Background

1. At its Fifty-third Session in August 1998, under its early warning measures and urgent action procedures, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) decided (Decision (1) 53 on Australia, 11 August 1998) to request information from the Australian government in accordance with article 1, paragraph 9 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (the Convention)
   
   … on the changes recently projected or introduced to the 1993 Native Title Act, as well as on any changes of policy.. as to Aboriginal land rights and in the functions of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.
   
   
2. The CERD Committee stated its wish "to examine the compatibility of any such changes with Australia's obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination."
   
   
3. In addition the CERD Committee requested a representative of the Australian government to appear before it at its Fifty-fourth session in March 1999.
   
   
4. The Australian government provided a written submission to the CERD Committee and attended its 54th session as requested. Australian representatives appeared before the Committee and provided oral submissions. The time allowed for consideration of Australia was extended from the originally scheduled one and a half hours to six hours over two days, ie the afternoon of 12 March and the morning of 15 March.
   
   
5. The National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title (NIWG) provided a written submission to members of the Committee (copy attached). Other shadow submissions were provided by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the Acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR). All these submissions asserted that many of the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act were racially discriminatory.
   
   
6. Following consideration of the written and oral submissions made by the Australian government, the CERD Committee took a decision (Decision (2) 54 on Australia attached) which was highly critical of the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act 1993.
   
   
7. In expressing its concern over the compatibility of the amended Native Title Act with Australia's international obligations under the Convention, the Committee found that:
   
   While the original Native Title Act recognizes and seeks to protect indigenous title, provisions that extinguish or impair the exercise of indigenous title rights and interests pervade the amended Act. While the original 1993 Native Title Act was delicately balanced between the rights of indigenous and non-indigenous title holders, the amended Act appears to create legal certainty for governments and third parties at the expense of indigenous title.
   
   
8. The Committee noted, in particular, four specific provisions that discriminate against indigenous title-holders under the newly amended Act. These include: the Act's validation provisions; the confirmation of extinguishment provisions; the primary production upgrade provisions; and restrictions on the right to negotiate. The Committee stated that:
   
   These provisions raise concerns that the amended Act appears to wind back the protections of indigenous title offered in the Mabo decision of the High Court of Australia and the 1993 Native Title Act. As such, the amended Act cannot be considered to be a special measure within the meaning of Articles 1(4) and 2(2) of the Convention and raises concerns about the State Party's compliance with Articles 2 and 5 of the Convention.
   
   
9. The lack of effective participation by indigenous communities in the formulation of the amendments was also raised by the Committee as a major area of concern with respect to the Australian government's compliance with its obligations under Article 5(c) of the Convention. Recalling its General Recommendation XXIII which calls on governments to "… recognise and protect the rights of indigenous peoples to own, develop, control and use their common lands, territories and resources", the Committee stressed the importance of ensuring "that members of indigenous peoples have equal rights in respect of effective participation in public life, and that no decisions directly relating to their rights and interests are taken without their informed consent."
   
   
10. The Committee called on Australia to address these concerns as a matter of utmost urgency. Specifically, it called on the Australian government ... in conformity with the Committee's General Recommendation XXIII concerning Indigenous Peoples, to suspend implementation of the 1998 amendments and re-open discussions with the representatives of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with a view to finding solutions acceptable to the indigenous peoples and which would comply with Australia's obligations under the Convention.
    
    
11. The Government's immediate response to this decision was outlined in a news release by the Attorney-General, the Hon Daryl Williams AM QC MP dated 19 March 1999 (copy attached). In it, he stated that "the Government ... does not agree with the conclusions reached ... [t]he Committee's comments are an insult to all Australians as they are unbalanced and do not refer to the submissions made by Australia on the native title issue ... and fail to understand Australia's system of democracy." This latter comment refers to the Government's inability to suspend an Act of parliament but fails to concede that the Government can review and bring before Parliament legislation to repeal and amend existing legislation. It also fails to acknowledge the fact that the amendments allow State and Territory Governments to pass complementary legislative regimes which require the consent of the Federal Attorney-General and both Houses of the Federal Parliament.
    
