Abstract: Kornelsen, Derek; Boyer, Yvonne; Lavoie, Josee; Dwyer, Judith There is growing interest among public servants, Indigenous organisations, and scholars in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in the idea of shifting from classical New Public Management accountability models to models that reflect mutual or reciprocal accountability as a means of delivering more effective and responsive health care to Indigenous communities. However, little progress has been made with respect to developing and implementing workable reciprocal accountability models. In this paper, we argue that a consideration of Indigenous perspectives on reciprocity and accountability is an essential, yet mainly overlooked, component of the development of effective and appropriate accountability models between Indigenous peoples and statebased funders. Indeed, many Indigenous peoples have long histories of engaging in reciprocity-based relationships with each other and their environments. Drawing from Indigenous knowledge in this regard offers novel insights that can inform how models of reciprocity are constructed and understood. More specifically, we argue that consideration of Indigenous perspectives on treaties and treaty-making as a way to interpret the substance of mutual roles and responsibilities enables a shift to models of reciprocal accountability that are based on the mutual building of long-term, trust-based relationships, while also providing a frame that emphasises the maintenance of the sovereignty of the entities that are party to such relationships.
Abstract: Blagg, Harry; Tulich, Tamara; Bush, Zoe After decades of neglect, attention in Australia has recently focused on the inter-generational impact of longterm alcohol use in the form of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders ('FASD'), and the lack of responsiveness of the justice system to the needs of persons with FASD. FASD is a non-diagnostic umbrella term encompassing a spectrum of disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure, including Foetal Alcohol Syndrome ('FAS'), Partial FAS ('pFAS') and alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder. While Australian data is limited, the prevalence of FASD in Indigenous communities is indicatively greater than non- Indigenous communities. In 2015, rates of FAS/pFAS of 12 per 100 children were reported in Fitzroy Crossing in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia.4 This is the highest reported prevalence in Australia and on par with the highest rates internationally.
Abstract: Cavanagh, Vanessa; Marchetti, Elena Australian Indigenous focused cross-cultural professional development for the judiciary is an evolving area. In other professional service sectors, such as health and education, cultural safety is becoming the benchmark. However, for the Australian justice sector cultural awareness, and to a lesser extent cultural competency, dominate discussion, and cultural safety is only an emerging discourse. Most judicial officers (indeed most Australian public servants and legal practitioners) would be familiar with the concept of Indigenous cultural awareness as part of their standard professional development training, however, the significance of cultural competency, and the application of cultural safety principles are less well recognised. This paper documents the extent to which Australian judges and magistrates are trained or guided in accommodating the cultural needs of Indigenous courtroom participants. In particular, we review and critique the extent to which Indigenous specific cross-cultural education (in the form of short courses, seminars, conferences, cultural immersion tours, site visits, and as contained in bench books) is currently available for Australian judicial officers. In documenting current practice, we consider whether cultural awareness, cultural competency or cultural safety can be achieved by way of current judicial training and court practice guidelines. Taking into account the experiences of all Indigenous participants in the courtroom, as well as the fact that the over-representation of Indigenous offenders in the Australian criminal justice system continues to be a significant and complex issue, we conclude that it is necessary for judicial officers to be equipped with the capacity to ensure that their courtrooms are culturally safe when having to accommodate the needs of all Indigenous participants.
Abstract: Bartels, Lorana; Bolitho, Jane; Richards, Kelly This article presents the findings of a component of the National Assessment of Australia's Children's Courts (the 'national study'). Specifically, this article focuses on the perceptions of magistrates in the New South Wales (NSW) Children's Court ('NSWCC' or the 'Court') in relation to the issues facing Indigenous young people in the Court's criminal jurisdiction generally, and the potential of Indigenous youth courts more specifically. Part II outlines the method for the national study from which this article stems, as well as the method for the NSW component of the study. Part III provides an analysis of NSWCC magistrates' perceptions of challenges and reforms in the Court's criminal jurisdiction as they relate to Indigenous young people specifically, and discusses our analysis in light of findings from the national study from other states and territories. Finally, Part IV briefly considers the key findings of our analysis in light of the current Koori Youth Court pilot.
