SPEECH BY COUNCILLOR BEV MANTON
Aboriginal Child, Family & Community Care State Secretariat Conference
40,000 years of caring for our kids.

PENRITH PANTHERS CLUB,
FRIDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2009

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CHERISH OUR CHILDREN

Distinguished Guest, Ladies and gentlemen, Brothers and sisters.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk with you.

It's so great to see such a wide cross section of people here today - all of us with a common purpose -the future of our children.

Nothing could be more important.

I think that this belief - together with a conviction that this is a shared responsibility, is reflected in the diversity of the people in this room.

To begin, as is our custom, I want to pay my respects to the traditional owners of this country the Dharuk people and our past and present elders who retained much of the heritage and culture we have today. 

After all, it was through their strength of identity that they managed to protect the culture, and we are thankful for that. 

To those in the audience who are not Aboriginal, I just want to explain that to Aboriginal people, country has an altogether different meaning.

When we talk about traditional country in this way; we mean something beyond the dictionary definition of the word.

When we say country, we might mean homeland, or tribal or clan area, and we might mean more than just a place on a map.

We are not necessarily referring to a geographical place.

We are talking about the whole of the landscape, not just the places in it.

For us, country is a word for all the values, places, resources, stories and all the cultural obligations associated with that area and its features.

It describes the entirety of our ancestral domains.

So when we acknowledge traditional country, as increasingly people do in Australia, it is no empty ritual, it is to acknowledge who we the Aboriginal people are, and our place in this nation.

It is to take special note of a place and the people who belong to it.

I would like to acknowledge my Aboriginal sisters and brothers who have travelled here to be with us and to share their experiences and stories.

I also want to reinforce my initial acknowledgement of our traditional elders.  We owe them such a debt

And so I honor the traditional owners of this land, the Dharuk people,still proud, still surviving 221 years since the first encounter between black and white Australians.

Well ladies and gentlemen, you don't have to be a bleeding heart to understand the anguish and complexity of those two centuries for Aboriginal Australians.

One of the most stable and ancient of human communities suddenly came into contact with what was, at the time, the most technologically-advanced nation on earth, the British... a society with very different conceptions of property, social relations, time and seasons, land use, law and justice.

The mismatch was profound, and its effects re-echo today.

Aborigines went from being owners and custodians of this land to victims and fringe dwellers a brutal irony given the importance of country in the Dreaming.

However, you cannot un-ring the bell. The past is written - white settlement is done.

But what we can control is the present and the future because while past misdeeds are beyond our help we are doubly guilty if we drop the ball now, knowing what we know today.

However it is our responsibility to continue to preserve our culture for the future generations and to ensure those future generations are wholesome not damaged people.

I'd also thank the Aboriginal Child, Family & Community Care State Secretariat in New South Wales for convening this conference.

It is actions like these that can have an impact on policy and lead to positive changes - but more on that later.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are some issues which there can be no debate about.

Surely, no one in this room will question the statement that all children are vulnerable.

For a whole variety of reasons, tragically our children most of all.

The effective care and protection of children should always be front and centre in any public policy debate.

And that children are frequently, if not always, reliant on others for representation, essential services and support.

More than 150 million children are living on the streets around the world.

Child trafficking has reached a rate of 1.5 million each year.

Around 270 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working,

many in the worst possible conditions with no protections.

In the Asia Pacific region alone, approximately 127 million children under the age of 10 are working.

This is six times the population of Australia.

It is estimated that more than 10 million children die each year before they turn five.

THAT MEANS 30,000 CHILD DEATHS EVERY DAY.

These are staggering, tragic, incomprehensible facts.

For many living in developed nations, such as Australia, these problems seem a long way away. They are the problems of other countries, poorer developing countries - not our own!

Well this is quite simply not the case.

Through my work with children, I have seen some horrific circumstances and I am sure you have also witnessed our children and young people being let down.

While the scale of the problems and type of issues faced will differ from State to State, city to city - the underlying principle remains the same.

Our chilldren need to be protected, and as a community we have an obligation to meet that need.

Today, I want to share with you some of my personal fears which have arisen from the violence and dysfunction which exist in many of our communities throughout Australia.

I also want to share with you my aspirations and dreams for the future and the role I believe that our children will play.

