The Aboriginal
and
Torres Strait Islander
Women’s Task Force
on Violence Report
ÆÉ The State of Queensland 1999
ISBN 0734513003
Copyright protects this publication. Except for purposes permitted by the Copyright Act, reproduction by whatever
means is prohibited without the prior written permission of the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Policy and Development (DATSIPD) and the Task Force Chair, Boni Robertson.
Ms Robertson can be contacted at the Gumurri Centre, Griffith University, Queensland on (07) 3875 7676.
DATSIPD can be contacted on (07) 3222 2953.
This is a revised edition of a report first published by the Queensland Government (Department of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development) in December 1999. This edition March 2000.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE TERMS OF REFERENCE vi
2. FOREWORD viii
3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ix
5. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES xxi
6. DEFINITION OF TERMS xxii
7. RESEARCH SUBMISSIONS AND CONSULTATIONS xxiv
8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND ETHICS xxvii
9. INTRODUCTION xxx
Section 1: Forms of Violence 1
1.1. Forms of violence 2
1.1.1. Community perceptions of violence 4
1.1.2 Family violence 6
1.1.3. Violence against children 8
1.1.4. Women and violence 12
1.1.5. Men and violence 15
1.1.6. Concerns for Elders 17
1.1.7. Street violence 18
1.1.8. Dysfunctional community syndrome 19
1.2. Transgenerational trauma as cause and effect 22
1.2.1. What is trauma? 23
1.2.2 Post-traumatic stress disorder 24
1.2.3. Alcohol as a self-medicating response to trauma 28
1.2.4. Trauma expressed as violence 31
1.2.5. Child trauma 33
1.2.6. Cycles of violence 34
1.3. Case studies 35
Section 2: Causes and Contributing Factors 45
2.1. Violence – causes and contributing factors 46
2.2. Colonisation – an indigenous perspective 46
2.3. Developing an indigenous theory base 51
2.4. Women’s sociopolitical theory 57
2.5. Sociological theories 60
2.6. Psychological theories 61
2.7. The abuse of alcohol and other addictive substances 63
2.7.1. Alcohol and other drugs – an historical overview 65
2.7.2. Alcohol and violence 68
2.7.3. Costs of the abuse of alcohol and other drugs 70
2.8. Cultural and spiritual violence 73
Section 3:Rhetoric or Reality? The Extent of Violence 86
3.1. Rhetoric or reality? The extent of violence 87
3.2. Socioeconomic disadvantage 95
3.3. Statistical casualties – women and children 96
3.4. Reporting rape and sexual assault 98
3.5. Neglect, abuse and violence against children – a statistical overview 100
3.6. Suicides, self-harm and other self-inflicted injuries 102
Section 4: Working for Change 105
4.1. Policies – service delivery – access to services 107
4.1.1. An historical overview 108
4.1.2. Whole of Government approach 114
4.1.3. Need for a Government Department to lead the coordination of services
116
4.1.4. Key strategies – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Councils 117
4.1.5. Training and education in the local government system 118
4.1.6. Effective coordination of services and programs 119
4.1.6.1. Breaking the cycle 119
4.1.6.2. Best practice 120
4.1.6.3. Critical program areas 121
4.1.6.4. Single access point for services 122
4.1.6.5. Measurable outcomes 122
RECOMMENDATIONS 123
4.2. The economics of deprivation and the challenge of economic sustainability
125
4.2.1. Self-determination and the economics of deprivation 125
4.2.2. Poverty and welfare dependency 127
4.2.3. New beginnings – economic sustainability 130
4.2.4. Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) 131
4.2.5. Small business enterprise development 132
RECOMMENDATIONS 134
4.3. Alcohol and other drugs 135
4.3.1. Costs of alcohol and other drugs 135
4.3.2. Government responsibility - Community responsibility 138
4.3.2.1 The sly grog trade 138
4.3.2.2.Liquor licensing issues 140
4.3.3. A Community Benefit Fund 143
4.3.4. ‘Close the canteens!’ 144
RECOMMENDATIONS 146
4.4. Education as empowerment 147
4.4.1. Educational approaches 149
4.4.2. Education for violence prevention 150
4.4.3. Educating the Community 153
4.4.4. Education for specific skills 155
RECOMMENDATIONS 155
4.5. Indigenous health and well-being 158
4.5.1. Physical health 160
4.5.1.1 Housing 162
4.5.1.2 Safe houses and shelters 165
4.5.2. Difficulties in accessing services 167
4.5.3. Remote area health services 170
4.5.4. Essential health services 174
4.5.4.1. Proactive as opposed to reactive service delivery 175
4.5.5. Nutrition 175
4.5.6. Emotional health 177
4.5.7. Sexual abuse and health 180
4.5.8. Children’s health in the context of violence 183
4.5.9. Women’s health in the context of violence 188
4.5.9.1. Elders’ health in the context of violence 190
4.5.10. Men’s health in the context of violence 191
4.5.11. Strategies for health and healing 194
RECOMMENDATIONS 197
4.6. Families and security 202
4.6.1. Families living with violence 206
4.6.2. Help for the extended family 212
RECOMMENDATIONS 215
4.7. Law or lore – the Indigenous experience of justice 216
4.7.1. Lore/law – the historical legacy 219
4.7.2. The criminal justice system 221
4.7.3. Experiences of Indigenous women with the justice system 227
4.7.3.1. Experiences with the police 227
4.7.3.2. Accessing services 234
4.7.4. Indigenous children and youth — juvenile justice 237
4.7.4.1. Care and protection orders and/or detention 241
4.7.5. Judicial experience 244
4.7.6 Sentencing - diversionary processes and custody 248
4.7.7. Alternative forms of justice 251
4.7.8. Application of restorative justice 255
RECOMMENDATIONS 259
4.8. Land - spirit - culture - identity 265
4.8.1. A world of relationships 266
4.8.2. Relationships with land 266
4.8.3. Relationships in families 268
4.8.4. Relationships and community 270
4.8.5. Relationships and conflict 270
4.8.6. How relationships form culture 271
4.8.7. What does ‘being Aboriginal’ mean? 272
4.8.8. What is spirituality? 274
RECOMMENDATIONS 277
4.9. Summary 278
4.10. Summary of recommendations 280
Bibliography
305
Appendices
1. Synopsis of recommendations made in previous reports 1
2. Table of submissions
15
3. Consultations
41
4. Regional issues 43
1. THE TERMS OF REFERENCE
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE TASK FORCE
• Advise on the development and implementation of policy and program initiatives aimed at addressing violence
against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, children and families in Queensland, including a consideration
of the effectiveness of progams currently funded by the Queensland Government and the impact of
Commonwealth policy, programs and guidelines.
• Advise on whether changes should be made to any laws, whether any additional laws should be made,
whether any changes should be made to the way these laws are applied or enforced and related policies and
procedures and any non-legislative approach including advising on existing Commonwealth and State legislation,
and in doing so will ensure that there is no duplication of resources and effort with other Queensland
Government initiatives such as the Task Force on Women and the Criminal Code.
• Advise on changes to laws where customary law should be recognised and included.
• Provide the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Minister for Women’s Policy with an
interim report of its findings by 31 March 1999, and a final report and recommendations for reform by 30
April 1999.
• In recognition of work already undertaken, have regard to all relevant reports, studies, investigations and
other documentation of the subject both within Queensland and other Australian jurisdictions and report to
the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Minister for Women’s Policy on the relevance
of the recommendations advanced in such reports, studies, investigations and other documentation,
and in light of existing laws and policies and the current and future resources available to both the Queensland
Government and the non-government sector.
• The Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Minister for Women’s Policy, the
Honourable Judy Spence MLA, to advise all relevant Ministers on the final report and recommendations and
to seek a whole of government response.
• Any media release regarding the Task Force is to be the responsibility of the Chair.
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE WORKING GROUP
• Identify the issues leading to violence against women, children and families in Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Communities in Queensland.
• Identify possible strategies or solutions, both long-term and short-term, aimed at addressing the violence
against women, children and families in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities and prepare an
interim report and a final report to be tabled to Government.
• Consult with such agencies, organisations, groups and persons as the Task Force thinks fit, including in
particular representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities and organisations and other
task forces.
• Advertise and call for written and telephone submissions on the issue of violence against women, children and
families in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities and such matters as the Task Force thinks fit.
• Consider and advise on the implementation of the recommendations of all reports pertinent to violence
against, and abuse of, women, children and families in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities,
including recommendations aimed at addressing the issue of alcohol and substance abuse
in these Communities.
• Identify strategies aimed at addressing issues raised in the recommendations of all reports pertinent
to violence against, and the abuse of, women, children and families in Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Communities in Queensland.
2. FOREWORD
The work of the Task Force has required courage and tenacity that members did not know they
possessed. As they shared the agony, grief, and at times, the triumphs of the many Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander women and men who have survived incredible ordeals of violence, the
enormity of the task became apparent to the Task Force. As Chair, I would like to acknowledge
the courage of the women on the Task Force in bringing this Report to fruition. I would also like
to express sincere appreciation to the many people who came forward to contribute their concerns
and thoughts on critical issues and solutions to end the violence in all its forms.
Most importantly, members of the Task Force dedicate this Report to the many people who
shared their lives and stories of pain and distress. To those people, we must commit our efforts to
breaking the cycle of violence to allow families (men and women, Elders and the young) to build
a better future where we can all live in harmony and peace.
We must acknowledge the good work achieved to date and commit ourselves to ongoing collaboration
with non-Indigenous people to achieve the true principles of self- determination, reconciliation
and reciprocity, which underpin this Report.
In accepting this challenge we must no longer allow ourselves to be portrayed as victims, but as
proud and strong people. In our unique ability to endure all odds, we have stood tall and we have
survived. Through our collective efforts, we can break the cycle of violence and we can work
toward a future that allows our children to be proud of their cultural identity and to live a life
free of fear of ongoing violence and abuse. These are the goals to which we must all aspire.
Boni Robertson
Chairperson
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence
3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
SHATTERING THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
All we want is for the violence to stop. We don’t want our men to go to jail. But by the
same token we as a community have to try to address the issues of alcohol, drugs and
violence.1
Violence at its most blatant has become a part of everyday life. Horrifying crimes are occurring regularly
and have instilled in the minds of the elderly, the young and others a level of fear previously unknown to
the Australian population. Murder and other violent crimes are destroying what has traditionally been
the Australian way of life.
However, for most people, their contact with violence is second-hand, through the daily newspaper or
the nightly news or a movie. In many cases, people have a choice about whether they allow themselves
to become exposed to the violence or whether they avoid it. However, Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Communities do not have the luxury of being able to disassociate themselves from violence.
The high incidence of violent crime in some Indigenous Communities, particularly in remote and rural
regions, is exacerbated by factors not present in the broader Australian Community.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence was formed when the
degree of suffering in many Indigenous Communities had reached a crisis point.
While the plight of Indigenous people has been highlighted in numerous state, national and international
reports, many people found the current level of violence in Indigenous communities difficult to comprehend.
Although there has been much speculation about the causes of the violence being witnessed, the impact
of history cannot be isolated in any discussion on its origins and the consequences of such violence in
the lives of Indigenous peoples in the contemporary context.
Dispossession, cultural fragmentation and marginalisation have contributed to the current crisis in which
many Indigenous people find themselves. High unemployment, poor health, low educational attainment
and poverty have become endemic elements in Indigenous lives, and while the correlation between
these factors and violence has been recognised, a more rigorous understanding is warranted.
While the violence being regularly committed in Indigenous Communities has become front-page news,
it is not new. It has been acknowledged by Indigenous and non-Indigenous forums for many years. The
people who could have made a difference have failed to intervene to stop innocent women and children
from being bashed, raped, mutilated and murdered and exposed to forms of violence that have been
allowed to escalate to a level that is now a national disgrace.
Indigenous women’s groups, concerned about their disintegrating world, have been calling for assistance
for more than a decade. While their circumstances may have been recognised, their pleas have not
always been met and in some cases, deliberately ignored. At times, Government representatives appeared
to regard violence as a normal aspect of Indigenous life, like the high rate of alcohol consumption.
Interventions were dismissed as politically and culturally intrusive in the newly acquired autonomy
of Indigenous Communities. Moreover, the ‘Aboriginal cause’ attracted little interest or sympathy in the
broader Australian community, which seemed oblivious to the mayhem that was happening, even though
the plight of Indigenous people had been described in numerous reports. The violence being witnessed
can only be described as immeasurable and Communities, pushed to the limit, are imploding under the
strain.
In investigating the violence, members of the Task Force were advised that the strongest message that
they could give to the Government and the public of Queensland is that violence in all its forms, whatever
its locale and in any circumstances, is unacceptable, and both Indigenous and non -Indigenous
peoples must work together to help in its eradication.
While Governments of all persuasions have made funding available to address the issues pertinent to
violence in the lives of Indigenous peoples, the Task Force was advised that only minimal intervention
has occurred to date. Service provision to Indigenous Communities was reported to be so poor in many
Communities that people believe the services intended for their protection, are in reality increasing their
violation. Many people in various locations, particularly rural and remote communities, have become
almost totally reliant on welfare, due to the breakdown of traditional social support and the lack of
infrastructure and real employment, with the human services, health, family and welfare agencies, being
clearly incapable of meeting the increasing demands raised. This has serious consequences in areas
where poverty, crime and violence have already reached levels that will require both immediate and
long-term interventions.
