Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Thank you, Simon, for the kind introduction
and the warm welcome to be here with you all, and to share
with you my thoughts on the issues of social justice,
and one thing that's really close to my heart is that,
you know, the -- the issues of aboriginal people
in our own country, it's not just a government issue nor a
black issue, it's an Australian issue.
And again, it's a really honour to have been asked
to come all the way from Queensland to be able to share
with you my insight into black politics, into white politics,
into human ego as well.
As looking at building a nation that's just for all,
because harmoniously, before colonisation,
our mob just did that.
And how do we connect back to our roots.
And Kim,
[ Foreign dialog ]
what I said is I am a stranger here, a Kokoberra woman here,
[ Foreign dialog ]
. I'm going to talk to white people and black fellows.
And thank you for your acknowledgement to country,
it's really good that we still maintain our language,
because that is who we are, and to be a black fellow,
not to know your language, I know it's hard,
but to make that connection, it's your right.
Thank you, that actually means a lot to me.
So while technology, I'm a traditional owner
in my language I like to do it in English.
It is an honour, again, to be here,
and I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners
of the land both past and present.
But also technology -- most of the black fellows in WA,
because I see the issues in WA very similar
to the issues we have in Queensland,
particularly native title issues to the natural resources issues
that we face to one extreme to the other.
So every time I come all the way over here I can't help
but think it's a long way to come, but it's just that --
it's all this new learning curve, like I didn't know
that a couple of years ago, I don't know
if the lovely lady is here -- yes, she is --
I did a presentation here and she actually gave me the book
of Rob Riley, and she wrote, and she was doing a study
at the university here, and she said
to me you inspire me, and here's a gift.
I kind of vaguely heard about him, but I didn't know anything
about him until she gave me this book, and thank you,
Sharon, thanks for that.
But I'd also, getting to my presentation because I tend
to veer off every now and then.
But I do have a formal, and it is a formal lecture,
I'm normally sitting in there taking notes, but I don't want
to be boring like your normal lecturers -- [laughter] --
I'll make this interactive, because I am --
most of it, I was a bit scared
of the thought of giving a lecture.
I rang my manager today and I said, oh Kevin, I don't know
if I'm talking about the right things.
He goes Tan, just go out there and tell them what you think,
tell them what you're actually doing, not what you think.
Tell them what you're actually doing on the ground
and what you're saying is evidence-based.
It's not just you making it up
and you thinking what people should be doing,
that's government approach.
You're actually on the ground.
And I was like, yay, I love you.
So I'd also firstly like to congratulate the conference,
the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin university.
This is so low.
Can I take off my shoes?
[Laughter] now I'm going all black fella on you.
It's just everything gets a bit too low and it's really hard.
So anyway, that's my issue, because I'm tall.
But I also really like to thank the Centre
for Aboriginal Studies and Curtin university
for this worthy initiative, which began,
I believe, back in 2004.
And Rob Riley was a great aboriginal Australian
who left us a legacy of service
that extended far beyond his own people here
in Western Australia.
And with that, out to all indigenous Australians.
His passion and commitment to such a transformative moment
in contemporary history such as native title, aboriginal deaths
and custodies, stolen generation report.
In his book that I read, he had this car that was, like,
bright red, and it had 007 ASL on it, and I thought, wow,
and I thought yeah, that's the ***, man.
But looking back at it now people complain it was his ego,
he was too beyond his ego.
And I thought well, you know what, if the prime ministers
and people travel around the world with this massive,
big entourage of police officers --
talk about ego, and that happens all the time.
And so reading his biography I thought, wow,
I would have really gotten along really well with this man,
I'm just so excited to actually learn about his legacy,
learn about him as an aboriginal man, and how do I compliment
that as an aboriginal woman.
And so -- so -- and also what I also really honour
about him is his stolen generation stuff
that he did report, he helped change that forever,
and the way all Australians, indigenous
and non indigenous people view black history in our country.
So Rob Riley's early life is a story we all know far too common
for many indigenous Australians, family separation,
institutionalisation, abuse, and loss of innocence.
What is far less common, though, is the extraordinary capacity
of an individual to turn all of these destructive experiences,
the grief, the trauma, and the anger, into a catalyst
for change and a commitment to ensure as far as he was able
that future generations
of children will never have to suffer as he had.
I never had the honour of meeting Mr. Riley,
but when I read that one of his final pleas
to the Australian people was don't let the national inquiry
to the removal of aboriginal children be swept
under the carpet.
And that's my nephew.
And I'll explain to you a bit more about my work
because working in the community this is still a big issue,
and it's really close to the women's heart in the community,
and them asking why is government still taking our
children away from us.