But - first the bad news.

I need not remind you of the shameful history and the treatment of Aboriginal people during the white settlement of our country.

Aboriginal people have survived nearly two centuries of callous treatment based on an appalling ignorance, a terrible racism that resulted in Aboriginal people being relegated to a miserable position at the bottom of Australian society.

It must be understood that Aboriginal people have suffered two centuries of oppression and terrible conflict which spread across this continent and devastated our people.

The Aboriginal people, have lived on this continent for more than 50,000 years.

Our culture is the oldest surviving culture in the world.

With the arrival of the British colonists, 221 years ago, our people were dispossessed of their land without the benefit of a treaty, agreement or compensation.

The loss of our land meant the destruction of our economy and much of our culture.

We share with many Aboriginal peoples throughout the world a similar history, a history of brutality and exploitation.

The assault on our people included massacres, torture, diseases and dispossession and dispersal from our lands.

Throughout most of the white history of this continent, it has meant the domination of our people and the denial of our basic human rights.

It has meant a history in which racism has often permeated Australia's national institutions.

Our survival has been against overwhelming odds. Unfortunately this past has a continuing legacy into the present.

In Australia today, we have a situation where a rapidly growing, very young Ab'l population, is dependant on the care of a few Aboriginal adults.

Many of these adults are incapacitated by colonial stresses, violent pasts, forced separation from their own families, shared histories of child abuse and violations, health crises, poverty, homelessness and marginalisation.

Many Aboriginal adults today who have children or who look after children may never have known a loving and trusting relationship.

They may never have inherited parenting skills and nurturing skills from their parents.

They may only have ever known abusive relationships, institutionalisation and marginalisation.

And consequently, have not the capacities themselves, without significant support, to nurture their children into confident, participating, active adults and future leaders.

The result, more often than not, is another generation of Aboriginal children experiencing violence, abuse, neglect and lost opportunities.

Without exposure to nurturing, supportive, trusting relationships - the violent, hopeless cycles of life experienced by their parents is simply continuing.

At the same time, those adults who are nurturing our children are significantly overburdened themselves.

The Grandmothers, the single parents, the older siblings and the cousins, are caring for their own, and often for their relatives' children at various times.

They are often caring for many more children, without:

• support
• economic resources
• adequate housing
• access to vital community services

Of course, for most of you here today, this is not new news.

It is however, a stark reminder of the bare facts of reality of what we currently endure.

As the Chairwoman of NSWALC and especially as a mother, I wonder what the future will hold for our young people.

As a parent, I have always believed that one of my responsibilities is to ensure that my children do not have to face some of the problems that my generation has confronted.

But no matter how well we plan as parents, there always seems to be another obstacle that we have to solve.

Historically speaking, it is only a few short years since Australian governments and Australians generally began to make a real and sincere effort to address the effects of some two hundred years of oppression and maltreatment of the original occupants of this land.

The significance of this is that, despite the best efforts of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, there is no easy quick fix.

And tragically all too often so-called solutions and major interventions still lack the reality of truly having listened to what Aboriginal people have actually said and recommended.

Today in Australia, we see a Federal parliament which has no Aboriginal members.

We see a system of service delivery to Aboriginal people - by governments at both the federal and state levels - that struggles to deliver the most basic of services for the benefit of Aboriginal people.

We see a system with too many bureaucrats who do not see themselves as accountable to Aboriginal people or as having responsibilities to ensure that Aboriginal people benefit from their efforts.

And we see limited engagement with Aboriginal people in the setting of policy and programs, with no formal Aboriginal national representation at present, or a formal commitment that recognizes self-determination.

Despite well-intentioned efforts of successive governments and their contribution for decades of a range of targeted programs that were designed to address Aboriginal social and economic issues, today's outcomes for our young people continues to decline.

One of the greatest failings of Australia as a whole is the ongoing poor conditions experienced by the Aboriginal population.

Aboriginal Australians experience unacceptably high levels of disadvantage, poverty, disease and death.

These conditions mean that Aboriginal children are a particularly vulnerable group.

They are more susceptible to abuse and die at higher rates and at younger ages than the non-Aboriginal population.

The placement of Aboriginal children in out of home care is more than seven times higher than for other Australian children.