The time for preventive measures is long past. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people must work
together to stop the carnage through proactive intervention. Indigenous people can no longer live under
a system that defies and inhibits autonomy and self-determination. In the spirit of reconciliation and
reciprocity, a whole of Government approach is required, with Indigenous people also taking responsibility
to repair the broken lives of an increasing number of people. There must be no skimping; no
shortcuts or kneejerk reactions, because as an Elder indicated ‘there may not be another chance’. 2
Informants to the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence
were adamant that while it was important to expose the severity of the violence, it was equally important
to identify solutions. Many Elders acknowledged that while the stories must be told, it is also important
to provide a way forward. The text of this Report therefore reflects these principles.
Forms of violence
The degree of violence and destruction in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities cannot be
adequately described. The Task Force found evidence of all forms of physical, psychological, cultural
and structural violence being perpetrated, and while many may consider the violence to be a characteristic
of Indigenous cultures, there are other factors that must be considered.
The history of race relations in Australia is one in which Indigenous people have been subjected to
forms of violence that were unknown to many non-Indigenous Australians and as a consequence, the
atrocities inflicted against Indigenous people have only recently been fully exposed. Colonisation and
dispossession were factors identified throughout the consultations as being central to the current alcohol
and drug abuse, violence and dysfunction witnessed in Indigenous Communities.
Indigenous people generally have been profoundly affected by the erosion of their cultural and spiritual
identity and the disintegration of family and Community that has traditionally sustained relationships and
obligations and maintained social order and control.
While some Indigenous peoples were able to escape the past, whole families and Communities are now
fighting to address the consequences. Appalling acts of physical brutality and sexual violence are being
perpetrated within some families and across Communities to a degree previously unknown in Indigenous
life. Sadly, many of the victims are women and children, young and older people who now in many
cases are living in a constant state of desperation and despair.
Throughout the consultations, there was a strong message from Indigenous women that they recognise
that their men are hurting too, and if there is to be a break in the cycle of violence, they must work
collectively to reunite their families and to address the effects of alcohol and drug misuse and to eradicate
these illnesses from their lives.
There are few services available in Communities to deal with these critical situations. Although many
Indigenous people carry unresolved trauma and grief from both historical and contemporary experiences,
there are inadequate counselling services available in a majority of Communities. This situation
not only compounds the stress experienced by individuals but also exacerbates the likelihood of violence
because of the limited services available to assist people with their alcohol or substance addictions
or to deal with their unresolved traumas. The atmosphere in many Communities is now one of continuing
fear from which there is currently no escape.
Due to isolation, poverty and the relatively small size of many Communities, innocent people cannot
escape the violence as public transport and private vehicles are primarily nonexistent. It was reported
to the Task Force that at least one member of each family in some Communities is likely to become a
victim of violence.
This Report reveals that there has not only been a significant increase in the number of offences recorded
in Indigenous Communities, but the level of severity in such crimes has also increased. Violence
is now overt; murders, bashings and rapes, including sexual violence against children, have reached
epidemic proportions with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people being perpetrators. Youth
suicides over the past decade have increased to an alarming level. In one Community alone, there were
17 youth suicides in one year. In another Community, there were 16 suicides within a similar period.
Indigenous youth were said to feel undervalued, lost, disillusioned, with many now living without hope.
Aboriginal people, both young and old, are continually going through ‘sorry business’, with death
becoming an all too frequent presence in their lives. By any measure, we must all admit that something
has gone desperately wrong and that urgent intervention is now required.
Causes and contributing factors
As a result of ill-chosen, discriminatory and poorly researched Government initiatives, Indigenous
people have endured decades of oppression and neglect. The massacres and inhumane treatment of
their families remain fresh in their minds. Many members of contemporary Indigenous Communities can
still remember the policies that isolated them from the broader community, that exempted them from
associating with family and kin, that forcibly removed them as children and subjected them to treatment
that breached even the most basic human rights. Indigenous families today are continuing to be affected
by the losses they have suffered.
The harsh reality for those in authority who have ignored or failed to intervene in the atrocities thus far, is
that action is now essential. The very public implosion of Indigenous Communities can no longer be
hidden or excused as being ‘the Aboriginal way’. Such thinking is a serious indictment that must be
challenged and rejected. Indigenous Communities have endured, and continue to endure, substandard
and overcrowded housing, poor health, poor education and welfare dependency. Many live in environments
similar to those in the poorest developing countries, and lack access to the resources required to
alter their impoverished state. This is a situation that warrants urgent address.
A majority of the informants believed that the rise of violence in Aboriginal Communities can be attributed
to the so-called ‘Aboriginal industry’ in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous agencies have
failed in many ways to deliver critical services. In times of economic rationalism, the ‘industry’ has failed
to produce tangible outcomes. Concerns have been raised about the absence of initiatives in many
reports commissioned by Governments over the past two decades. Informants were aware of the
misuse of services with the culprits being both non-Indigenous and Indigenous people. An example of
such misused authority and how it assists violence is the sly grog trade where there seems to be reluctance
on the part of authorities to prosecute for breaches to the regulations. The sly grog trade and
violence were expressed by many throughout the consultations to be inseparable issues, worsened by
the failure of responsible bodies to carry out their duties at the expense of Indigenous people.
Extent of violence and abuse
The extent of violence is demonstrated by the rapidly mounting incarceration rates. It is also reflected in
the statistical data on interpersonal violence, homicides, rapes and suicides. For those three categories
of violent offences, sexual offences and breaches of domestic orders, the total for all reported Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander offenders in Queensland has increased from 664 in 1994 to 1075 in
1998.
The Task Force believes the number of violent offences is much higher than the officially recorded data.
This observation was expressed in the Indigenous Women in the Criminal Justice System Report
(1996). The Task Force researchers heard many stories about crimes that women did not report for
fear of reprisals from the perpetrator, his kinfolk or the justice system.
In all the consultations, there was an obvious reluctance to talk about sexual assaults. This reluctance
was reported to result from fear of reprisals or shame because of the nature of the attacks. One Community
survey found that 90% of rape victims were women. Non-Indigenous men committed 42% of
the rapes, 41% were committed by Indigenous men and the remaining 17% were pack rapes.3 Anecdotal
evidence was given that sexual abuse of young males is increasing, and remains largely unreported,
because of the hidden nature of male to male sexual attacks and the shame that is often expressed by
the victims.
Members of the Task Force were advised that while some Indigenous people do not experience
violence, there are others whose daily lives are marked by its constant and/or intermittent presence. The
harsh reality is that many families are now trapped in environments where deviance and atrocities have
become accepted as normal behaviour and as such, form an integral part of the children’s socialisation.
Working for change
The lack of collaboration in the past has hindered progress for Indigenous people. The reasons for poor
collaboration include:
a failure by all levels of Government to commit to long-term initiatives, instead of quick-fix solutions;
constant staff changes among senior public servants;
appointment of Government Ministers for short terms, so they do not become familiar with their portfolios;
the lack of coordination of policies and programs across Governments;
the squandering of public monies in duplicated programs;
the under representation of Indigenous peoples in senior positions; and
the absence of Indigenous people in decision-making processes.
The informants considered and applauded models based on reciprocity to eliminate welfare dependency.
Members of the Task Force believe, however, that economic independence and sustainability
cannot be achieved without significant cultural and social development. All elements should form the
basis of future Government and Community initiatives, with improved education, employment and
training and cultural revitalisation being priority initiatives.
Innovative solutions were identified to deal with the high alcohol consumption evident in some Communities.
In particular, rehabilitation and family unification programs were suggested as methods of reducing
violence.
The Task Force found that non-Indigenous professionals working in Communities often suffer premature
burnout, especially if their cultural awareness preparation has been inadequate. Indigenous people
also often suffer burnout because of the immense workload that they carry and the limited resources
available to provide assistance. Substantial issues exist concerning the delivery of services in remote
and rural Communities and must therefore be addressed.
Issues affecting Indigenous people cannot be separated from a holistic approach to health and therefore,
the Indigenous concept of health must be an essential component of health care solutions. Health is:
not just the physical well-being of the individual but the social, emotional, and cultural
well-being of the community. This is a whole of life view and it also includes the cyclical
concept of life-death-life.4
While much attention has been given to raising the standard of Indigenous health, there continue to be
serious issues that are not being met. Stress, unresolved grief and complications from alcoholism and
drug misuse are aspects of Indigenous lives that present serious implications for the future, if left unattended.
Mental health services are urgently required to address the emotional trauma experienced by Indigenous
people. There is a need for localised healing programs that are specifically developed and subject
to Community accountability.
The injustices of the justice system were unequivocally stated to be causing Indigenous peoples most
grief. When discussing Community concerns, informants frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the
justice system. The Task Force was told repeatedly that the justice system is archaic and must be
adapted to meet the needs of the current environment. Crime prevention should not be wholly owned
by Government but include diverse stakeholders. Elders throughout Queensland are calling for the use
of cultural lore to address the escalating crime in Communities and the over incarceration of Indigenous
people in both adult and juvenile centres Crime prevention strategies are considered to be deficient
with little relevance to traditional lore which provides the most effective deterrent. The informants saw
the legal system as being fatally flawed, ineffective and unable to meet the challenges currently being
presented.
While investigating violence was the primary objective of the Task Force, Elders and Community
representatives stressed the need to analyse both causes and contributing factors involved as a means
of presenting solutions. Although alcohol and drug abuse were reported to be primary factors in the
level of violence and abuse being witnessed, there were other factors arising from both historical and
contemporary experiences that were also believed to be present.
In providing a way forward, it was consistently stressed that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people
must work together to halt the violence and reverse the long-standing disadvantages suffered by Indigenous
Australians. Social justice, equity and reconciliation will depend on the full implementation of the
recommendations of this Report.
The future of Indigenous people can no longer be taken for granted and therefore this Report has been
developed in a genuine attempt to address those issues that have stifled the advancement of generations
and maintained the multiple violations they have experienced.4.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due to the following women who are members of the Task Force (names in bold are members
of the Working Group).
Brisbane & surrounds Ms Cheryl Cannon Brisbane
Ms Boni Robertson (Chair) Thornside
Ms Eunice Watson Mackenzie
Ms Cheryl Buchanan Coominya
Ms Monica O’Callaghan Mitchelton
Mrs Shirley Finn Geebung
Ms Cassie Stewart Glasshouse Mts
Mrs Beryl Wharton Eight Mile Plains
Ms Renee Martin Dunwich
Mrs Carol Dagley Kingston
Mrs Ruth Hegarty Zillmere
Ms Jodie Duncan (resigned) Mudgeeraba
Ms Margaret McLeod Kedron
Ms Regina Munn Geebung
Downs and South West Queensland
Mrs Rose Turnbull (resigned) Drayton
Ms Dulcie Corday St George
Ms Irene Ryder Mitchell
Ms Susie Lucas Toowoomba
South East Queensland Mrs Grace Bond Cherbourg
Ms Laurel Blow Cherbourg
Ms Narelle Currie Urangan
Ms Fellicity Pollard (proxy for
Narelle Currie) Urangan
Central Queensland Ms Leonie Yow Yeh Rockhampton
Mrs Heather Toby Mt Morgan
Ms Lara Jarett Woorabinda
Ms Evelyn Spoof Boulia
Mrs Lilian Mi Mi Bundaberg
Central West Queensland Ms Deanne Law Biloela
Ms Tracy Mitchell Charleville
Ms Nicole Robinson Charleville
Mrs Patti Lees Mt Isa
Ms Valerie Craigie Mt Isa
Mrs Gloria Anderson Barcaldine
Far North Queenslandand Gulf
Ms Sylvia Reuben Palm Island
Mrs Gwen Seru Cairns
Ms Carolyn Munns Cairns
Mrs Rose Colless Cairns
Ms Melissa Pollard Yarrabah
Ms Edwina Toikalkan Aurukun
Mrs Evelyn Josiah Kowanyama
Mrs Hilyer Jonny Doomadgee
Ms Veronica Piva Lockhart River
Ms Sandra Woosup Bamaga
Ms Flora Nero Doomadgee
Mrs Glenys Woibo Hopevale
Ms Heather Saleh Pormpuraaw
Ms Ina Wilkinson Mornington Is.
Mrs Angee Akee Townsville
Ms Cilla Prior Townsville
Ms Ursula Roughsey Mornington Is.
Torres Strait Islands Ms Cath Titasey
Thursday Is. Ms Kailang Dorante Thursday Is.
The preparation of a statewide report of this nature would not have been possible without the input of
many people, who are all, in their own way, dedicated to working towards change for the collective
good. In addition to the Women’s Task Force and Working Group members, grateful acknowledgment
must also be extended to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Legal Service for the initial
commitment to bring Indigenous women together to discuss the serious issue of violence. Appreciation
is also extended to the Government representatives, Community organisations and individuals who gave
their invaluable input via submissions and during the consultations and workshops that were held in
1999.
The Task Force extends appreciation to: Quentin Jackson, Casey Windsor-Peterson, Ruth Bohil,
Lorraine Atkinson, Lincoln Crowley, Kerry Evans, Jim Evans, Kylie Anderson and Aunty Beryl
Wharton for their input into the report and to the Indigenous Advisory Council Secretariat for its administrative
support.
Appreciation is extended to Central Queensland University for the secondment of Judy Atkinson and to
Judy for her support in the consulting, researching and Report writing processes. A special acknowledgment
should be made to Jan Hammill for her contribution to the research and preparation of the
Report.
The Task Force expresses sincere thanks to Griffith University for allowing the Chair of the Task Force,
Boni Robertson, to conduct the research, collaborate and consult with key stakeholders, and to write
the Report. Thanks are also due to many staff members of the Gumurri Centre for their generosity and
stewardship during the intense and sometimes challenging process.
5. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Section 1
Figure 1 Community perceptions of violence 4
Section 2
Figure 2 Impact of colonisation 45
Figure 3 Conceptual framework for analysing violence in Torres Strait Islander Communities
51
Figure 4 An Indigenous sociopolitical perspective on family violence 58
Figure 5 A sociological overview of factors contributing to Indigenous
oppression and violence 60
Section 3
Table 1 Homicide statistics for 1990 –91 92
Table 2 National imprisonment for offences/charges by most serious
offence/charge and identity, involving interpersonal violence, per
100,000 adult population 93
Table 3 Imprisonment figures for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in
Queensland and offences, and alcohol-related violence 93
Table 4 Queensland Child Protection Orders 1995100
6. DEFINITION OF TERMS
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples:
The plural terms ‘peoples’ and ‘Communities’ will be used to acknowledge the
diversity of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Communities
within Queensland. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Communities
have different histories, political dynamics, social problems, cultural characteristics,
economic resources and administrative capacities. ‘Indigenous people’
or ‘Indigenous Australians’ may also be used as inclusive terms for the traditional
or first people of Australia.
ATSIC: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
CDEP: Community Development Employment Program
Communities: Bodies of Indigenous people living in an urban setting, a remote mainland settlement
or on an island.
DOGIT: Deed of Grant in Trust Communities
Dysfunctional:‘ ‘Dys’ means ‘painful’ or ‘difficult’, and ‘dysfunctional’ is used to refer to
Communities unable to function because of pain and social disarray.
Intergenerational: The prefix ‘inter’ means ‘to place’, ‘bury’ and/or ‘between’, or ‘among’.
Intergenerational trauma is trauma passed from one generation to the next, in
the context of social learning or modelling from parental behaviour that is based
on traumatic experiences.
Transgenerational: The prefix ‘trans’ means ‘across’, ‘beyond’, ‘crossing on the other
side’. Transgenerational trauma is trauma transmitted across a number of
generations, for example from a grandparent through to a grandchild.
Trauma, crisis: Theorists and clinicians often distinguish between the terms ‘trauma’ and ‘crisis’.
These terms will be used interchangeably for circumstances that seriously challenge
people’s capacity to cope.
7. RESEARCH SUBMISSIONS AND CONSULTATIONS
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence was
established in December 1998 by the Honourable Judy Spence MLA, Minister for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Policy and the Minister for Women’s Policy. Its objectives were to identify the
factors behind the escalation of violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities in
Queensland and to provide advice on Community-based strategies for prevention and intervention.
The Task Force was comprised of 50 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women5 from different
locations throughout the State. Each member of the Task Force had a wealth of knowledge and experience,
having worked or volunteered time in Indigenous affairs over many years. Through their collective
wisdom and that of the women and men who shared their stories, the Task Force could comprehensively
identify the causes and consequences of violence and its effects from an Indigenous perspective.
From this larger group, a Working Group of eleven women, representing three regional areas, Deed of
Grant in Trust, rural/remote, and urban, was selected to carry out the consultations, to review submissions
and to provide advice on matters to be included in the Report.
The first meeting of the Working Group was held in Brisbane on 20-21 January during which a consultation
plan of action was set in place. The Working Group also met in March, April and June 1999. The
Task Force called for public submissions through regional and local newspapers on 30 January 1999.
The three points on which the Task Force focused in the call for submissions were:
• factors contributing to violence and abuse against women, children and families in Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Communities in Queensland;
• possible strategies for dealing with this violence and abuse, both long-term and short-term;
• the effectiveness of current programs in dealing with violence and abuse.
A consultation kit was developed to assist the Working Group and to enable those choosing to make
submissions, to focus on possible strategies and solutions. Included in the kit was a Community questionnaire
asking nine basic questions:
1. How do you define violence and abuse?
2. What kind of violence happens in your Community?
3. What services have been developed by Government to address this kind of violence and abuse?
What services have been developed by your Community to address this kind of violence and
abuse?
4. Can everybody use these services? If not, why not?
5. What can you do to make them more accessible or better?
6. Are the services culturally appropriate?
7. Are the services being funded adequately? If not, how can this situation be addressed?
8. Is the Government appropriately allocating funds to Communities to deal with the issue of violence
and abuse?
9. What do you think are the appropriate strategies and solutions to address violence and abuse?
What do you suggest needs to be done?
Informants were assured their thoughts and words would be respected and they would own the process
of research and solutions. They were also assured of confidentiality.
The consultation process began with the Task Force travelling throughout Queensland to interview
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They visited and consulted in Deed of Grant in Trust
Communities, rural and remote areas, urban areas and with Government and non-government agencies.
The Communities visited are listed below:
Deed of Grant in Trust Communities/Reserves: Cherbourg, Woorabinda, Doomadgee, Mornington
Island, Kowanyama, Pormpuraaw, Napranum, Old Mapoon, Aurukun, Injinoo, New Mapoon,
Umagico, Lockhart River, Hopevale, Wujal Wujal, Yarrabah, Palm Island, [Reserves] Laura, Coen,
Gungarde, Normanton, and the islands of the Torres Strait.
Rural and isolated Communities: Maryborough, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Eidsvold, Monto,
Mundubbera, Gayndah, Biggenden, Theodore, Moura, Biloela, Mt Morgan, Dingo, Duaringa, Blackwater,
Emerald, Barcaldine, Blackall, Longreach, Winton, Clermont, Toowoomba, Charleville,
Cunnamulla, Roma, Dalby, St George and the islands of the Torres Strait.
Urban Communities: Cairns, Tablelands, Mossman, Innisfail, Upper Murray, Townsville, Ingham,
Cardwell, Kennedy, Bowen, Ayr, Charters Towers, Hughenden, Richmond, Mackay, Proserpine,
Sarina, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Gold Coast.
To acquire a measure of past research into violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities,
and to compare the recommendations with what was now being said in the consultative process, an
analysis of previous reports and a synopsis of their recommendations was done, and is included in
Appendix 1.
Forty-three written submissions were received from individuals and organisations throughout
Queensland. A table of these submissions is attached as Appendix 2.
The submissions, previous reports, and the documentation of the consultations undertaken, comprise the
empirical data collected for this Report. Appendix 3 lists the consultations. Appendix 4 outlines regional
issues.
The methodology used does not rely on empirical data alone. A literature review was also conducted
that focused on:
the nature and extent of violence within Communities;
violence - its causes and contributing factors; and
the transgenerational and intergenerational effects of violence as trauma and its effects on individuals,
families and Communities.
8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND ETHICS
The principal researchers were the women of the Task Force and the methodology chosen was based
on ‘participatory action’. Qualitative methodology allowed for the inclusion of people’s stories about
their own experiences of violence and the transgenerational effect of historical trauma. This method of
research helped the target group, Indigenous people across Queensland, to engage in the process of
investigation and measures identified for change and thereby have total ownership of both the Report
and the recommended solutions.
The Task Force wanted to gain a greater understanding of violence; its various forms and expressions,
its nature and extent, causes and consequences. Most importantly, the Task Force wanted to listen to
ideas about Community developmental processes for transformation and change. It was important that
everyone who took part in the research, both the people sharing their stories and the people listening
and recording, were linked in a reciprocal process in which knowledge could be shared, explored,
extended and documented.
While the contents of this Report reflect general comments obtained through the consultation process it
is important to note that with any process, there was diversity in opinion. However, all attempts have
been made to ensure to the best of the Task Force’s ability that a process of consensus has applied not
only on the content but in the recommendations contained within.
Schweitzer has written that ‘the individual’s experiential world is private and experienced by him or her
alone. It…cannot be quantified and observed by another in the same way as a chemical reaction might,
for instance, be observed.’6 This point was made in different ways by the people sharing their experiences
of violence. It is impossible to describe the experience of violence to another person. Its effect is
much more than the visible physical injuries, and even the obvious emotional and mental distress.
When people are working together to understand very personal and private ordeals of violence, trust is
vital. The research is dependent on mutual respect and reciprocity. The process of consultation and the
activities of the Working Group highlighted the delicate balance that must be established between
objectivity and subjectivity. It was not possible to remain detached observers/researchers always, within
the process of the consultations and Report compilation.
Value-free research is not possible and does not occur. Research may be most perniciously
biased by the attitudes of the researcher when those attitudes are hidden from the reader
or even from the researcher’s own perception. Value-free research is not possible, but
value-explicit research is more honest research in which scientists express and clarify their
own value system.7
During the gathering of the data, the recording of the information and the writing of the Report, the
members of the Task Force constantly asked themselves these questions: ‘Can we possibly do justice
to the great human suffering and tragedy in the stories we were given? Can we reasonably write of the
courage and resilience we observed and found? Do we have the skills to make sense of this senselessness
so others will understand what we are trying to say? Who will understand?’ Members of the Task
Force struggled for words and felt inadequate until the decision was made: ‘We will let people tell their
own stories, with as little interpretation as possible.’
Confidentiality and ethical boundaries were closely observed throughout the consultations. Sometimes
the Working Group heard members of the same family give two differing versions of what was supposed
to be the same story until they understood that each person, in the intensity of pain, could be
relating identical experiences from different points of view. Each view is valid. Many conversations
began with the words, ‘I’ve never told anybody this before,’ to introduce a painful secret, long kept
from other family members. On a number of occasions, the Working Group and the consultants had to
provide an informant with a listening ear well beyond the responsibilities and the resources of the Task
Force.
Painful memories and present realities were exposed and shared with regularity. This issue disturbed the
Task Force, as there are few counselling facilities to which people could be referred for help. Such
ethical considerations continue to be a major concern and are addressed in the recommendations.
9. INTRODUCTION
The Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Minister for Women’s Policy, the
Honourable Judy Spence, established the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force
on Violence to develop strategies and advise Government on the critical issues of violence in Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander families and Communities across Queensland.
To achieve these objectives, the Task Force believed it was important to give Indigenous people the
opportunity to express their thoughts on the violence and dysfunction in their Communities and to
facilitate a voice for change. The consultations provided a platform through which Indigenous women
and men could present their views of the causes and contributing factors of violence and identify solutions
as a way forward.
While the text of this Report reflects the concerns and directions provided by both Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people, there are components that will be of more relevance to Aboriginal people
with the remaining components being applicable to both. This does not negate the essential needs of
either group but reflects instead the diversities and commonalities that exist in Australia’s Indigenous
peoples.
While women and children were seen to be the primary victims of the violence, the women were determined
that the plight of their men should be acknowledged if there was to be a break in the cycle that
has developed. All informants wanted the violence to stop so that families and Communities could be
reunited with no key members missing. Moreover, they insisted that the way forward is through collaboration
and participation of all stakeholders in order to pave a brighter future for the children who are
currently disillusioned by what they are seeing.
Indigenous people suffering the brunt of the violence felt nothing positive was happening, either through
the actions of Government or community leaders to address their plight. While many dedicated workers
had struggled over the years to deliver critical services to those people in distress, their work was often
unrecognised and under-resourced. The Task Force acknowledges those skilled and devoted workers
for their determination and efforts. It must also admonish past Governments for failing to act to halt the
escalating violence. It is time to build on the knowledge, skills and innovation of the people in reinstating
law and order to rebuild lives that have been shattered by historical processes.
The Task Force also provided an outlet to allow non-Indigenous peoples to express their thoughts on
the violence, this aspect of the process became educational, with many of these people expressing
horror at the level of violence and abuse that unfolded.
This Report contains disturbing accounts of previously untold violations suffered by Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples8 across generations.
You see Aboriginal people, in our culture we learn, we are taught to take a lot of
pain. We grow into it and we take a lot of pain and we put that pain onto someone
else. Our people, we have deep-seated hurt from generations because that hurt,
it’s all through the families and the Communities.9
This Report will show extremes within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies. At one end of the
spectrum, there are Indigenous people who do not drink, are loving and caring parents, and who work
to support their families. At the other end, there are people who are profoundly disempowered, and
through no fault of their own, are indisputably the most marginalised people in Australia. Communities
are lost and dysfunctional and Indigenous men and women, through the excessive use of alcohol and
other drugs, self-medicate their grief. Inevitably they become entrapped in lifestyles marked by violence
and abuse.
Violence is not merely an Indigenous issue. Australia was founded on violence.
It is violence to move people forcibly from their place of birth and to dump them in
strange places, just to satisfy someone else’s racist obsessions. It is violence to separate
family members by policy or by designed economic hardship and necessity. It is violence
to classify people by race in order to deny privileges to some and heap privileges on
others. It is violence to systematically deny the most basic human rights in the service of
such a system.10
The Report has not been written to apportion blame for past wrongs suffered by Indigenous people.
Rather, it is a call to account for the many people who have ignored the plight of women and children
and allowed the violence to continue without intervention. By their silence and inaction, they have
condoned the violence inflicted on families and prevented the broader community from gaining a true
understanding of the plight of Indigenous people.
Silence is the language of complicity.11
The Report deals with the past injustices imposed on Indigenous peoples so that both Indigenous and
non-Indigenous people can address the contemporary consequences.
In 1987 the Aboriginal Coordinating Council12 (ACC) conducted a five-day workshop in Cairns. The
workshop was held in response to a call from senior Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living
within the Deed of Grant in Trust Communities/reserves of Queensland. The Elders wanted to discuss
and find solutions to two critical and interrelated issues, child abuse and domestic violence. It was felt at
that time that those issues were associated with high levels of alcohol consumption and illicit drug abuse,
juvenile offences, adult incarceration, suicide, and other issues specific to social disintegration. At the
close of the workshop, Mrs Hilyer Jonny said:
I’ll go home [to Doomadgee] and talk to the women and we will talk to the council and
we will do something.
After another eleven years of repeated lobbying of politicians by Mrs Jonny and other Indigenous
women, as well as numerous newspaper articles, public attention was finally drawn to the now horrifying
levels of violence in Indigenous Communities. Mrs Jonny and other women were invited to Brisbane by
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Legal and Advocacy Service to attend a meeting to
discuss the atrocities from an Indigenous perspective. From this meeting, the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence was born. Again Ms Jonny used words that were
echoed by many other women present.
