Social Justice Report 2008

• Tom Calma
• Australian Human Rights Commission

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28 May 2009In this year’s Social Justice Report, Tom Calma looks at what is needed to improve Indigenous human rights protection, remote Indigenous education, healing and health equality. He sets out some of the key steps that governments can take over the next 18 months to progress a new agenda for Indigenous affairs, including:

• establishing a credible national Indigenous representative body
• reinstating the protection of the Racial Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory
• making human rights a central part of the new relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, by amending the Constitution, establishing a national Human Rights Act and formally supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• developing a remote Indigenous education strategy and accountability framework
• establishing an independent national Indigenous healing body, and
• putting in place a properly-funded, long-term plan of action to achieve Indigenous health equality and objectively monitoring its progress.