But I'll get with that on in my presentation.
But I could only imagine the terrible emotional price he paid
for being part of this inquiry,
as day after day his own childhood traumas would have
replayed in his mind through the lives and experiences
of the hundreds of others who gave testimony and told stories
so similar to his own.
I believe that Australians have largely honoured his final plea.
We have not let the issues of child removal be swept
under the carpet, but the question remains are we doing
enough to assist those victims of this terrible time
in our history to move on from their ordeal.
Apart from honouring a great man and a great leader,
the Rob Riley memorial lecture also serves another very
important purpose, its ongoing focus on the issues
of social justice reminds us all
that there is still much unfinished business we
in this country must undertake before we can truly claim
to be a land of the fair go.
This is especially so in tough economic times such as now
that we face, where issues of equality
and justice can often fall off the radar, or be regarded
as social luxuries we can no longer afford.
Indeed, quite the opposite is often the case.
Inevitably, bad times for majorities
and even worse times for minorities.
And also it is particularly important that events like this,
this one, help all of us keep the bigger picture ideas
and values, family in the forefront
of our thinking and our actions.
It may help you understand my passion for social justice.
If I can share with you a little bit of my own story ,
as Simon pointed out, you know, my life journey started
in a little remote community called Kowanyama, 1200 people,
the Kokoberra, Kokamintry,
and Qwingin people have always been there.
I grew up you know, childhood relatively care free, you know,
I didn't have any shoes, barefoot,
running around the community.
This is one of the communities I work in, Lockard River.
Just as these kids, I was one of those child --
those children on that beach.
I wasn't as care free as a lot of my school mates, though.
My mum made sure that, you know what Tanya, you need to go
to school, you can't run off, go fishing, or you can't run off,
go playing Indian and Cowboy down the river
because that was what we did.
We didn't have any shopping centres,
we didn't have any parks, we really had nothing.
And so for me, life in the community was weekends,
cultural events, you go out in the bush, you went fishing,
camping with your mum, your grandma, you spend time
with your family at bush family gatherings, and week days
at school and then at home.
But looking back at my life in my community now, I look back
and I go wow, even though at that point in time, you know,
I was an A grade student, I thought wow,
I'm doing so well here, I'm the smartest in the class,
I go to school every day.
And my little cousin who was -- my mum adopted --
went to school with us, and still to this day she can't read
and write, but she came to school every day with me.
And so I look back at that and I just think yeah,
I had a really fantastic life.
At that point going from the community in the middle
of nowhere and then stepping out in the big wide world where --
I kind of had a sense of identity,
I had a construct of who I am.
And I stepped into Brisbane
where I was the only black fella there.
I went to an all-girls school which at that point
in time is a high-paying, you know, exclusive school,
as they say, and I was the exotic creature
because I was the tallest in my class.
And so the culture shock for me coming from a place I call home,
and I call Australia, stepping into wider Australia,
and finding well, this isn't actually the Australia I thought
I had, I thought I had equal rights,
I thought I had equality, I thought I had, you know,
just because I'm Australian, you should be proud of me, man,
I'm the first person here, this is my land.
It was a big culture shock.
Could you imagine the daunting experience of coming
from a place in the middle of nowhere and stepping
into the prestige of all prestige,
where children get dropped off in Mercedes and Rolls Royce,
and I used to question why, why is that you're able to do that.
And so the first year at boarding school I went
and made new friends, I met people in the school,
they took me in, I used to go to their fridge,
and used to actually open the fridge door and go,
you've actually got food in there?
So at that point in time I was 14 years old, and I started
to question this whole concept of social justice,
I started to question well,
why is it that your family have this amazing Taj Mahal
and everything seems functional, and I come from nothing.
And why is that, that you're able to do this
and you're all private school educated,
and your dad is private school educated,
and you have all these things.
And so stepping in from Brisbane and stepping back
into my community, I had thousands
and thousands of questions.
Questions to the point where I thought to myself why is it
that in education, an opportunity
to get an education is such a rare opportunity for our mob,
in our community, why is it I'm the only one person
from my community going to boarding school
and getting all this extra support, what about the others?
What about all the other young people that I grew up with,
my cousins, my family, you know?
And so at that age I just started questioning life
and questioning what my purpose was, as a 13-year-old girl
and how I could make a difference
and go back into my community.
So whilst I struggled in both the environment
of Clayfield College in Brisbane to Kowanyama being armed
with all of this new knowledge and questioning why is this so,
why are we letting this happen within my own people, I --
I now appreciate the opportunities having had the
opportunity that has opened up for me.
So since leaving the school I have completed two university
degrees which have enabled me to travel and work all
over the world, and to see the world
from a different perspective,
but also to question coming home, why.