Ever since I have been to meetings we have been talking, talking about domestic violence
all the time. . . I would like to see action, not talking all the time. ... Action speaks louder
than words. I have to live in the Community amongst domestic violence, family violence,
alcohol violence and other violence.13
The women spoke strongly about alcohol as a major cause of violence. It was seen as influencing all
aspects of their lives and creating chaos even for those who didn’t drink.
You see, we are Aboriginal peoples. We are not Europeans. We all live together but we, we
are Aboriginal peoples. I’m thinking and feeling here now, we are losing the culture.
Maybe it’s not lost but it’s going. Even the men talk to me, even the drinkers, saying the
grog’s too much, too much. We ourselves, we Aboriginal women, we don’t drink and we,
we are having a big struggle.14
The Indigenous women who participated in the initial workshop were insistent that an inquiry should not
take place because ‘it had all been said before’.
We are the most researched, the most investigated group of people on earth, and still our
situation continues. We know what the issues are. We’ve been trying to tell government
for years. We need action now.15
The Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Minister for Women’s Policy, the
Honourable Judy Spence, also rejected an inquiry when she addressed the Queensland Parliament on
10 November 1998:
There have been numerous studies, investigations and inquiries into alcohol, violence and
associated problems in remote Aboriginal communities. Many of these reports are still
gathering dust on shelves in university libraries or in government departments. If we
initiate yet another inquiry, we will be squandering resources in administrative and bu-
reaucratic processes rather than putting the money directly into the communities - into
action rather than talk.16
Indeed, the Chair of the Aboriginal Coordinating Council in a letter to the Minister said:
What is needed now is not passive action via a long cumbersome inquiry process, but
rather positive, active action that can provide direct assistance to Community Councils
to deal with these problems.17
Similarly, the Chair of the Indigenous Advisory Council, formerly the Queensland Government’s peak
Indigenous advisory body, stated publicly:
The fact is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people know what the issues and the
problems are, …It is time for the money to be spent on addressing the problems, not on
another inquiry to identify things which have already been identified.18
Previously, the Aboriginal Coordinating Council and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
and organisations, in submissions to the Queensland Domestic Violence Task Force inquiry of 1988,
and later to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, had identified a number of critical
concerns if violence was to be addressed within Indigenous Communities. These included issues of law
enforcement and reform, alcohol and other drug misuse, victim support and perpetrator programs,
children’s healing needs, issues of young male/female socialisation into adult life, de-colonisation programs,
community education initiatives, family support programs, reunification of families, social services
provision, training for specialist workers, and the need for a whole of Government approach. Until
recently, there has been an appalling failure by Government and Indigenous organisations to address the
critical needs of Indigenous peoples who have or are experiencing violence.
In 1999, the violence is considerably worse than it was eleven years ago, despite any interventions that
have been implemented. It is now essential to adopt a whole of Government/whole of Community
approach to reduce and prevent family violence and address the associated issues in Indigenous Communities.
The Task Force endorses the words of the Minister:
We do acknowledge the problem of alcohol-related violence in Indigenous communities.
We acknowledge that unemployment, isolation, poverty, the lingering effects of the removal
of children, cultural disorientation, dispossession and the decline of traditional law
are all part of the reason for the high levels of violence and alcohol abuse in these communities.
We do not need to be psychiatrists to see that violence is often the last resort for
people living with a sense of hopelessness and despair. This government is determined to
take action across-the-board to address issues of jobs, health, housing, education, infrastructure,
isolation, alcohol abuse, family violence and lack of opportunities - to take a
whole of government approach in order to achieve real outcomes.19
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women living in Deed of Grant of Trust and other Communities
within Queensland have been particularly disadvantaged.
Yet in their dignity and strength, they continue to support their men while they search for
solutions and struggle for strength to survive.20
The women participating in the consultations stated unequivocally that the violence cannot be addressed
without the input of their menfolk.
If we are to leave anything for our children, we have to work together.21
This Report may hold the future of Indigenous Australians within its pages. To paraphrase Mrs Jonny,
the Task Force requests that the Minister takes the Report to her parliamentary colleagues, talks to
them, and obtains a collective commitment to:
do something, for actions do speak louder than words.22
Those were the key points expressed to the Task Force through the submissions and consultations.
Accordingly, the Report has narrated these stories, mostly from women, including new stories and old
stories which, though repetitious, were told yet again from sheer frustration. Is anybody listening?
It is time for action. It is time to put aside the old and ineffectual methods and policies of past administrations,
and to solve problems through real and long-term structural change. It is time for a combined
and genuine commitment from all levels of Government, Communities and most importantly, individuals.
It is time for the greatest act of political will seen outside wartime. The degree of effort required cannot
be understated. It must be given genuinely, in friendship and as equal partners.
Endnotes
Preliminary pages
Section 1: Forms of Violence
The Dispossessed
Peace was yours, Australian man, with tribal laws you made,
Till white Colonials stole your peace with rape and murder raid;
They shot and poisoned and enslaved until, a scattered few,
Only remnant now remain, and the heart dies in you.
The white man claimed your hunting grounds and you could not remain,
They made you work as menials for greedy private gain;
Your tribes are broken vagrants now wherever whites abide,
And justice of the white man means justice to you denied.
They brought you Bibles and disease, the liquor and the gun:
With Christian culture such as these the white command was won.
A dying race you linger on, degraded and oppressed,
Outcasts in your own native land, you are the dispossessed.
When Christians mean a way of life, as Christians proudly claim,
And when hypocrisy is scorned and hate is counted shame,
Than only shall intolerance die and old justice cease
And white and dark as brothers find equality and peace.
But oh so long the wait has been, so slow the justice due,
Courage decays for want of hope, and the heart dies in you.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
1.1. FORMS OF VIOLENCE
An examination of the nature and extent, contributing factors and causes of violence within Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander families and Communities must start with a clear definition of the ‘problem’. What is
violence? How do people define violence? How is violence experienced and expressed? Who are the
main victims and the main perpetrators? Answers to these questions are important, because the actions of
the worker, the activist, the researcher, the service provider, and the policy maker are determined by their
perceptions of the ‘problem’. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to develop theories and practice that
address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander violent behaviour from an informed, culturally sensitive,
holistic perspective, incorporating the reality of both the past and the present in Indigenous lives.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission document Tjunparni:Family Violence in Indigenous
Australia23 defines family or interpersonal violence as being expressed in a number of ways including:
The beating of a wife or other family members, homicide, suicide and other self-inflicted
injury, rape, child abuse and child sexual abuse, incest and the sale of younger family members
for misuse by others as a way of obtaining funds for drink or gambling. When we talk
of family violence we need to remember that we are not talking about serious physical
injury alone but also verbal harassment, psychological and emotional abuse, and economic
deprivation, which, although as devastating, are even more difficult to quantify than physical
abuse.24
This broad-based definition is complementary to the scope of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence. It allows for an analysis of the nature and extent, contributing
factors and causes of violence in Indigenous families and Communities. These interactions are complex
and cumulative over time and place, and are contained both in social structures and systems, and personal
and Community histories. More importantly, the definition can be used to develop and implement broad,
holistically-focused prevention/intervention strategies at various levels of critical need.
Studies show that violence against women in families is a common problem in countries where patriarchal
social and family structures exist. Such violence cuts across barriers of race, class, age and religion.25
However, a recent study in Western Australia26 found substantial disparity along both class disadvantage
and ethnic or race divisions, highlighting the importance of distress caused by poverty and marginalisation
in violent behaviour. Other studies link violence and alcohol consumption. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples, the most economically and socially marginalised members of Australian society, the
‘increasing injuries and fatalities as a result of interpersonal violence have risen to levels which not only
impair life but also threaten the continued existence of Australia’s Indigenous peoples’.27
Describing the escalating violence, Indigenous people themselves say: ‘This is like a disease that is de-
stroying us. Women are being raped and killed and our children’s lives are being scarred. Our young men
sentenced to prison terms and further cycles of abuse and self-abuse.’28 Indeed, in an aptly titled report,
Is Anybody Listening?, the British Columbia Task Force on Family Violence states:
Family and sexual violence is a social problem of such staggering dimensions that it is often
described in terms of a national crisis. It is like a war in which we can provide only triage
services while the casualties mount up. Should we mourn the dead, save the wounded, or
protect the young?29
The Task Force used this context to examine the nature and extent, contributing factors and causes, and
the transgenerational effects of violence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and Communities.
To gain a true understanding of the issue being examined, members of the Task Force listened to the
thoughts, expressions and experiences of violence from individual and Community perspectives.
1.1.1.Community perceptions of violence
Figure 1 Community perceptions of violence
People consulted defined violence as unwanted acts on individuals involving the use of
physical, verbal or psychological force.30 Individuals or groups used violence to establish and maintain
power and control over others.31 Violence was described as both a physical and mental violation of a
person’s trust and spiritual/cultural beliefs.32 This latter submission defined violence as being different to
abuse. ‘Violence is abuse, but abuse does not have to involve violence.’ Violence was also described as
‘an act of gross harm committed against another person’, and ‘can be politically and socially induced’ as
when ‘one person or group has their rights taken away by a stronger or more powerful person or group’.33
Violence can be directed towards an individual, family, Community or particular group.34 It occurs between
men and men, men and women, women and women, adults and children, and children and adults.35
Particular words were associated with violence by informants. ‘He was a real violent person – real cruel.
He could be real brutal when he got drunk,’ gave a different concept to that associated with abuse. ‘He
was the most abusive person, you know – he would call me names – swear at me – put me down. He
would play mental games. It was, like he could manipulate me by making me feel so stupid I‘d do whatever
he wanted.’36
Accounts of violence against children included physical and sexual assaults, psychological abuse and neglect.
37 Suicide and self-injury as well as inter-group fighting, cyclic violence and ‘dysfunctional community’
38 were also included in considerations of Community perceptions of violence.
Men, women, children, all age groups, can suffer from violence. Sexual, child abuse, physical,
verbal, emotional, violent abuse happens especially on pay nights when people get full
of grog and smoking marijuana.39
Violent tactics used to intimidate and control others included: physical – physiological injuries and homicide;
sexual – rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse; emotional – psychological threats and verbal harassment;
mental – mind games; and financial and social isolation.40 Political, social, cultural and spiritual
forms of violence were also mentioned.41 Personal property might be destroyed42 as both intimidation and
punishment, as anger was displaced from the person onto something important to the person.
In Communities ‘violence is often hidden, and alcohol and drug-related violence is destructive and
degrading and can result in the death of a person by suicide or murder’.43 Violence was often associated
with extreme jealousy. In the violence continuum, a woman being choked or kicked is caught in a
process where previously she was called names and put down with derogatory or abusive language,
had jokes made at her expense, had things thrown at her,44 and was slapped, punched, choked,
kicked, or stabbed. At the end of the continuum, she might be killed in a domestic homicide. People
experience spiritual, emotional, mental and physical harm during and after violent assaults. Victims of
violence live with fear, anxiety, despair and oppression.
Their self-esteem, feelings of self-worth and confidence are eroded, and they feel powerless and helpless.
45 Violence can lead to premature death and murder.46
Women said that verbal violence hurts more than physical abuse, people are degraded, lose
a lot of self-esteem that results in a lessening of one’s ego that leaves scars for years. Violence
included derogatory mental and physical abuse, broken fractured limbs, teeth knocked
out, run over by a car, shot at with a shotgun, thrown out of cars, knocked down and
flogged on the road. Outcomes of the violence were listed as depressing, stressful, suicidal,
scared, always living in fear, let down, hurt, shamed to speak out, ‘you just learn to cope
with it yourself’, and confusion.47
1.1.2 Family violence
Violence in families means ‘acts of abuse upon defenceless or weaker persons, usually women, children
and the elderly…perpetrated by cowards who apply vicious acts on the defenceless when there are no
witnesses’.48 Such violence often occurs when ‘one partner is into drugs, alcohol, gambling, or all three. It
erodes decent families and their normal lifestyles, and is a social, economic and cultural tragedy on Aboriginal
families.’49
The most common and noticeable kind of violence in ........... is physical abuse between
couples, especially where alcohol is involved. I see this violence and abuse as very harmful
to the families. The trust, love and respect for parents is eroded over the years which in turn
can lead to youth who are in and out of trouble.50
One Aboriginal Health Service wrote that: ‘physical abuse toward women and children is often sexualbased;
alcohol- and drug-based; dominance-based….The abuse includes verbal, mental and financial
abuse of women and children; abusive /derogatory language; mental degradation and the continual
threat of violence; and control of family assets and income’.51
[In family violence] perpetrators are usually men who act in this manner as a form of control
or authority due to a variety of factors: unemployment, poverty, cultural disorientation, the
decline of traditional law and/or have experienced or seen violence himself as a child.52
The majority of submissions pointed out that men are usually the offenders and women are victims.
In my view the starting point for a successful investigation of these issues is an understanding
that women and children are the recipients of some of the worst violence imaginable at
the hands of men who are almost invariably drastically affected by alcohol.53
Studies of domestic homicide have shown that nearly half the women killed by their former
partners, had separated or were in the process of so doing at the time they were killed.54
The dangerous nature of this period should be recognised as ‘separation assault’. Tragically,
the women who remain in dangerous relationships are also frequently in grave danger.
Unfortunately so are their children.55
Women and children become trapped in family violence and continue to live in these circumstances of
abuse, due to the continuous emotional and psychological control that is induced by the physical violence.
