Latest news with #TorresStrait
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Aboriginal people feel Labor isn't listening to them after voice defeat, Uluru statement co-author says
One of the architects of the Indigenous voice to parliament says Aboriginal Australians increasingly feel the government isn't listening to their views on laws and policy design, warning against closed-shop public consultations in the wake of the referendum defeat. Megan Davis, a constitutional scholar and signatory to the Uluru statement from the heart, said the re-elected Albanese government was facing growing displays of discontent and needed a new approach to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Davis said Indigenous policy frameworks were failing and engagement with government was subject to growing 'exclusivity'. 'They consult only those who have contracts with them, or are enlisted in the Closing the Gap 'partnership', so to speak,' she told Guardian Australia. 'Good public policy cannot be served by limiting your consultation to a hermetically sealed segment of a community. 'As a consequence, many Aboriginal people are now saying that the no vote has been interpreted as bureaucrats and government no longer needing to listen to community voices on laws and policies.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The comments come at the start of National Reconciliation Week, and on the eighth anniversary of the release of Uluru statement, the 2017 request from Indigenous leaders built around the concepts of voice, treaty and truth. Running until 3 June, Reconciliation Week follows heated debate about Indigenous welcome to country ceremonies during the election campaign. After Labor's 2022 victory, Anthony Albanese committed to implementing the Uluru statement in full but promised a different approach after the October 2023 referendum was soundly defeated by voters. Last year the prime minister said Labor would deliver the first comprehensive economic policy for Indigenous Australians, part of efforts to close the disadvantage gap. He used a speech at the Garma festival to pledge improved avenues for private-sector investment and to lift home ownership in Indigenous communities, as well as helping companies and job creators to directly reach Indigenous people. Speaking from Harvard University, where she is a visiting professor, Davis said Albanese's vision of 'progressive patriotism' and Australian design models was at odds with the agenda of Indigenous reconciliation, which was first conceived overseas. She said Australia's brand of reconciliation was too limited to private actors and private action. 'That of course has its place and like many mob I have served my time on reconciliation action plans, but it doesn't ask anything of the state that is structural,' she said. 'It's the structural [change] – the public structures of the state – that incontrovertibly lead to change.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The federal government declined to respond to the comments on Sunday. Despite the voice defeat, Davis said Uluru advocates wanted to meet non-Indigenous Australians, 'and yarn about the things we have in common and the things that we don't and the things we can agree on and the things we disagree on'. 'After all, the word parliament comes from 'parle', the French word for speak,' she said. 'That's what the voice is about and that's what we are doing now is speaking, speaking to yes and no about the referendum and yarning about our shared future.' Albanese's post-election reshuffle included the Northern Territory senator Malarndirri McCarthy as minister for Indigenous Australians and Marion Scrymgour, the MP for Lingiari, as the government's special envoy for remote communities. This month Scrymgour said she would speak to Albanese about progressing the remaining elements of the Uluru statement, to help the country heal and move forward. The Cape York leader Noel Pearson told the Australian newspaper after the election that Albanese had run away from Indigenous policy, likening his moves to a Houdini-like disappearance. Davis said Indigenous people deserved to be consulted on the decisions which affected their lives, 'because we know our communities better than you and the laws and policies will be of a better quality'.
Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Monica Feria-Tinta: ‘You can't separate humans from nature'
Monica Feria-Tinta is passionate about the 'power of the law to create change and redress the environmental harm and ecological degradation' caused by mankind. The Peruvian barrister has been a pioneer in the 'quiet revolution' over the past decade as ordinary people have turned to the courts to fight the damage done to 'power western civilisation' at the expense of the natural world. Feria-Tinta has represented indigenous people from the Torres Strait against the government of Australia in a precedent-setting case in which a court ruled that state failings on the climate crisis violated their human rights. And the barrister has represented rivers, a cloud forest and endangered species, becoming what she calls herself in the title of her recently published book, A Barrister for
ABC News
21-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Class action lawsuit accuses Queensland Health of racial discrimination in north Queensland
A class action lawsuit has been launched accusing Queensland Health of racial discrimination in facilities in two regional Queensland areas. The class action filed in the Federal Court on Tuesday alleges state health services discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients at facilities administered by the North West Hospital and Health Service and the Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service. North West Hospital and Health Service covers an area from Kowanyama to Urandangi and includes Julia Creek, Mount Isa, and Mornington Island. Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service covers the top end of the state down to Wujal Wujal, and also includes a number of islands in the Torres Strait. It alleged the state withheld or denied adequate healthcare to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients, while dismissing patient concerns. Rebecca Jancauskas, director of JGA Saddler who is representing the plaintiffs, said the actions alleged in the lawsuit amount to racial discrimination and should be addressed. "These hospitals and health services are alleged to have treated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients differently based on their race or factors that were closely associated to their race," she said. "The claim we've filed in the Federal Court alleges breaches of the Racial Discrimination Act." The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 made it unlawful to draw distinctions or exclude people on the basis of their race. Ms Jancauskas said her law firm had been meeting with patients alleging racial discrimination and elders representing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the regions named in the suit. She said patients seeking medical attention at Queensland Health facilities were talked down to and given "substandard" care. "We've heard stories from elders and community representatives about them turning up to hospitals seeking treatment, complaining of debilitating, intense pain on repeated occasions," she said. "And they've been dismissed on the basis that they're probably under the influence of particular substances, or alcohol." Ms Jancauskas said the claim alleged Queensland Health had failed to address systemic racism for decades despite issues being identified in previous inquiries and reports. "Our claim period alleges that this conduct has been ongoing since December of 1996 and it spans right up until March of this year," she said. "If there was a simple, straightforward fix, I like to think that would have been implemented by now. "But unfortunately there's a bit more to it and we are talking about systems, procedures, beliefs, systems that have been entrenched for decades, and it has sadly resulted in conduct that has gone on for far too long." Robert 'Bongo' Sagigi is a First Nations elder in the Torres Strait community on Badu Island, and believes the state government should meet with the community on their terms to discuss the current state of the Queensland health system. "The director generals, and all the mob down there, sitting in an office in Brisbane, they don't know what's happening on the grassroots level," he said. Mr Sagigi also previously called for a reinstatement of the Torres Model of Care, which he said has been functionally dismantled. He said the lawsuit was "wake-up call" for the state government to address what he called "systemic racism" in the system. "Listen, listen, listen, government. Listen to us because they asked us to vote for them and when they get in, they forget about us," he said. "The democracy that we're practising has been thrown out the window." Queensland Health declined to comment.
News.com.au
20-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders launch a class action against Queensland Health over racial discrimination
Queensland Health have been hit with a class action over allegations of racial discrimination that claim Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people received inadequate healthcare spanning three decades. The class action alleges First Nations people were withheld or denied adequate treatment, had their concerns dismissed and received substandard medical care, which was unlawful and breached the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). Litigators JGA Saddler filed the class action on Tuesday on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were subject to discriminatory conduct by the North West and Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Services between 1996 and 2024. JGA Saddler director Rebecca Jancauskas said the state needed to be held accountable for systematic practices that resulted in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who interacted with certain healthcare providers in Queensland receiving a lower standard of healthcare. 'We've heard heartbreaking stories of First Nations patients being ignored, misdiagnosed, or dismissed in ways that would simply not happen to other Australians,' she said. 'This case is about ensuring those voices are heard, and change is made. 'No one should be treated differently in our hospitals because of their race.' Ms Jancauskas said the claim alleged the State of Queensland failed to take sufficient action to address concerns about systematic racism in hospitals and health services over 30 years despite investigations and inquiries identifying these issues. She said there were examples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had sought medical care from public hospitals and health services in the North West and Cape regions but been repeatedly dismissed, which the case alleges led to children dying. 'This has sadly been the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have sought medical care from public hospitals and health services in these regions,' she said. 'This case goes beyond individual harm. It challenges a pattern of institutional racism that continues to impact the health and lives of First Nations people across Queensland.' Litigation Lending Services chief executive officer Susan Wynne said they were funding the class action to seek justice on behalf of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were failed by Queensland Health. 'Every Australian has the right to access healthcare free from discrimination,' she said. 'For too long, complaints of racism in the public health system have been minimised or ignored.'
SBS Australia
19-05-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
Remote First Nations communities celebrate million-book milestone
SBS Indonesian 19/05/2025 08:46 The Indigenous Literacy Foundation's Book Supply program has given that opportunity to thousands of people in remote communities. It has just marked a major milestone, providing one million books to hundreds of remote communities across Australia, half of them authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. These books allow young Australians to see themselves reflected in the books. Listen to the full podcast. Listen to on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 3pm. Follow us on and , and don't miss our
