During the Wednesday afternoon session of a senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children, witnesses from both the Department of Social Services (DSS) and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council appeared.
A line of questioning put to DSS by senator Nita Green was what would be different about the new National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032, DSS group manager women’s safety group Greta Doherty said the government was not starting from scratch.
“The plan benefits from the last 12 years of experience we’ve had with the current National Plan, the plan from 2010 to 2022, which put a lot of effort into building the evidence base,” Doherty said.
“I think building our understanding of both the drivers of violence and the impacts of violence through society, both at an individual level, a social level and a community level. I acknowledge there are still significant gaps.”
Doherty added the launch of the new national plan is anticipated to be in October 2022.
On data collection, an issue discussed throughout the day, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council’s Professor Muriel Bamblett said data collection had improved.
Bamblett added the inquiry should ensure it also focuses on children, not only women.
“When you see 12, 13, 14-year-olds on the street, I think if we don’t see them in this inquiry and come up with a response to children, then I think we’ve missed a really big opportunity,” the professor said.
“But do we capture that data? Do we capture the right data? Is it a jurisdictional issue, not just a commonwealth? And how can the jurisdictions actually report on missing and murdered?”
Bamblett went on to describe how she had seen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women lose their lives to family violence, with referrals not given as they ought to have been to Aboriginal organisations.
“There’s no accountability when people fail our people,” Bamblett said.
“The loss of life for us, we take it seriously. But sometimes the systems don’t see it as — it’s just another “tick the box”, another Aboriginal person has died.
“I think we need to build in greater accountability for [the] mainstream when our people are murdered.”
In response to Bamblett’s comments, Doherty added the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children was underway, including a specific action plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
“Community services ministers, which is the ministerial group responsible for the Protecting Australia’s Children framework, have agreed that that obviously there needs to be a strong focus on First Nations children throughout policy responses,” Doherty said.
Bamblett said she’s, on occasion, had to fight for the culture of Aboriginal children.
“The key challenge that we have is that we have so many children who can’t find their Aboriginal family because their adoption records are sealed,” the professor said.
“We have a high number of Aboriginal children that were bought from other states and territories or the premise of a holiday, so their grandparents or great grandparents were born here. And a lot of the churches have destroyed their records.”
Doherty acknowledged that an intersectional approach to violence was something the department was aware of, especially in the development of the upcoming National Plan.
“With the voices of victims survivors that we had the privilege of listening to through the consultation process, it became very clear that the responses to violence need to take into account all of all the circumstances that a person is in. So looking at intersectional issues, looking at poverty, looking at issues such as alcohol and other drugs,” the public servant said.
“A person-centred approach is really the aim, the ambition, I think of all of the work that we do.”
The group manager added as the National Plan was still in draft stage, she was unable to provide further comment as it was being finalised.
On the question of genocide asked by Thorpe, Doherty added the draft plan took into account the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women as well as other treaties Australia was a part of.
Doherty said some measures in relation to investment in family safety were being considered as part of the budget process.
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