Why? So -- but right from all of these wonderful experiences
and exciting years many thoughts kept coming back to me,
as I said to living in Brisbane going this is not right,
this is not fair.
So all these questions, and so from there I --
I began to question this -- this whole concept.
I'm sure I began to question saying, sure indigenous people,
aboriginal people want their children to succeed.
They send their children to school with a belly full,
they want their children to succeed.
What is happening in this whole construct when my cousin is
at school every day, they're learning,
but they still can't read or write.
Are we saying that that child is dumb?
Because that's what that child feels like when they go
to boarding school, they can't read or write, and so I thought
to myself there must be something wrong here,
and so after a while I began
to realise it was this thing we call the system,
and whether it be government, whether it be outside
of government, because automatically we're going
blame government.
But it was this thing called the system that I thought to myself
that it was wrong, a system that gives opportunities to some
but denies it to others.
And I thought -- so later on I also realise this lack
of fairness wasn't again an Australian problem,
globally we also have an unjust system,
look at the global financial crisis and what happened there,
and that system said it's okay for normal,
for a CEO to earn a million dollars while the majority
of the world's people live off two dollars a day.
And so from there I thought you know,
how can you then actually do something about the system,
which shifted me even more into this whole concept and issues
of social justice, and furthered my interest in my life so far.
So what is social justice for me?
So for me, social justice is about the equality
of opportunities, and by this I don't mean equality of outcomes,
because I believe the outcomes you achieve
in your life are very much based
on your efforts and determination.
For your own particular strengths and gifts
and the choices you make for yourself,
but for too many people lack of opportunities means
that they have no choice, and must accept whatever life dishes
out regardless of their efforts or their intelligence.
So for example, you can't choose to stay strong or healthy
if you don't have access to fresh food
and good health services, you can't choose to be a surgeon
or an engineer if you didn't get a decent primary
or secondary education.
You can't choose to lead a peaceful, happy, and secure life
if you're surrounded by violence,
oppression, and poverty.
I'm a realist, and I know that not everyone will ever be equal
in the social and economic sense of the word,
but in a just society we all should
at least have an equal opportunity
to become what we wish to be and to live the lives we desire
for ourselves and our families.
What we do with these opportunities it is up to us,
but without them we can't get a fair go,
and we can never make it off the bottom rung
of the ladder of life.
When I realised this I thought I knew what I had to do,
I believed that to help people change their lives I would have
to help change the system.
And that's just what I've been trying to do
for the past ten years.
I stood for election in my community
and became the youngest ever regional councillor,
a member of ATSIC the original Aboriginal Torres Strait
Islander commission when I was 21.
Which was then not only the peak political advisory body
for government on indigenous affairs and was responsible
for providing many direct services in areas such as health
and housing and employment.
I thought at that time, you know what,
to understand the system get in there
and see how you can really effect change.
And my God, being a twenty-year-old young,
single woman in an environment
like that was really challenging.
Really challenging in the context of, well,
you come in with your own principles
and your own morals here, where do you stand
and how do you develop to become an effective leader
or become an effective human being?
So at every opportunity I use my role to bring the attention
of politicians in the wider Australian community,
the terrible third world conditions many aboriginal
people were living in, and to press for real change
in our system so they too could enjoy the benefits
of being Australian.
So over the years I've learned
to control my emotions a little bit better, but I'll be honest
with you there's still a lot of things
that still get me really gooley, I get really angry
about whats going on, including the thinking and actions
of my own mob, you know, it was in 2003, 2004 I appeared
on Four Corners, and some of you have gone back that far
and saw me on ABC Four Corners program
where I actually exposed the wide-spread issue
of child *** abuse in my community.
And even that, I'd hope by speaking out and being forward
that change would happen and the issue would --
the issues would be finally addressed.
But I copped a lot of flack from that,
it's a good thing I'm 6 '2".
So the response from my community is certainly not what
I was hoping for, I was called in before the council
and I was attacked for speaking out publicly on the issue.
I was told I had brought shame to the community and that
such matters would remain community business
and not broadcast to the wider world.
So I have encountered similar hostility in many occasions,
almost invariably from indigenous people
who resent my role in advocating for change, whether it's change
to be the government policies or to the attitudes and actions
of we, aboriginal people ourselves.
So standing up for what you believe in is never easy,
as Rob Riley learned, whether it's for issues
of social justice or the need for radical reform,
speaking out always has its challenges.
And I've got say that leadership is a real challenge
for many aboriginal people.
If you think white fellas got it tough,
well you haven't really seen anything like the world
of aboriginal politics.
Non-indigenous people have their tall Poppy syndrome,
but as black fellows, we call it the black Poppy syndrome,
which is constantly at work, you know?