    
12. Furthermore the Attorney General stated that the Government did not accept the Committee's finding about the lack of informed consent by Aboriginal peoples stating that "[t]here was an extensive process of consultation with all stakeholders in the development of the Amendment Act, including with indigenous representatives."
    
    
13. NIWG wrote to the Prime Minister on 30 April (attached) informing him of the CERD Committee's decision and offering to assist him and his Government to facilitate negotiations with Indigenous Peoples in accordance with the Paragraph 11 of the Committee's decision. NIWG stressed our availability to meet with the Prime Minister as soon as possible to discuss processes for the negotiations.
    
    
14. In addition to its findings in Decision (2) 54, the CERD Committee decided on Friday 19 March to accept invitations it received from Senators John Woodley and Margaret Reynolds, Darryl Melham, Opposition Spokesman on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission to visit Australia. This decision was conditional on the Australian government not objecting to the visit. It was expected that the Committee's Rapporteur on Australia, Mrs Gay McDougall, accompanied by two Vice-Chairpersons, would visit Australia in June and report back to the Committee at its August Session. The Government formally objected to the visit and it did not proceed.
    
    
15. Further, and importantly, the Committee decided to keep this matter on its agenda under its early warning measures and urgent action procedures for reconsideration at its fifty-fifth session in August 1999.
    
    
16. The 55th session of the CERD Committee commenced on 2 August, with Australia scheduled for consideration on Monday 16 August. NIWG and other NGOs provided further submissions to the Committee (copy of NIWG's submission attached).
    
    
17. CERD Committee members were individually approached by Australian government representatives leading up to and during their consideration of Australia. As many as five government representatives were in attendance at the CERD meetings from 2 August until 16 August when Australia was considered. Although Government representatives were present during the Committee's consideration of Australia, the Government chose not to be available in an official capacity to engage in dialogue with the Committee. NIWG considers that this action denies to the Government any validity for its argument that its position was not properly considered by the CERD Committee. The government chose instead to forward its official comments in writing to be attached to the CERD Committee's annual report to the General Assembly for 1999.
    
    
18. The CERD Committee reconsidered the matter on 16 August and made a further decision (Decision 2 (55) on Australia, 16 August 1999 attached).
    
    
19. The CERD Committee reaffirmed its decisions from its 54th Session in March 1999. As NIWG understands it, the decisions referred to included Decision 2 (54) on Australia and the decision to visit Australia provided the Australian Government did not object.
    
    
20. In August, the Committee elaborated on its March decisions as follows:
    
    In adopting these decisions, the Committee was prompted by its serious concern that, after having observed and welcomed over a period of time a progressive implementation of the Convention in relation to the land rights of indigenous peoples in Australia, the envisaged changes of policy as to the exercise of these rights risked creating an acute impairment of the rights thus recognized to the Australian indigenous communities.
    
    
21. The Committee stated that in taking that decision, "it considered in detail the information submitted and the arguments put forward by [Australia]"
    
    
22. This is particularly important because it answers the criticism directed at it by the Australia government that the Committee did not take account of the Government's submissions, written and oral, provided to the Committee.
    
    
23. The Committee noted the comments received from the Australian government to be included in the Committee's annual report to the General Assembly.
    
    
24. Finally, the Committee decided to continue consideration of the Native Title Amendment Act 1998 "together with the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Periodic Reports … during its fifty-sixth session in March 2000."
    
    
25. Immediately prior to the Fifty-fifth Session of CERD, Australia submitted its overdue Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth periodic reports in an amalgamated report. These reports were due in 1994, 1996 and 1998 respectively. The timing was an obvious ploy to have Australia removed from CERD's early warning agenda to its normal agenda item of consideration of states parties' periodic reports. Never-the-less, the CERD Committee decided to continue consideration of the matter of the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act together with the periodic reports at its fifty-sixth Session in March 2000.
    
