A decade after saying 'sorry', a new generation is struggling

September 13 is the 11th anniversary of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which the United Nations General Assembly resolved in 2007. Australia came late to the declaration, only ratifying it in 2009. When it was ratified, Professor Mick Dodson sensibly warned that human rights were of little value if they were only on paper and were not implemented. "The standards have been set, it is up to us to meet them."

As a jurisdiction, the ACT is a leader in that we have enshrined Indigenous Australians' unique rights and cultural heritage in law by amending the Human Rights Act in 2016, and with reference to the UN declaration.

Of other Australian jurisdictions, only Victoria has had a charter of rights and responsibilities since 2006. Queensland may soon follow.

The ACT Human Rights Commission, in partnership with the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body, lobbied the ACT government for this legal recognition of the cultural rights of the first Australians, who have the oldest living culture in the world at over 65,000 years.

The Human Rights Act protects Indigenous Australians' distinct cultural rights in relation to their ancestral heritage, spiritual practices and beliefs, traditional languages and knowledge, kinship ties, and relationships with land, water and other resources. It reflects a long overdue recognition that Indigenous culture is pivotal to our unique national character.

The commission has a project called "respecting rights", which is designed to breathe life into these rights by informing people how to assert them, and informing authorities how to respect them in practice.

Ten years after Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generations, and more than 20 years since the Australian Human Rights Commission's Bringing Them Home report, it's time to take stock on whether we have fulfilled our aims in practice, particularly in child protection.

The Our Booris, Our Way review into Indigenous people in the ACT's child-protection system is under way. A steering committee was established in January with wholly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members, operating in accordance with the principles of self-determination. It will analyse the circumstances of the about 350 children engaged with the child-protection system

Late last month, the committee released its interim report. It contains some sobering statistics.

Indigenous children are 12 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than other children in the ACT. Although they account for fewer than 3 per cent of children in Canberra, Indigenous children make up 28 per cent of children in care. In the second half of 2017, Indigenous children accounted for 37 per cent of children who were the subject of an emergency action – i.e. when police or child-protection workers removed a child likely to be at risk.

Why are Indigenous children still so many times more likely to be in foster care? Why are they much more at risk of a traumatic removal at the hands of government child-protection workers?

Might cultural rights, genuine cultural safety training for frontline child-protection workers, and deep organisational change be the answer?

The Our Booris, Our Way interim report contains a straightforward plea: "We want our kids to be safe and nurtured. We want the self-determination to find and manage our own solutions and support services."

It gives four immediate recommendations, all of which relate in some way to cultural safety:

I commend the government for appointing a wholly Aboriginal committee to guide this review. To borrow from the interim report, let's hope it's a step on the path to implementing real change, which will "better support our families to remain together, strong and proud".

Helen Watchirs is the ACT's human rights commissioner and president of the ACT Human Rights Commission. The commission and the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body will celebrate the UN declaration's 11th anniversary at 5pm today with a screening of Professor Larissa Behrendt's film After the Apology at the National Museum of Australia, and a discussion afterward.