Page 359 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 1 March 1994
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The royal commission report pointed out, Madam Speaker, the fact that effective consultation is absolutely vital to the achievement of that empowerment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. To the white community, the non-Aboriginal community, the consultation that that involves is often remarkably intensive and lengthy. Nevertheless, Madam Speaker, it is necessary that the consultation continue, and that it continue in a way that is meaningful and that is appropriate for Aboriginal peoples themselves. It is not up to any other sector of the community to inflict a consultation mechanism or methodology on them. It is up to them to exercise their own power in consultation, and to do it in the way which they believe is the most appropriate.
Madam Speaker, I think also that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council has thrown up a new leader in our community in the form of the chair of that council, Kaye Mundine. She has been remarkably effective in ensuring that the council is indeed a conduit for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within our community, that it does form a focus for them to raise issues which are of concern. Also, of course, the council is invaluable in the advice which it gives to the Government. I think that Ms Mundine has done a superb job in drawing together her own community and also in raising awareness amongst the broader community of the issues of concern to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I believe that the council has been extremely effective in providing a link between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the Government. They have certainly provided a forum in which members of those communities can raise issues of concern, and also through which the Government and government agencies are able to seek community comment and advice. I consider that the council has had to work very hard on that. There is a huge backlog of issues on which their advice was required.
One of the biggest tasks before them is the recommendations of the report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Madam Speaker, that report contained some 300 recommendations, so, clearly, working through them is going to take some time. I am relying on the advisory council for advice on the recommendations, but I would be very pleased to take up Ms Szuty's request for a status report and I will undertake to give such a report to the Assembly as soon as I possibly can.
Ms Szuty made another important point which concerned the composition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council. I share Ms Szuty's view that the council should be as representative as is humanly possible. Of course, that means that it should include representatives of the Ngunnawal Land Council. At the very outset, at the very formation of the council, I did invite Ms Matilda House to join the council, and I have subsequently repeated that invitation to Ms House. She has not taken it up. I still hope that at some future stage she will take up that invitation to membership. Her brother is a member of the council, so there is some Ngunnawal representation on the advisory council. Nevertheless, I agree with the point Ms Szuty made, but you cannot force people to join a council. Ms House would be very welcome on the council if ever she does decide to take up that invitation.
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