. They talk about things like our Nicole, Constitutions, laws which they might and we talk to them about bloodshed, paper and crepe bits, paper and company, paper, children doing black-up food, meditation and they couldn't hear us. So that was the decision. Let's get out and do something. What we're going to do, we didn't really know but we're going to do something and we're going to be pretty dramatic. We're going to be able to think that everything is going to be fair. We're something like a Commonwealth game. I say that it's a bad time. We let the world know. Let the world know what's going on here. It's hard to single out particular individuals or events that have really made a difference but the Churchill fellows say there are some events and developments that stand out as real turning points for our nation. Michelle Dishong believes everyday racism against First Nations peoples like into 60s and 70s in Queensland was big in keeping the fires of resistance burning. She says the international civil rights movement in the 60s and our establishing a community organisations in the late 70s and 80s were breakthrough developments in our fight for justice. We are now part of the Royal Council of Indigenous People. We have united and we have become one people. As First Nations people we've got connection with First Nations people around the world. I think the civil rights movement also helped us to make huge leaps in terms of the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were regarded and their involvement in the Australian society became really important in that 1960s period with things like the Electrical Act being brought in so that Indigenous peoples could have a right to vote. The freedom rides as we look at the freedom rides happening in the United States and come enjoy. by Perkins leading that similar kind of conversation here in Australia around segregation and discrimination. And then in 1967 creating the momentum to actually change the position of Indigenous peoples and a rights-based approach around inclusivity and recognition, I think that period was really important. And then as you move through to the 1970s and early '80s, I think that was when we saw the evolution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait under organisations that allowed us to take control of some of the business in our communities. Kara Kirkwood also sees Australia's 1965 freedom ride as a big turning point. Good evening. This afternoon a busload of university students lived Sydney for Wulget in the northwestern New South Wales. They plan on protesting their segregation laws that affect Aboriginal's, both in Wulget and in other rural towns. And are our Aboriginal's allowed to go into the theatre? Yes, they go and buy that door over there. In Sydney, separate section. Yes. It is a way of life. Everyting you sat down the front of pictures theaters, nowhere else, and you walked in when the lights went off. Women don't go to dress shops and touch in the clothes. Once they touch them, they buy them. You don't get served first in the shop if there's some white people in front of you, you get served last. You don't go into pubs, you only get served at night down the back streets. My wife and I, and a couple of white friends went in there and I would have just scratched when we were wife and a beer for myself, and was refused. So that he could serve the two white persons of the Wulget that would refuse to serve me as a knife. You think about the freedom ride. What we had was a group of Aboriginal people and the fear held in people that, but then, conversely, the courage and bravery to get on a bus and head into towns, you knew people were going to hate your guts. If I was threatened, I was going to get bashed up. I was punched in the back of the head. I'd eagged thrown down the back of my shirt, sand poured over my face, and the top of my head. And bloats, women, women too, pushed, shoved, as a bottle of flying through the air. Imagine being confronted with that and how you'd have to like, G yourself up on the bus. That sense of purpose, that sense of strength is quite remarkable. And the reason why, actually, that's the turning point that I think is one of the biggest is because it showcases the collective traveling around confronting people's fear in regional, primarily regional communities. This is where that tension of communities versus communities has the power to change. That freedom bus trip changed the capacity for white people to vote for the referendum in '67. And that was a massive swing. This is Bowerville, 360 miles north of Sydney population, about 1,000 people. There, you definitely should have their rights. Do you think the originals behave well out here? I do think the Aboriginal's behave well. I think they have the right to have an education. They have seen other Australian. After all, they are Australians. And we have supposed to have education and all the facilities in Australia. I think they should have it. The freedom right made Australians realize that we've got a terrible situation in this country. Let's do something about it. And they thought by expressing their vote at the referendum in '67, that was their contribution to it. So I think in political terms, it was very significant. The success of the 1967 referendum campaign was testament to the power of change through collective action. The referendum is on safety. And it's important that we should have the maximum vote because the eyes of the world are on Australia. They are waiting to see whether or not the white Australian will take with him as one people the dark Australian. I feel that the Aboriginal people