    
    Australia's Response to the CERD decisions
    
    
26. As stated previously the Australian Government response to the concerns raised by the CERD Committee has been to undermine the credibility of the Committee and to ignore the Committee's findings. Both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title have written to the Prime Minister offering to facilitate negotiations between the Government and Indigenous groups in order to find solutions to problems with the legislation as identified by the CERD Committee. The Prime Minister has merely referred these letters to the Attorney-General for appropriate action. The Office of the Attorney-General replied to NIWG by letter dated 20 September 1999 (copy attached). The letter refereed again to the CERD Committee's "unbalanced report" of 18 March and stated further that "the Government does not believe it is necessary or appropriate to revisit the amendments.". Even though this letter postdated the CERD Committee's 55th Session, it does not refer to the Committee's decision to reaffirm its March decisions.
    
    
27. Clearly, the Government considers that the 1998 amendments are there to stay and has no intention of revisiting them regardless of the opinions expressed by the treaty body charged with responsibility for monitoring States parties' compliance with the Convention. One wonders why the Government continues with the hypocrisy of remaining a signatory to a Treaty it is prepared to treat with such contempt. In the words of Patrick Dodson, the former Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, while delivering the Fourth Vincent Lingiari Memorial lecture on 27 August 1999:
    
    How we could contemplate signing off on any Document of Reconciliation while our Government stands accused of racial discrimination by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is absurd to me.
    
    
28. NIWG asserts that the issue of utmost importance to the Convention is not one of the Government's failure to prevent an act of racial discrimination between peoples within its borders; it is the Government itself which is perpetrating the act of racial discrimination.
    
    
29. The discrimination against Indigenous title-holders in the 1998 amendments has been extended by complementary State and Territory legislation which those amendments allow.
    
    
30. For instance, the Queensland Government has confirmed extinguishment of native title over Grazing Homestead Perpetual Leases despite the protestations of the Queensland Indigenous Working Group (QIWG) and advice from Walter Sofronoff QC, who successfully argued for the Wik peoples before the High Court (Wik Peoples v Queensland (1996) 187 CLR 1), to the effect that Grazing Homestead Perpetual Leases included in Schedule 1 of the NTA were more conducive to coexistence with native title than the pastoral leases considered in Wik. A copy of Mr Sofronoff's advice is attached. This single action has extinguished native title over a massive area estimated to be about twelve percent of the state of Queensland.
    
    
31. Another major concern of NIWG relates to the process followed once the CERD Committee presents its annual report to the General Assembly. Although the CERD Committee quite rightly called on the Australian government under its prevention procedure to provide information about the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act, and reported its consideration of this matter in its 1999 Annual Report, the report did not even attract a resolution of the General Assembly.
    
    
32. Furthermore, while the Convention affords the Australian government the opportunity to comment on the CERD Decisions, NGOs are not given the same opportunity. NIWG asks the questions: to whom is Australia accountable once CERD has made an adverse decision and reported it to the General Assembly?
    
    
33. NIWG considers it essential that the Committee continue to monitor the situation relating to the continuing implementation and discriminatory effects of the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act in Australia following its Fifty-sixth Session.
    
    
    Effects of the 1999 CERD Decisions
    
    
34. The CERD Decisions on Australia in 1999 received significant attention and sparked considerable debate within Australia. For instance, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (HORSCATSIA), in its Inquiry into the Reeves review of the Federal Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act recommended that no changes be made to the legislation without the "informed consent" of the traditional owners through their Land Councils.
    
    
35. Further, it is NIWG's view that the Senate's blocking of the Northern Territory's Native Title legislative regime was a direct consequence of those decisions.
    
    
36. In December 1999, the Senate referred the following matters to the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Fund (copy attached) for inquiry and report by the end of the second sitting week in April 2000:
    
    
    1. whether the finding of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) that the Native Title Amendment Act 1998 is inconsistent with Australia's international legal obligations, in particular the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, is sustainable on the weight of informed opinion;
    2. what amendments are required to the Act, and what processes of consultation must be followed in effecting these amendments, to ensure that Australia's international obligations are complied with; and
    3. whether dialogue with CERD on the Act would assist in establishing a better-informed basis for amendment to the Act.
       