56
Women bear the overwhelming brunt of violence in the home. Emotional damage, constant
denigration and verbal abuse reduce self-esteem whereby women find themselves unable to
function. The suggestion that women nag or provoke men into behaviour of this nature is
simply unacceptable.57
The majority of submissions and consultations indicated that the issue of provocation to legitimise or
condone violence against women and children was deemed to be unacceptable in any shape or form.
Sometimes women have no choice other than to stay with their partners, even at the risk of their lives.
Leaving the relationship may not be an option for many reasons that may seem unacceptable to outsiders.
My husband stabbed me. They rushed me to Bathurst hospital, then to Orange hospital. I
died 3 times but I don’t remember. He gets sentenced next week. I will be waiting for him
when he gets out. I love him. It’s the grog that does it. It was my fault too. I was drunk.58
[This was the second time he had seriously injured her. He had only been out of jail for a couple of
months where he had served time for stabbing her on five separate occasions.]
Some women can also behave violently within their families, against both their children and their partners.
The following account is from a woman who had been sexually assaulted as a child.
I’ve been angry all my life. There were times when I had no one to take it out on but my kids,
they copped a lot, poor little things. It was only when I saw him bashing into them that I
realised how wrong it was and that both of us were teaching them all the wrong things in
life. We were teaching them to grow up angry and violent too.59
1.1.3.Violence against children
Violence against children has a number of dimensions, both within the family and within society: emotional,
physical, sexual, and institutional violence and neglect.
Emotional abuse covers a number of actions. Some of these are: not acting responsibly to meet the child’s
needs for adequate food and safe shelter; denying the right of a child to have care and affection; depriving
a child of stimulus for intellectual and emotional growth; degrading a child; forcing a child to live in danger-
ous environments; causing emotional pain by name-calling; and instilling fear, humiliation and distress in a
child.60
When the fighting broke out at my place, my sisters and I would just run. We’d go around to
our gran’s place and hide. She’d get someone to go for the police and then she’d climb into
bed under the blankets with all of us and rock us until we stopped shaking. We’d all be
crying. Her too. We’d be hoping that the police got there before mum was dead and that he
wouldn’t come and find us.61
Physical abuse is any act that results in non-accidental injury and that involves overt physical violence or
excessive punishment. Physical violence can vary according to the intensity or duration of the act and the
severity of the injury sustained. Punching, hitting, beating, kicking, biting, or burning a child are all forms of
physical child violence.62
I can’t remember when I didn’t feel scared. There were always stories about bogeymen when
I was growing up but for us they were real. He was our father. We’d lie in bed at night and
listen to our mother getting bashed and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Later that
was me getting bashed and I could hear my children screaming but I couldn’t leave him.63
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (1995) considers child sexual abuse to be an act that
exposes a child to, or involves a child in, sexual processes beyond his or her understanding or contrary to
accepted community standards. Child sexual abuse may range from the sight of an adult exposing his
genitalia through to multiple, violent and penetrating sexual assaults.64
Do you know for years I thought that I was protecting my little sisters. He would tell me if I
let him do it to me then he wouldn’t touch my little sisters. I hated him but I would look at
my sisters who were younger than me and so I would just put up with what he was doing. He
used me from when I was eight until I was fifteen. Twenty years later I found he was doing
it to all of us.65
Neglect is a passive form of violence and in some ways is more difficult to describe or detect than abuse.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (1995) defines neglect as:
any serious act of omission or commission that, within the bounds of cultural traditions,
constitutes a failure to provide conditions essential for the healthy physical and emotional
development of a child.66 Many Indigenous children who grow up in environments where
there are high levels of alcohol abuse are neglected and begin to drink at an early age
themselves.
There have been a few cases of neglect, where parents have been either drinking or
gambling and the children aren’t fed and have to sleep in vehicles while waiting for their
parents to finish. Most times, children end up moving in with the grandparents and living
happily with them, but if the grandmother or grandfather get sick and pass away, then
the child feels totally alone and often turns to crime (through peer group pressure) or
joins his/her parents drinking and gambling, ensuring that this destructive cycle goes
on.67
The Task Force was told of numerous cases of child neglect:
In one instance, a ten-year-old boy had been caring for his siblings, a one- and two-yearold,
for three weeks after being abandoned by their mother. They were reported to have no
money or food in the house and the ten-year-old was apprehended by police while stealing
food in a supermarket. 68
A number of Indigenous children have also been subjected to institutional or systems abuse, defined as
‘preventable harm done to children in the context of policies or programs, which are designed to provide
care or protection’.69
… the police stop any black kid that walks around. I always tell my son to run. They ask
me why. I say because it don’t give ‘em a chance to blame him for something.70
Many cases were reported of institutional abuse inflicted on children when they were taken away from
their families.
I still remember how scared I was when the police took me away but it was nowhere near
as frightening as when they placed me in Westbrook. They used to be very cruel there. No
one would believe how cruel. I still have the scars on my back and I was only eight years
old at the time. 71
Children who witness violence experience violence.
Every child in our street knew what violence was. The kids living in the house where the
fighting was going on would be petrified – hiding in fear– under the beds or under the
house.
But the kids from other houses would come running as soon as the yelling started. Sometimes
a big mob of kids would all be gathered outside trying to see the fight inside. The
adults would be coming out their doors or looking out their windows.
I remember when you’d hear someone shouting ‘Fight! Fight!’ We’d all go running. None of
us wanted to miss a bit. It broke the boredom and it was a normal part of our growing up.
Even when they heard things smashing or the woman’s screams or saw her trying to run
away, they wouldn’t interfere. I’ve seen women on the ground being kicked in the belly and
in the head and no one went to help her. You just didn’t do that. You could watch, but you
weren’t allowed to butt into people’s fights.72
Children can be hurt when there is violence between adults.
There was a big fight outside my house and I went out and there was a young girl with a
baby. She was holding that baby and he [the man] had a stick and he was hitting her and he
hit the baby on the legs, even though she was trying to protect the baby, the baby got hurt.73
Children can also be violent:
One boy of four had been raped by two 10-year-old boys. The police had advised that the
two could not be charged and nothing else was done. The child had to wait eight weeks for
counselling from a service and by this time his parents had moved the boy out of town
without any followup to the incident.74
Here you can see the aggressive behaviour in the little kids, pushing another little one down
and kicking them when they are on the ground.…When there is a fight here now all the kids
run right into the middle of the fight and get involved. Last week there were two women
fighting and one had the other on the ground and some kids ran over and got stuck into her
too.75
1.1.4.Women and violence
Children who are traumatised by violence are at risk of growing up to be emotionally impaired. They may
have difficulties functioning in personal relationships, in educational performance and in accessing employment
opportunities.76 A victimised child may become less socially competent and become an emotionally
vulnerable adult. For girls, this pattern may lead to early motherhood, often as a sole parent, dependent on
transient relationships with partners who could become violent towards them.
When I was living with my defacto he was doing DV on me. I come away from him, with my
baby K…. and took out an order on him and my baby and me we are trying to live by
ourselves. But they give me a bad house. I am not safe there. I can’t lock the doors and there
are no windows. It is all smashed up and dirty. I can’t live here. When K… was a little baby
her father fired a shot at us. When you are living with a man and he hits you, you can’t do
anything. Your family can’t do anything, so you have to fight back to defend yourself. I
drink more now because it feels good. I don’t hurt as much. I always feel frightened.77
In Communities where there is great dysfunction, young women are showing tendencies toward violence;
aggression is handled with aggression.
One girl was cooking and her de facto came home drunk and went to bash her. She defended
herself with a knife and his hand was cut. He tipped a saucepan of soup over her and
burned her badly. They both went to the hospital and said their injuries were accidents. The
stories the hospital and police got were not the truth, and yet both their families continue to
blame each of them for the injuries to the other.78
Some women who exercised violence often did so as an act of retaliation.
I don’t know what makes you snap but I know I did. I just couldn’t take any more. I just
grabbed the kitchen knife and went screaming at him. I just wanted to stop that sneering.
To wipe the smile off his face. But he belted me with his fists, I hit the corner of the sink with
my head and when I woke up he’d gone. But he’d taken my purse and my credit cards. If
he’d been there when I’d come round, I would have tried to kill him again. Even now if he
came in here I’d have another go at him. I just hope they put him away right out of my
reach.79
There are many examples of women who come before the courts after years of domestic
violence who are reduced to attacking their male partner with a knife or some other weapon
and naturally enough usually causing serious injury and sometimes death.80
In a discussion with young women in a women’s correctional centre, they despairingly articulated a sense
of hopelessness and lack of vision for their futures.
I come from a poor family. I have had no schooling. I’m only young but what future is there
for me. What will happen to me. There’s nothing for me when I get out.81
Women explained that their experiences of violence become indelibly etched in their minds.
He was on remand for 7 months for attempted murder on me. He says to me now, even
though we have been separated for three years and he has another woman, that I still owe
him for that and he will fix me one day because I sent him up.82
When there was violence, I used to just get in the car and drive into Camooweal, Djarra or
Cloncurry, just to get away, with the kids. Sleep in the car with the kids. Next morning I’d
come back and get the kids ready for school and then go to work for eight hours standing
up all day tired out, then maybe it would happen again the next night and I’d have to go
again. I didn’t want to involve my family – so I just handled it myself that way. All those
years I just hated that man so much. I could have killed him. I wished him dead. I don’t hate
him any more, but I’ll never forget. The pain of all those years is still there in me.83
Jealousy was cited as a major factor in violent interactions.
If the man sees a lady talking to another man, they just go and hit her because they think
she will leave him for that man.84
Have people talked to you about the jealousy? That’s the big problem. My ex – he would
always be checking on me. If I talked to another man, even his friends or brother, he would
be really friendly to them, but when we walked away he would punch me in the head and
want to know what I was up to. He was real jealous.85
Often victims of violence are coerced into participating in offending behaviour.
He would make me go out and steal money to buy his drugs. If I didn’t get any money I
would get a flogging. One time I got caught and he flogged me for that and told me I was a
stupid black bitch, can’t even pinch a purse without getting caught. Can’t do anything
right.86
Most of our sisters are locked up. All of them have been in DV.87
Since colonisation, the intensity of change in relationships between men and women has created high
conflict and stress.
In my generation the man was the boss, and when the man said jump, the woman said, ‘how
high’. Now things have changed. Things are different. Women have rights.88
1.1.5.Men and violence
Children who witness violence towards others may be at risk of replicating the violence at a later time if
their social environment accepts that type of behaviour. Many young Indigenous men feel alienated and
angry because of what they have seen, heard and experienced as children. They have become de-sensitised
towards violence and sometimes this normalisation of violence carries through to their relationships. Children
who experience violence regularly can also be vulnerable to identity crises that informants saw as
inducing high levels of insecurity and jealousy. Such young men and women may develop highly possessive
interpersonal relationships.
In discussion, young men expressed feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness.
Sometimes I wonder where I fit in, when will I be accepted and will I ever find my place in
life. Right now I feel so confused and so alone and scared by what I am seeing. I don’t want
to be a part of it anymore. I have had three friends who couldn’t cope who suicided and I
wish I had the courage to do it as well. I just don’t know how to cope anymore. I just want
to find peace in my life and to be accepted for myself.89
They could see that there were many problems associated with growing up in depressed and dysfunctional
Communities.
Children - young people they had seen the violence. They don’t forget it.90
Youth suicide is largely due to a history of sexual abuse.91
Most perpetrators are [young men] in their early twenties.92
Two teenagers raped a five-year-old boy after watching a pornographic video.93
A three-year-old child on [one] Community was sexually assaulted by three males and about
ten days later another male returned and after sexually assaulting her, assaulted her again
using a mangrove root.…Two of them were juveniles and one of the offenders saw me
recently and explained he had been sexually assaulted as a four-year-old child. It is further
evidence that children who are victimised become offenders in the longer term.94
The offences committed by children were generally limited up to the age of about ten to
breaking into the canteen or the store to get food or looking for money or alcohol. As they
get a little bit older they start to take vehicles from the council offices or compounds and as
they get to the region of fifteen or sixteen they start to attack and sexually assault women.95
Throughout the consultations, men were cited as being the main offenders of interpersonal violence. People
who participated in acts of violence, as witnesses and as perpetrators, as well as victims, were seen as
becoming insensitive to the feelings of others. The violence was perceived as a means of releasing tension
and young men stated violence can be addictive. As tension built and was released, it brought emotional
relief for the offender until they realised what they had done.
At every level, alcohol was cited as the trigger for men acting violently.
A man who bashed his wife to death late last year was today sentenced to six years jail.
The court was told this man told police he had won a carton of beer at the
Community canteen the night of the killing, and while drunk, bashed his wife in a domestic
dispute. The man told police he woke up the next day in bed with the woman, his arms
around her, and found her dead. Witnesses told police the man had punched and kicked the
woman during the attack.96
There is a high incidence of men fighting in the pub. If the fight is a relatively minor one, if
no major damage is done in relation to the initial male to male confrontation, either of the
protagonists are just as likely to return home and subject their wife and children to serious
physical assault.97
During the consultations, men were supportive of the Task Force’s mission and recognised the tragedy of
the violence, but they appeared unable to prevent it.