Cutting people down and trying
to keep everyone at the same level.
So how then do I see myself as a leader?
Based on my research in leadership I've come
across in my short time, you know, in my understanding
of what a leader is, is -- and the definition I actually refer
to a lot and it is close to my heart is
that a leader is someone who has the desire
and the capacity to influence others.
Given the terrible circumstances
in many remote aboriginal community, including my own,
I most certainly have the desire to see change and I hope
that I'm gaining the capacity to influence others
to work towards this goal.
I'm also influencing my thinking on leadership, leaders
and leadership in a big way by Stephen Covey, "Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People."
Stephen Covey says that leadership is not a position,
leadership is a choice.
So when I look around me at the sad state of life in much
of the remote, indigenous Australia at the violence,
especially towards women, the abuse and neglect
of their children, the lack of opportunity for young people,
and the devastation caused by alcohol,
petrol sniffing, and drugs.
I had a very clear choice, say nothing, do nothing,
and mind my own business or speak out
and try to make a difference.
Very early in my life I made that choice, and I'm prepared
to live with the consequences.
When I'm confronted by my people
and asked what right do I have to speak for them.
My response is that it's not about my rights,
it's about my responsibility as an indigenous person,
as an Aboriginal person, and as an Australian.
There is this saying in the common lore,
in English common lore that goes silence gives consent.
That is if you say nothing you are actually agreeing
with what's happening around you.
When I'm con fronted in much of my life in work
by the awful realities like the following there no way
that I can be silent and through my silence say it's okay
for the state of affairs to continue.
As you all may know, there's current a 10 to 12 year gap
in life expectancy between aboriginal
and non aboriginal people.
In my state of Queensland, alcohol
and other drug-related deaths are 20 times higher
for aboriginal people than non-aboriginal people.
The child health checks conducted as part
of the northern territory intervention revealed that 50%
of children have either hearing
or eye problems, in many cases both.
In my small home community
of Kara barra there are currently nearly 40 children
on the child protection orders, most for neglect.
If this same proportion were applied to the population
of Sydney, over 100,000 children would be involved.
Foetal alcohol syndrome effects a large proportion of children
in many remote areas, and local health workers have estimated
that the rate is over 30% in some.
As you know, this syndrome has a life long impact on learning,
on learning and employment and mental and general health.
And finally, as a young person, it saddens me
that suicide remains a leading cause of death amongst the youth
of many of our communities.
I can honestly say to you I can't keep up with the numbers.
I cannot keep up with the numbers of young people
that I know, that I've grown up, that I'm related to,
who have committed suicide.
And this is actually in the last four months.
One of the communities in Cape York
on the [Inaudible] called [Inaudible],
in one month they had four young men commit suicide.
Four young men under 21.
And I and all the women are ringing me to come and go there,
and I keep saying, well, I'm not God, I can't, I'm just one.
You know? But they think that because they see me
on television, they read me in the paper that I have power,
I have swing within government.
I don't. I try to get a meeting with Jenny [Inaudible] you know?
It's because we don't have a voice on a state
or a national level, or within our own local level,
we're not being heard,
everything is being main streamed,
and those are the biggest concerns,
our communities are screaming out about it, which I will come
to in my presentation.
So any claim I may have, then,
as a small [Inaudible] leader is not driven by any formal power
or authority, but by the responsibility I feel
as an aboriginal Australian to speak out against these things
and actively work with all people of good will
to find fundamental and sustainable solutions.
I believe that it is critical to develop, nurture,
and support our aboriginal leaders if we are
to be active participants in our own advancement rather
than passive recipients of policies and programs
from outside our communities.
For too long aboriginal people have relied on others,
especially government, to solve their problems.
We now have to discard the blame game and take responsibility
for meeting our own challenges regardless
of their cause or origins.
Social justice is not just something others give us,
it's something we must work for, and that takes leadership.
And despite the challenges
of indigenous leadership we have been served
by some outstanding leaders across our country.
In our quest for social justice, people like Charley Perkins,
Eddie Mabo, Rob Riley, Marcy Langton.
And they have won us important rights and gained
for us the recognition our grand parents
and parents were far too long deny tide.
But when you look at the lives and achievements of people
like these you will notice a common thread,
their leadership was more functional than positional,
their influence did not generally stem
from the positions of offices they held
but rather what they actually did.
And the capacity to influence others to support their cause
and work with them to achieve justice and a fair go.
Even many of our contemporary leaders who were working
for reform and community renewal across Australia are doing
so not so much through positional power
but through their own functionability.
What they personally and collectively can do and achieve,
like leadership guru Stephen Covey says they believe
that leadership is not a position,
leadership is a choice.
