Historical issues for Indigenous Australians were laid out on Q+A on Monday night by audience member and Wiradjuri man Paul Towney, before Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe said Indigenous Australians were sick of asking the government for handouts.
Key points:
- Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe continued to campaign for treaty not the Voice
- She was challenged by Labor Minister Malarndirri McCarthy over a claim she made about the government not wanting to slow Indigenous incarceration rates
- Frustrations about Closing the Gap failures were aired
“We all come off a mission and reserve,” Mr Towney told Q+A.
“It wasn’t our choice to live on these reserves or be brought up on these reserves.
“The government, they put us there.”
Mr Towney then said he was ready to “chuck it in” during a speech where he highlighted the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the private sector and also that Closing The Gap targets had not been met.
“I’m in the construction industry and I’ve been struggling for 13 years trying to get up and get established, but I’m just about ready to chuck it in,” he said.
“You go out, get your licences, get qualified and everything, but we don’t have the financial background of non-Indigenous Australians.
“In the private sector, everyone knows you’ve got to have a million dollars in your account to start off and we don’t, but we rely on government support.
“This month alone, I’ve been knocked back about five times on government-funded construction projects in the billions of dollars.”
‘Sick of asking’: Thorpe wants treaty
He then asked the panel what could be done to help Indigenous Australians as he said “Closing the Gap” was failing.
“This year, Closing the Gap, there have only been two targets met in, what, 30 years … and then the other thing for me is national Indigenous unemployment,” Mr Towney said.
“It’s going up to nearly 20 per cent higher than the national unemployment rate.”
Senior Australian of the Year Tom Calma said change had not come due to a lack of consistent government policy and added “this is why the Voice is so important”.
It was a situation which got to Senator Thorpe as she said her people were long over asking for government handouts and needed treaty not the Voice.
“Can I just say we’re sick of asking the government,” she said.
“We’re sick of standing there like poor people saying, ‘Can you give us some money? Can you help us?’
“We’ve got to the point where we’re at a climate catastrophe … this country needs Indigenous knowledge and the only meaningful way to get that is through a treaty.
“Treaty can bring us Senate seats with real power, not advisory.”
Asked what she would like to see in any treaty, Senator Thorpe said it should be up to individual clans and nations to decide but added that it was in her view a far better option that the Voice.
“They have to have free prior and informed consent and self-determine their own destiny, something that this other alternative does not give you.
“A treaty is about peace, it’s about us participating in this society in a way where we can prosper, like everybody else seems to do in this country.
“We are the sickest, poorest, dying every day — nothing is going to change by an advisory body.”
Senator Thorpe then attacked the government and said they had no “political will” to implement changes that would bring down Indigenous incarceration and deaths in custody rates.
It was an accusation that did not sit well with Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Health Malarndirri McCarthy.
“That’s wrong, and I will tell you why it’s wrong,” Senator McCarthy said.
“We’ve got Senator Pat Dodson who was on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and I’ve never worked with anyone who was more passionate of wanting to ensure that the incarceration rates in this country drop.”
However Senator McCarthy then conceded that states and territories ultimately have responsibility over custodial sentences and had work to do on that.