TRANSCRIPT:
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Hon Gary Johns:
Thanks Jewel, and congratulations for creating this forum. It is important to be able to speak freely and publicly live, but also through the internet. And I just want to thank Michael and Charlene. Those are brilliant case studies, which with your permission I'll use in the next book because we need concrete illustrations of what's going wrong.
Now I'm going to lift the scale a bit and look Australia wide to give you a sense of who's in trouble and who is not and what we do. For those who are in trouble, about 80% of Aboriginal people are doing about as well as every other Australian. It's really that last 20% to coin an old term who have not come in. They have not joined us because they were caught up in a revolution in the late 1960s, which has held them mainly on country, mainly in Northern Australia.
And their lives are deteriorating and degrading and I'll give you some illustrations of that. So what Char and Michael are demonstrating is that there are elements where people are hanging in there and using all of the leverage they can through the system of native title. And I don't think there's much benefit for them except in rare cases. So let me give a sense of what's happening.
Most of the debate about land rights is about developing a community. I think that's totally stupid. People develop communities on the back of good economics. So there's an economy in a place, either a resource or water, river, whatever. You've got a chance and clever people and people who are highly trained, and I'm talking not of high skills, but trained in the work that they'll do commercially to grow capital. And if your culture understands none of that, you'll never build a community.
So since the late sixties, there's an elite class of Aboriginal leaders now that typically the no Pearsons, Marcia Langtons who need to stand in the mirror and say, how come I made it? And other aboriginal people did not. They were given an opportunity to come in, they went to school, stayed there long enough to go to university and became spokespersons.
But what they wish for many aboriginal people is that they should stay out on country where there's no economic base and where kids don't go to school. That is not the outcome that we would all wish. That's the outcome we are getting. So I'd rather talk about human development. Economists would talk about human capital. You really need to invest a heck of a lot in each of us so that we can make our way. In the modern world, it's the only one there is.
Now, it's not a white world or a black world or an orange world or a whatever, it's a modern world and all aboriginal people live in a modern world, but some of them don't know how to work in the modern world. So despite all of the dreams of an aboriginal elite, and it was they who dreamed up a voice referendum, which would've split this country right down the middle, we're saying with our group, close the gap research that the gap cannot close until the elites let the children come in.
So let's go through this. The problem is that I'd call it the remnants of aboriginal society are in free fall, fewer their children attend school native title, which is not the only form of land, right? But a dominant one now benefits very few people and I'll give you a native title case study and the solution is that we can use native title for the benefit of the children who in many cases the sons and daughters, you think of young aboriginal people now whose parents probably grandparents, one native title.
They don't live there probably and there won't be much money in it. So there's no point to the exercise. I think the future of native title is pretty gloomy, but it'll do a lot of damage on the way. In particular instances as we've heard already, the solution is I'll get to is that money must be paid to native title to get access to land.
Say you're a mining company or if there's some impairment to native title rights, when a Telstra telecom company puts up a poll or state government wishes to have use of the land, they'll have to pay compensation to the native title holders. It's what you do with that money. That's important. And that's why I'm lobbying the Queensland government about all of this almost as we speak. And I'll get to the solution. Now, this is a society in free fall. This is across Australia.
86% of aboriginal mothers had an ex nuptial birth, meaning not married even in a traditional sense. Now that may not mean a great deal. You don't all have to be married, even a traditional sense in order to bring up children. But that's a very high percentage who don't come together as a couple and tell the world that they will bring up children. The ex nup, sure percentage was 96% in the Northern Territory. And this is the worst bit. The paternity was not acknowledged in 21% of those cases across Australia, but in 45% in the Northern Territory, you don't even know the bloke. So that is a society in free fall, there are no families.
There often is no father. And a figure that I haven't got for you and it's very difficult to get would be the number of multi-partner families, men or women who have children with three or more partners. So that's just an illustration of what I call a collapse in the society.
So our job is not to start with a blank sheet, it's to start down there. You can't build a community with that sort of foundation, but you won't hear that from Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton or several hundred Aboriginal professors who sit in universities, highly underqualified in Australia.
This is what's happening. The normal investment that we make in our children is that they go to school regularly. This is a measure of school attendance in year seven to 10. Those critical ones early secondary, by law, every child in Australia must go to year 10 or age 15. That's in Queensland. I think it's pretty much the same throughout Australia. You hear that by law you to attend.
Now this is in very remote Australia, right across Australia. And the student attendance level is not the student attendance rate. The rate is the average at which children attend school. It would be 80, 90% for non-aboriginal children across Australia. That's not terrific. I vaguely remember I went about 99% of the time you went to school, but it has dropped off a bit. The attendance level is a standard. It says if you want to do reasonably well at school, you have to attend at least 90% of the time.
So on the axis vertical, that's the percent of students who attend at least 90% of the time. Okay, so in 2015 for non-aboriginal kids, this has got a little pointer on it might have, whoa, whoa, there you go. But 2015 for non-Aboriginal students and very remotes, 70% of the students attended at least 90% of the time. I don't think that's particularly good, but there you go. But for aboriginal students in 2015, either in, I think it's Western Australia, Queensland or that might be Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, it was 30 and down to 10%. The attendance levels crashed during COVID. We remember it not fondly at all.