should be housed in decent houses, not halfway houses. The halfway house produces a halfway citizen. And of course, you can't neglect the point that we got through the referendum on a 91 majority and the referendum in this country has always been defeated. So 90% of what Australia was saying, get off your ass and do some Aboriginal people. In the end, this tiny little handful of people, practically penless, achieved in getting 90.2% of the voting population of Australia to vote in favor of the change we required. So we went mad with excitement. I cannot tell you. Churchill Fellow, Hannah McGlaid, is a Western Australian non-Iar woman. She says Australia's Royal Commission had to desks in custody on the stolen generations, bringing them home report were really important turning points for her in the fight for rights. In the early 1980s, I was a young high school student and we witnessed the death of a young Aboriginal man, a country town called Robyn. His name was John Pat and he was only 16 years old. And John Pat had been killed in an incident involving off-Judy police officers, several involved, who were charged with criminal fences. They were acquitted by an all-white jury. John Pat died in 1983. He was 16. His death became a symbol of Aboriginal anger at a white justice system. Why is it that someone can kill an Aboriginal? And just because they've got a blue uniform on, they can walk away scot-free. The five men, four of whom are married, left the court immediately as three men. They're now all still working in the police force. This triggered a national groundswell across the country and a movement for a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody. We're not asking for a formal inquire. We're not even asking for anything. We are demanding justice for the black people of Australia and a Royal Commission. What is it? The increasing calls from the Aboriginal community and from many others for a Royal Commission indicate to us and we accept that any inquiry which did not have the status of a Royal Commission would be unacceptable. It's now 30 years since the Royal Commission into Deaths in custody and we're still seeing Aboriginal people die at horrific rates in this country and we know that most of those recommendations, important recommendations, still haven't been implemented or given due respect by the governments. There was also, in the 1990s, we had a national inquiry by the Human Rights Commission looking at the removal of Aboriginal children under the past policies. That was really historic. It was an absolute turning point. Before that national inquiry, there hadn't been recognition of what had been done to Aboriginal people under the colonial laws of government in relation to the removal of Aboriginal kids. The mass protests against the celebration of the 1988 Basin tenure of the White Settlement of Australia were another big turning point. (crowd cheering) (indistinct) - This is what a story could be like. What better? What better occasion for us to come together in this sort of spirit that on the 200th anniversary we have survived. (crowd cheering) - That was in 1988 and Aboriginal people were being told by governments that we should just celebrate the colonisation of Australia and the dispossession of Aboriginal people without a treaty or any form of real settlement. So Aboriginal people across the country, including from West Australia and Perth, we joined convoys and travelled across the nation to arrive at La Perue in Sydney and to take part in protests and I understand that they were the biggest protests Australia had seen since the Vietnam War. - Happy birthday Sydney, at 200 years and the first fleet has arrived to greater ploughs around South Ed and a massive spectator fleet as you can see. - We protested the tall ships that were arriving in Botany Bay, re-enacting the colonial acquisition of Australia and attack on Aboriginal people's lands. That was really powerful. - Hannah McGlaid says while there has been big steps forward in our fight for rights, she also sees things not changing. Like our legal system, which she says is still turning a blind eye to violence and abuse against people in the country. - We know that the land is being damaged and we saw what happened to Jucon Gorge and that incredibly significant sacred site in the Pilbra that was basically blown up by the Rio Tinto Company in disregard of its international heritage significance. So our land is suffering. But if we talk about the people and what's being done, we know that Aboriginal people are experiencing very severe human rights abuse and are suffering as a result. We know what intergenerational trauma is. We know what happened to people removed under the past policies, which were found to be genocidal by the National Human Rights Enquiry in the bringing them home review of Australia's past policies. We know that they're suffering there, but even today we're looking at systemic and structural discrimination and the impacts that is happening on Aboriginal people today. I'm really obviously concerned in my work about mass incarceration of Aboriginal people and child removal, which is at such high levels. It exceeds the level of child removal under the history of the stolen generations by far, and the experiences of a great many children is quite painful and certainly not care. Anna is particularly worried about violence against Aboriginal women, which she says is continuation of the horrific treatment of First Nations women during colonial and mission times. So the response is not to support Aboriginal women on the part of the Australian state, but to actually criminalise and