Abstract: Webb, Raelene '[T]he Meriam people are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray Islands.' On 3 June 1992, with those words, it is said that the High Court freed Australia from the concept of 'terra nullius'. The decision in 'Mabo' that the common law recognised and protected Indigenous rights in land that existed at the time Britain acquired sovereignty was truly a watershed moment in Australian legal history, shaking the foundation of land law on which British claims to possession of Australia were based.
Abstract: Maxwell, Jack Customary law is an integral part of the lives and identities of Indigenous people across contemporary Australia. But its existence alongside Australian criminal law raises complex questions of law and political morality. It seems difficult to reconcile these two systems of law with the principle that all Australians stand equal before the law, and the intuition that people should not be subjected to different criminal sanctions on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Abstract: Leeson, Sjharn; Rynne, John; Smith, Catrin; Adams, Yolonda The over-representation of First Peoples, generally, and women specifically, in Australian prisons is beyond debate. However, Australia has seen a revalorisation of the prison and punitive measures like incarceration as the primary solution to social problems and social disadvantage, despite an array of abolitionist and prison rights campaigns, particularly across New South Wales and Victoria, that have impacted upon governmental and correctional penal reform policies.
Abstract: McCabe, Patrick The failure of Australian native title jurisprudence to develop any scope for the recognition of commercial native title rights has been much lamented. This article first briefly summarises that failure, and then turns to describe the Akiba litigation that culminated in the High Court's 2013 decision of 'Akiba v Commonwealth' ('Akiba HC'), and explains how that decision presents an opportunity at last to develop the jurisprudence in a direction more amenable to the recognition of commercial native title rights. I briefly note that the opportunity has not been seized in some recent native title judgments, probably because they were mostly argued prior to 'Akiba HC', before proceeding to discuss the 2014 Federal Court cases of 'Willis on behalf of the Pilki People v Western Australia' ('Pilki'), and 'BP (deceased) on behalf of the Birriliburu People v Western Australia' ('Birriliburu'), the former of which has now been upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court. These decisions represent the first fruit of the tortuously slow development of the jurisprudence in this area. This article attempts to glean some lessons from those cases that can be applied to future claims for commercial native title rights, before finally looking to the practical ramifications of this development in the law.
Abstract: Ciftci, Sarah; Howard-Wagner, Deirdre The paper considers the Aboriginal Care Circle Pilot Program ('Care Circle pilot') in Nowra as an alternative, 'culturally appropriate' step within the court process for deciding Aboriginal child protection care matters, taken by the courts in the context of Aboriginal dispute resolution models. The Care Circle pilot has been established using the alternative dispute resolution ('ADR') provisions under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW). The Care Circle pilot aims to empower Aboriginal families and communities and reduce barriers between Aboriginal people and the courts, through facilitating Aboriginal peoples' participation in child protection decision-making.
Abstract: Stephens, Mamari; Monk, Phoebe There are two kinds of language in New Zealand: private and civic. Private language can be heard and read in the private sphere. It is the language in which conversations of all hues take place: the language of the classroom, of the reality TV show, of the church service; the raucous chatter of the sports bar, the hushed tones in the law school library. At any given hour, this kind of language can be heard, usually in English, sometimes in Maori, sometimes in other tongues, in private and in public settings. Civic language, by contrast, is the language of the enactment of state law, of government, administration, politics and the economy. This language ultimately determines the rights and obligations of New Zealand citizenship. Almost exclusively, English is the civic language of New Zealand. While Maori has remained the dominant language of the pre-eminent Maori civic realm, the marae atea, Maori has not had a civic role in the New Zealand state for over a century.
Abstract: Pelizzon, Alessandro; Kennedy, Jade The act of acknowledging Country prior to public events has become commonplace in Australia. Indigenous language groups and tribal boundaries are named and an apparent recognition of traditional owners is voiced. Too often, however, the legal and political implications of the act of acknowledging Country are ignored. Furthermore, such an acknowledgment is rarely explored and deconstructed in order to understand its traditional cultural and normative significance.
Abstract: Le Marseny, Stuart This paper will present the growing body of evidence regarding the success of the Family Responsibilities Commission ('FRC') in the Indigenous community of Aurukun. In particular, it will indicate how the FRC has achieved its objectives of: - supporting the restoration of socially responsible standards of behaviour and local authority in welfare reform community areas; and - helping people in welfare reform community areas to resume primary responsibility for the wellbeing of their community and the individuals and families of the community.
