Recording: Part of the Story

Descriptive transcript

Hello, everyone. We are officially starting our panel today and I'd love to welcome everyone to our special event, Part of the Story: How Multicultural Australians can advocate for Reconciliation. My name is Elaine Laforteza and I'm really happy to facilitate this webinar today.

Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, on whose country I am currently Zooming from today. I'd like to pay my respects to Elders past and present and acknowledge any First Nations person joining us today. I'd also like to acknowledge that as a non-Indigenous migrant to this country, I've accrued a whole host of privileges based on the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous sovereignty, so I acknowledge my own commitment to decolonising work.

A couple of pieces of housekeeping first. Today's event is being live captioned. To view the captions, please click on the "CC" button in your Zoom control panel at the bottom of your screen, or you can click on the link that's in the chat. If you have any questions during today's event, please type them into the Q&A box, which you can also find in your Zoom control panel. You can upvote questions that others have asked and we will be going back to the top ones that have been voted. Please do try to keep them relevant to the topics we're discussing today. We're also recording today's session, which is great because if you'd like to go back through anything that we've covered, you can do so and you can share the video link with your networks.

Now, it's always a timely moment to come together in support of reconciliation, so I thank all of you for joining us today, and I'd like to thank our panellists for being here today. We have Associate Professor Sukhmani Khorana, from the School of Arts and Media at UNSW. She has published on media diversity, multi-platform refugee narratives, and the politics of empathy. She is the author of Mediated Emotions of Migration: Reclaiming Affect for Agency and The Tastes and Politics of Intercultural Food in Australia. Sukhmani is a member of the independent collective South Asians for Voice and a co-investigator on a Settlement Services International research project that explores refugee and Indigenous connections.

Joining her is Indu Balachandran. Indu is a Global Atlantic Fellow in Social Equity and has held senior positions in the Indigenous and social purpose sector, most recently as Director at the Aboriginal Housing Office. Indu is co-chair of Community Resources (environmental services), and on the Advisory Board of Western Sydney University's Institute of Culture and Society. Indu draws on her skills and qualifications in political economy, arts, finance and social change to effect systems change for social and cultural equity, sustainability and vibrancy. Indu plays the veena in the Indian Carnatic musical tradition and her recent work includes Bhoomi: Our Country for the Sydney Festival and Belvoir Theatre's production The Jungle and the Sea.

On our panel we also have Nour Al Hammouri. Nour is a Palestinian-Australian Muslim studying Advanced Science, majoring in Pre-Medicine, at UTS. He also serves as the UTS Students' Association President and the Student Representative on both Faculty and Academic Board for Science.

And last but definitely not least, we have Dr Iva Ponton. Iva is a Senior Research Fellow at Griffith University. Iva has spent the last 25 years as an educator and researcher on projects focused on designing strategies to enhance student success in the transition from school to the tertiary sector. She is passionate about utilising Pasifika Indigenous methodologies when supporting communities to achieve educational and social outcomes with success.

That is a whole heap of accomplished, wonderful, caring, intelligent people to be on a panel with today and I am super thrilled and humbled to be facilitating this wonderful group of people.

So I'd like to start with something general. Now, think about this. Migrants come to Australia with their own stories. Some, but not all of them, come with histories of oppression and violence, and when they come to Australia, they may also experience racism, discrimination, prejudice. I've heard a lot of people of colour, non-Indigenous folk, say that it wasn't their ancestors that stole the land, so why should they care, why should we care? With all of this, why then do they, do we, need to take on any responsibility for Indigenous sovereignty? I'd like to start with Sukhmani, please.

Thank you, Elaine, for that wonderful introduction and I'd also like to acknowledge that I'm speaking here today from Bidjigal land and that sovereignty was never ceded. There are two main reasons that migrants should care, whether they came here 10 years ago or whether their ancestors came here two generations ago. The first reason is that even if your ancestors were not directly involved in colonisation, we and you are beneficiaries of colonisation, so that makes us complicit. We're all benefiting from the fact that we're living on stolen land. So whether or not our ancestors were directly involved, we do owe it to the First Nations of Australia to show solidarity in their struggles and be mindful of their histories.