       
37. The PJC is scheduled to report its findings to the Senate in April 2000 - after the CERD Committee's Fifty-sixth session. This adds further weight to NIWG's proposal that CERD continues to monitor this matter and consider it again at its fifty-seventh session. The Committee will then have an opportunity to review the PJC Inquiry's Report and the Government's response to any recommendations it may make for amending the Act. Copies of submissions to the PJC inquiry have been provided to the Country Rapporteur for Australia, Ms Gay McDougall.
    
    
38. The 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act were designed by the Government without regard for the agreed procedures for review as incorporated in the original Act. Clearly the government was motivated to implement a political and controversial programme to override consensus achieved in the negotiated legislation of 1993.
    
    
39. The original Act contained procedures for continual review of the legislation by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Fund. The outcomes of the reviews were to be reported to the Parliament for its consideration.
    
    
40. NIWG submits that continued CERD Committee monitoring of the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act will lead to reinstatement of the proper, agreed processes of review and adjustment.
    
    
    
    DEATHS IN CUSTODY/MANDATORY SENTENCING
    
    
41. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was established in 1987. By the time it was completed in April 1991, some 99 Aboriginal deaths in custody from 1 January 1980 were reported on. A copy of the five volume Report of the Royal Commission and copies of the individual reports of each of the 99 deaths investigated are available for the Committee to peruse.
    
    
42. A key finding of the Royal Commission was that the number of Aboriginal deaths in custody was relative to their over-representation in custody. To quote from the National Report of the Royal Commission:
    
    The conclusions are clear. Aboriginal people die in custody at a rate relevant to their proportion of the whole population which is totally unacceptable and which would not be tolerated if it occurred in the non-Aboriginal community. But this occurs not because Aboriginal people in custody are more likely to die than others in custody, but because the Aboriginal population is grossly over-represented in custody. Too many people are in custody too often.
    
    
43. The Royal Commission found that the most significant factor contributing to bringing Aboriginal people into contact with the criminal justice system was their disadvantaged and unequal position within the wider society. Its 339 recommendations were aimed at achieving the ends of reducing custody levels, remedying social disadvantage and assuring self-determination.
    
    
44. Of particular interest to NIWG are the five recommendations relating to land (334 to 338) under the heading ADDRESSING LAND NEEDS, three of which are reproduced as follows:
    
    334. That in all jurisdictions legislation should be introduced, where this has not already occurred, to provide a comprehensive means to address land needs of Aboriginal people. Such legislation should encompass a process for restoring unalienated Crown land to those Aboriginal people who can claim such land on the basis of cultural, historical and/or traditional association.
    
    335. That in recognising that improvement in the living standards of many Aboriginal communities (especially for those people living in inadequate housing and environmental circumstances on the fringes of towns and other discrete areas of Aboriginal occupation of land) cannot be ensured without the security of land title, governments provide, by legislation and/or administrative direction, an accelerated process for the granting of land title based on need.
    
    337. That governments recognise that where appropriate unalienated crown land is unavailable to be claimed on the grounds of cultural, historical or traditional association with the land or where, due to the process of the history of colonisation, Aboriginal people are no longer able to, nor seek to, make claims to particular areas of unalienated crown land on the basis of cultural, historical or traditional association there remain land needs of Aboriginal people which should be met by governments. These needs should be met by a process which:
    
    
    1. Enables Aboriginal communities or groups to obtain secure title to unalienated crown land or to purchase land for social, recreational and community purposes...;
    2. Enables Aboriginal communities or groups to obtain secure title to land so as to improve the environmental circumstances in which they live;
    3. Provides adequate funding in order that land may be purchased on the open market in pursuance of the needs identified in paragraphs (a) and (b); and
    4. Where pastoral land is held on lease from the Crown, permits Aboriginal communities traditionally or historically associated with the land to have priority when leases come up for renewal.
       
       
45. In summary they propose that land rights legislation be introduced in all jurisdictions to provide for a land claims process, a land grant process and a fund for the purchase of alienated land. In NIWG's opinion, these recommendations have not been fully implemented in any jurisdiction.
    