For me, this highlights an important aspect
of the effective aboriginal leadership.
It is invariably more functional than positional,
as a relatively powerless minority in a society dominated
by non-aboriginal people,
it will unlikely we will ever achieve the kind
of positional power that can bring about change at the stroke
of a pen or a ten-second phone call.
Indigenous leadership will continue to depend
on the quality and the caliber of our leaders as people
and what they can actually do
to achieve positive change on the ground.
Another factor which limits the effectiveness
of positional leadership is our aboriginal society
in our own diversity
and independent streak, we're all different.
70% of us live in major cities and less than 30%
of us live in the bush.
Many of us have successful lives and careers working
in the main stream, while others remain fringe dwellers
in our own society.
Welfare-dependent and hopelessly disadvantaged,
the number of non-drinkers among aboriginal society far exceeds
the rate of all other groups, yet we have level
of alcohol related death and disease father greater
than our fellow Australians.
These are just a few examples of the diversity
that describe our people.
And despite the rhetoric, popular myth,
we don't see ourselves a united people
and our prime loyalties remain to our families,
our clans, and our regions.
The question of who can speak
for me certainly remains a stumbling block
to coordinate any collaborative effort for aboriginal freedom.
In mainstream societies, leaders are elected
and expected to make decisions.
Some of these decisions we like, some we don't like,
but we generally accept their right to govern
and express our discontent at the next election.
In aboriginal communities we tend to elect leaders to govern,
but jealousy reserves the right to accept
or veto almost every decision they make.
I'm no anthropologist, but I suspect
that we are almost genetically hard-wired
to reject the big man leader, the
chairman, the CEO, the boss man.
A throw back from our traditional culture
when leadership was consensual, we never had a single chair
or a chairman, and leadership was shared amongst the elders.
While we accept that a big man is okay for ceremony,
I've seen this, in the ceremony we generally are far less
willing to do so when it comes to the political decisions
or courses of actions.
I believe it is a tradition we are finding difficult to change,
finding it especially difficult for women
and young people to find a voice.
So now -- which takes me to --
this brings me to my current work.
If the two accessions I have made
so far are reasonably accurate, firstly,
that functional leadership has proven more effectively
than positional leadership in bringing about social justice
for aboriginal people, and secondly,
that real sustainable change will only happen
from the inside out, the implications for our women
and youth are truly significant as women are the back bone
of many of our families and our young people will determine the
future for all of us.
So this is one of the projects I'm involved
in called [Inaudible] super sisters,
every girl on that photo are all remote community girls,
and they all live and they all speak the language.
And we have a mother there as well, so they've stepped out,
they've got an education, they've gone back
into the community to start their own businesses
and as teachers.
So as I said, earlier
in my career I believed real change would be achieved
by working within the system, and so began my time
as a political activist.
But slowly I came to the conclusion
that the political wheel grinds so slowly, and if we left it
to the politicians alone to bring about social justice
for aboriginal Australians we'll still be doing the same
conferences and think tanks from ten to twenty years from now.
I also found that the hostile nature
of Australian politics both physically
and emotionally draining, and a seemingly unending confrontation
and power plays ran contrary to my own belief
that more can be achieved by working together
than by tearing each other apart.
It was at this point in my life, some four years ago,
that I changed direction in my work and opted
for the direction action rather than continue
with political advocacy.
My heart and my he did both told me to get back to my roots
and work directly with individuals, families,
and communities to help them improve their lives
and achieve their dreams the way I had been able to achieve mine.
I was fortunate at that time
that Andrew Forest was establishing the generation one
in the Australian employment covenant,
I believe perhaps the most important initiative to date
in this country to give indigenous people the most basic
expression of social justice, their right to a job.
A job which will support them and their families,
help them achieve economic independence,
and begin to become aspirational,
to dream of homeownership, maybe an overseas trip , a car,
things that most of us take for granted.
So when Andrew invited me to be the spokes person
for this initiative I actually sat back and I thought about it,
I thought about it quite well,
and I thought it's actually a really good opportunity
because I grabbed this opportunity with both hands
because it would help me connection directly
with people outside of my sphere of influence as it is now,
I could go into that, I could go nationally, and use my network
to effect real change.
And I -- given that we don't have a voice again,
state or nationally, we don't know what's going
on in our regions.
And so I then -- it also --
I thought at the time when I was young Australian of 2007,
I was overwhelmed with the amount of generosity and support
from the ordinary Australians, because working in, you know,
aboriginal affairs and working in our communities,
you tend to get -- you've got lack of resources,
you've got the ongoing problems, and you've got people who come
and go, just operating in this environment
that just wasn't supportive in that sense.