The second reason, which I think is quite important in light of the upcoming referendum and the ongoing efforts towards reconciliation, is that as far as racism and discrimination is concerned, our struggles are intertwined. It's important to realise that the violence that was inflicted upon Indigenous people is foundational violence in this country, in the settler colony, as far as racism is concerned. Racism for minorities is not going to go away if they act more white or if they just keep climbing up the socioeconomic ladder. So it is really important that we address the foundational violence which was committed towards Indigenous people by taking these steps, and it is only then that racism and discrimination towards all other racialised minorities in this country can begin to be addressed in a structural, systemic, holistic way.

Thank you so much, Sukhmani, for that. What really jumped out at me there was when you said our struggles are intertwined and that forms the foundational ways in which we can belong in this country or how we don't belong at times. So if someone else suffers within this community that we all live in, we all suffer. Thanks for that, Sukhmani. I would like to go to Indu now. Why then do we need to take on any responsibility for Indigenous sovereignty?

Thanks, Elaine. I am calling in from Gamaragal, Cammeraygal, Darramurragal land, it's still being re-known. They're traditional owners of where I am and I pay my respects to the Elders. Great question and I suppose, agreeing with all of Sukhmani's discussions, I'll take a slightly different angle to it as well and add to that. When I moved here in the 80s, I was in high school and very little really as migrants then, particularly skilled migrants, one's entire focus was forward-looking and building our futures and re-establishing ourselves after a period of great dislocation which all migrants face. Over time, one starts to have to think about your position to place and I think it should be personal. It is important to understand that these are structural issues and historical issues, but we all have a present position to it and that actually we all have agency in this time and place to think about what kind of future we want to live in together and take some responsibility for making that future.

So in some ways, when I talk to my friends and family and people in the community, because I work more in the social sector and within my own community, the conversations I have are really more about, even though our ancestors weren't directly responsible, what is our position as Indian migrants? We are the products of colonisation. We've endured it, our families have endured it in India, and actually, we have re-established our sovereignty and in some ways to think about what that means. Particularly in our community, Republic Day falls on 26th of January. So every year I'm involved in events and we have conversations, they're really important conversations, and what is the meaning of celebrating India becoming a republic on the same day that the First Peoples of this country are mourning invasion and loss of, and genocide and loss of their histories and languages and cultures and political autonomy.

So I think structurally, it's very important to understand that we all have ongoing responsibility, but in some ways, also to think about what is our personal position to it and making it make sense for us.

That was such a poetic way of unpacking this quite complex question about where we come from. We need to really recognise, acknowledge and unpack that, the nuances of that, to know where we are at the present moment and how we connect and how we can move on and how to create those solidarities. I resonate so much with what you said, especially as my background is I'm a Filipino migrant to this country and we too in the Philippines have experienced nearly 400 years of Spanish colonisation and then about 30 years of American imperialism. So I always think we've lived through that history of colonisation, how can I use that as a point of connection to where I am now?

I'd also like to go to Iva then and ask you the same question: why do we need to take on any responsibility for any of this?

Before I begin, I respectfully acknowledge the Yugarabul, Yagara, Jagera, Turrbal, Yugambeh and Kombumerri peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I live and work. I pay my respect to Elders past and present. In terms of taking responsibility and supporting it, as we benefit from migrating to these lands, we are responsible in contributing to positive ways of doing and knowing to support First Nations. Not only do we come with our backgrounds, our cultural backgrounds, it's also most important to support the lands and traditions of those that we come and reside in, making sure that we are in alignment with and respectful of those traditional beliefs. They're not homogenous, they're quite different, as much as we are quite different in our own traditional cultures and beliefs. I think that's really key to playing a part as being positive residents or citizens and contributors to residing here in Australia.