Abstract: Harvey, Ryan On 10 August 1987, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke called a Royal Commission which would ultimately investigate the deaths of 99 Aboriginal people in police custody from 1 January 1980 to 31 May 1989. The investigation that followed was extensive. In addition to their own research materials, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCIADIC') availed itself of the individual case files of the people who died, various exhibits and findings in relation to their deaths, coroners' reports, welfare and social security files, public submissions, and records of assisting counsel. The RCIADIC produced an Interim Report on 21 December 1988 and a National Report three years later, which concluded that an examination of the lives of the 99 people suggested that their 'Aboriginality played a significant and in most cases dominant role in their being in custody and dying in custody'. Most significantly, the RCIADIC produced 339 recommendations for the Commonwealth and state governments to address the 'social, cultural and legal factors' bearing on those deaths; 64 of those recommendations were directed at state police operations. This article focuses on one in particular: Recommendation 60, which sought to eliminate the use of racist, offensive, and degrading police behaviour towards Aboriginal people.
Abstract: Vines, Prue After a person dies the legal process used depends on whether the deceased person has decided to manage it in advance in some way and whether family or people aware of the death decide to access the common law systems of probate and administration or use traditional or ad hoc informal means of dealing with the issues which arise. The most common response in Aboriginal communities in New South Wales (and elsewhere in Australia) has been to use ad hoc informal means of dealing with the issues arising. This has often led to tension and serious disputes, some of which last for years.
Abstract: Pyne, Anthony More than 20 years have passed since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCIADIC') report was tabled in Parliament. If Australia were to be graded on how successfully it has implemented the report's 339 recommendations, it is difficult to see how it could be awarded any grade other than 'fail'. There have been some successes. But, overall, the number of Indigenous people still in our prisons reflects that we have not done enough. Nowhere is that failure more apparent than in the Northern Territory.
Abstract: Davis, Megan As a Cobble Cobble Aboriginal woman from southwest Queensland who grew up in southeast Queensland, I acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nations. Thank you Aunty Joy for that moving welcome to country and the privilege of wearing the possum skin for the Oration. I would like to thank Professor Ian Anderson for inviting me to deliver the 2012 Naarm Oration, which I consider a great honour and privilege. In addition, special mention and thanks must be made to Ellen Day for organising my time here and the kind and patient manner in which she dealt with my chaotic schedule.
Abstract: Weldehaimanot, Simon M; Mekonnen, Daniel R Most international boundaries are arbitrarily drawn; they are put where there is no rational discontinuity, such as a change in climate, landscape, livelihood, ethnicity or race. In Africa in particular, international boundaries have divided communities and made them subject to different jurisdictions. This sad story has created more minorities within states than would have resulted through the natural course of state-formation. Despite calls from some quarters for the redrawing of such problematic state boundaries, they have been formally sanctioned, first by the legal framework of the Organisation of African Unity ('OAU'), and later by the African Union ('AU'). To make matters worse, African states have not progressed towards integration; on the contrary, neighbours have been immersed in deadly conflicts, and engaged in destabilising each other. This gloomy situation means that peoples divided by random lines have not been able to mitigate the consequences of their bad fortune by taking advantage of lax mobility policies.
Abstract: Jeffries, Samantha; Bond, Christine EW The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody argued that the sentencing process provides opportunities for reducing the numbers of Indigenous people in custody. Despite this, Indigenous sentencing disparities research has only been undertaken recently in Australia, and thus far, has been dominated by higher court studies of imprisonment decisions. To date, there have been only three prior investigations of Indigeneity and lower court sentencing.
Abstract: Hopkins, Anthony To ignore factors personal to the applicant, and his history, in which his Aboriginality was a factor, and to ignore his perception of the impact on his life of his Aboriginality, would be to sentence him as someone other than himself.
Abstract: Allison, Fiona; Cunneen, Chris; Loban, Heron; Luke, Garth; Munro, Kate This article reports on an evaluation of the Remote Justices of the Peace Magistrates Court Program ('JP Magistrates Court Program'), conducted in 2010 by the current authors. The article provides detail in relation to certain aspects of the operation of the JP Magistrates Court Program and of the analysis of program effectiveness undertaken as part of the evaluation.