In NSW, this situation is a disgrace.

Aboriginal children account for 31% of those living in OUT OF HOME CARE

Let me say that again 31% of our kids living in OUT OF HOME CARE.

And this statistic is even more alarming when you consider that Aboriginal children are only 4% of the total child population in NSW. 

It should be ringing alarm bells for all those involved in Aboriginal affairs. 

Perhaps it is, perhaps our people have cried out in alarm but are not being listened to.

Surely it signals another generation - or generations - blighted by the lack of loving, nurturing care in an Aboriginal environment.

And we all know the real tragedy in human terms what such removal has led to.

Today Australia is staring down the barrel of the tragedy of another stolen generation.

And, the pain, the anger and the despair of the Stolen Generations continues to reach into a new generation of Aboriginal Australians.

Government policies of separating families inflicted a great loss of identity,  loss of culture, loss of spirituality, loss of self esteem and loss of language.

The level of trauma and its ongoing impact cannot be overlooked.

The rippling effects continue for generations.

Currently, it is impossible to know the full extent of child abuse in all its forms in the Aboriginal community.

It would appear that there may be few Aboriginal families not affected by child neglect and abuse. And our children are significantly over presented in most statutory child protection systems.

As parents, teachers, family and friends, we all have an obligation to care for our children.

We have a responsibility to protect our children and provide an environment that is warm and loving, so that they can achieve their best potential in life.

I've often spoken about my most important job -- being a mom -- and like mothers and fathers everywhere, the health and safety of our children is our top priority. 

This is what it is all about:  the future. 

And in many ways, it starts with you and me.  All of us.

Australia as a nation has still to fully face the consequences of the past government policies of separation and assimilation which resulted in the removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families.

The pain, the anger and the despair of the Stolen Generations continues to reach into each new generation of Aboriginal Australians. Whole generations were suddenly cut off from all contact with their families and communities.

The removal of the children from their families continues to create disruptions and alienation.

In many ways, Aboriginal people's lives and the communities in which they live are dramatically shaped by the removal of the children.

Historical and ongoing dispossession, marginalization and racism experienced by Aboriginal people have led to high levels of unresolved trauma and grief among Aboriginal people.

Internalized trauma may be expressed by individuals in various ways including psychological distress and destructive behaviours.

This trauma should not be overlooked.

As a Worimi woman, raised on the Aboriginal mission in Karuah I can still recall my parents hiding us children whenever a big black car would come down the road on the mish.

The scars and trauma of that era are still with us.

My mother whenever she heard a strange car pull up in our community used to hide us. She was still terrified of us being taken away.

Even years later when I was working and she minded my two youngest children she had never lost that fear. 

Still instinctively hid them whenever strangers came into the community.

If she was alive today she would still be the same.

These are the attitudes that can still scar children intergenerationally.

Earlier, I promised to share with you my aspirations and dreams for the future and the role I believe that our children will play.

After 30 years of globalisation and economic change, people are asking: what has happened to our society?

How do we relate to each other now?

How do we help each other and create stronger communities?

How do we rebuild the identities and relationships of a good society?

This is the pressing issue of our time, but unfortunately, it has gone missing in the public debate.

While the political system tends to argue for either more market forces or more government, the people themselves have a different priority.

They want more society, more community, a new sense of belonging, a new set of social relationships.

Among the people that I talk to, they want localism.

They want and believe that the primary focus of initiatives have to be at the family and neighbourhood level.

It is important to mention that many Aboriginal communities have taken on the issues of solving violence themselves.

Some being more successful than others.

Some Aboriginal organisations have worked tirelessly within their communities to protect women and children and make a stand against violence.

These people can be found everywhere working away in small but significant ways which may make a difference to just one, or many children's lives.

There are organisations that have developed methods to explore ways of healing, to understand trans-generational manifestations of trauma and to respond to Ab'l people and communities asking for help to develop healing processes in their own communities.

There are Aboriginal communities taking a stand against alcohol abuse by closing wet canteens or restricting access to alcohol.

There are many communities supporting night patrols and programs that look after teenagers after dark and take them home before they get into too much trouble.

There are organisations that are providing counseling and education to victims and perpetrators of violence.