And so stepping out and seeing that people did care
and people did want to support that was for me really --
it actually -- you know, we had a family donate all these books
in a huge book run in Sydney, we went and gave all of these books
to young mothers in our communities.
And just things like that actually was real action
on the ground, you know?
And that for me just gave me a huge perspective
in the good will that Australians do give a ***
of what's actually happening,
it's that they don't know how to engage.
And so getting involved with [Inaudible] I got to travel all
across the country to meet people in remote areas
and urban areas, and large cities,
and since then it's been a really insightful
and wonderful experience,
because I'm seeing what's actually working
and not working, and I'm networking people.
They send me an e-mail and I'd send it to somebody else
and then they'd connect, you know?
Which has really been good.
But so far, I mean, through that experience we had the Australian
employment covenant, and Curtin University was one
of the first universities in Australia, again,
to lead the way in social justice issues
by signing the covenant.
And I was actually at the event that day when that happened.
So it was about small progress.
And so far today we have 60,000 employers
who have actually pledged a job for indigenous people
and we placed 10,000 indigenous people into jobs.
So it's about those small incremental changes,
it's about those small things that we are kind
of making head ways in,
and I know for a fact Andrew [Inaudible] quite controversial
around the country.
But what I saw was the opportunity
that we're changing one life at a time.
I have young kids, five kids from Kokoberra wanted a job,
and they rang me up, their uncle rang me up,
and through this [Inaudible] employment covenant those five
kids are now -- have a job.
They're out of school --
it was those small changes that really touched me,
because we can get bogged down in politics and beyond that,
but our life as young people will never be young,
so we've got to give them the opportunity
and feed them the right pathways while we can,
and that's what I see as my role,
and that's where I see how I'm making a difference,
and I'm ticking my box of what I achieved in social justice.
So as much as I enjoyed this experience most of my work,
again, as I said, is like one off engagements
and presentations, on a fly in and fly out basis.
I still at that point in time felt like this is really great,
I can go and share my experience, you know,
with people, but I still felt this pull
about getting home to making it real.
I can stand there and yarn, you know, sweep you off your feet.
But unless I have evidence to show you what I'm doing is right
on the ground this [Inaudible] life for me is only going to go
and then konk out, you know?
And so at that point in time I needed
to make a decision whether I take the high road
or get back to the roots.
And so I felt the need to connect more directly
with people in remote communities and work with them
over time to do what I could
to help change their lives in the better.
And it was at this point in time that Dewa approached me,
and Dewa said to me I'm really concerned about the high numbers
of young women in our communities
who are completing high school and are falling back
into the welfare system into the community.
We've got a lot of young girls and women who are just caught
up in the welfare system, what can you do.
And so I came up with this project called cape York super
sisters, and what we've done is we've gone out and as I said,
these girls are from communities, we've exposed them
to things they haven't seen before,
and what they possibly could become.
So we've engaged the defence force,
so some girls are interested in joining the army,
and through that it was my connection,
because I was a truck driver in the army reserves,
and so I thought well, if I can do it, girls,
you can do it, you know?
And by leading by example
and giving these women the opportunity to step in there
and beyond their own role, like the chef, some of the girls --
our women love cooking, you know?
And so we're looking at tailoring a program
that helps support these women to start off their only little,
you know, whatever they want, they shop in their community.
So it was at this stage where I looked at reengaging women
in the education, training, and employment, and the opportunity
at that time was to actually step outside of micro financing
and looking at how do we support women
and challenge the welfare system to look at small businesses
within their own communities.
Things as small as having three washing machines on the veranda
and charging ten dollars a load.
You know? That's one idea, you don't need to go to, you know,
indigenous business Australia
to write a business plan for that, you know?
And this is what the women were complaining about
and talking about, how do we make it so simple, you know?
They wanted to sell pot plants and stuff like that
in the community, you know in they wanted
to get engaged in that.
So while I began this challenging project we looked
at long and hard how at how other agencies
, services, and government departments were working
to address the issues of social justice in remote communication,
whether it's areas in health, education, employment,
or housing or in social issues such as family violence
or addiction, all too often we found the service delivery is
what I call an outside-in approach.
That is policies, projects, and programs were designed
and developed outside of the community and taken in --
into it for action or implementation.
Whether it was large-scale policies and programs
like the Northern Territory Intervention, CDP,
or [Inaudible] plans or smaller projects
to address domestic violence, school attendance
or work place literacy needs,
they all had one thing in common.
They were developed outside of the community and flown in.
And as the findings of numerous reports have shown the results
of most of these initiatives can at best be described as mixed.