Abstract: Burnside, Sarah With the internal disputes within the Yindjibarndi native title claim group in the Pilbara and the Goolarabooloo Jabirr Jabirr in the Kimberley - regarding, respectively, a proposed land access and mining agreement with the Fortescue Metals Group and the construction of an offshore gas processing plant at James Price Point - intra-Indigenous conflict in the native title realm has recently been thrust into the spotlight. Such disagreements are not new to native title, as the system has stimulated heated debates on many different levels from the outset, and by its nature contains the seeds of discord between and within claim groups. Conflict has long been a concern within the native title sphere - there is a wealth of useful material that focuses on ways of managing and minimising disputes between and within claim groups, and participants in the system often emphasise the importance of Indigenous unity. This article, taking a specifically legal perspective, focuses on those conflicts about rights to specific areas of land and waters that are manifested in claims which overlap each other. The article does not dispute that conflict under the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) ('NTA') may cause profound difficulties to claimants and requires sensitive management. However, it also notes that conflict is unavoidable in any system of property law, as valuable rights capable of legal recognition will always be the subject of competing claims. It is suggested that the inevitability of conflict needs to be more widely acknowledged in a native title context.
Abstract: Kildea, Paul The proposal to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a preamble to the Australian Constitution presents a number of unique challenges. Some, as Anne Twomey notes in this volume in her comprehensive and cogent analysis of the subject, are technical and structural in nature. Others concern the task of dealing with likely disagreement over the preamble's contents. The focus of this short comment, however, is on a third category of challenge that arises from a need to manage the potential tension between the symbolic and functional purposes of a constitutional preamble. After outlining what these purposes are, I argue that the tension between the two will be particularly acute with respect to Indigenous recognition. In line with Twomey, I suggest that, while there are no easy means of reconciling symbolism and function, the best approach may be to ensure that any preambular reform is advanced simultaneously with substantive amendments. I conclude with a brief assessment of the Expert Panel's recommendation to forego a new or amended preamble in favour of inserting a statement of recognition into the body of the Constitution.
Abstract: Stephenson, Margaret With a sentiment currently growing in Australia that the Constitution requires updating to echo the actuality of Australia in the 21st century, it is timely to reflect on the constitutional recognition of the rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia's Constitution will provide the foundation for their future participation in the Australian nation. At present, no constitutional protection is afforded to the rights (including land rights) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution. The area of recognition and protection upon which I will focus in this paper is that in relation to Indigenous rights and title to land. Various forms of recognition and purported protection for Indigenous rights have been included in various nations' constitutions around the world. One constitutional model that has been judicially interpreted as affording recognition and protection of Aboriginal rights to land is that contained in Part 11 of the Canadian Constitution Act 1982. It is this model that I will examine, so as to determine the appropriateness of adopting a version of it in the Australian context.
Abstract: Brennan, Sean In 1988 the Australian people were asked to support the extension of the constitutional requirement of just terms to persons whose property was acquired under the law of a state or territory, and not just a law of the Commonwealth. The amendment was soundly defeated on a day when four separate referendum proposals all failed. The true level of public support for the idea was, however, impossible to gauge due to the way in which the question was presented as part of a larger package.
Abstract: Charlesworth, Hilary; Durbach, Andrea From a human rights perspective, the text of the Australian Constitution is bleak. It contains little protection for individual rights or group rights, focussing instead on the rights of the states and the Commonwealth. The individual rights that are included, such as that to trial by jury, are constricted and technical; they appear incidental to the main game of designing a federal polity. There is in particular little interest in concepts of equality and non-discrimination between people or groups of people, except in the limited context of religious discrimination for public office in the Commonwealth, and discrimination by states against residents of other states. Indeed, the Constitution enshrines race as a legitimate category of distinction between people.
Abstract: Lino, Dylan Being in almost total agreement with the views of a distinguished scholar on which one is supposed to be commenting is both a welcome relief and an unfortunate predicament. It is a relief because it means the commentator is not forced into saying anything that is too controversial. It is a predicament because it leaves the commentator wracking their brains for something intelligent to say that hasn't already been said more eloquently. Reading Dr Sarah Pritchard's rich and wide-ranging discussion left me feeling, in equal parts, relieved and predicament-bound.