Yes, thanks so much, Iva, and that's such an important point to make, just to mark out the diversity, right, that we're not talking about homogenous groups of people, that it is very multicultural even before multiculturalism became a buzzword. Now I'll go with you, Nour. Why then do we need to take on any responsibility for Indigenous sovereignty?

Thank you. So before I do start, I'd just like to mention that I was born and raised on unceded Bidjigal land and I also would like to extend my respects to the Gadigal people where I'm standing on right now. Before I start, I also wanted to provide some context. My connection with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here runs on a personal cultural relationship. I'm Palestinian and I understand very deeply the ongoing effects of British colonisation and the ongoing struggle for self-determination very strongly, which is why I get involved in these sorts of initiatives. What we've been discussing previously—why we should be getting involved—is because when we come to Australia, we expect to belong, and unfortunately the Indigenous population here do not feel like they belong at a constitutional level, which is why this stuff is important, that we're advocating for and advocating for inclusion as well.

A lot of the time, multicultural people, we also come from backgrounds where we have faced colonisation, have faced the struggle for self-determination and all of this stuff. For some of us we've been successful in reaching self-determination, but for some of us, like where I come from, we're still trying to fight for that, which is why I'm doing my efforts here and there because I know what it's like to not be recognised and not feel like you actually matter to the government in any way other than just statistically. What we're trying to do for reconciliation and Voice here in Australia is what I'd love to see back home, so if I can do it here and I can learn from the struggles here, I can potentially learn and bring it into my own country as well, which is why, for me personally, I get involved and why it's important for multicultural people also to be getting involved more and more, because there are so many lessons that we can learn from this.

It's also our duty as people who come from marginalised backgrounds to be paying it forward, because we came to this country and we really benefited from the social aspect and the social fabric of this society. Why aren't we paying it forward to the Indigenous and the custodians of this land? For me, there's no two ways about it. Most of us recognise what it means to be an Indigenous person of that land and we also recognise what it means to not feel like you truly connect and belong to the country that you're in, unfortunately, which is why we need to be outspoken and fighting alongside of them, supporting and making sure that everything is working the way that they want as well.

I really like how you've put that perspective, that framing around it, Nour—what they want. It's not for us to lead in that case, but to really deeply listen and to support in the ways that we can. I see some resonance, as Sukhmani was saying earlier about our struggles are intertwined, and how we can actually use that in the same way that Indu was talking about, the way that we can use this point as our point of connection. So thank you for answering those questions so thoughtfully, everyone.

I'm going to now put the spotlight on Iva because I know that you're passionate about utilising Pasifika Indigenous methodologies when supporting communities to achieve educational and social outcomes and I'm super curious about this. Can you tell us more about this and how this would relate to supporting communities to work together in support of reconciliation?

Thank you, Elaine. I think the beauty of coming from various backgrounds is we come with nuances and with the Pasifika methodologies, we're able to utilise from different Pacific nations our traditions and with that the different languages. The way in which I've used Pacific methodologies in my own educational research and PhD in education from the University of Melbourne is I couldn't find a specific methodology within the dominant culture, whether it's qualitative or quantitative, to fit the study I was doing. That study was looking at why is it that there were not enough people like me in the tertiary institutions that I was studying at, and I actually had to go outside of Australia and go to where the work was being done in New Zealand and say, you go back to the leaders, you go back to the cultural protocols. For me, that was having the talanoa, which is the communication, the discussions with the elders, the leaders of the church communities, the leaders of the communities per se within Melbourne, with Samoan community, and finding out what were the needs of people within those communities and what could I bring or add value to supporting young people as well as their parents and carers to navigate the Australian education system with success.