So informed by the experience of other agencies
and service deliveries we reverse
to prevailing methodology rather than continue with the outside
in approach, we have adopted an inside out approach
for our projects, which at its most basic holds the belief
that people in remote communities best understand
their own problems and are best placed to solve -- to achieve --
to solve their own problems and achieve solutions
to their own problems.
So on the ground an inside approach means you go
into a community with no preconceived labels, ideas,
or ready-made solutions, you certainly have goals, though.
In my case the goal is to support women to reengage
in education, employment, or training.
But how this will happen and when will largely be determined
by the women themselves, for it is they
who can best understand their own circumstances,
the goals they have for themselves and the families,
and the assets they have to work with and the barriers they face.
Our approach, therefore, is to go into remote community
with a blank notebook, but ones which are ready to be filled
with the wisdom and life experiences of the local women,
we have no ready-made solutions, packages, or certificates two's
in our back pockets ready to be rolled out,
we have no preconceived answers to long-standing challenges,
but we do have a firm belief
by establishing trusting relationships
and encouraging one dialogue and an open dialogue that women
with whom we work will shape the directions as we
as project managers will need to take.
This approach has proved both rewarding and challenging.
Rewarding because it enabled me to see below the surface
and gain a deeper understanding of many --
of the many issues women face
which go far beyond the stereotypical
that are so often trotted out.
You know, that our women in our communities have lack
of motivation, that substance abuse and incapacity to learn
or they're so unreliable.
So what with are learning is all too often these merely symptoms
of the far more entrenched barriers to reengagement,
both internal and external.
I said that this approach was also challenging
because the process has revealed to me many
of my own inadequacies, for what do I say
to a young reasonably educated woman who won't apply for a job
because she's ashamed of missing front teeth.
The result of domestic violence, and what certificate one, two,
or three, can I find to support a woman who chooses to remain
in an abusive relationship
because the only value she can attach to herself is
that some man, even a violent one, wants her.
It has indeed been a sharp learning curve for me,
especially since having grown up in one of these communities,
I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the issues.
My work with the women have shown me
that I still have so much to learn.
In our workshop we always include some incentives
where we do job placement training,
so I've got a relationship with a [Inaudible] beauty academy
where I bring in beauticians and we do nail, we do brow waxing,
we do make up, we do facials, I brought in a chef trained
in Paris because I want standards as well,
giving these women the opportunity to look
at a small cake-baking opportunities
or selling cakes at the markets.
But exposing them to things like that.
In one particular workshop back here you see we did make up.
This is one of my girls from [Inaudible]
and they have the [Inaudible] crew on that side there.
But we did make up,
and we taught the women about colour scale.
And again, part of my inadequacy, I didn't know,
I thought I knew everything, having grown
up in a remote community.
I painted this girl's eyes, she had green eyes,
and I painted her eyes with this beautiful shimmering black
and blue.
And I thought wow, you know, that's really deadly,
that's going to suit you, Tara.
So I had no idea, she went outside,
she looked in the mirror, and she washed it all off her face
and she came back to me.
I said to her, what did you do that for,
what's going on with that?
And she said to me, Tania, you just reminded me of how I used
to look every time a man used to bash me up.
And that really hurt me.
Because I thought I was doing her a favour.
But what we're finding with our workshop,
because it's job preparation training
and personal development stuff, we do aboriginal identity
and what it means to be a strong aboriginal woman,
and it's bringing out deep stuff that we haven't dealt with,
and so that's one example, and another example is one
of my girls is part of the Super Sister club,
because we're trying to bring sisterhood back
into our communities, because it's just --
women can be so destructive with one another,
and what we're trying to gain is that support base
so that our women can go out and we support her
to be the best that she can be.
And so one of our other girls got a job at the school
as a teacher aid, and this is all part of employment as well,
because we're trying to build relationships with employers
to get these young moms and young women employed.
A second week at work she was in a class at grade three,
and one of the young men came in, stormed into the classroom
and started screaming at her.
He had a daughter in the same grade as this woman,
called the daughter over and is saying to the daughter,
don't you trust that woman, roar, roar, just like going off.
But little did the principal know, the teacher know,
that man went to jail five years ago for raping her.
And so she came to me and she said auntie,
because in aboriginal culture,
I'm wrong [Inaudible] she can't talk to me,
but she didn't have nobody else to trust, she needed that job,
that man just went to jail.
And so she said to me, auntie, I really need your help,
I don't know if I -- I don't think I can go back to work,
I am ashamed, I am ashamed of what happened.
And so what had happened was she then gave me permission to go
and speak to the principal, to give the principal a bit
of history and understanding of what's going on,
and so that's what we're finding,
we're mentoring women one on one,
but I'm also mentoring the employers
on understanding the cross cultural barriers and the issues
that are entrenched in our community
so that these women can actually get a job.
