As a white man living on Bundjalung Country, I acknowledge that it is not easy to make the cross-cultural shift from a Western paradigm lens to comprehend and appreciate the rich diversity and complexity of 65,000 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ sociocultural and spiritual history.
My study’s title is Perceptions and Values of Climate Change – Insights from Remote Indigenous Australians: A Literature Review. Seventeen qualitative and mixed-method peer-reviewed journal articles were examined between 2010 and 2021 from remote northern parts of Australia, including the Torres Strait. The findings were organised into four main themes: climate change, plants and animals, Country, and knowledge.
Holistic approach
The findings showed that the respondents have a limited scientific understanding of climate change. Yet, they expressed their concerns about observed environmental changes such as sea level rise, flooding, and shoreline erosion (particularly evident on the Sabai, Poruma, and Boigu islands in the Torres Strait) and a weakening of flora and fauna on Country.
Most studies viewed climate change holistically and directly linked climate change to more pressing and urgent concerns. This included painful memories of colonisation, dispossession, cultural and spiritual losses, health concerns, socioeconomic issues such as poor housing and infrastructure, poverty, unemployment, excessive alcohol consumption and mining, which has degraded the landscape.
The Closing the Gap statistics between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples show these long-standing generational disadvantages. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, 2022), compared to non-Indigenous Australians, the health of Indigenous peoples ‘is poorer in almost every disease across the life cycle’. For Indigenous people living in remote areas, there is approximately a 14-year difference in life expectancy (AIHW, 2023). The Commonwealth government Closing the Gap Report 2022 shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ suicide rates and incarceration are worsening. Indigenous incarceration accounts for approximately 32 per cent of all prisoners, yet they comprise about 3.2 per cent of the population.
History shows that during the British colonisation of Australia, Indigenous peoples experienced intense fear, violence, and death at the hands of the British, colonists, and free settlers. Here, Indigenous individual and collective trauma are identified. Furthermore, many of their descendants have directly and vicariously experienced intergenerational trauma. The forced removal of Indigenous children in Australia continued until 1969. These chronic problems erode Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ well-being.
Most of the 17 studies show that the respondents mistrust governments’ willingness to collaborate with them honestly and justly about climate change adaptation policy. This belief was based on their trauma of colonisation and policymakers’ broken promises and unilateral decision-making, which led to procedural unfairness.
Status quo not working
Given the Closing the Gap statistics, procedural unfairness extends beyond climate change issues. The current status quo is not working! Enshrining a Voice in the Constitution is important to communicate to the parliament and the executive government about matters that can improve the lives of Indigenous peoples living in remote and other parts of Australia, whether about climate change, closing the gap, Country’ and/or cultural issues. This can provide pathways to greater Indigenous intergenerational self-determination to be agents of change, resulting in progress towards much-improved practical outcomes and more effective use of taxpayers’ money.
All the studies found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ understanding of Country encapsulates values around a narrative of interconnected and interwoven sociocultural and spiritual relationships associated with identity, kinship, and languages that sustain their communities on Country. They reported experiencing sadness because climate change is weakening Country and cultural practices. Most studies showed that despite climate change, there was a reluctance to relocate from Country for sociocultural and spiritual reasons. Their wish is that policymakers respect those values. Although a few studies, one in North-East Arnhem land, found that when researchers framed questions around the hazards of climate change being unmanageable instead of using the word relocation, 66 per cent of respondents would likely relocate for safety reasons. However, they responded with the proviso of staying within 20 kilometres inland with the hope of someday returning to their homelands. This shows the importance of Indigenous interconnection between Country and place.
Collaboration
The studies show that Indigenous peoples seek genuine mutual collaboration with the Australian government on climate change-related issues. Similarly, the Voice seeks to collaborate with the parliament and ministers of government on critical issues affecting their lives and communities.
Concerning climate change, the major obstacle may be a question of divergent values. Indigenous peoples’ perspectives of climate change in remote areas are viewed primarily from their values related to historical, sociocultural, and spiritual connection to Country at a local level. This contrasts with a modern Western perspective whose values and cultural history have not been as entrenched with the natural environment and views climate change more from a global scale, with economic and political implications.
In 1967, our First Nations people were counted, and in 2023, it is time to enshrine their Voice.
[Quote} ‘Status quo not working’.
Agreed totally, wise words indeed.
But just forming another elite management executive group will not solve anything.
It’s more likely to make present matters even worse.
So ‘The Voice’ is definitely not the answer we need. It will lead to more of the same mistakes and further futile gestures made by grand-standing politicians from all parties, as in the past.
We need a total re-think of this $30+Billion pa problem and certainly aboition of underperforming co-ops and land councils.
…and instant experts
Well it just has not been successful has it
Lizardbreath thus far what has been in place
For years.. so instead of the government
Grandstanding on how the voice will be
a game changer for the Aboriginal people’s communities in this country !! Tell us how
In layman’s terms what the plan is ?
Albo & Co need to explain to the voters
How this newly selected committee
Will not just be activists …because they
Have done a good job thus far is doing so .
