00:01We have some big people up at the racism inquiry this morning.
00:06First up will be the Coalition of the Peaks, now that's the peak body that brings together
00:11the Aboriginal bodies that work across health, education, childcare, wealth creation, all
00:20of those big things that are targeted in the Closing the Gap Agreement and they are the
00:24peak body for the Closing the Gap Agreement and I believe they've just started giving
00:28evidence as I sit here and chat to you now.
00:31That will be a very interesting discussion to come out of today because the Coalition
00:36of the Peaks do not come out very often and talk about the work that they are doing and
00:42the handbrakes frankly that are being put on the Closing the Gap Agreement which we got
00:46fresh data on just last week that showed yet again the gap is not closing and that there
00:51is so much work to be done in this area.
00:54Also up today is the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services.
01:00They are obviously a group that deals with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in points
01:04of crisis and so they will be talking, we imagine, about funding arrangements particularly.
01:10There was a national plan released a couple of years ago that put forward a proposal to
01:15the government to give not just the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services, legal
01:20services, additional funding to operate from but all community legal services.
01:24That hasn't been actioned by the government and we have heard in the past that this has
01:28a really chilling effect on the work that they are able to do and the number of people that
01:33they are able to reach. Also up today will be the Victorian Domestic
01:39and Family Violence Organisation, JIRA, that have done nation leading work on addressing
01:45high rates of domestic violence directed towards Aboriginal women and children. We will hear
01:50from researchers from the Tackling Hate Lab in the afternoon and round out the day with
01:56the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Snake. So really big national bodies
02:02appearing today and one that I've just forgotten to mention. There is a block today that we'll
02:06hear from a number of different unions and one will be the Education Union which could be
02:10quite an interesting discussion given from the evidence that we've heard so far in this,
02:15in this inquiry. One of the recommendations could well be to change the education curriculum
02:21to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and the impacts of colonisation. So that
02:26will be another interesting discussion that we'll hear today. A jam-packed agenda indeed. Dana,
02:31so where to from here? When can we expect to hear outcomes from this process?
02:36Well that's a question on everybody's lips and being a parliamentary inquiry, the timelines
02:41can be a little bit flexible. This inquiry has already been extended once in order to gather
02:47more submissions and it's expected that the committee will now go away and write their
02:52report and recommendations and hopefully have that back to the parliament by the end of the year.
02:57However, that doesn't guarantee action. There are a number of reports that the parliament receives
03:02every year and they're still waiting for a response on. However, the chair of this inquiry is a
03:08Wemba Wemba and Mutti Mutti woman, Jana Stewart. She's a Labor Senator. We've had a number of
03:13discussions over the course of this process and she is very aware of how many inquiries into Aboriginal and
03:20Torres Strait Islander disadvantage have sat on the shelf and gathered dust. And she's really committed
03:25to making sure that doesn't happen with this inquiry that she has led. It's been an incredible undertaking
03:30of work. It has been emotionally exhausting to hear the evidence that's been presented to this committee
03:36over the past four months. It's not just covering person to person incidents of racism and violence,
03:42but systemic and structural racism, online racism as well. There were quotes given to the inquiry yesterday
03:49by one of the attendees saying that online racism is now translating into real world violence. So these
03:57are the stories that the committee has been hearing over the past four months. When the inquiry chair is
04:02saying that she does not want to see this gather dust. She wants to see action from this. She wants
04:07to act with the urgency she believes this situation requires and that reflects the level of the evidence
04:12that has been brought back to the committee. We heard a couple of weeks ago from Ken Wyatt,
04:17the former Indigenous Australians Minister. He presented to this inquiry as well and said that
04:22there is a really strong parallel happening right now with the anti-Semitism Royal Commission happening
04:28at the same time. And if the government is saying that they're going to commit to those
04:32recommendations implementing them in full, then they should be doing the same for the racism inquiry
04:37into racism, hatred and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
04:42So we're going to have to wait for those recommendations to come down.
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