Finalised Aboriginal Justice Agreement to tackle ‘systemic racism’ over ‘symbolic gestures’

EXCLUSIVE: The Territory’s public service has been put on notice to tackle systemic racism within all government departments

Aboriginal Justice Unit director Leanne Liddle will submit the final draft of the new Aboriginal Justice Agreement to Cabinet this month. Picture Katrina Bridgeford.

• How the NT’s justice system is failing indigenous Territorians

THE Territory’s public service has been put on notice to get on board with tackling systemic racism within all government departments or “get off the train”.

The final draft of the NT’s Aboriginal Justice Agreement is due to be delivered to Cabinet by the end of this month and could make for uncomfortable reading for some government bureaucrats, according to the document’s architect.

Aboriginal Justice Unit director Leanne Liddle said the agreement would eschew “symbolic gestures” like reconciliation action plans and cultural awareness programs in favour of concrete action.

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“The symbolic gestures, the low lying fruit, none of that is in this document,” she said.

“There’ll actually be some requirements for government to move out and to shift into overdrive with Aboriginal people in the front seat compared with where we are at the moment.”

Ms Liddle said the agreement would be unlike “any other agreement you’ve seen elsewhere” and could be “quite confronting for some people to actually acknowledge that we’ve dealt with racism”.

“It’d be fair to say the number one issue that has been in every consult, front and centre, that we’re actually going to take head on is systemic racism,” she said.

Aboriginal Justice Unit director Leanne Liddle . Picture Katrina Bridgeford.

“Whether it be just — I don’t like the word ‘casual’ racism — but quite in your face racism, to systems in government and contracted parties’ inability to recognise when they’re delivering to Aboriginal people that it’s not a fair or equitable service delivery.”

As an example of the way the current approach is failing, Ms Liddle said police had previously been provided with 1500 iPads containing formal cautions in 18 Aboriginal languages.

But despite the rollout, Ms Liddle said the system had been utilised in just a fraction of the more than 7000 arrests of Indigenous people with limited English since its inception.

“Even when we provide tools to people to improve the levels of cultural competency, the auditing of that arrangement goes unchecked and unbalanced and unmonitored,” she said.

“So why invest in that system and spend all the money if people aren’t even using that because of their own biases or systemic bias in the system?”

Ms Liddle said the agreement wasn’t just about policing and criminal justice but would require a whole of government commitment, saying “if they’re not ready for this ride, well maybe you have to get off the train”.

“It’s going to make agencies recognise that they’re going to have to change the way they work, they’re going to have to meet outcomes not just outputs, they’re going to have to do a huge shift in their agency on how money is put on the table,” she said.

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“If you don’t get improvements in school attendance, if you don’t get improvements in people’s health, if you don’t get improvements in Aboriginal employment and you don’t meet all those areas of social determinants and at least make some progress towards that we’re going to have to build a bigger prison.”

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