    
46. Whilst these recommendations predate the High Court's Mabo Decision, it would be deceptive to suggest that the Mabo decision and the ensuing Native Title Act 1993 provided for full implementation of them. NIWG asserts that the further watering down of the rights of Indigenous native title-holders by the 1998 amendments to that Act, contradicts the spirit and intent of the Royal Commission recommendations relating to land.
    
    
47. In its Concluding Observations on Australia in 1994, the CERD Committee welcomed the noteworthy conclusions and recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, expressed concern that Aboriginal people continue to die in custody at a rate comparable to that which led to the appointment of the Royal Commission and recommended that the Royal Commission's recommendations be fully implemented by all those concerned, particularly state and territory governments.
    
    
48. Regretfully, despite the findings of the Royal Commission and a commitment by all Australian governments to implement the majority of these recommendations, Aboriginal people remain grossly over-represented in the criminal justice system and deaths in custody are still occurring at an unacceptable level. At the same time, State and Territory governments which have primary responsibility for criminal justice in Australia have been providing reams of reports on their implementation of the recommendations. A selection of them is available for the Committee to peruse.
    
    
49. A publication entitled The Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody - An overview of its establishment, findings and outcomes by Chris Cunneen, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sydney, Faculty of Law prepared for the Reporting and Monitoring Section of ATSIC is attached. This booklet provides a concise overview of the Royal Commission and the outcomes up to 1998.
    
    
50. The truth is that since the publication of the Royal Commission's findings, prison populations have risen alarmingly. There continues to be gross over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody. Most States and the Northern Territory have introduced legislation which has had the effect of increasing rather than decreasing the number of people serving custodial sentences with the resultant disproportionate effect on Aboriginal people.
    
    
51. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (Corrective Services in Australia, June 1999) stated that at 30 June 1999, 76% of all adults in custody in the Northern Territory were Aboriginal - almost 10 times the rate for non-Aboriginal offenders. A 1999 study by the Australian Institute of Criminology (Juveniles in Corrective Institutions in Australia, 1981-1998) shows that over 55% of young people in juvenile detention in Western Australia are Aboriginal but make up only 4% of the population aged 10 to 17 years.
    
    
52. The recent sad death in juvenile detention of a fifteen year old Aboriginal boy in the Northern Territory has drawn international attention to the mandatory sentencing regime imposed in the Northern Territory. This obnoxious legislation removes the discretion of Judges and Magistrates when imposing sentences for property offences regardless of the circumstances of the offence or the offender.
    
    
53. That these laws breach Australia's obligations under other International Treaties is not, in the view of NIWG, in question. We assert that they also breach the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in that they impact disproportionately on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population.
    
    
54. The Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the effects of mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory and Western Australia and is due to report in early March. A copy of the report will be provided to members of the Committee when it becomes available.
    
    
55. It is NIWG's contention that the failure of governments in Australia to implement fully the recommendations of the Royal Commission is racially discriminatory because Aboriginal people continue to be grossly and disproportionately affected by the criminal justice systems.
    
    
    
    THE STOLEN GENERATIONS
    
    
56. A National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was established by the then Federal Attorney-General in 1995. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission conducted the Inquiry during 1995 and 1996 and issued its National Report Bringing them home in April 1997. The National Inquiry made 54 'head' recommendations and 83 recommendations in total to address what was referred to as "the continuing devastation of the lives of Indigenous Australians". A copy of the National Inquiry's recommendations is attached. Copies of the Report are available for members to peruse.
    
    
57. A major finding of the National Inquiry was that past policies and practices of forcibly removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities constituted genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
    
    
58. In Article 11 of the Convention, genocide is defined as:
    
    ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as .... forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
    
    
59. The Inquiry found that the policies and practices of forced removal which constituted genocide continued after Australia ratified the Convention in July 1949 and after the Convention came into force in 1951. Although Australia ratified the Convention, it did not enact legislation to make genocide a crime under Australian law.
    
