For the Prime Minister of Australia:

Dear Scott Morrison,

I am writing to you about the growing concern worldwide for the First Nations people of Australia. I was only 17 years old when I was formally taught, at James Cook University, 1/62 #Justice4Australia

about the Australian Government’s long standing abuse of First Nations people. I actually cried. I did not understand how any person or government could do what I learnt. I became an Academic at the same university that empowered me with that knowledge. 2/62

I am now a Psychologist in Cape York working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I cannot thank them enough for enriching my life; for providing a sense of connection and belonging I did not experience growing up in Australia. 3/62

As a student I had much hope that their circumstances had improved and would only continue to get better. Twenty years later the Australian Government has destroyed that dream I had. I present the reality to you in this letter: 4/62

Suicide is now a national crisis for First Nations people. They also carry a disproportionate health burden; related to poverty and poor living conditions, with high rates of gastroenteritis, encephalitis, hepatitis, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure and trachoma. 5/62

Due to historically entrenched and systematic factors, including racism, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are the most imprisoned people in the world. Despite making up 2% of the population, they make up 28% of all imprisoned people. 6/62

Approximately 50% of imprisoned people in Australia have a disability, and 73% and 86% of imprisoned Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women, respectively, a psychosocial disability. Women are the fastest growing imprisoned group. 7/62

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women made up a third of all imprisoned women in 2018. Most are imprisoned for low level offending. Domestic violence is both the cause and effect of women’s imprisonment. 8/62

Most jurisdictions have multi-billion dollar prison expansion or construction programs without investment in preventative or diversionary programs. Australia’s age of criminal responsibility is 10, contrasting with United Nations recommendations, 9/62

and medical evidence on lifespan development; this disproportionately affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Investigations of youth detention services, including one Royal Commission, found repeated breaches of children’s human rights. 10/62

Children are far too often detained, subject to isolation and force, and not separated from adults. The rights of children in police watch houses in Queensland are being seriously breached. Australia lacks sufficient focus on preventing violence against children, 11/62

economic, social and cultural rights, non-discrimination, and participatory rights. Racially discriminatory policing remains prevalent, impacting entire communities. In particular, ‘intelligence-led’ or ‘preventive’ policing models are having adverse and 12/62

discriminatory impacts, especially on racially marginalised groups. Police responses to family violence need urgent reform. Survivors of family violence experience police duty failures, including misidentifying victims as perpetrators, privacy breaches and failing to 13/62

provide effective protection. Little progress has been made towards Australia’s 2016 voluntary Universal Periodic Review commitment to the improve criminal justice system. It is now the 30th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. 14/62

This Royal Commission resulted 339 recommendations. Not one recommendation has been implemented over that thirty year period. There has been more than 470 Aboriginal deaths in custody since then. Not one person has convicted or held accountable for this. 15/62

Trauma endures when we fail to break the cycle: the negative operation of power. The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was official government policy from 1909 to 1969. Once in care, high proportions were psychologically, 16/62

physically and sexually abused. Consequently, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, substance abuse, or suicide did occur. Not all Australian jurisdictions have compensation schemes for members of the Stolen Generations. 17/62

Social and community services suffer deep ongoing funding cuts, instability and unjustified conditions. Homelessness has increased, particularly among First Nations people and older women; housing affordability has not improved; social housing continues to decline. 18/62

There is no national plan to reduce homelessness or housing stress. The national inter-governmental funding agreement on remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing has expired and federal funding for remote housing has been withdrawn in many states. 19/62

Government payments assisting renters on low incomes are inadequate. Australia’s unlawful automated debt collection process – robodebt - undermined the right to social security and severely impacted those involved leading to a fatal number of suicides. 20/62

Cashless debit and income management schemes have expanded in recent years despite their discriminatory impact on First Nations people (and single mothers), restricting individual decision making, and weak evidence of effectiveness. 21/62

The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) is an extension of the Northern Territory Intervention’s ‘Income Management’ policy; more than 81% of compulsory recipients Aboriginal. The Community Development Program (CDP); more than 85% are Aboriginal. 22/62

CDC requires remote Aboriginal participants to work for welfare payments; quarantines 80% of cash welfare, it’s humiliating, stigmatising, exacerbates financial hardship, entrenches disempowerment; independent reviews report that it has lead to increased violence and crime. 23/62

CDC limits human rights, is disproportionate and the program is costly; $10,000 per participant, with millions paid to the private company ‘Indue’ to deliver. Yingiya Mark Guyula MLA, claims the Northern Territory Intervention, Stronger Futures and CDP 24/62

brought ‘a decline in employment, an increase in court hearings, incarceration rates, increased child removals and suicides; concluding it is cultural genocide. A lack of technology, phones and repeated power outages prevented access to funds and food. 25/62