It was not just providing a service to just the young people in high schools. When you're looking at Pacific methodologies, it's quite collective, it's not to the individual. So when adding value and providing a service or support, I had to provide it not just to the young people who required homework study assistance or learning engagement strategies or strategies to best understand their educators. It was about supporting their younger siblings, their cousins, relatives. It was predominantly the parents, the mothers, who were bringing kids to these study groups that were set up in public libraries because, again, they didn't necessarily have the resources at home, so it was providing a space where we could come to meet together as a collective, what can I do, so it was using bilingual questionnaires and support in that way too.

The talanoa was bilingual. It was not just to one, it was to the collective. It was going to meet them where they're at, and sometimes that was going to churches and so forth. That included the til lava, building rapport. Sometimes it takes more than just one meeting or interview of parents coming to schools, you have to go meet them where they're at. Where do the communities meet—is it churches, is it at sporting events, is it at a playground? In order to build that rapport, which is til lava in Samoan Pacific methodologies, it's to meet people where they're at, and I think that is influential in trying to build harmonious strategies and rapport with everyone so that we could be more productive as positive contributors to the society in which we live.

So in a nutshell, that's how I've utilised Pacific methodologies residing in Australia, but also taking that into research. There's fa'afaletui, which is another way of using Samoan chief or matai protocols to welcome and also to acknowledge people to know their titles, to know their standing in society. If I were to take that to a comparative group, whether it's First Nations or Māori, it's about finding out what are your protocols, who do we speak to in terms of hierarchy and how are we best to address them and learning their ways. It's not just the dominant culture—the west is best—but consider other ways of knowing and being and learning, and I think that leads to an overall process and picture of reconciliation.

Thank you so much, Iva. I think you've already mapped out some really practical ways in which we can engage with this—meeting people where they're at, really exercising that deep cultural humility and deep listening as well to know how people fit into the system and that sense of paying it forward that Nour was talking about. You said the mothers bring their children, but it's not just for the children, it's also for the whole community, so it's kind of a snowball effect where everyone is involved and everyone is cared for and care for each other. Thank you so much for that, Iva.

Now I want us to think about the recent National Press Club that occurred on the 5th of July. This is when the Indigenous Australians Minister, Linda Burney, noted that June's Closing the Gap data showed only 4 out of 19 targets are on track, while key measures such as life expectancy, housing and healthy birth weights of Indigenous babies are not. She said, "If we needed any more evidence that more of the same isn't good enough, this is it." So I pose to all of you today: what different things do we need then and what kind of support is needed to enable this? I'll start with Indu.

Thanks, Elaine. I think we should all be aware that government policy has failed First Peoples for a very long time and that kind of reparation is occurring and in some ways the constitutional change is part of that repair. Whether it's a referendum or anything that's been happening in policy, in civic spaces, in community, in social services, it's recognising that the best people to figure out how to not just fix the problem but to paint a picture of what flourishing looks like and take their community and all of us in that direction are the First Peoples of this country. A lot of work is being done on returning power and control to the people who are in the best place to really address the issues that face them, and also, I think for all of us to have some faith and trust that if they have managed this place for 60,000 years well, we'll be alright under that control and that way of rolling out what should matter in this world.

So one is, of course, self-determination is core—just giving, not even, it shouldn't be asked to give, it's really about that community having the wherewithal to take control of what matters to them and that's really important. I'll often say to people, the Constitution is a living document and if it was written today and not at federation, what would it look like? It could not look like it does now, it has to name that Australia is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. In some ways that change is simply repair, it's a repair and recognising that the world today has kind of evolved and is more conscious of these things than 200 years ago and it's okay to just say, yep, we need to fix that foundation document because if it was written today, it would look very different.

You're right, Indu. It's not enough to—what you're saying just makes me think of putting a bandaid over a broken leg, right? We can't do that. It's not going to fix the problem. We actually have to really determine what the issue is in order to heal and move forward. So the Constitution would be really worded differently today and it's okay to address that and it's okay to say, "Okay, these are the problems" because mentioning the problems isn't the problem itself, it's pretending they don't exist.

I'm going to go now to Sukhmani. What different things do we need?