And so -- and for me, I tell you,
that was a really tough lesson on both accounts.
One, breaking cultural grounds
because she went and told my mother,
and my mother said you know, Tania, that's your wrong head.
I said yeah, mom, but who's she going to trust.
So all these women who are my aunties,
they're telling me stuff that I shouldn't be told,
but I'm helping them and that's what they want from me,
and they know I'm not going to go and splurge it
in the community if I don't like that family,
because that's what happens, that's the reality we deal with.
So these are some of the issues that we will --
very rarely see uncovered by white coats with clipboards
who fly in on Monday and do their survey, consult surveys
and consultations and fly out on Tuesday.
So back to the capital [Inaudible] used
to complete the policies and programs,
and yet they are the deeper issues which must be addressed
if real change is to happen.
There is a popular saying among bureaucrats
and number crunchers, what can't be measured doesn't matter.
But those of us who work directly with people,
especially disadvantaged people, know differently.
There is much more to the human psyche and condition
than we can easily measure with tests and questionnaires
and in many cases it is this nominal-measurable element
that will determine our success, happiness, and our ability
to engage in activities like education, training, and work.
So before disengaged women can begin to connect
with those outside in services we will support their
reengagement in training or work,
they must first become stronger from the inside out.
I don't know if some of you here are familiar,
my Facebook friends, but you've seen my progress.
We had a huge issue on the ground,
a lot of our women have diabetes and they're obese,
and last year one of our biggest workshops we did was health
and fitness, and the prevailing profile we did with all
of these women was the concern of losing weight, and it hit me
so hard that oh, my God, you know, Tania, look around you,
because these are the mothers, future mothers of tomorrow.
So I had taken that on, and I've lost 15 kilos myself.
So I've gone back in the community now,
and women are now starting walking groups
because they've seen the impact.
So I think if you want to be a leader,
if you really want social change you've got to do it yourself
and people will see that.
And so to go home back in the community
and hear my cousins say, oh, deadly, that just --
that's better than any man checking me
out in the downtown streets of Perth, you know?
Because they're taking that on for themselves,
and they're now starting to do it
because if I can do it, they can do it.
And that's all they need.
They need that buddy to work with them from the inside out.
And so that's what we're trying to do, and that --
and this is the focus of what we call my super sisters project,
and it's an initiative involving nearly
100 women in four remote communities and it's growing,
going to 120, and more women want to get involved
because they're seeing this really cool group of women
with deadly shirts on.
You know? Walking every afternoon.
While we do not underestimate the challenge ahead we are
working with some of the most marginalised people
in our society compounded by their remoteness,
negative life experience, and lack of local opportunity.
Unlike more conventional projects
which have clearly defined plans, steps to implementation,
resources requirements and preordained outcomes,
the Super Sister project is very much an organic one whose form
and direction will be largely shaped
by the sisters themselves.
So despite the many challenges, unknowns, and uncertainties
which lie ahead I'm actually really excited
to be a Super Sister and be part of my Super Sisters project.
For many of the women I'm working
with this is their first opportunity
that they've ever had, really, and had the opportunity
to really share their inner feelings
and be part of a community.
You could be part of community
but you could also feel really lonely and unconnected
to anybody in that community.
And so these women are actually connecting beyond that.
And so yeah, like the -- they're actually being listened to, I --
I thought I talk a lot, but when I go
into the community my job is to listen.
You know, even if they go and get a cup of tea,
they walk in there, they --
I'm walking to get a cup of tea they're talking to me, you know?
But it's really exciting and it's really insightful,
but with part of my job preparation training, as I said,
I'll just go back, we do have women from, like,
Alana over there, she's Italian, and she works
for the [Inaudible] Beauty Academy and she comes up
and does a lot of the beauty stuff with the girls and trains
with the girls, and work with us.
So we partner with non traditional organisations
to bring the skills into work with women on the ground.
So I'm actually doing my best
and I'm taking my responsibility very seriously,
having lost 15 kilos getting back on the ground,
and telling these women that, you know, if a mission breed
like me can get this far in my life and have the opportunity
to lecture, you know,
even though I'm not an academic, is huge.
So that really concludes my address ,
and again I thank Curtin University and the Centre
For Aboriginal Studies for the honour
by giving me the opportunity to participate with you all
and give you, you know,
an insight to the work I'm involved with,
with my deadly sisters from Cape York,
but again I think real change starts from inside out rather
than outside in, and no government policy, no program,
employment program outside is really going
to make real inroads to change
in our community unless they work and listen
to the people themselves.
So thank you.
[Applause]