Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

(Australia)

Peace & Freedom, journal of WILPF Australia

Excerpts from December 2001 edition

Treaty/Peace Accord project

by Cathy Boyle

Queensland WILPF is continuing to work with Mary Graham from FAIRA to seek funding from the Ford Foundation. The funding will be used for action research and advocacy activities to promote the development of a framework for the modernisation of relations between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of Australia and the Australian Government. An initial letter of intent has been sent to New York office to ascertain whether the Ford Foundation's present interests and funds would permit consideration of a request for funding for the project.

Issues the project will address

1. Issues of sovereignty have never been dealt with in this country and there has never been a treaty between the Australian Government and its Indigenous peoples.

2. Many Indigenous people live in a state of third world poverty, neglect fear and a perpetual state of struggle. This state of affairs results from 200 years of racist violence and social neglect, decades of administrative policies which actively work against Indigenous interests, constant surveillance under the guise of accountability, and the refusal of a treaty.

3. To bring about a state of peace, a new philosophical political and administrative framework is needed within which Indigenous peoples and the State can create a stronger, more mature and equal relationship. Such a framework will need to reflect Indigenous values, beliefs and customs as well as those of non-Indigenous Australians, and accept Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty as a starting point for negotiations.

4. The Oslo and the Guatemala Peace Accords have been identified as possible models for new political processes which will recognize the political legitimacy of the status of all parties.

The project proponents
The project will be guided through the expertise of Indigenous elders, representation from FAIRA and WILPF, Indigenous academics and educationalists

FAIRA Aboriginal Corporation
The FAIRA Aboriginal Corporation was established in 1977. The Objects of the Corporation are to institute and carry out research into all aspects of the lore, culture, heritage, needs and aspirations of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia.

FAIRA is a non-profit organisation which draws funding from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the Queensland Government. It has a small staffing base and often relies on volunteers from the Indigenous community, academics and professionals to achieve its outcomes.

FAIRA has maintained an office in Geneva since 1999 to maintain close contact with key people in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, other international organisations and NGOs. One outcome of these representations has been the significant critique offered by the Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) of the Australian Government's amendments to the Native Title Act, and to practices of mandatory detention.

Over the past fifteen years FAIRA researchers have worked with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to bring back over 147 ancestral remains and burial objects from institutions in the U.K., Germany and Australia to seventeen communities of origin.

In 1996 FAIRA's research into unequal pay and working conditions of Indigenous Government employees resulted in an inquiry by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the case of seven elders of the Palm Island community. The claim was that the Queensland Government failed to pay equal wages to these Indigenous employees simply because of their race.

The Commission found in favour of the elders and, following further litigation, the Queensland Government eventually agreed to a settlement for all of its Indigenous employees of that period of $7000 each - a total of over $25m. This is by far the largest settlement by any employer in respect of a discrimination matter which has come through the Commission, and the longest running case for underpayment of wages in Australia's industrial relations history.

FAIRA's research activities are supported by the unique collections of the FAIRA library, formed through donations from other libraries and through original collections, and the various Historical Records Databases which represent a comprehensive listing of published sources on the Aboriginal history of Southeast Queensland.

Cathy Boyle

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