Abstract: Pritchard, Sarah In this article, I first consider the discriminatory origins of the Australian Constitution generally, and section 51(xxvi) in particular. This is because, in my view, the case for the removal of section 51(xxvi), and its replacement with a particular head of power with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, can best be fully comprehended once it is appreciated that the birth of the nation was attended by racially discriminatory sentiment. A reading of the Constitutional Convention debates of the 1890s makes clear that the framers intended section 51(xxvi) to be a source of power for the enactment by the Commonwealth Parliament of racially discriminatory laws with respect to the people 'of any race ... for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws'. Those people were those of 'coloured races'. The 'aboriginal natives' were beyond the reach of the discriminatory head of Commonwealth power.
Abstract: Lindell, Geoffrey In its Final Report the Australian Constitutional Commission quoted the following remarks of Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, on the nature of a constitution: A written Constitution is an expressed scheme of government designed to give a basic structure in a changing world; not designed to inhibit growth in a growing world, nor to make the contemporary world subject to the political, social, or economic ideas of a bygone age [A] Constitution is not a strait-jacket: it is a frame of government.
Abstract: Twomey, Anne The Expert Panel on the Recognition of Indigenous Australians recently considered the many ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples could be recognised in the Constitution. The Expert Panel's Discussion Paper1 set out seven ideas, including a statement of recognition in the body of the Constitution, a statement of recognition and values in the body of the Constitution, the amendment or repeal of the race power in section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution, the repeal of section 25 of the Constitution and the insertion of an agreement-making power in the Constitution.
Abstract: Beacroft, Laura; Lyneham, Mathew; Willis, Matthew The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCIADIC') was established in 1987 by the Australian Parliament in response to concerns over the deaths of Indigenous people in custody. It examined the circumstances surrounding the deaths in prison or police custody of 99 Indigenous people between 1 January 1980 and 31 May 1989. The RCIADIC found the rate of death in custody was not higher among Indigenous people in custody than among non-Indigenous people in custody. Rather, the fundamental issue was the extent to which Indigenous Australians were over-represented in their contact with the criminal justice system, the Royal Commission concluding that '[t]oo many Aboriginal people are in custody too often.'
Abstract: On 11 June 2010, two Aboriginal residents of Alice Springs, Graham Woods and Julian Williams, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Edward Hargraves, a non-Aboriginal person. The accused were remanded to stand trial on 14 September 2010 at the Supreme Court in Alice Springs. However, the accused applied to change the venue of the trial from Alice Springs to Darwin due to a perceived risk that they would not receive a fair trial. In July 2010, Blokland J rejected this change of venue application and confirmed that the trial would commence as initially planned (see Woods & Williams v The Queen [2010] NTSC 36).
Abstract: The Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board ('respondents') issued a mining and exploration permit to North Arrow Minerals on land that was subject to Yellowknives Dene First Nation ('applicants') interests. In so issuing, the respondent relied on the assertions of North Arrow and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada ('INAC') that the Akaitcho Dene First Nations ('ADFN') had been consulted, without verifying with the applicants themselves. Prior to the issuance of the permit, North Arrow were told by the Board that consultation with the applicants was required.
Abstract: The case follows the judgment of the Supreme Court of Belize delivered on 18 October 2007, in which the customary land rights of the Maya communities in Southern Belize were held to have subsisted in light of the traditional use and occupation thereof (the 'Maya Land Rights Case'). The present claim was essentially predicated on the basis that the respondents had breached the constitutional protections afforded to the customary land rights so recognised via their failure to establish appropriate statutory and administrative mechanisms required to identify and protect these customary rights.
Abstract: When the Parliament of South Africa enacted the Communal Land Rights Act 2004 (South Africa) ('CLARA'), its purported intention was to fulfil its restitutionary obligation under s 25(6) of the Constitution, whereby communities or persons denied land rights under the racist policies of apartheid were entitled to secure legal tenure or comparable redress. However, on 30 October 2009 the North Gauteng High Court ('the High Court') declared certain provisions of CLARA constitutionally invalid as they threatened to displace existing Indigenous systems of land administration, thereby undermining rather than enhancing security of tenure.
