Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy....

Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy.Professor Kerry ArabenaSchool for Indigenous Health20 July 2012.

Cultural Healing by Mandy Thomas

20th July 2012No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy 2

Three Key Issues:

1 Review current framing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

2 Identify a campaign in which everyone is precious.

3 Provide an alternative discourse.

Time to speak of these things:

We are taking charge of our lives.

More resources, better education, advanced technology.

Australians are better informed.

Leaders are future focused.


What Our leaders say about Constitutional Reform? Widespread support for recognition and removal of

discriminatory clauses.

Improve the status and lives of First Peoples

Build a human rights foundation, build a reconciled nation

Test of national maturity

Shared future as united Australia. We are one people.

Complete unfinished business of the nation.


2012 – 40th Anniversary of Tent Embassy


40th Anniversary of Tent Embassy


Dominant discourses in Reform Agenda.

Human Rights Discourse - posits reform as human rights entitlement.

Advancing Reconciliation – in the preamble and/or in body of Constitution.

Achieving National Maturity – recognises shared history, recognises equality, deepen appreciation.

Sovereignty – Oldest democratic entitlement is self determination in the context of ‘country’.

Discourses are in response to 4 ideas governing our affairs:

First Peoples Reform discourses

Human Rights

Reconciliation

National Maturity

Sovereignty

‘Officials’ key discourses:

‘The Nature of the Problem’

‘Not us’ or ‘the other’

‘Control and Responsibility’

‘Capacity and Competence’


What would a new Discourse need to achieve?

Constitutional Reform Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples:

“… it (the Constitution) is broke and has been broken since 1901...”

Proposal that is a ‘win’ win’ for all Australians.

Equality is everybody’s business.


Public responses to our ‘disadvantage’:

Constitutional Reform– Future for all

– Produce equality– Human Rights

– Healing

– Representation

Public Sphere– Stronger Futures

legislation– Already achieved 1967– UN Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples

– National Healing Foundation

– National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples


Public responses to our ‘disadvantage’:

Constitutional Reform– Overcome disadvantage– Sovereignty

– Land Rights

– Unity in Nation– Promote work– Acceptance and

Understanding

Public Sphere– Closing the Gap– Tent Embassy 40th

Anniversary– Designated Aboriginal

Land– Lateral Violence– Generation One– Reconciliation Australia


Campaign on Preciousness

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are inestimately precious people

Appeal to our common humanity.

Take the point that some conclusions are just not acceptable

Violation to the consensus that any race of people can be denigrated or controlled by implementing the powers in a clause in the Constitution


Truth, Justice and Mercy

Truth, in its fullness has to be told and heard.

Justice ensures we are accountable to the principle of equality in diversity.

Purpose of Justice is to bring loving action and accountability to the words: My Fellow Australians.

Mercy will create new beginnings, know the frailty of the human condition and stand beside each other with acceptance, compassion and support.


An alternative discourse - At the forefront of the nation building exercise…Be a celebration of all we are and all we have achieved:

Professors, lawyers, barristers, judges, teachers, health workers, doctors, nurses, academics, politicians, dancers, athletes, public servants, business owners, entrepreneurial thinkers and actors, Chief Executives, marine biologists, social scientists, rangers, researchers, corrections, youth agencies, lecturers, representing us locally, nationally and internationally.

We work in health, education, academia, natural resource management, in regional autonomy, leadership development, organisational management, youth empowerment, media marketing and public policy, land purchasing, economic development, human rights and political strategy.


Taking the lead on innovation and practice:

Innovation in primary health care and uptake of technology e.g. mobile messaging.

Sustainable water use and energy production.

Carbon mitigation.

Forefront of design and ecological services.

Business owners of companies turning over millions.

Create employment use national and international partners.

Evoking excellence and appreciating diverse thinking.


Reliance on the Law is not sufficient:

Australians living free from discrimination, achieving respect and their aspirations founded in citizenship principles of security and certainty, and a stake in the country.

Peace through acts of truth, justice and mercy. Endurance happens when each voice and the social energy it produces are incomplete without the other. And so, into dialogue we must go.


Dialogues that are drawn to peace:

Contribution to Australia as collectives in ways that are richly diverse.

Need to describe who we can be together in these challenging times.

Find a common stake that we have in one another, and let our politics and spirit reflect that as well.

As our union grows stronger, that is where the perfection begins.


Constitutional Reform will be achieved:

“…When we greet each other as equals, when we are celebrated for the what we all do to enrich the nation, then we invest in a future for our children on terms that are celebrated in the foundational document of this country. One in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are recognised as the Indigenous peoples, and a document that celebrates equality and despises discrimination. This is how we build a nation, 24 000 000 stories and counting.”


Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy....

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