If I went and talked to someone else, even a counsellor – we got sent to a marriage guidance
counsellor by the court – he would get really angry and threaten me – ‘Hey what you
telling people about us for? That’s our business. You keep this to yourself.’98
Men are of the opinion that they are being somehow forced to commit domestic violence
because they are being pushed by their women, in that the women are not doing what they
are told.99
When he was in jail he would ring me up 8-10 times a day, checking up on me. He would ask
to speak to the kids and then he would question them about what I had been doing.100
This is an issue that men need to address and it is highly unlikely that men will listen much
to the words of women addressing the problems. We as men, must begin to address the
problem ourselves [written by a man].101
Being put in jail doesn’t do them any good at all. They need to do the DV program in the
Community.102
[There is] loss of status among men as white standards become more accepted. Status depends
on youth, having a job and property. Being a good man, a good father, and a role
model for maintaining our culture seems to mean nothing. Consequently, they may become
more punitive to their women and also to others.103
1.1.6. Concerns for Elders
An Indigenous health service reported that some Communities were experiencing a high incidence of Elder
abuse. People were taking control of Elders’ assets and incomes for a ‘bad’ purpose, ‘their pension
cheques taken to be used by younger members of the family to buy grog’.104
Old ladies get stood over or beaten by sons and grandsons till they give up their pension
monies or the old people are afraid to deny money to alcoholic children for fear that they
would be ostracised or even cast out of the family home.105
At another level, young people still have great respect for Elders. A young woman in emotional crisis was
asked if she found support from her Elders. She explained:
I wouldn’t go and see the Elders. I’d rather tell someone my age about my problems. I
wouldn’t go to get help from the Elders – they don’t need any more stress. I got a lot of
respect for my Elders and I don’t want to hurt them any more than they already been hurt.106
Some Elders felt they were being bypassed in matters crucial to their Community’s well-being. The loss of
culture and the changing attitudes of young people towards traditional practices concerned Elders deeply.
Some fear that important customs will cease due to peer pressure and Western youth culture.107
1.1.7. Street violence
In one regional country town in Queensland, groups of young people were reportedly
intimidating young people in a neighbouring town.
They were going on forays to break and enter for food and money to buy alcohol. Sometimes the
marauders were extracting payback for real or imagined dues and brawling. Similar behaviour has been
reported in the cities, in schools. Indigenous children are not always the culprits, although the perpetrators
may be mistakenly identified as Indigenous.
Violence on the street has increased over the years. A teacher from the local high school
told of an incident where a boy came into a classroom off the street recently and hit
someone. There was also another incident when some Murri boys came in from the street
with sticks.108
The situation for Indigenous youth in cities is worsened if they are homeless through family breakdown and
the lack of positive role models. The absence of a stable and supportive home environment increases the
risk of youth becoming involved in violence and crime. Their need for economic survival may lead them
into prostitution, drug dealing, theft and substance abuse and consequently further victimisation because of
their marginalisation. They in turn seek the company of peers as substitutes for the missing family environment.
Similarly, youth gangs in Communities sometimes deliberately seek physical confrontations with others. In
one Community, an elderly woman had to help the police:
An Elder heard fighting and came out and found three local boys attacking a police
officer with an iron picket and a brick. The police officer was on the ground. The
woman went over and punched the boys in the face to stop them hitting the police
officer. They ran away. She said it is really hard for the police.109
The Task Force observed that cultural law was still strong enough in that Community for these boys to
respect the Elder by not turning on her, although the Community was largely dysfunctional.
However, the combination of a youth population explosion, increasing numbers of wayward youth and the
frequency of violent altercations, whether in the Communities or the cities, is a warning that uncontrollable,
volatile situations are being incubated. One obvious indicator of youth despair, is the high suicide rate.
1.1.8.Dysfunctional community syndrome
The Task Force found convincing evidence to justify the label ‘dysfunctional community syndrome’ that is
being applied to many Indigenous Communities.
When a Community has to deal with the tragic deaths of 24 young men in one year, most of which were
suicides, there can be no stronger cry for help. Indeed, it is a deafening roar that something is desperately
wrong. When the same Community reports three men raping a three-year-old child, who was
raped by another offender ten days later, there is a crisis of huge proportions.
This same Community has a $6million dollar tavern. The presence of the tavern ensures the continuation of
devastating violence against vulnerable women and children. The modern hospital has the responsibility of
stitching up physical wounds, setting broken bones and holding the mutilated bodies in the morgue. Informants
see the hospital as being like a fortress, protecting the workers from the virus of violence that infects
the Community. Even with the high rates of interpersonal violence, including rape and family violence, there
are limited counselling services available in this Community. It is a futile exercise to utilise public health
resources for critical and much needed emergency care while ignoring the need for real health improvement
through prevention initiatives.
This Community, like many other Indigenous Communities, is clearly functioning with extreme difficulty.
The emotional and physical injuries suffered are seen as the result of cultural dysfunction and profound
despair experienced over long periods of time, with little, if any, assistance. How much more dysfunctional
does this Indigenous Community have to become before real assistance is forthcoming?
While the Community described may seem to be experiencing extreme cases of violence, the Task Force
inquiries revealed other Communities had similar cause for concern.
DV in Murri families is very public, the public part gives people a chance to intervene, but
they don’t any more.110
Violence is an extreme problem in Cunnamulla. The only place of shelter where women can
be protected for the night with broken bones and bruised bodies is the hospital where the
staff is then harassed by the perpetrators. There are 8- and 10-year-old boys dealing with
drug issues. There is no help available as the families in this divided community seem to be
in a state of despair and very sad.111
In remote areas nurses are living with frequent threats to their personal safety while on duty,
on call and off duty, and violent incidents are often handled badly both by the employers,
the Community, and by remote area nurses themselves.112
One day in the street, I saw a woman with a plaster on her leg having been broke by him
previously and he was standing over her because she wouldn’t go with him drinking. He was
kicking her and everybody was just standing there watching and nobody was trying to help
her. They were just letting it happen.113
This Community is very fragmented.114
I think domestic violence at all its levels has touched every Murri life. In this town I don’t
think there is one family that hasn’t escaped violence of some kind.115
I grew up watching the old people fighting. Us kids would have bets who was going to
win.116
An 8-month-old baby was left on the road by its mother. This was reported to the
police but they were unable to assist because it was a hectic night.
Other young children were being looked after because their mothers were drinking. The
money some mothers get is not being spent on the child.117
Extended family come around and get into me. They went for me at the court after he was
found guilty of attempted murder on me.118
A young girl was gang-raped by youths. Their families were feuding. She ran to my sister-inlaw’s
house followed by the gang who beat in the door.119
The layers of intergenerational trauma, loss and grief become part of how a family and
community functions.120
Harsh judgments are often made of chronically traumatised Communities. Generally, people outside the
Community have little or no knowledge, and lack understanding, of the psychological and social
changes that occur through the processes of historical and transgenerational dispossession.
The ongoing abuse caused by such experiences contributes to the helplessness of people trapped in the
past. Inevitably, living under such conditions convinces people that they are powerless and unable to
effect change. Such people and Communities may look to others for help, yet be angry and resentful
and push aside any help that is offered.121
1.2. TRANSGENERATIONAL TRAUMA AS CAUSE AND EFFECT
Although many forms of violence have been mentioned, one that requires further attention is transgenerational
trauma. It can be both the cause and effect of violence. To understand transgenerational trauma, it is best
explained by those who have lived with it.
An elderly Community woman provides her family’s experience of transgenerational trauma:
Aboriginal people just don’t know their trauma goes back to the invasion, we can
trace it. Every tribe in Australia can take you to a place in their country where the white
man came in and wiped out whole families. They can point out what waterholes were poisoned,
where dozens of their tribe were shot, where people were rounded up and their children
taken away. There’s ones still alive who can remember the chains around the necks of
our men and what happened to the pretty girls when the coppers came. How can anyone
forget that? And why should we forget? We pass it on to our kids just like my parents passed
it onto me. It stays with you ‘til you die. I’ve seen pain all my life. My parents were slaves
and until I was forty, so was I. Our parents all died while they were slaves and all they’ve got
on their graves is a plain white cross. My kids want to go and put fancy headstones up there
and I tell them ‘No you can’t. Those wooden crosses tell our history.’
Our pain today is those young ones going to the prisons and the ones hanging themselves.
The kids around here see that and they’ll remember that body hanging there even though
they are only little. They see the alcohol and the yarndi and they see their fathers bashing
their mothers. How are they going to get [out] of those memories? Us old ones can’t forget
our memories. How do we expect the little ones to forgive and forget? What those little ones
are going through is adding to the bad memories we’ve given them from our stories.122
When I was a young man I saw so much violence from the people in charge on the mission.
We saw men whipped and always for the smallest things. One fulla who worked in the
meathouse took home some steak. He was only supposed to take the shinbones and he took
steak. He was tied up to that lightpost up there near the hospital and publicly flogged. My
brother and I wrote to the Aboriginal Affairs Department in Brisbane and told them about
what was going on and for doing that we were exempted from the mission. That meant we
were locked out and our families were locked inside. We couldn’t even come and visit our
parents. We weren’t even allowed back for their funerals. We had to stay away. You’d wonder
how anyone would be allowed to do that but they did. They were a cruel lot who made
their own rules. I could fill a book with the cruel things that they did to us.123
Tragedies of these proportions have both individual and collective impacts that resound across families and
whole Communities. Individuals are isolated in their experiences, in spite of living within a family or Community
suffering from the same event.
Historical situations can also set in place repeated and cumulative traumatic impacts124 that compound the
trauma across generations.
1.2.1. What is trauma?
A traumatic stress reaction may occur when:
a person experiences, witnesses, or is confronted with an event or events that involves actual
or threatened death or serious injury, or threat to the physical integrity of self or others, and
the person’s response involves intense fear, helplessness, or horror.125
Traumatisation occurs at individual, family, community and whole group levels.126 Examples of community,
collective, or large group traumatisation are colonisation, war, the Holocaust, Kosovo, and the Port
Arthur massacre in Tasmania. It is well documented that after a disaster or tragedy, alcohol and drug
misuse and violent incidents increase in the traumatised populations.127 It is also well understood that
individual acts of violence, such as murder, rape and domestic violence, are extremely traumatising
experiences, both for individual survivors and their families.128 People often experience traumatisation
from acts of violence at the hands of other people, such as rape, domestic violence, or colonisation,
which are comparable to a natural disaster.129
It is important to remember that human reactions and behaviour in response to trauma are the natural
reactions of normal people to abnormal situations,130 and that abnormal situations may, over time,
appear to become the norm when inappropriate responses are made to human needs. However, the
situations remain abnormal. Psychological and
physiological reactions can cause distress for some time after the traumatic event, and may
not be resolved without help.
Trauma may change people irrevocably. Psychological trauma has a devastating effect on people’s
spiritual strength. Napolean, who writes of misuse of alcohol and increasing domestic violence, sexual
abuse, and child abuse in Alaskan Native situations, argues that when traumatic experiences and memories
are suppressed, denied or ignored, the trauma is driven ‘further into the soul, and it colours all
aspects of life. Without healing, it will destroy the human soul, as any illness left untreated will in time
cripple and kill the body.’131 The postcolonial experience of Indigenous Australians replicates the
desperate situation of Indigenous Alaskans.
1.2.2 Post-traumatic stress disorder
After a violent event, post-traumatic symptoms of hopelessness, depression, anxiety, irritability, guilt or
grief may add to feelings experienced during the event.
Victims believe they cannot explain how they feel to anyone, and they become numb and unable to
speak of their pain. Conversely, some victims of violence talk incessantly, repeating fragmented experiences
of the trauma again and again, as they try to make sense of the senselessness.
Post-traumatic stress was acknowledged as a reality by the Australian Government in their treatment of
the refugees from Kosovo who were dispossessed during the armed conflict in their homeland. The
Government formally recognised that the refugees were experiencing grief and trauma as a result of the
tragedies and atrocities they had witnessed, and that they needed specialised treatment. The Government
provided counselling services for them on their arrival in Australia. It was seen as central to the
needs of refugees in crisis to deal with the collective suffering promptly, to reduce the impact of
transgenerational trauma.
Informants to the Task Force consistently equated the ordeals of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples with the suffering of refugees and the traumas experienced by Indigenous races in other countries.
The extreme forms of violence and abuse resulting
from colonisation, including armed conflict, have never been formally recognised and are therefore
worthy of mention in this Report on violence.
Many informants stated that the historical experiences of Indigenous Australians paralleled recent
experiences in Kosovo: genocide, enslavement, cultural violence and racism. They believed that Indigenous
people were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that was at the root of much of the
contemporary violence and abuse in Indigenous groups.
Ironically, while the Australian Government was quick to respond to the need for counselling for people
from Kosovo and other refugees they have failed for far too long to address the trauma experienced by
their own Indigenous people. Acculturation, discrimination and racism continue. Access to counselling
and care has been limited, controversial and often given reluctantly.
An Aboriginal academic and survivor of an institution sees Aboriginal women and their families as ‘living
in shadows’. She described her suffering in that institution and the inappropriateness of the care she was
eventually offered.
I know this is true for all Indigenous people I have spoken to during the course of my
work. Not only were they abused by their oppressors but the only agencies available for
support were those operated by their oppressors. The pervading thought in this period of
time was ‘that this sort of thing didn’t really go on and they must be telling lies’.132
Such stories of oppression are not fictitious. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody,
the Social Justice reports, the Bringing Them Home report, and more recently, the Forde Inquiry into
Institutional Abuse, all described the need to provide counselling for Indigenous Australians to enable
them to deal with the effects of postcolonial experiences. The original Australians suffered deliberatelyinflicted
wartime atrocities, genocide, dispossession of land and culture, oppression, and institutional and
systematic violation. As a result of Government policies and practices, the past 211 years have been a
bitter and tragic journey for Indigenous Australians. The colonisers, and later generations of non-Indigenous
Australians, have been guilty of massacres, cultural genocide, subjugation, and multiple violations
of Indigenous people.
Non-Indigenous administrators have been authorised to abduct children, disperse and fragment families,
and to incarcerate and to enslave Indigenous people on missions or reserves, where they were subjected
to further inhumane interventions and control.