    
60. A key recommendation of the Inquiry (recommendation 5a) was:
    
    That all Australian Parliaments
    
    
    1. officially acknowledge the responsibility of their predecessors for the laws, policies and practices of forcible removal,
    2. negotiate with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission on a form of words for official apologies to Indigenous individuals, families and communities and extend those apologies with wide and culturally appropriate publicity, and
    3. make appropriate reparation as detailed in following recommendations.
       
       
61. Most State parliaments have made formal apologies as recommended. However, the Australian government has consistently refused to allow the Parliament to make a formal apology. In the view of the Prime Minister, current generations cannot accept personal responsibility for past actions. Instead the Federal Parliament has passed a motion of regret. In moving this motion of regret, the Prime Minister stated: "The purpose of this motion is to generically express in relation to a number of issues the regret the people of Australia feel for those past practices and the continuing consequences." He did not mention the people who were forcibly removed from their families and communities. Neither did he express the motion in the form of an apology. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities affected by the policies and practices of forced removal do not accept this motion of regret as constituting an official apology.
    
    
62. Further, the Australian Government has point blank refused to accept recommendation 3 as follows:
    
    That, for the purposes of responding to the effects of forcible removals, 'compensation' be widely defined to mean 'reparation'; that reparation be made in recognition of the history of gross violations of human rights; and that the van Boven principles guide the reparation measures. Reparation should consist of:
    
    
    1. acknowledgment and apology;
    2. guarantees against repetition;
    3. measures of restitution;
    4. measures of rehabilitation; and
    5. monetary compensation.
       
       
63. Instead the Government has forced the victims of forcible removal from their families and communities to seek compensation through the Courts. This is proving to be a very costly and lengthy process and may take many years before victims receive any compensation.
    
    
64. A number of recommendations related to providing people forcibly removed with assistance to return to their country, ie the territory to which their families are traditionally associated (recommendation 11), to assisting communities to accept those who choose to return (recommendation 11), and to enabling people affected to be reacquainted with their language, culture and history (recommendation 12). NIWG notes that the Federal Court in the Yorta Yorta case set the standard of proof for the existence of native title at an impossibly high level. That decision was consitent with the 1998 amendments to the NTA, which included a new registration test for native title claims that require people to demonstrate ongoing physical connection with the claim area, thus leaving most people forcibly removed denied access to native title rights. NIWG supports the recommendations of the National Inquiry and urges the government to reconsider the 1998 amendments to the NTA to adjust the registration test so that it takes account of policies of forced removal.
    
    
65. Other recommendations, such as those relating to detention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander juveniles have also not been implemented. As mentioned previously in this submission, mandatory sentencing laws in Western Australia and the Northern Territory have had the effect of increasing the number of juveniles serving custodial sentences and increasing the risks of further deaths in custody. The impact of these laws falls much more heavily on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and as such are racially discriminatory.
    
    
66. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner's Social Justice Report for 1998 details various responses to the Bringing them home report. Copies of this report are available for members to peruse.
    
    
67. The CERD Committee is urged to comment on the failure of governments to fully implement the recommendations of the National Inquiry and recommend that all governments in Australia take urgent steps to implement the Inquiry recommendations in full.
    

Decision 1 (53) on Australia, 11 August 1998.

National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title (NIWG) submission to the 54th Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - March 1999.

Decision 2 (54) on Australia, 18 March 1999

News release by the Attorney-General, the Hon Daryl Williams AM QC MP dated 19 March 1999.

NIWG letter to the Prime Minister dated 30 April 1999.

NIWG submission to the 55th Session of the CERD Committee - August 1999.

Decision 2 (55) on Australia, 16 August 1999.

Letter from the Office of the Attorney-General to NIWG dated 20 September 1999.

Advice by Walter Sofronoff QC in respect of Grazing Homestead Perpetual Leases in Queensland.

Senate reference to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Fund.

The 339 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody - April 1991.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody - An overview of its establishment, findings and outcomes by Chris Cunneen, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sydney, Faculty of Law prepared for the Reporting and Monitoring Section of ATSIC.

Recommendations of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families in its report Bringing them home.

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