Thread by @drlouisehansen

For the Prime Minister of Australia:

Dear Scott Morrison,

I am writing to you about the growing concern worldwide for the First Nations people of Australia. I was only 17 years old when I was formally taught, at James Cook University, 1/62 #Justice4Australia

about the Australian Government’s long standing abuse of First Nations people. I actually cried. I did not understand how any person or government could do what I learnt. I became an Academic at the same university that empowered me with that knowledge. 2/62

I am now a Psychologist in Cape York working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I cannot thank them enough for enriching my life; for providing a sense of connection and belonging I did not experience growing up in Australia. 3/62

As a student I had much hope that their circumstances had improved and would only continue to get better. Twenty years later the Australian Government has destroyed that dream I had. I present the reality to you in this letter: 4/62

Suicide is now a national crisis for First Nations people. They also carry a disproportionate health burden; related to poverty and poor living conditions, with high rates of gastroenteritis, encephalitis, hepatitis, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure and trachoma. 5/62

Due to historically entrenched and systematic factors, including racism, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are the most imprisoned people in the world. Despite making up 2% of the population, they make up 28% of all imprisoned people. 6/62

Approximately 50% of imprisoned people in Australia have a disability, and 73% and 86% of imprisoned Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women, respectively, a psychosocial disability. Women are the fastest growing imprisoned group. 7/62

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women made up a third of all imprisoned women in 2018. Most are imprisoned for low level offending. Domestic violence is both the cause and effect of women’s imprisonment. 8/62

Most jurisdictions have multi-billion dollar prison expansion or construction programs without investment in preventative or diversionary programs. Australia’s age of criminal responsibility is 10, contrasting with United Nations recommendations, 9/62

and medical evidence on lifespan development; this disproportionately affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Investigations of youth detention services, including one Royal Commission, found repeated breaches of children’s human rights. 10/62

Children are far too often detained, subject to isolation and force, and not separated from adults. The rights of children in police watch houses in Queensland are being seriously breached. Australia lacks sufficient focus on preventing violence against children, 11/62

economic, social and cultural rights, non-discrimination, and participatory rights. Racially discriminatory policing remains prevalent, impacting entire communities. In particular, ‘intelligence-led’ or ‘preventive’ policing models are having adverse and 12/62

discriminatory impacts, especially on racially marginalised groups. Police responses to family violence need urgent reform. Survivors of family violence experience police duty failures, including misidentifying victims as perpetrators, privacy breaches and failing to 13/62

provide effective protection. Little progress has been made towards Australia’s 2016 voluntary Universal Periodic Review commitment to the improve criminal justice system. It is now the 30th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. 14/62

This Royal Commission resulted 339 recommendations. Not one recommendation has been implemented over that thirty year period. There has been more than 470 Aboriginal deaths in custody since then. Not one person has convicted or held accountable for this. 15/62

Trauma endures when we fail to break the cycle: the negative operation of power. The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was official government policy from 1909 to 1969. Once in care, high proportions were psychologically, 16/62

physically and sexually abused. Consequently, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, substance abuse, or suicide did occur. Not all Australian jurisdictions have compensation schemes for members of the Stolen Generations. 17/62

Social and community services suffer deep ongoing funding cuts, instability and unjustified conditions. Homelessness has increased, particularly among First Nations people and older women; housing affordability has not improved; social housing continues to decline. 18/62

There is no national plan to reduce homelessness or housing stress. The national inter-governmental funding agreement on remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing has expired and federal funding for remote housing has been withdrawn in many states. 19/62

Government payments assisting renters on low incomes are inadequate. Australia’s unlawful automated debt collection process – robodebt - undermined the right to social security and severely impacted those involved leading to a fatal number of suicides. 20/62

Cashless debit and income management schemes have expanded in recent years despite their discriminatory impact on First Nations people (and single mothers), restricting individual decision making, and weak evidence of effectiveness. 21/62

The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) is an extension of the Northern Territory Intervention’s ‘Income Management’ policy; more than 81% of compulsory recipients Aboriginal. The Community Development Program (CDP); more than 85% are Aboriginal. 22/62