Under the 1965 Aborigines’ and Torres Strait Islanders’ Affairs Act, a Director could declare
any person having a strain of Aboriginal blood to be an assisted Aborigine, thus placing them
under the control of the legislation where they could be subjected to all sorts of control and
treatment without negotiation or agreement.133
A number of informants spoke to the Task Force about their ordeals on missions or in institutions. Many
equated their treatment there with conditions in concentration camps, where people forcibly incarcerated
were subjected to horrific acts of brutality and violence.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, large numbers of
Indigenous peoples, some of them in chains, were taken against their will to government-owned or
controlled reserves. They were moved because they had been displaced from their traditional lands;
their lands had been stolen and their presence was seen as offensive to the new owners.
The reserves operated in conjunction with the Christian churches, which assisted the oppressors to
control the lives of their Indigenous charges. Throughout the transitional period, more than three hundred
and fifty such reserves were set up across Australia.134 These were established and constructed
along the lines of prison camps, with little provision for basic human needs or the civil rights of the
detainees. In effect, the Indigenous inhabitants were regarded as slaves. They were regarded as inferior
by those in authority because of their skin colour. They worked for little or no pay for non-Indigenous
colonisers who had usurped their land.
Many Indigenous people were taken a long way from their homelands, so that they lost contact, not
only with their ancestral lands, but also with kin, their customs and their traditions.
People who practised traditional ceremonies or told Dreamtime stories were
often punished by Church representatives. It was a period of extreme distress for our people.
cast adrift without spiritual and cultural ties to land or to one another. Beliefs that had held
tribal nations together for more than forty thousand years were replaced with a new set of
beliefs based on a religion only two thousand years old. To die without Indigenous connections
to land and kin was tantamount to losing one’s soul.135
Groups that were traditionally hostile to each other were often housed together, with little thought given
to the existence of different languages, different rituals and discrete religions. These insensitivities added
tensions to the confusion and administrators dealt with the problem by banning all traditional practices
and punishing those who attempted to do so. Even European food was a strange experience. It was
very basic, in short supply and a poor substitute for the traditional Indigenous diet. Indigenous people
were not allowed to leave the confines of the reserve and hunt for better provisions because this would
encroach on the non-Indigenous neighbour’s land. The introduction of alcohol was seen as a reward;136
it facilitated the breakdown of Indigenous culture and deterioration into violence and abuse.
They will never know what went on in those places. I know. I was only six when I was
taken with my parents and I was thirty-five when I left. Whippings, rapes, sexual interference
of children, public degradation of Elders, both men and women, heads being shaved
for punishment and people going missing overnight, are all clearly etched in anyone’s
mind that had to spend time on those hellholes that they said was to protect us. I only
wish that others who were victimised would speak out. I know they won’t because the
truth is too hard to bear and it’s only now that some are speaking out.137
As with war veterans, when counselling is not readily available, Indigenous people have often turned to
self-administered forms of medication to deal with violence, pain and post-traumatic stress. This response
is especially important to understand in the context of the current crisis in Indigenous Communi-
ties.
Few intervention mechanisms exist to help individuals and groups deal with major psychological, cultural
and economic disasters or to help them regain strength after personal losses. The effects of post-traumatic
stress have been exacerbated by a diet of alcohol and welfare imposed as a result of historical
abuse and the circumstances in the past two decades.138
1.2.3. Alcohol as a self-medicating response to trauma
Alcohol is the drug of choice for many people who seek to obliterate the pain and isolation that results from
powerlessness. A study of soldiers in wartime showed that uncontrolled drinking increased in response to
the combat group’s losses. The soldiers’ use of alcohol appeared to be an attempt to obliterate their
growing sense of helplessness and terror.139
Alcohol use is considered further in Section 2. However, historical factors contributing to the destructive
consumption of alcohol by Indigenous people are outlined below:
• Alcohol was used as currency. Unscrupulous and unsupervised non-Indigenous administrators paid
Indigenous people for work with alcohol in lieu of wages. The alcohol was extremely potent and ‘the
swill’140 left over from other bottles or a mixture of different potions.
Is it any wonder that many of our people have resorted to alcoholism, they have suffered
untold damage to their emotional and spiritual being which was further destroyed by the diet
of welfare and grog they fed us, with little food or proper sustenance other than sugar, flour
and tea. This is not to justify the violence that has resulted from the over-consumption of
alcohol in our Communities, but when you rob people of their dignity and self-respect, then
there has to be a retaliation in one form or another which, unfortunately for us, has led to
many of our people taking it out on those that they love, their own wives, family members or
people in the Community. There have been many who have chosen not to do that and in many
cases it has been these that I believe have taken their own lives to relieve the internal turmoil
and anger that they experienced.141
• Alcohol use spread with the breakdown of traditional laws. Indigenous groups lost social control
over people’s behaviour as traditional laws broke down in reserves.
Leadership by Elders or by consensus was not always available, necessary rites could not be
performed and the whole basis of traditional lore came into question. Without these rituals
and the attached reciprocity, the breakdown of Indigenous society was inevitable. Elders were
sometimes be ridiculed by intoxicated youth with no understanding of former ways.142
• The canteen system and prohibition and consumption laws increased alcohol use. The introduction
of alcohol to Indigenous people profoundly affected their sociocultural and economic
systems. They had to obey various non-Indigenous laws governing their consumption of alcohol,
and those laws have been a significant factor in the over-use and misuse of alcohol in many Communities.
The attitude of Government and the legal system to alcohol use by Indigenous people has
been contradictory and confusing. After condoning the use of alcohol in lieu of wages for many
years, the Government prohibited the sale of alcohol to Indigenous people in the 1950s, allowed the
consumption of alcohol on reserves in the 1960s, and erected canteens on the reserves in the 1970s
under directors. Today, public drunkenness is condoned.
Too little attention has been paid by Governments to the fact that many Indigenous people have become
addicted to alcohol as a way of coping with past traumas. To understand alcoholism, it is important to
understand the causes, not just the effects. Increasingly over time, Indigenous people have become
trapped, both socially and personally, in a cycle of prejudice and discrimination in contemporary society.
Rather than treating the pathology of the disease, the authorities have invariably focused solely on the
criminal consequences of some alcoholics’ behaviour. They thereby condone the continuing misuse of a
drug that, prior to colonisation, had no cultural relevance or presence in the lives of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Indigenous people today drink to forget because they are confused, angry and feel totally oppressed.
They are left to deal alone with the pain and humiliation of alcoholism143 and when they fail, they sometimes
resort to the violence and abuse witnessed throughout their formative years. This is especially so in
isolated rural and remote areas where services can only be described as inadequate and pitiful.144
The over-use of alcohol was cited consistently throughout the consultations as a major consequence of
race relations in Australia. Informants linked alcohol and drug abuse to the growing violence, dysfunction
and despair in Indigenous Communities. It is a highly visible and emotive problem, particularly while Indigenous
families are denied a way forward through re-identification with traditional customs, languages and
lore.
Hunter 145 points out that Aboriginal children today are the first and second generation legal drinkers,
many of whom have grown up in Communities saturated and ruled by both alcohol and violence. Many
crimes are being committed by people under the influence of alcohol and sometimes drugs. Ironically,
the use of such substances is often cited as a mitigating factor in the horrific crimes being committed in
some Indigenous Communities.
Having been socialised into a culture of alcohol, substance abuse, violence and anarchy, the crimes
committed by some offenders reflect those witnessed or experienced as a child.146 Most Indigenous
people have grown up in environments where cultural lore was eroded, the responsibilities and obliga-
tions of men and women fragmented, and traditional roles replaced by a system reflecting the patriarchal
model of the colonisers. Many Indigenous people who have suffered profound violations in their childhood,
and post-traumatic stress, may act out violations as coping mechanisms when they get older.147
1.2.4.Trauma expressed as violence
Violence affects humans in different ways. People who have experienced trauma often describe a sense of
being outside themselves, watching the action but not feeling anything.
Similarly, people who have inflicted violence on others have described the experience of enacting violence,
but feeling detached, and acting in a frenzy over
which they have no control. They may also claim to have no memory of the assault.
For both the offender and the victim, the world changes. Their self-images are fractured and their sense of
connection with others may be broken. They may feel as if they are no longer whole. Traumatised people
sometimes have difficulty sustaining intimate relationships because they feel cut off from others and themselves.
Isolation is being unable to communicate one with another about the physical and spiritual
pain…Isolation is crying in the night and thinking of ways to end the pain … isolation
is being cut off so completely that there is no hope of communicating except through
the vices of addiction that led to this feeling of isolation and suffering in the first place.148
High levels of rage are often felt by both children and adults during and after traumatic incidents, yet this
aspect of violence is rarely discussed. Rage may be suppressed and denied, or it may be acted out.
Sometimes it becomes aggression and violence, depending on the boundaries and safety factors in place
within a family or Community. Some people who have been violated believe if they did express the full
extent of their rage, it would be murderous and often act to suppress their feelings or act them out in ways
that may be deemed as antisocial.
There is often a thin line between a person feeling in full control and full of rage. The transition from one
state to the other can be almost instantaneous. An Indigenous woman
became well known in Brisbane for reporting being raped twenty-five years previously. When police
refused to help her, she would fly into a rage and inevitably be charged with disorderly conduct. Then one
day, she entered a police station, told her story and the officer at the desk started processing her complaint.
The female officer asked her when and where the alleged rape occurred and when the woman told
her the date, twenty-five years before, the officer stopped recording and put a call out over the radio for a
female Police Liaison Officer to come and collect a mentally disturbed woman. The PLO knew the woman
and her story.
The police officer didn’t understand that this woman needed to report the rape because
she felt she was going womba [mad]. I arranged for her to visit a Murri rape crisis centre
and when they’d listened to her and given her some counselling sessions, she was okay.
She’d been trying to get help to deal with this trauma that had been mentally destroying
her for twenty-five years. Now she knows if she feels that way again she can go there for
counselling.149
This woman had every right to feel the way she did. Her feelings of going mad were justified because she
had never been taught any strategies to deal with the rape. Rather, she had been admitted to mental
institutions and treated with psychotropic drugs.
Anger is a natural feeling that results from boundary violation, frustration, fear and loss.150 Anger affirms
humanity. It often helps people to escape feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness and to affirm their
right to be heard and seen. However, when victims of violence that is still unresolved later display unrestrained
anger at a fresh trauma, they may create another layer of trauma. Their feelings of anger and rage
may trigger acts of violence that can be unprecedented in a person’s behaviour. Often this violence is not
expressed against the person or group causing the original trauma but against someone close to the offender
who becomes the substituted object of the violence. In traumatised families and Communities, there
are often no safe outlets for rage. It will either be expressed in a chaotic, unsafe manner as violence, or it
will be denied, leaving the victim powerless, so the cycle of violence continues.
1.2.5.Child trauma
Macksound et al. (1993) explained there were a number of factors that may contribute to the traumatisation
of children. These include violence in the child’s environment, particularly the violent death of a parent or
close family member or friend. Other factors include forced separation from parents and displacement
from home, witnessing violent acts or seeing parental or close-carer fear reactions to violence. Extreme
poverty and starvation are also traumatising experiences for children.151
Across generations, many Indigenous Australian children have suffered one or more of these experiences.
In some Communities, children have had multiple compounded traumatic experiences, and the impacts are
cumulative over time and place.
These same children may not be able to acknowledge the hurt, because of a number of factors. Perhaps
they cannot share what they have seen, heard and felt, because family/community members are in crisis
themselves. Parents who are in crisis cannot easily hear the story the child needs to tell, for often the child
reflects the unbearable pain of the adult. Parents may not be able to protect their children because they
cannot protect or care for themselves.
Children do not become used to violence, they adapt. Traumatic experiences become part of their play
and behaviour, however.152 Children repetitively re-enact trauma in such play, sometimes so literally that a
person observing it can guess the trauma with few other clues.153 Adults, as well as children, often feel
driven to re-create the moment of terror, and that urge may sometimes create further trauma, even becoming
criminal activity.
The impact of a crisis for a child is different to the impact trauma has on an adult.154 A crisis in the life of an
adult may change the person, eroding the personality already formed,155 or threatening an already formed
identity.156 In contrast, when a child experiences trauma, the crisis will be integrated into a forming identity
and carried throughout life, establishing reactions to life situations in the future.157 It is more than social
learning. ‘Repeated trauma in a child forms and de-forms the character, often fragmenting the personality.’
The pathological158 environment of abuse forces the development of both extraordinarily creative and
destructive capacities159 in children and emerging adults.
Trauma inflicted on a child may interfere with the formation of moral concepts. Even when a child’s behaviour
becomes dysfunctional and amoral, it retains function and meaning in a dysfunctional situation. Children
whose moral concepts alter can still experience conflicting pain, terror and excitement when violence
erupts.
Such experiences are traumatising for children, and the trauma becomes compounded, compacted and
complex. These experiences hurt children, and consequently the emerging adult, in ways that are not yet
fully understood. 160
1.2.6. Cycles of violence
Although most victims do not become perpetrators, clearly some do. Cycles of violence can occur
when people who have been hurt are unable to express the pain of that hurt safely to themselves and
others. If there are no culturally defined services within Indigenous Communities for families in crisis,
children’s needs will remain unmet by the family and society. The child’s family will not receive the
support needed and the parents may be less able to be nurturing.
Children who have been victims may run the risk of being re-victimised, or they may begin to victimise
others. As young adults, they sometimes enter relationships with power imbalances and become either
victim or victimiser or both. As adults, they may find it difficult to attend to their children’s needs because
no one attended to their needs or validated their feelings, listened to their concerns, or showed them that
they were and are valued and valuable people.161 The original trauma fractured their sense of safety and
justice and their own world remains unsafe and unjust. If no one believes in them, they may not try to
communicate their distress except in moments of high stress, generally under the influence of alcohol. They
may even appear to be anti
social, so people shun them, and therefore their isolation continues.