And there are many examples of community initiative trying to tackle local problems with partnerships with police and corrections for diversionary programs.

So many things can be improved by improving community life - whether it be school attendances, or educational achievement generally, better health levels, right down to local employment programs that use Aboriginal people to fix up the local park or fix local infrastructure or play a role in neighbourhood safety.

Quite frankly they do a magnificent job.  Unfortunately, all too often, however, they are under-resourced.

These benefits would be almost incalculable.

I know that Minister Burney was here yesterday,  my question to her is, is it possible to conduct a State-wide audit of long-standing community programs that exist primarily to help our children.  And once the audit is completed to look at increasing the resourcing of such community based organisation.

As they say, Prevention, is better than cure.

People want politics and programs to be relevant to their needs and interests at a local level.

This is a real passion among women in particular.

Traditionally they have done much of the community work in our society. Now they want more recognition and back-up from government.

This is where we need to rethink the role of public policy.

I believe that Aboriginal policy must be focused at the local level.

For too long bureaucrats have developed centralised social programs aimed at solving complex social issues.

Many of you would be aware of the problem of child abuse and neglect in Aboriginal communities.

Aboriginal children are seven times more likely to be involved in the child protection system and this is a statistic that shames us all.

There are no easy solutions to this problem - but we must endeavour to address it.

I think that the answer lies with local communities themselves.

Through better dialogue with the Aboriginal community, you will be able to gain a better understanding of what needs to be done.

Importantly, we must adhere to the nationally agreed Aboriginal Child Placement Principle.

The principle states the preferred order of placement for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child who has been removed from their birth family.

The preferred order is for the child to be placed with: the child's extended family; the child's Aboriginal community; or other Aboriginal people.

Only if an appropriate placement cannot be found from the three groups can an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child be placed with a non-Aboriginal carer.

This is the long-standing policy.  Alarmingly, evidence is emerging that all too readily it is being ignored

We also know that Aboriginal organisations are more than capable of acting as guardians of Aboriginal children in the out-of-home care system.

I firmly believe that Aboriginal families are the corner stone of our community and they are primarily responsible for the care of their children.

We all find child abuse and neglect abhorrent.

Despite this, each year several thousand young Aboriginal people will come into contact with the child protection system.

State intervention should continue to be a last resort but the system must work to prevent abuse and neglect and provide a broad range of integrated Aboriginal family support services that focus on child development.

The strengths of the child protection and family support system should not be underestimated.

While we all want a system that works well at protecting our children from immediate harm, what happened at the opal mining community of Lightning Ridge on 22 August this year must never be repeated.

On that day, as The Australian newspaper reported, welfare workers swooped and removed more than 40 Aboriginal children from the town and surrounding area. We now know it occurred over a short couple of weeks.

However those removed included a four-day-old baby who had barely learned to suckle when taken from his mother's breast, while she was still in the local hospital, recovering from giving birth. A birth brought forward by the recent traumatic removal of her other children in the family and then when the baby was born government staff were there waiting at the hospital to take that child also.

While I do not want to publicly speak about this incident I will say that some children may need to be removed, and that's what the department is for, but this example has amazed the community.

I can't but help wondering why DOCS was placing children, including breastfeeding babies, over 450km away from their families, when the Act states that every effort must be made to place them with extended family, their next of kin or another Aboriginal family or carer in their community.

This community have instigated a new women's group to discuss this issue, to support each other to ensure it never happens again.

I know they want answers.

We are all appalled of the statistics that in New South Wales 4316 Aboriginal children have been taken from their parents.

As I said earlier, we fear another Stolen Generation is upon us.

I firmly believe that the NSW Government should immediately create the position of Aboriginal Children's Commissioner with specific responsibility for issues in relation to Aboriginal children.

I make this plea even though I realise and appreciate that the Children's Commissioner Act requires Aboriginal children's issues to be considered as priority.

I know we have a Commissioner for Children.  Most States do. 

What we don't have is a specific, independent Commissioner for Aboriginal children.

God knows we need one.

Aboriginal children are different, have different needs and therefore need to be treated differently in order to be treated equally.

In NSW, Aboriginal children are experiencing serious violation of their human right to live a childhood free from abuse, violations and life long traumas.

