State of the World's Minorities 2006 - Australia

In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people are under similar challenge from the conservative government led by Prime Minister John Howard. The Australian government has rejected measures it dubs 'symbolic reconciliation' – negotiations on a treaty with Aboriginal Australia, further action on the recommendations of the Royal Commission into deaths in custody, and an apology for the Stolen Generations (indigenous children separated from their families by welfare workers, missionaries and government officials).

Instead, it is moving on 'practical reconciliation', by dismantling Aboriginal-run institutions and 'mainstreaming' specialist services (previously run by and for indigenous Australians) into government departments. A 2005 Senate Committee on the Administration of Indigenous Affairs expressed concern that specialist organizational and cultural knowledge developed by self-managed organizations will be lost if funding for indigenous programmes is folded into Australian government agencies.

In a crucial decision, the government-created Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was abolished in March 2005.

Prime Minister Howard had already split the Commission into an elected arm and a funding arm in 2003, leaving ATSIC with no decision-making responsibility for the provision of services. The government then introduced the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Amendment Bill 2004 to legislate for the complete abolition of ATSIC, which was passed by the federal parliament on 16 March 2005. These decisions were made with limited consultation and after the government had crippled ATSIC's ability to participate in the Senate Select Inquiry into Indigenous Affairs. Since then, the government has failed to propose an alternative model for an elected representative body for indigenous peoples and instead formed a government-appointed advisory board, called the National Indigenous Council.

The government's abolition of its own elected indigenous body reflects not simply a belief that its model was a failure, but also that indigenous self-determination should be off the agenda. The government policy comes at a time when Aboriginal communities have rioted over police brutality following the death of a young boy in Redfern in February 2004, and the police killing of a man on Palm Island in November 2004.

Indigenous community leaders are also lobbying for government action on the ongoing social and health crisis, including an epidemic of petrol sniffing in rural communities and significant violence against indigenous women and children. A 2001 study on violence in Aboriginal communities by the National Crime Prevention Program estimated that the rate of deaths from family violence in indigenous communities is 10.8 times higher than for the non-indigenous population. Faced with significant failures in the criminal justice system, there is increased emphasis on restorative justice mechanisms for addressing criminal behaviour in indigenous communities, and women are heading key community initiatives for youth employment and community reconciliation. (Responses to family violence in indigenous communities are detailed in an important report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission: Social Justice Report 2003.)