punish women. And it's been known for a long time now that Aboriginal women are the fastest growing prison population in Australia and of the most overrepresented group in the criminal justice system. They generally all have histories of violence abuse and victimisation from childhood onwards. And we do nothing about that. We do nothing but punish women and show a lack of care, retraumatise and create disability in the inhumane treatment of them in prisons. The people of the Torres Strait have shared many turning points with Aboriginal people, but they also have their own unique history. Eddie Corky-Member, the celebrated Torres Strait Islander Land Rights campaign, a tall this story of how his murr, or Murray Island was taken over by British colonisers in the 1880s. I went and said, "The scene Matthew Flinders went through and so on and all the others that came past him." And they've seen the anthropological reporters came to the islands and left. And they've seen Chester, the man who unacts the island for Britain, been to Murray and left, because I heard some stories from my grandfather telling about big ships going in there with cannons and firing cannons over the heads of the islanders. That's when they conquered the islands and made it part of Britain. And of course the islanders knew that they were in minority and they put down their arms and surrendered to Britain. And that's when we became part of Queensland, unfortunately. Churchill Fellow, Donisha Duff, is from Thursday Island. She has family links to Moa and Bardu Islands, and there's a Yadu Ghana without the traditional owner of Cape York. She says the inclusion of the Torres Strait Islands under Queensland's Aboriginal Protection Act in 1904 was a devastating development which forced many of the state's first nations peoples into reserves. The Aboriginal Protection Act here in Queensland which actually moved people onto missions, stopped people practicing culture and language. So if you're talking about attempts to completely break down a culture and society, that's completely destructive. That has lasting legacies on communities now in Queensland. You still have quite a few who were previous missions and reserves that are large communities that are still living there. And to some extent they are self-governed by local governments now, but that's still a history and impact that they have to overcome. In the landmark action in 1936, Torres Strait Islander workers on Perling Luggers staged a nine-month general strike challenging the control authorities had over their lives. Islanders built the company boats, but the local Queensland government protectors controlled them, which led to growing resentment among locals, especially against the local protector, J.D. McLean. In the name of improving industry, J.D. McLean imposed an evening curfew, signaled by what was known as the Boo Whistle. He also directed recruitment of crew members and skippers for company boats and handled the financial books and personal earnings of Islanders. At the beginning of January 1936, J.D. McLean visited the inhabited islands to sign men onto company boats. Just as McLean landed on Murray and Bauder Island, it was announced that all maritime workers of company boats, except for two, were on strike. When McLean tried to recruit men in a hall at Bauder Island, Councillors and workers refused to join. One man read a statement, listing reasons for his refusal. He then convinced others to jump out of the hall windows with him as a sign of protest. On south side, people whistled and called out. We'll never sign back. Like most toastered Islander men in the 1930s, Danisha Duff's grandfather was working on the purling lakers at that time. You had effectively toastered Islanders who were working on the maritime industry purling luggers who were going on strike because at that time the protector of aborigines was taking control of affairs and the way luggers operated and the payment or non-payment of wages. So effectively, you had a holy butastered Islander who were on strike and calling for better treatment and for payment of their wages and recognition of the work that they were doing. So that was a turning point in terms of recognising that wages needed to be paid for those that were doing the work, fair wages. It really was a collective action by toaster Islanders to say, no more, you know, it's time for us to be actually treated and respected as working people contributing to an economy. It goes back to my family history as well too. My grandfather was actually a Pearl Diver during that period as well. So he would have been working on the luggers. It's a proud moment when you think that's a positive change for us as a family to be have been positively affected by it. I think it should have happened a lot earlier in terms of recognition of people's rights. I mean, we had Federation at 1901 and this is 35 years later, we're actually recognising the physical labour and input of toaster Islanders into the economy. The main thing that we get it across is that our fight for recognition of our land is still on. Whether we win it or we're going to go on to the next phase of the battle, that's how we explain it to our people because we can't explain it in your way of explaining things. It's totally different to our way of explaining to be able to fit into our thinking. That's how we do it. Getting Marbao's long campaign for recognition of land rights on Mer Island in the Torres Strait eventually changed Australian law over throwing the myth of Terranulius. For the first time, Australia has recognised the legal existence of aborigines prior to white settlement. The