The statistics concerning Aboriginal children in NSW means that we cannot accept anything less that the creation of an Aboriginal Children's Commissioner that is realistically equipped to address the harsh and abusive reality of life for many Aboriginal children.

I believe the appointment of a an Aboriginal Children's Commissioner, guided by a properly appointed and resourced permanent Aboriginal Advisory Group, will be the best way forward in addressing the very serious and too often systemic issues that are impacting on our children's well-being.

This appointment is crucial.  It will make a difference. It will save lives.

It will take courage to accept.  But the statistics and trauma being suffered by our people make it imperative.

If enacted it would rate in the same level of attainment as the historic Aboriginal Land Rights Act of 1983.

Minister Burney I urge you to consider this suggestion and initiate appropriate discussion.

It would be a first in Australia. As I said, a courageous first. 

But one I sincerely believe our people will widely acclaim. 

It could be a trend-setter.

One thing Governments can't argue with is that they certainly do have considerable room for improvement when it comes to the care of Aboriginal children-just like the parents have.

The inconsistency in response between the states lies at the heart of the problem, and is one of the indications of the fact that there are no legislative or policy standards being set by the Commonwealth with regard to the wellbeing of Aboriginal children.

It is not good enough for the Commonwealth to simply point the finger at the states and territories and tell them, that they 'need to do more.

We all know that.

But, as in so many other policy areas, the Commonwealth needs to be raising the standards, they need to be setting the benchmarks and they need to be providing a national legislative framework that all jurisdictions can comply with.

We only have to look at the reports that have said exactly the same thing over the past 10 years.

The first being the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's Bringing them home report into the separation of children from their families in 1997 and the Senate committee report into the stolen generations that I had the privilege to participate in.

Each of these landmark documents have recognized that many of the social, economic and cultural problems that confront Aboriginal communities stem from past removal policies and contemporary practices.

The reality is that some of the contemporary removals are often brought about by the fact that the juvenile justice system operates more to remove children from their families rather than for remediation and rehabilitating them within their own community.

As I said previously the lack of parenting skills in the Aboriginal community is a result of parents themselves having been removed from their own families in communities.

Contemporary removals are also often brought about by the cumulative effects of poverty, domestic violence and poor access to support services to address these problems.

The Secretariat of National Aboriginal Islander Child Care - or SNAICC, as it is commonly known-issued nine principles that it regards as critical to the achievement of a better future for Aboriginal children.

As the national peak body representing Aboriginal children's interests, these nine points represent the minimum acceptable policy response that we should expect from both the present government.

Only recently, I was able to visit SNAIC's offices in Melbourne and as a result was better able to understand and appreciate just what an effort they are making to change for the better the daily lives of our children.

Last month I participated in a visit to the Victorian Aboriginal child care Agency, as part of the "Keeping Them Safe" project.   Justice James Wood recommended that the establishment of a new Aboriginal Child Protection and Consultation Model be considered for NSW, and that NSW consider this successful model.

In Closing, our children will continue to face an uncertain and difficult future if our political leaders fail to respond to the issues being put forward.

The challenge for Aboriginal communities today is to ensure that every child has access to a safe place, a place to escape violence, to seek help, and to be listened to.

Enabling a child to escape violence, to be protected and cared for is every child's right and every community's responsibility. It takes more than a mother and father to rear a child it needs the community, sometimes we forget about the extended family and kinship system practiced by a old people so maybe we need to get back on track with our parenting, our culture and our heritage practices.

It is also the responsibility of Australian governments to work with communities to make this happen.

One of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela said - "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than, the way in which it treats its children."

Given that observation, and if I was a cynic, I would say Australia has lost it soul.

What is happening to Aboriginal children must end.

Let us start by asking the Federal Government to make it a genuine priority.  And in looking for answers, to listen to Aboriginal people.

And to Listen carefully.

And then implement in practical ways what they are recommending.

Only then will we see change. 

Will we see improvement? Will we change the tragedy of past dispossession and so often well intentioned but even often hopefully misguided policies?

Now on a more pleasant note, I must say again, how encouraging it is to see you all here today?

I look forward to the outcome of our conference.

And I just want to say congratulations on the important work you are doing for Australia's Aboriginal children.

Thank You.