Mayo ..pay the “Rent ” Ms Langton
When you breakdown the no vote
It’s just “Racism ” and those they intend to vote no ..are just “Stupid ” not good
Lizardbreath ..that alone will certainly
Make a not sure vote NO ..
The Voice may or may not work to close the Gap
It may become bogged down in beurocacy and internal unrepresentative power struggles where remote Indigenous voices are muted by the self interest of the few.
Issues of repriatrations may become entangled in the high court for years.places of natural beauty and wonderment may be closed to ‘outsiders’ forever( mt Warning ) It may create resentment and a heightened focus on the pigmentation of ones skin. We don’t know..but given lived experiences of various multitudes of existing Indigenous bodies ( land councils etc.. we do know that these inadvertent outcomes can happen when a select few are given great power.
God hopes if rhe Voice gets through it works to improve the lives of Indigenous women and children suffering abuse at horrific proportions. Let’s hope it also helps dramatically reduce Indigenous youth crime so there are less traumatised victims as well ( whole communities in Queensland and Northern Territory are scared in their own homes ).
The problem if it doesn’t work is that if its in the constitution that it will be there forever.
Let’s hope it works….and hear from the Indigenous voices we need to hear from the most.
Written by a human being living on planet earth with skin .
Dear Sujay re your post Written by a human being living on planet earth with WHITE skin . – Expensive business lobbyists and business’ $10,000 seats at politicians events gets the ear of poloticians, so there are the examples that an Advisory Committee entrenched in Canberra can bank on getting their issues before poloticians, which has the best chance of addressing the issues you raise. Business dont throw their money at nothing.
Yes the high court is there for anyone to process a complaint, but they are few and far between, and Aboriginal people have the same right as anyone else to use that aspect of that path, but no one is talking about the Committee going for reparations, and if they did have a case, what is your problem with them pursuing their legitimate right to do so? This country was settled by europeans based on the colour of their skin, and Aboriginal people were disenfranchised from what they owned based on the colour of their skin ( even Aboriginal women who married a white man who died , despite having the remaining home and a bank balance, had their kids taken away, entirely due to the colour of their skin. “God hopes” – sorry cant leave it to your god it is down to us humans to fix the issues. “closed to outsiders” – the vast majority of Aboriginal land, especially the ‘best bits’ is closed to the now declared Aboriginal outsiders – it time to give their important places back, instead of just using it for white peoples recreation (there’s plenty of other mountains to climb, or you could go climb the Lismore cathedral as you have little empathy of what is important to sections of our community). While it has a $M5 price tag, any next or following Federal parliament, at 3 months notice, can have another Referendum to cancel the Voice Committee.
Here are the answers….youtube: ‘More “Social Justice Fallacies,” with Thomas Sowell _ Uncommon Knowledge’
Dear J and L
I never really noticed the colour of ones pigmentation until peeps such as your dear self harp on about it.
Read the Uluru statement my friend “…ownership of the soil that has never been ceeded…”
Ownership of soil is a colonial idea….Indigenous connection to country is based on the much deeper essence of custodianship.
The voice will fail because of the tone of debates like yours whom take on an air of moral superiority.
Have you ever lived in an Indigenous community? Have you cared for and spoken to Indigenous in remote communities? FYI Indigenous is more respectful as it includes Torres Strait Islander people as well as Aboriginal.
If you make a debate personal you have a weak argument.
Until we started going on about it? But you want people of a certain colour to have special rights?
I talk to people in remote communities, that’s where I live, but I get called racists when I repeat things they say, even when the NT Senator gets on the ABC and says the same thing.
I wouldn’t call it special rights – all sorts of powerful groups have ready access to present their special interests to government.
They’re not enshrined in the constitutional but, as I’ve said, I’m comfortable with having this part of the constitutional recognition of the people whose lands, lore and laws were usurped.
I’m sure you wouldn’t call it special rights when Aboriginals do it, but a coal company….
I can imagine if Anglo-Celts established, just a private, powerful organisation, to present our special interests directly to government.
There are many private groups with powerful lobbying access to government – but you know this.
I can’t think of any who have the moral authority of the original inhabitants whose rights were obliterated by British colonisation – the genesis of contemporary Australian society and government.
Coal companies (& fossil fuel companies in general), & your Anglo-Celts already have the ear of government & their own “special rights”. They’re doing alright. What “Gap” needs closing with them? What official lack of recognition do they have? How are they treated differently from any other coal companies & Anglo-Celts in every other former British colony? What discriminatory laws & policies have they been burdened with & struggling to overcome for generations? This constant argumentative sniping is not witty & clever, just spurious inflammatory nonsense. Why?
I’m yet to see any valid reasons for not supporting this Voice proposal, but dozens for its validity.
And Sujay, Yes I have even though it’s totally irrelevant to the issue – you don’t need that lived experience to have empathy & understanding.
It’s a different, harder & isolated world.
Everything there is expensive. Everything takes three times as long to get done.
This Voice proposal is not about your issues: “repriatrations” [sic], nor Wollumbin (“mt Warning [sic]), nor is it “a select few given great power”. None of that is true, the Voice can only advise on matters directly affecting Indigenous people.
(Though IMHO reparations are due, should be negotiated, & would help improve lives)