CDC requires remote Aboriginal participants to work for welfare payments; quarantines 80% of cash welfare, it’s humiliating, stigmatising, exacerbates financial hardship, entrenches disempowerment; independent reviews report that it has lead to increased violence and crime. 23/62

CDC limits human rights, is disproportionate and the program is costly; $10,000 per participant, with millions paid to the private company ‘Indue’ to deliver. Yingiya Mark Guyula MLA, claims the Northern Territory Intervention, Stronger Futures and CDP 24/62

brought ‘a decline in employment, an increase in court hearings, incarceration rates, increased child removals and suicides; concluding it is cultural genocide. A lack of technology, phones and repeated power outages prevented access to funds and food. 25/62

A Coronial Inquiry into Child Suicide found that CDC was disempowering and a contributing factor to suicide, has additional obligations and is more onerous than for urban participants. It applied financial penalties disproportionately; giving 35,000 people 26/62

350,000 penalties in two years, resulting in cuts to payments, hunger and poverty. It should be no surprise then that First Nations children are over 10 times more likely to be removed from their families than non-indigenous children and more likely to end up in detention. 27/62

It is clear to see how one of the oldest cultures on Earth found itself in the midst of a physical, psychological, social, country, cultural and spiritual crisis; the worst outcome suicide. These findings only scratch the surface of the depth and breath of this crisis. 28/62

The Australia’s Constitution does not recognise the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, support self-determination and includes discriminatory, race-based legislation. Australia has multiple inconsistent and overly technical 29/62

anti-discrimination legislation. Australia’s approach does not provide remedies for intersectional discrimination, and creates significant exceptions and barriers to individuals bringing complaints. Legal assistance funding is inadequate; 30/62

critically underfunded with insufficient access to legal services for human rights abuses. The separate Indigenous Legal Assistance Program will close despite evaluation recommending it stay. Australia’s legislation and regulations fail to recognise the 31/62

intrinsic connection between Indigenous lands and cultural heritage. Current regimes do not uphold the rights of First Nations people to ‘free, prior and informed consent’ or capacity to reject mining and protect cultural heritage, traditional lands and waters. 32/62

The destruction of the globally significant 46,000 year-old Juukan Gorge, described as ‘the dawning of humanity’, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in 2020, highlights the abject failure of Aboriginal cultural protection laws and Native Title. 33/62

The Rio Tinto mining corporation blasted the sacred site, after Ministerial consent to destroy it through the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act (1972). This confirms the discriminatory nature of legislation to preserve Aboriginal cultural heritage sites 34/62

and the racially inferior land title provided to Aboriginal people. Traditional Owners were granted Native Title, but Native Title legislation does not enable Traditional Owners to refuse mining. Juukan Gorge is one of 463 sites in Western Australia w/permission to destroy. 35/62

Native Title rights provide substantially less rights than other property rights, privileging mining and no leverage to refuse it. Only when mining is agreed can they negotiate an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, where the terms are usually kept secret. 36/62

Amendments to Native Title Act further erode common law rights; procedural fairness and reduced the ‘right to negotiate’ over exploitation of Native Title land. In 2019, the government extinguished the native title of the Wangan and Jagalingou people for Adani coal mine. 37/62

I never imagined as a 17 year old student that one day I would write this letter. However, trauma endures when we fail to break the cycle: the negative operation of power. Physical, psychological, social, country, cultural and spiritual protectors enhance life. 38/62

Denying First Nations people protectors violates their human rights: freedom, safety, heath and wellbeing. There is no excuse for injustice. This is driven by ignorance or the deliberate negative operation of power. Perhaps it is a combination of both. 39/62

The Director of Human Rights Watch reports that political will must occur from the top and that change must be led by and driven in collaboration with First Nations people. Now that I have provided you with the reality of this crisis, I kindly ask that you return my dream. 40/62

As the Prime Minister of Australia, I ask you to formally and publicly apologise to First Nations people, on behalf of the Australian Government, that allowed this abuse. I ask that you be honest and transparent to all Australians about this longstanding crisis. 41/62

