Our Indigenous Policy: to listen with honesty and act with respect.
Indigenous & Torres Strait Islander peoples have faced heartbreak and ongoing challenges since white settlement in Australia.
Politically, Indigenous & Torres Strait Islander communities have had various governments tell them what's good for them with minimal or token consultation. There have been some disastrous decisions made that have had dramatic affects upon indigenous communities and individual people. Less often there have been progressive steps, both legally and culturally that have assisted to unite Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We would like to work towards more positive outcomes, outcomes that will help our whole nation, while acknowledging the mistakes of the past.
We don't believe telling Indigenous people what is best for them is the way to go. Our policy is to facilitate listening; where we can be guided by Indigenous communities, not by imposing our views but by listening with honesty and acting with respect.
We would support a national wide dialogue, one which casts a wide net to hear the concerns and hopes of Indigenous people across Australia, so we can be advised of the best courses of action to take. In this, if it was the consensus of the various communities, we would certainly support Indigenous Parliamentary representation. However, our primary goal would be to listen and to seek the counsel of Indigenous peoples to be guided by them.
To facilitate the listening process, we would create a space for voices to be heard. This would be in the form of a national convention of community leaders of the various Indigenous nations. We envisage this as not a one-off event but an annual meeting to discuss solutions and to build the path to progress.
Our party, which sits within the non-Indigenous community, does not have the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples. We cannot possibly pretend to know what it is like to be Indigenous in Australia in 2019 nor would we impose what we thought was best for those communities. However, we would be open to be guided by them and to then advocate on their behalf, with a spirit of honesty and respect.
The issues we would like to propose to the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander communities:
- Through consultation & listening, the formulation , finalisation & signing of a BINDING TREATY including recognition of the First Australians as the original & perpetual owners of Australia.
- Ending the dishonest & racist Northern Territory Intervention, a retraction of the lies it was based on and a full apology.
- A full enquiry into price gouging in Aboriginal communities including inflated food prices & prosecution of the perpetrators via the ACCC
- Full implementation of the recommendations of the Deaths in Custody Royal Commission & Closing the Gap Inquiry, including measures to monitor progress & any necessary Legislation to realise goals & acceptable outcomes.
- A full enquiry into Aboriginal health, wellbeing & housing including the misappropriation of previous funding for these purposes & prosecutions where required.
- Funding for Aboriginal education including infrastructure and an Aboriginal languages & culture curriculum.
- Restoration of funding for ALS & AMS and similar services including expansion into remote areas.
- An scoping enquiry into tribal law & lore as an alternative to prosecution in the Courts & incarceration in prisons.
- Measures to protect Indigenous & Torres Strait Islander communities from exploitation, particularly land theft by mining companies.
- Returning land to original owners in pockets and of sufficient quality to give them a viable future use of this land, including services such as water storage & power.
- An Indigenous & Torres Strait Islander representative seat in our House of Representative and Senate.