So in addition to a bad start of attendance, there was a big crash after COVID. And look at this, the attendance level for non-aboriginal, sorry, aboriginal kids in very remote Australia is in the Northern Territory, 3.9%. That is 4% of the kids turn up often enough to learn anything that's 96% do not turn up to school often enough. And this is in a system that's compulsory attendance. And I can tell you why because those people managing our schools have looked away since at least the late 1960s since the missionaries left and educators took over, they said it's okay for aboriginal kids to not attend school. They're different.
The trouble is, well the good thing is many did. Many good aboriginal parents made sure their children went to school and they're the professors today. But the rest die young. The rest have children willy nilly. The rest, I tell you what happens to kids, girls mainly who return from a remote community, even those who are selected and going to a boarding school in North Queensland, this is a real live case.
Every girl who returns after Christmas or Easter has a sexually transmitted infection action. Everyone. We are talking about a society in collapse. So okay, let's not get too gloomy Gary. We've only been at this 30 years. It's not looking good. It's the numbers though are not great. They're are about 10,000 students in year seven to 10 who live in remote and very remote regions, Queensland territory, Western Australia, south Australia, a little bit Yu of Wales, a little bit Victoria, you're kidding? There are two. Victoria doesn't have remote communities and Tasmania. Well no, there's nothing particularly remote there other than inside here. People have remoteness in their heads. I don't mean that just for Tasmanians, it's a state of mind too.
It's not just that you live remotely, it's a culture that you have within you. So native title's been with us since 1994 when I stood in the house along with all of the Labour Party and applauded, no, I don't think I applauded Gary. Let's be honest. The passing of the date of title Act, the high court forced it upon the government in effect, but it hasn't gone well because of the 280 native title bodies corporate, they hold the rights to body corporate rights and incomes. We did a survey of all the incomes last year or 2324, and we found that 40% of registered native title body corporates, that is those that the would hold the money for native title if there was any money in it, have no income. It's not an earner.
30% have an income, but it's dependent on government grants or at least 50% of the income depends on grants. The grant is often for enabling people to assist them in their governance. Classically what'll happen, and Michael had an example, no, I think Charlene is example where a million dollars left. I say left is a nice term. Someone knocked it off. And typically what'll happen is that money is stolen out of a native title. Body Corporate is that the registrar, the officer registrar of indigenous corporations will say that's a terrible thing. They sometimes attempt to find out where the money went, but usually they fail because there are no records. And then they say, well it won't happen again because we'll give these people governance training in the real world, someone would go to jail because of the loss of those funds. So I'm not excusing anything, I'm just saying this is not a good situation.
Not only is there misspent funds, in many instances there is no money, there's nothing there. And for 30%, 31% there is an income. Most of it if you're lucky in North Australia, but more typically it's northwest West Australia. It's where mining takes place in the Pilbara and the Kimberley's and one or two of those not have total bodies. Corporate might have 50 or a hundred million bucks. So when some politicians say We should use that money better just be cautious, it's their money. It's in a trust. If we held that trust, we wouldn't want the government to interfere with it. So be very careful when someone says we ought to do something with trust money. You can't. It belongs to those of whom the trust has been granted. It can be misused, I agree, but it's very difficult to investigate. You need to go to Supreme Court that costs money.
So a recent case study is the Milley native title win, which was granted to what a wonderful title. The first people of the Milowa Malley Aboriginal Corporation who won native title in July this year, right? But it was placed in administration in December last year they were placed in administration because they couldn't run themselves even before they got native title. They, they said to have governance training. They were fighting like cat and dog. Now that happens. You can have that in a bowls club.
I've heard a lovely story years ago where there was a big fight over who was the president, secretary of a bowls club and the secretary treasurer was giving the report, and this is a bit terrible, I know dropped dead. Someone of the audience came over, stepped over his body, picked up and kept reading it. Anyone can get a little spirited about clubs and associations. Aboriginal people are perhaps no different to that, but they've just been granted native title with some exclusive rights with a huge patch of Northwest Victoria. There's mild Jira up on the right hand corner and they can't run it. Essentially the Victorian government has granted this and the federal court has just gone along with it. Federal court tends to just go along where a state government says, we accept this.
Now this is a solution that I'm pressing to a lot of people. If there's no money in native title, I want to approach those prescribed bodies corporate and say, I think I can get you some money for this. I want to convince the Commonwealth government to accept your native title back. Give it to the crown. And in return, every child descendant of the native title holders will get a scholarship to go to boarding school, boarding house, whatever thing. So you can actually cash it out.
Now, the moment I say that, I'll be an awful person doing terrible things to land rights, which have been a great dream of the Aboriginal people, except it's not working for them, it's not working for. The second one is that, as I mentioned earlier, there'll be compensation payable when someone comes onto that land, usually state governments will do it.