I encourage you to ask the nation to stand with First Nations people and acknowledge their dignity, strength and resilience. I urge you to immediately implement all recommendations in the 2021 Human Rights Watch World Report in partnership with First Nations people. 42/62

The recommendations are: hold a referendum to revise the Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples' rights, remove racist elements and include an anti-discrimination clause; enact a comprehensive Equality Act that addresses all prohibited 43/62

grounds of discrimination, promotes substantive equality and provides effective remedies against systemic and intersectional discrimination; urgently compensate all members of the Stolen Generations, as recommended by the Bringing Them Home Report; 44/62

adequately fund social and community services to underpin the realisation of human rights; establish a First Nations elected representative Voice to Parliament and develop a treaty with the First Peoples; incorporate the United Nations Declaration on 45/62

the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into domestic law, have an independent body oversee it, in consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, to include Parliamentary scrutiny; enter into a formal partnership with First Nations organisations to develop 46/62

national justice and family violence targets to reduce imprisonment; address the over-representation of First Nations people, set justice targets, fund a national Custody Notification Service and end mandatory sentences; urgently implement 47/62

all recommendations from Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Northern Territory Royal Commission, and close Don Dale detention centre; address the over-representation of people with disability; eradicate imprisonment of unconvicted people with disability; 48/62

review the juvenile justice systems; raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14; mandate separate detention of juveniles from adults; importantly, prison must only be a last resort; end prison construction and expansion and instead resource preventative and 49/62

diversionary programs to reduce imprisonment. It is critical independent bodies are resourced to investigate potential human rights abuses by police; ensure all jurisdictions establish independent investigative bodies that meet international human rights standards. 50/62

Australia must conduct a comprehensive audit into policing law, policy and procedure to identify and eliminate discriminatory impacts, and immediately implement stop and search monitoring and receipting to address racial profiling; address police duty failures and 51/62

improve responses for safety of victims/survivors when requesting police assistance for family violence, and to prevent the criminalisation of survivors as a consequence of police responses; restore funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services; 52/62

and implement the recommendations of the Productivity Commission to inject $200 Million the legal assistance sector. Australia must establish a national prevention, early intervention and reunification program to prevent 53/62

child protection involvement, with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled service provision; establish a national commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people; 54/62

permanently increase allowance payments so people can afford the basics and establish a Social Security Commission to advise Government on payment rates, including indexation; end all automated debt collection processes based on 55/62

flawed debt calculation methods and refund anyone who repaid a robodebt; abolish the Stronger Futures, Cashless Debit Card and Community Development Program, and return welfare entitlements and funding to remote communities and Homelands/Outstations; 56/62

and replace these schemes with voluntary models which are non-discriminatory in design and implementation. Australia must develop a national homelessness and affordable housing strategy; increase investment in new social housing that meets diverse housing needs. 57/62

Australia must develop a new inter-governmental First Nations housing strategy, which includes remote homeland communities, and is included in the Closing the Gap Targets; fund the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander controlled health, service and healing sector 58/62

to meet family, child, youth, health, aged, disability and rehabilitation needs nationally. Australia must review/amend the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Heritage Protect Act, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Native Title Act 59/62

to confer ‘free, prior and informed consent’ for First Nations people; remove powers to acquire native title lands; extinguish native title rights; include compensation regardless of date of extinguishment; return all sacred items to Juukan Gorge and fund a keeping place. 60/62

Millions of 17 year olds enrolled into university this year; millions more denied the privilege of education. Thanks to social media now anyone can learn what Australia traditionally preferred to hide. If you did return my dream, what they find won’t make them cry. 61/62

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards,

Dr Louise Hansen
Psychologist
PhD in Psychology
Human Rights Activist

Source: Adapted from the Human Rights Watch World Report: Australia (2021). 62/62

My letter to the Prime Minister of Australia about First Nations People and the 2021 Human Rights Watch World Report: Australia. Facebook version (easier to read and publicly available to share): ❤️ #Justice4Australia facebook.com/529148833/post…