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Human Rights Defender |
The Aboriginal community in Australia has lost one of its most courageous leaders and passionate advocates for justice. Rob Riley was elected, at the age of 27, Chairman of the National Aboriginal Conference. Rob headed the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Royal Commision into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. In 1990 he returned to the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia as Chief Executive Officer.
At a conference on UN Human Rights Procedures and Indigenous Australians, held in Sydney, June 1995, Rob Riley addressed the following comments to the Secretary of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
I would like to relay some information about issues that affect indig-enous people in Western Australia. I think it is important for us to be informed as to the measures indig-enous peoples can take at a domestic level, and then how we might be able to take these issues to international forums. When issues get a bit heated and emotional, people trot out the line: Well take Australia to the International Court. We need to have a better idea of the procedures that exist and how we might use them.
I work with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Western Australia. The ALS started off with six people back in 1972 as a voluntary organisation. Over 21 years, it has been organised State-wide, with 15 regional offices. What we have been doing in trying to advance issues of indigenous rights in this country has been in many respects quite profound. It has not been about simply concentrating on the criminal justice system. We have units that specialise in criminal law, civil law and family law. Since the Royal Commission, we have set up a land and heritage unit, a public interest unit and a community education and awareness unit. The public interest unit looks at human rights issues, test cases and law reform.
An example of the issues we are confronting in WA: Two years ago, the WA Government did a taskforce review on social justice trying to outmanoeuvre the Federal Government. The State budget for the year doesnt make one reference to indigenous Australians. There is some reference to a commitment to the Royal Commission through the Aboriginal Justice Council. The only other commitment I can construe is an alloc-ation of $50 million for two new juv-enile detention centres in WA. At any time, 70% of the kids in custody are Aboriginal. The only construction I can make is that the State Government has allocated in excess of $30 million to Aboriginal juvenile justice issues. Nothing about comm-unity initiatives, nothing about dealing with issues that are causing these kids to get into the criminal justice system in the first place, nothing to assist organisations trying to stop kids from glue sniffing, nothing to assist organisations trying to facilitate a better understanding for politicians and bureaucrats as to how they might better initiate prog-rams at a local level.
It is important that we use our networks to distribute that information which enables indigenous people to bring about an accountability of Australian governments, not only at an international level, but also at the domestic level.