Abstract: The applicant challenged the validity of two consents to modify a major project approval under s 75W of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 ('EPA Act'). The project approval was for a 181 lot subdivision at Sandon Point. Sandon Point is a culturally significant area for Aboriginal people. The modifications allegedly took away a number of conditions relating to the protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage.
Abstract: After many years of negotiation, in 1997 the Little Salmon/ Carmacks First Nation ('LSCFN') concluded a modern comprehensive land claims treaty with the Yukon and Federal governments of Canada. In 2001 Mr Larry Paulsen made an application for an agricultural land grant over land that formed part of the traditional territory of the LSCFN. The land subject to the application had, under the LSCFN treaty, been surrendered to the Crown by the LSCFN, though LSCFN members retained a treaty right of access to hunt and fish for subsistence purposes.
Abstract: Charles, Chris Twenty years ago, the National Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody1 ('RCIADIC') was released. The RCIADIC investigated the excessively high numbers of deaths of Aboriginal people in custody. The conclusion was that, although per capita Aboriginal people in custody were not dying at a significantly higher rate than non-Aboriginal people, the rate of death in custody was excessively high and the incarceration rate of Aboriginal people was much higher than for non-Aboriginal people. The National Report spanned five volumes and included 339 recommendations to state, federal and territory governments. The purpose of the recommendations was to reduce both the rate of incarceration and the number of deaths in custody. This paper examines the duty and standard of care owed to prisoners, an important aspect of the National Report.
Abstract: Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Co-operative Ltd The relationship between police and the Aboriginal community has been a tenuous one since first encounters. Since the days of invasion, Aboriginal communities' interactions with police have been largely negative. This problematic relationship was highlighted by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCIADIC'), which noted that the 'circumstances which gave rise to this Commission illustrate starkly the extent to which Aboriginal people regard police as enemies'. To address the need for change in relations between Aboriginal peoples and police, the RCIADIC made a suite of recommendations, revealing just how entrenched the problem was.
Abstract: Campbell, Fiona Recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody1 ('RCIADIC') have influenced the structural response to complaints against the Police and investigations into deaths in custody. However the recommendations are not always adhered to by those investigating. Some of the reasons for this are examined in this article.
Abstract: Brazil, Raymond Coroners Acts in New South Wales ('NSW') and the Australian Capital Territory ('ACT') confer on coroners jurisdiction to conduct inquests into certain kinds of death. As the outcome of a hearing, a coroner is tasked by their legislation to reach and record prescribed findings relating to the deceased, their death, and its manner and cause. These determinations enable that death to be registered under the relevant Birth, Deaths and Marriages legislation. If, though, this information can be established from preliminary investigations, a coroner has the discretion to dispense with an inquest hearing, unless the death investigated is of a category for which the legislation specifically requires one to be held. One such category is the death of a person in custody.
Abstract: Satya, Shanna; Barson, Ruth Bella In 2001, a Northern Territory ('NT') Magistrates Court sentenced a man to 14 days imprisonment for possessing a five litre cask of moselle in the Aboriginal community of Hermannsburg. The sentencing Magistrate remarked: 'On 18 June, when I was last here at Hermannsburg, I said that anyone who was found to have liquor in their possession in a restricted area of Hermannsburg would be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, and so it will be in this case.'
Abstract: Stubbs, Julie It is now two decades since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCIADIC') delivered its final report, which documented the substantial overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prisons and police custody, and provided detailed analysis of the underlying factors that contributed to that over-representation and to deaths in custody. That work was, of course, of enormous significance, and was intended to lay the groundwork for wholesale change, both within the criminal justice system and beyond it, to redress those factors. As we know, those aims have not been met, and in fact, as documented by numerous studies and reports, the situation of Indigenous over-representation in the criminal justice system and especially in prisons has been heightened. For instance, in its Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report the Productivity Commission noted that in relation to 'social indicators such as criminal justice, outcomes [for Indigenous people] have actually deteriorated.'