That's a really wide-ranging question. I think Indu has done really well to talk about the constitutional aspect and the fact that Australia doesn't have a treaty. It is amongst the only nations which was colonised and is still a settler colony and doesn't have a treaty with First Nations people, so we have to remember that the Voice is only just a starting point to try to address that. But I also, with the two hats I have on—my expertise is in media and cultural studies and I'm very interested in public discourse and sometimes public discourse is dismissed, but I think public discourse is ultimately what shapes public policy. If we don't change the representations of Indigenous people, whether it's in your 6pm bulletin, whether it's in film, whether it's in the arts, if we don't again prioritise that self-representation as a culture, then we are not going to see a significant shift in perceptions of First Nations people.

I think it's beginning to shift. We've seen, even if you just look at the numbers from Screen Australia, we have greater representation of First Nations people across different mediums. If you look at social media, there are collectives like IndigenousX that are doing really great work, there are also individuals who are really active in the space in terms of amplifying injustice, but also talking about what the solutions might be. So it is beginning to shift, but it's the mainstream media that is often lagging behind in terms of catching up. The other sort of hat I have on is obviously as a scholar, as an educator, and I think universities are also beginning—again a very belated catching up—in terms of what's happening in our classrooms. They're trying to use the word "decolonisation". Sometimes it's a buzzword, sometimes with proper consultation, so it's a very varied, fragmented landscape, and I think more could be done in terms of what does it mean, is there Indigenous reference groups when particular courses or whole programs are trying to decolonise.

The recent review by Minister Andrew Giles is also beginning to address how dismally we are doing for Indigenous students. Again, we're taking small steps in that direction, but I think we also have to ask the question, which I guess Linda Burney's statement there to the National Press Club raises—even after identifying all of these problems and potential solutions and prioritising self-representation, what are the barriers? Why is it that we're not making significant progress? Why do we keep coming back? It's cyclical, the interest in these questions. It's not the first time that we're talking about treaty or Voice or public discourse that is still negatively portraying Indigenous Australians, so why is there not more substantive progress? I think that's the question I would like to lead with.

Thanks so much, Sukhmani, and that's a really poignant question as well because that is the barrier, right? This isn't the first time that we're talking about this. This isn't the first time that First Nations people have advocated for reconciliation, so what is happening? I think we can really look at the history of this country and how colonisation continues in all the aspects that you talked about—the classroom, the media, the way that we come together, the way that we see each other, who we celebrate, what we celebrate, and so on. It's ongoing and it permeates how we live and what we see in this country. So in terms of taking that decolonising aspect or the buzzword aspect out of decolonisation, it's that really genuine, ongoing commitment to that multisectoral decolonisation so that representation is more diverse, more equitable, more authentic and ethical to what this country is and what it needs.

I'm going to go now to Nour. What different things do you think we need?

Yes, so I want to bring this to a more smaller scale, a more local scale. In my experience in studying, I discovered this thing called NACCHO, which lists all the Aboriginal-led and run health organisations, and that to me was one of the first instances where I was like, okay, this is a really good thing that's happening that, if brought out to a more large scale, can actually bring more impact. How I took it is it was focusing on leading their voices and also consulting and ensuring that it is what they want that gets put in. The NDIS tried to get into the rural environments and tried to support Indigenous people with disabilities out in the rural communities, but the problem that they found was that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders don't have a word for disability, they don't see disability how the west sees it, so obviously they're not going to be able to impact the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community effectively.

What's happening now is that they're bringing in their western lens and trying to apply everything and say one size fits all, but we've realised time and time again that it's not. Everything needs to be looked at in the lens of these people and they are the ones who have to tell us what works for them, which is what's been happening, but it can only—it only happened through a Royal Commission. It doesn't need to go to a Royal Commission for us to realise that some things aren't working. We have to be more cognisant of the fact that what works for westerners doesn't work for everyone else because the world is a lot more than just the west. If the same isn't working, what's next? What needs to happen is you need to be properly consulting and listening because you can't expect them to come to you when what you're offering won't work for them. That's what the Voice and the treaty and all is asking for—proper implementation of what we deserve as people and what we need to properly represent us. That's essentially the crux of it. It's reached a stage where this no longer becomes a place where we can feel like we have any impact, and if that's the case, what happens after that?