case is a moral victory as well as having great significance for land rights. Where is this native title been for the last 200 years? Terranulius was the docker up until today. A native title now becomes a new law, but native title can only exist with the consent of the crown. Native title is meaningless because as far as we are concerned, we have never surrendered any of our lands. We have never surrendered our rights to our territories and our resources. A thief is still the thief, whether it's called a native title or Terranulius. In 1992, the High Court ruled in favour of the land claim by it and four other Torres Strait along the men. In backing their claim, the High Court effectively recognised the rights of all Aboriginal or Torres Strait along the people to their land. On his deathbed, that's all he kept saying was, "Main claim, man claim." And that was in his last breath, he kept talking about it. So it was essentially very, very important to my father. I think he set the foundation, really, really strong foundation for all of us in terms of, when I set foot on my land on Badoo, I do feel when you talk about the marble decision, the land rights, I'm standing on my own land. I feel inside that nobody's going to take this away from me. That's still a landmark for Torres Strait Islanders in terms of recognising something we always knew. We always knew we had land rights. We always knew we had intergenerational recognition. of land rights. That's how we lived. And it was just the high court recognising it served as legally western systems of legal recognition, finally accepted that this was the way culture and practice and land, handing down of land, happened in families. I think there's certain pride that Torres Strait Islanders have, you know, that's their landmark decision which recognises family claims to land rights. I was fortunate to actually have travelled to Mayor Murray Island for a really important celebration of Marbo. And you could see the pride in people. There was a huge parade down the middle of the street. There was festival, you know, for the whole week. Really an acknowledgement of, you know, that decision and the celebration of that decision. Danesha says the establishment of the Torres Strait Regional Authority 1994, after hundreds of years of colonial and state rule, also paved the way for greater self-determination in the Torres Strait. My third turning point is the, in 1994, the establishment of the TSI Ray, the Torres Strait Regional Authority. And that continues now where we have seen, you know, Atcic dismantled, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, dismantled. I think, you know, that structure and the, the elected representation of Torres Strait Islanders on that board gives really good authority and governance to Torres Strait Islander people to determine what their priorities are on their own country. While particular turning points have been critical, in the fight for rights is our culture and connection to country that's given us the strength and resilience to keep fighting. How do I remember it would put you this way? I think that Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander peoples capacity to get out of bed and keep fighting for policy relevance through identity for culture every day, that is significant every day. I can think of, you know, all the families, the young ones, the, the middle aged ones like me, and the older ones who, you know, everyone's had a different fight, but that's actually, and there's been huge disruptions, huge inequities in our survival and our resistance in this country, but still people get up and they get out of bed. So turning points for me is the fact that every Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person that I know that can get out of bed every day and go and fight for what we're always trying to do, the work that to me is a turning point every day. As well as resilience is our close relationships to each other that makes us so strong as a people. The greatest, I think, impact of British kind of culture, Western culture in our context is individualism because it's meant that people see themselves as uniquely separate to everything around them. And when we see ourselves as completely inseparable, which is the idea of the collective, then we all elevate, amplify and move forward together and we all kind of make sure we're okay. If you're working from an individualist construct, you just want to make sure you're okay. In our way, we want to make sure everyone and everything is okay because and it means we're okay. I think about it as the, as the notion of collectivity, that this collective of which we're one part of as humankind is only going to benefit if we're all benefiting. That brings us to the end of this first episode of Voices of Power. Visit the Ayatsus website at ayatsus.gov.au and to find out more about Churchill Fellowships, already the Fellows Report to visit ChurchillTrust.com.au. The Fellowships offer people from all walks of life support to travel overseas, to explore issues they're passionate about and that can make a difference. If you would like to apply for a Fellowship or know anyone who does, now is your chance applications open in February and in close at the end of April. Our second and third episodes of Voices of Power are online now and ready for you to download. So get listening. In the next episode, we look at our first nation's people here and overseas are rebuilding their tribal nations to create strong futures. I'm Vic Sims. Catch up with you then, eh? The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aiazis or the Churchill Trust.