Abstract: Mitchell, Margaret; Rowse, Tim What do the police think they are doing with or to Indigenous Australians' We decided to ask them. The paper examines police officers' beliefs and perceptions about Indigenous 'self-determination' and 'capacity' and the implications of these concepts for their work in Indigenous communities. Before describing interviews conducted in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in late 2009, we will provide context for the concepts of 'self determination' and 'capacity' by reviewing relevant parts of two major inquiries influential on the way that Western Australia Police ('WAPol') intends to work with Indigenous communities. The first is the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which issued its National Report in 1991, and the second the July 2002 report by the Gordon Inquiry. Using our interview material, we are able to present, from the practitioners' points of view, the implications for police work of some of the concepts issuing from these inquiries.
Abstract: Davis, Megan Following the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCIADIC') criticism emerged that it failed to adequately consider Aboriginal women in its inquiry into Aboriginal deaths in custody. On the anniversary of the RCIADIC, this article reflects on that criticism. First, this article will provide a brief overview of the RCIADIC and the feminist critique of its failure to adequately incorporate Aboriginal women's issues in its work. Then, this article will describe in more detail the research of Marchetti into the RCIADIC and gender. Next, this article will analyse the RCIADIC'S reliance on the right to self-determination as a guiding principle through a gender lens. Finally, this article will problematise a stock standard narrative reflected in the RCIADIC report that, women fared better during colonisation. The valid critique made about RCIADIC and its failure to adopt an intersectional approach is a challenge shared today by the state and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander political community: the tendency to essentialise the 'Aboriginal person' skews if not hampers responses to the serious challenges facing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. If it is true that RCIADIC failed to adequately incorporate an intersectional approach taking into account the very different experiences of Aboriginal women and Aboriginal men, the question still remains today, how can the state ever adequately gauge what Aboriginal women experience and what Aboriginal women think, when the identity is so politically and legally framed as a collective'
Abstract: French, Robert The term 'identity' is used in a variety of discourses about Aboriginal people, their self-perceptions, their cultures, their lands, and their relationships with each other and with non-Indigenous society. Its overbroad deployment risks diffusing its meaning. Nevertheless, it has served, and no doubt continues to serve, a useful purpose as a gateway to reflection upon the complex, multi-dimensional and dynamic character of Australian Aboriginality.
Abstract: Cunneen, Chris There was optimism at the time of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ('RCADIC') that Indigenous imprisonment rates would be reduced. Indeed a core finding of the Commission had been the need to reduce Indigenous custody and imprisonment, and the consequent overrepresentation of Indigenous people, as a way of addressing the large number of Indigenous deaths in custody. However, over the last two decades Indigenous imprisonment rates have grown significantly rather than declined.
Abstract: This case arose in the context of a dispute over the rights of the Sami, the first nations peoples of northern Scandinavia, to use private land in Sweden for grazing reindeers during winter. In Swedish law reindeer herding rights were regulated by the Reindeer Husbandry Act 1971 (Sweden), which gave the Sami the right to use land and water for their own sustenance and that of their reindeer. Private landowners initiated proceedings against the Sami alleging that the Sami villages had no right to graze on their land without a valid contract.
Abstract: This case is significant for the fact that its outcome affords recognition of the fundamental legal right of Botswana's 'Basarwa' or 'San' people - commonly referred to as 'Bushmen' - to access water on their ancestral lands. The appeal involved a challenge to the decision of the High Court which refused declaratory relief sought by the appellants concerning, inter alia, their rights to re-commission, at their own expense, a borehole at Mothomelo in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve ('CKGR'), and to sink other wells or boreholes in order to access water for domestic purposes, in accordance with s 6 of the Water Act Cap 34:01 ('the Act').
Abstract: In the 1950s, the government of British Columbia approved the damming of the Nechako River by Alcan (now Rio Tinto Alcan) for the purposes of generating power for aluminium production. The Nechako Valley is subject to a Carrier Sekani Tribal Council ('CSTC') First Nations claim as their ancestral homeland. The claim extends to a right to fish the Nechako River. The CSTC was not consulted at the time of the damming. The damming of the river and reservoir altered the water flows of the Nechako River. The effect is that water is diverted from the Nechako River to the Nechako Reservoir where it passes through the turbines of a powerhouse and flows into the Kemano River and onto the Pacific Ocean.
Subscription journal
[403 journals]