Yes, the frames of reference definitely need changing, right? And Iva, you were talking about this in terms of trying to scope out methodologies for your own research, that you didn't find it in Australia, you had to go elsewhere, and that question of why aren't there people like me in this space with these methodologies? Why am I, my community, why are they not represented? Iva, what different things do we need then?

I think it's great and I agree with what has been said so far. I think it's actually coming down to the practicalities of just fund and open the positions that need to be opened and put those people in those positions of leadership and decision making so that—and it needs to be reflective of the community they're serving. One of the things that I have found in my research is students actually relate to and other people relate to people who look like them, who are adding value, who are providing those services. It could be a trust factor, it could not be, but when they see people who have come through the same processes successfully, they're more likely to listen to and you become role models to people who haven't actively been in those spaces as the norm.

For me coming in, I have to say that it has been quite challenging coming into tertiary spaces because the positions have not been open to people who study Pasifika or who are doing research for Pasifika. If anything, the research has been done by non-Pasifika people and I'm advocating for an Australian Pacific Pasifika Education Network. We advocate for people doing the work for Pasifika by Pasifika because we do have the capacity to do so, and it's one of the challenging questions—the powers that be, do you really want to hear what we have to say or is this going to be another tokenistic gesture of being the flavour of the month or the year or the five-year or ten-year plan? It might be difficult to hear, but putting the people in those positions who are going to work for the communities at large who are requiring the service and support.

That's super important. To have that lived experience and those community connections is super important. What you were saying just reminded me of—imagine if we had a Minister for Women that was a man. Yes, we've had that, but it just seems ridiculous. There's a disconnect, there's a gap between the person doing the job and what the job actually needs.

Now, I'm going to go to Indu. I know you and Sukhmani are part of a group called South Asians for the Voice for Parliament 2023 and you do have a presentation for us on the practical steps we can all take, so thank you so much for that resource, and we'll be posting it up in the chat, so please feel free to click on it too. But I'd also like to ask you, Indu, what is the purpose of your group and why is it necessary?

So, a couple of months ago there were phone calls being made across various people in our South Asian community—not just Indian, I'm of Indian origin—about what's being done by us for us, in Iva's words, and it kind of very organically formed as a group of people who were interested, who had a history of engaging with our own communities and to start to think about what would make sense to engage our communities further. The kinds of questions we were asking is what is going on, do we know what that is, do we know what people are thinking, do we know why they're thinking what they're thinking. We just came together, it was a very organic group of people, we called a few people we knew from different communities—Sri Lankan, Afghani, Fijian-Indian and Indian people in this group—but we really wanted it to be Pan South Asian because we also recognise that when you leave your homelands and you come to a place like Australia, there are certain regional cultural affinities that take shape that might not take shape back in the homelands as clearly.

So we started this really to start thinking about whether there was any value we could add and we did a survey to try and understand the problem and then using that survey, we're building a campaign really just to reach our own people in the ways that make sense to them most to engage them with the issue and to really hopefully help them make an informed decision as migrants on Aboriginal land.

It's a great resource, and we can also share this when we send out the recording so people can pass it on too. It has that element, what you're saying, Indu, with what Iva, you were saying about meeting people where they're at, right? You do have to meet people where they're at to know how to engage with people effectively. But you did also mention the survey, Indu, and I'm going to ask Sukhmani now, can you tell us more about that survey and what have you found out?

We sent it out hoping to have as many responses as we could. We got about 110. What was great about it was we got a mix of men and women, we got a mix of people from different countries, mostly predominantly Indian and then followed by Sri Lankan. We were trying to understand who it was that was responding to us, but also their views. We were trying to understand how they're leaning, what their eng