And if you go onto, I think it's Department of Lands here, website, now it's all set up to say we'll be paying compensation. And I'm starting conversation with them and to get a sense of how much, when to whom, et cetera. And we're also talking to mining companies to say, look, if you have to get access to native title or if you have to pay compensation, normally what you would do is sit down with the old men and do a deal and you'd hand over the money and the old men would use it for old men's business.
There are various descriptors to which we could use for that, but it wouldn't be a healthy use of the money. All I'm saying to the minings companies, agricultural companies, Telstra companies and state governments is as part of the negotiation, have in your back pocket an educational trust for the children. Get as much of that into that trust will help you ride it very narrowly so that no one gets their hands on the money except as a voucher in a sense to go to a school. So money should be paid to a charitable trust fund for scholarship descendants. Now. So this is the way the conversation needs to go. There will be, you cannot get rid of native title. It's not possible. It's in law. It's been operating 30 years. I don't think even Pauline would want to get rid of. You can't. There are no votes in it.
But what we have to do is knowing that there are streams of money going through the hands of native title holders, get it out of their hands as much as possible and put it in to the hands of their children. And I can tell you a lot of the children of native title holders do not live near it. The last one that was granted up way out in Western Queensland, the native title holders live in Chermside. They don't even know the place. A kid will get a phone call in 10 years time and say, oh, can we put up a telegraph pole here? And they'll say, what? Where? So in a sense, I'm hoping there's just a disassociation.
But unfortunately, unfortunately for those children who are stuck in communities in remote Australia, children having children, they're the ones we have to get out. And we have tried for many years to lift the standard of primary education in those places. It never works. Typically teachers arriving there come out of West End and Fitzroy to save the little Aboriginal children. They last six months and they run away and the kids don't turn up anyway. So we need that conversation. Governments and business should have in their back pocket this trick, put money into educational trusts, talk to native title holders during the negotiation, and the money must go into trusts and it goes off to boarding houses or schools. Now there's some good messages here.
Yari who are based here in Brisbane doing a very good job. They raise money for scholarships to take kids from remote Queensland communities and place them in boarding schools around Brisbane. This is not a criticism of gallery, but let's say that's one kid in a hundred bright enough, lucky enough to get a scholarship. What I'm saying to a number of people in the education department is what about the 99? What are their chances?
There's some other models. The AFL in Cairns have a boarding house arrangement. Parents pay about 50 bucks a week towards upkeep. It helps. It's a good idea to have that connection. But the child lives in a boarding house and goes to a state school. It's a lot cheaper. I like it. And NRL Cowboys are in Townsville, same model. So all I'm suggesting is the people who know anything about giving aboriginal kids a chance are already there on the ground.
The Aries AFLs, nls. And there are half a dozen other groups. There's also another tiny little group, and I'm just trying to investigate, which are Christian schools who are setting up close by smaller townships, say in Western New South Wales, some in North Queensland. And they're finding that if you have very dedicated teachers who prepared to stay for a long time, you may have a better chance of getting a child through school.
But you'll have a fellow I'm about to talk to in Croker Island who said in 40, was it, I think he said 40 years he's been there. No child has ever graduated or ever left. Now maybe we just have to accept that. But right at the moment, most kids fail. Most kids in remote communities do not get a chance at a good life. I'm suggesting there are ways not using new money, there's enough money out there using existing funds to give the 99 out of a hundred regional chance.
There will be failure. Any of us coming out of a remote community who'd come from a different culture and put into a different school, different culture may run away and it happens all the time. I accept that. But even if we could save 20% of the kids, that I think would be a wonderful thing. And what I'm trying to do is really normalise. I'm trying to make it a normal thing that a child leaves the community in order to get an education that will see them into a better life. And that won't happen overnight. And it doesn't happen by government fit. It happens school by family, by kid. Each of these schools have got to do their own negotiations knowing that there's some money in a pot that they can use to work with a family to get a child out of there. And I'll just finish on this little case.
I was talking to a fellow from the department up in Cairns. He's wonderful fellow, he's run boarding schools, he now works for the department. And I said, well, why do some of these kids go down south? I mean, it's too far out of their league. It's cold down there and they don't know anyone. Why don't they just go to Cairns? He said, because a lot of the mob will come from far North Queensland into Cairns to drink and the kid will be pulled out of a Cairns school into the drinking mob. So I said, oh, okay. So you've got to be far enough away to get away from the mob, but not so far that you can't have some backup.
I dunno the answers to those, but my colleague up in Cairns, and many of these schools do know the answers because they're working on it one by one. Look, that's my bid. I call it an exit strategy. We'll work on that for the next number of years. At the same time, if I can work with Michael and Shalini on your case studies because you've got to have a different solution there, then I'm more than happy to do it. Thank you very much.
Oh no, hang on. Whoa, whoa, hang on. Didn't get to the ad If you'd like to read more, I'm terrible commercially. The Burden of Culture at my recent to, and it's available through Quadrant and then the earlier books, Aboriginal Self-Determination and Recognised Water are useful references. Thank you. Thank you.