Abused children may use altered states of consciousness to escape from untenable situations.162 In later
life, young adults may seek altered states of consciousness163 through the use of alcohol and drugs, to
mitigate and cope with their distress in the face of violent behaviour. In some Communities, Indigenous
children are using alcohol at a very early age. In altered states, the ordinary relations between body and
mind, reality and imagination, knowledge and memory no longer hold.164
In many Indigenous Communities, the cycle of violence continues as a young person who has been
exposed to abuse moves into adulthood. Such young people may have matured early, and this premature
maturation may render them vulnerable to further trauma. Such young people sometimes use selfdestructive
behaviour to distract themselves from the traumatic memories they carry from their childhood.
Some young people who have experienced trauma in childhood may be at risk of becoming more
rebellious and more willing to take part in antisocial acts. Young people who have matured early may
look for love and move into precocious sexual activity165 at an early age. They may then become young
parents, sometimes falling into unstable relationships that flounder, and the children of the next generation
may become the next victims and potential victimisers. This pattern is the basis of the cycle of
violence being witnessed in Indigenous Communities.
1.3. CASE STUDIES
The case studies on the following pages are examples of the situation of chronically traumatised Indigenous
people and Communities.
They clearly demonstrate that something is seriously wrong.
1. A woman’s story from a remote northern Community
2. Consultations from Maryborough
3. Consultations from Hervey Bay
4. A letter from a central Queensland Community.
The case studies show the risk factors and impacts on individuals, families and Communities that contribute
to dysfunctional community syndrome.
Endnotes
Section 1 –Forms of violence
Section 2: Causes and Contributing
Factors
River Dreaming
She sits by the river
Looking at the trees
She wonders if the morning
Will bring a sweeter breeze.
The bitter taste of blood
Brings tears to her eyes.
She wonders if the morning
Will be the time she dies.
As she wipes the tears from her eyes.
Her slim brown body is broken
Ravished by the men
Who brought their guns and weapons
To this land to tame.
They said the land was empty
Not peopled by another race
They raped and stole and slaughtered
To establish a convict base.
And she cries a tear for her race.
She sits by the river
Looking at the trees
She wonders if the morning
Will bring a sweeter breeze.
The bitter taste of blood
Brings tears to her eyes
She wonders if the morning
Will be the time she dies.
As she wipes the tears from her eyes.
Lies and deceit continue
Even to this day
Indigenous people of this land
Hope the strangers will go away.
But this will never happen
We have to acknowledge the pain
In order to reconcile this country
Where all our people can gain
And it’s time for healing the pain.
She sits by the river looking at the trees
She wonders if the morning will bring a sweeter breeze.
The bitter taste of blood brings tears to her eyes.
She wonders if the morning will be the time she dies.
She wonders if the morning will be the time she dies.
She wonders if the morning will be her time to die.
And she wipes the tears from her eyes.
Liz Connor 9/5/99
2.1. VIOLENCE – CAUSES AND CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
Section 2 explores the causes and contributing factors of violence within Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Communities. The problems in Communities have been defined in European terms for too long.
Many programs implemented by Government, though well-intentioned, have not worked because they
were developed and implemented from a Western paradigm. There has been little research or theory
developed on the issue of violence within an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander framework, to consider
how race intersects with gender and age within a colonial context. Without these considerations, poorly
researched and prepared programs often create more problems than they solve. Such has been the
Indigenous Australian experience.
2.2. COLONISATION – AN INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE
Figure 2 Impact of colonisation Indigenous experience
Political
Invasion; colonisation
Legal
Erosion of traditional lore
Cultural
Acculturation
Social
Racism , discrimination
Spiritual
Imposed religion; erosion of spirituality
Physical
Massacres; Stolen Generations
Gender-related
Role breakdown
Labour
Welfare handouts; alcohol
Families
Trauma, turmoil, removal of children
Family fragmentation.
Economics
Unemployment, welfare dependency.
Indigenous people are diverse and dynamic individuals and groups. This was the case before colonisation,
and is even more so today. While there are diversities, there are also commonalities. This section will
explore those common links to provide a better understanding of the effects of colonisation on Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Such an understanding is integral to the Report, and fundamental to
developing processes and procedures to deal effectively with the violence documented throughout.
At the point of colonial invasion, Indigenous people lived in groups organised by complex kinship
systems based on well-defined rules of marriage, behaviour and interaction. To maintain social cohesiveness
and good order, Elders and traditional healers held positions of authority in the kin- and landbased
groups, and fulfilled the functions of teachers, judges and spiritual leaders. The traditional healer
played a major role in determining the type of behaviour that was correct and permissible.
Traditional Indigenous cultures had regulated forms of social control, and involved the administration of
lore and education, in a firm structure of spirituality and well-being. The lives of Indigenous people were
governed by principles and values that determined their cultural and social responsibilities through a process
of socialisation. A breach of responsibilities was frowned upon and led to admonishment or more
severe penalties.
Indigenous clans were linked to spirituality and land, and had a deep connection to their homelands and
sacred sites, carrying out rituals and obligations to ‘protect it’. It was in fact a system of rights and rules
of reciprocity. Traditional Indigenous culture was founded on a highly sophisticated economy that
embraced the value of family, as opposed to the accumulation of possessions and wealth. This economy
was based on a system of environmental management, division of labour, resource exchange and trade.
Men, women, families and extended family members provided support for one another, guided by the
values and teachings of the Elders and the lore. Collectively, they socialised children into their place in
the kinship system, and provided them with a holistic education about life, health, survival, child-rearing
practices, maturational processes and responsibilities to family and kin.
Traditional Indigenous cultures provided a deep sense of both individual recognition and collective worth.
Indigenous people were proud, and interdependent for survival and for a sense of spirituality and belonging.
The arrival of Europeans in 1788 and the subsequent declaration of Terra Nullius changed the lives of
Aboriginal people forever, leaving in turn a recent history of discrimination and neglect. Through the policies
and colonial practices established, Indigenous families were subjugated and dispossessed of traditional
lands. The economic ramifications of such a process for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous sectors
of the community have been much more profound than generally acknowledged or considered.
While colonisation affected both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to varying degrees, the
impact has been borne more severely by Aboriginal people. Due to the geographical location of the Torres
Strait, colonisation did not interfere with the traditional songs, dances, languages and cultures of the Torres
Strait Islander people to the same extent as it did for Aboriginal people. For Aboriginal people, the
consequences of colonisation have been severe.
Dispossessed of both land and kin, many Aboriginal people have been subjected to a lifetime of social
isolation and discrimination. They have been sustained by a diet of welfare and suffered poor health and
economic instability. They have been profoundly affected by the removal process and haunted by the loss
of their children. The consequences have been so disempowering that it is difficult for many non-Aboriginal
people to comprehend.
Aboriginal people have been marginalised and assigned to the outer edges of society. They have suffered
from deep-seated and entrenched economic and social impoverishment, which has led to the multiple
problems being experienced today. While the effects of colonisation varied from region to region, similar
consequences of poverty and discrimination have seriously affected the whole of Aboriginal society.
Photo courtesy of the Queensland Museum.
Many Aboriginal people have been able to function productively, without disturbance to their selfesteem
or cultural identity. However, for others this process has not been so easy.
Tormented by the traumas of the past 211 years, mourning for values eroded by time and cultural alienation,
lost in a search for their families and themselves, many Aboriginal people are distressed and grieving
for elements of their heritage that can never be found or retrieved. These people, their families and Communities,
are in a state of grief as they attempt to deal with too much sorry business. For these people, their
early removal from parental love and nurture, and prolonged separation from family and kin, have resulted
in profound despair and depression.
The effects of these experiences are manifested in continuing stress and anxiety and in some cases, suicidal
and violent behaviour. Escalating levels of family violence, increased alcohol consumption and high levels
of suicide among younger members of the Communities, can all be directly related to the colonising process.
Many women consulted by the Task Force indicated that the men needed help to heal if progress is to be
made in decreasing the level of violence. They also spoke of the need to revive the family unit and to help
Communities to reunite in order to overcome the social illnesses that continue to be present. People are
trying to hold on to and rely upon the extended family unit. However, the traditional family unit has been
altered significantly through the colonising process. While the worth of family is still central to the experience
of being ‘Indigenous’, the extended family has become fragmented and dispersed and in so doing has
changed a major factor in the structure and functions of Indigenous lives.
These losses have started some people on a search to locate themselves in a family environment and to
gain the security, assurance, nurturing and protection that a family and an extended family unit traditionally
provided. As a result of policies of removal and subjugation, the traditional family unit often cannot
provide the security it once offered. The report on the Stolen Generations spelled out the devastation
and grief that this situation created.
There are people still trying to find their way home. Others are in a constant state of grief because their
journey is not easy. Many have reunited with their families, and are trying to make up for the childhood
they did not live. For others, their journey will be a lifetime quest, whereby they may never be able to
find the sense of belonging and peace that they seek.
Torres Strait Islander families have fortunately been able to retain much of their family structures and
therefore appear to be less affected than Aboriginal families in this regard. However, the effects of
colonisation and discriminatory processes have been indelibly etched into the minds, the hearts and the
lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The residual damage of colonisation is obvious in
family breakdowns, alcoholism, violence and abuse in Indigenous Communities. Almost every Aboriginal
family has been affected in some way by separation from kin and the dislocation of traditional supports. An
analysis of contemporary Communities would reveal a deep sense of loss and trauma in the hearts and
minds of Aboriginal people, both individually and collectively.
As well as fragmenting families, colonisation left a legacy of social alienation and rejection that helped to
create the culture of poverty in which Indigenous families are attempting to survive. From the time of
invasion, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have endured both structural and institutional
discrimination. In an attempt to deal with the historical ramifications, political forces of all persuasions
have historically used punishment and detention to deal with Indigenous concerns. Although it is alleged
that that attitude has changed in Indigenous Affairs in the past twenty years, the current numbers of
Indigenous people in youth detention centres and adult correctional centres indicate that little progress
has occurred.
Poor health, and social, moral, emotional and economical ill-health, are inherently linked to the history of
cruelty in Australia. Australia is promoted as a country established on multiculturalism and democratic
ideals, with Australians priding themselves on accepting all groups, regardless of race, creed or social
background. History refutes this analysis and reveals, instead, a picture that is more sinister and insecure.
For Aboriginal people, colonisation has meant the erosion and attempted annihilation of the
world’s oldest race.
Dignified, proud, self-sustaining and healthy by tradition, Indigenous people today live a very different
existence. Still proud and dignified in the face of great adversity, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples are, however, profoundly wounded. Suffering poor health, affected by continuing
discriminatory processes, haunted by a sense of loss that is both deep and profound, and dependent on
welfare, the current plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples is Australia’s shame. Alcoholism,
violence, abuse and poverty are the legacies of colonisation. An understanding of Indigenous
circumstances today should be informed by knowledge of historical and contemporary processes.
2.3. DEVELOPING AN INDIGENOUS THEORY BASE
According to Bolger, many Aboriginal women experience violence similar to abuse suffered by non-
Aboriginal women and thus ‘it is reasonable to assume that general theories will go at least some way to
elucidating the causes of the violence they suffer’.166 C. Atkinson has analysed the literature from a
‘critical comparative perspective combined with Aboriginal worldviews in which life is understood as an
interactive process within physical, social and spiritual contexts.’167 She provides a conceptual framework
in a diagram that is crossdisciplinary, or holistic. She argues that a multilayered approach allows
violence to be addressed within the historical, political, social and cultural environments in which it
occurs. The contextual framework of Figure 3 will be used to explore violence and its causes and
contributing factors within Indigenous contemporary situations.
Figure 3 Conceptual framework for analysing violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Communities 168
This section explores Baker’s theories of colonising impacts, describing in particular how colonisation
interrupts relationships between the men and women being colonised, to remould them into the shape of
the colonisers. Women’s sociopolitical, sociological and psychological theories will be used to understand
how colonisation creates complex and cumulative forms of traumatic stress that may be articulated in illhealth,
misuse of alcohol and other drugs, and violence. Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
forms of violence, as defined previously, placed into the context of inter- and transgenerational
trauma, should all be located within the theory base to acknowledge that the articulations of distress in
violent experiences and behaviours can be seen in both their cause and effect.
One person or group can only behave violently towards another when they objectify them. During colonisation,
Indigenous people were objectified, labelled as less than human.
Degraded as to divine things, almost on a level with a brute…In a state of moral unfitness
for heaven.…And as incapable of enjoying its pleasures as darkness is incapable of dwelling
with light.…Without God in the world entirely lost to all oral and spiritual perception.169
Colonisation reproduces its own systems of control to the detriment of the people it colonises.
The European society, which the Aborigines were supposed to emulate, produced poverty,
crime and drunkenness in England, and a savage penal system in Australia.170
There are underlying issues that cannot be ignored in any consideration of the causes and contributing
factors of violence. Deeply embedded historical experiences and conditions from colonial and neocolonial
times are entrenched in Indigenous Communities. An Australian Prime Minister acknowledged
this in the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples:
It begins with an act of recognition.
Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.
We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.
We brought the diseases. The alcohol.
We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and prejudice.
And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.171
The outcomes of colonisation can be seen in the acts of violence under discussion. Once peoples or
groups have been victimised, they may be re-victimised or re-victimise others.172
Public policy may contribute to this process. The welfare dependency in Indigenous Communities has in
many ways been systematically and structurally created.
Power and violence are interrelated. In sociology, power is often used to describe the actions of nations
and armies.173 In psychology, however, power is used to mean the ability to affect, to influence and to
change other persons.174 May writes of power ‘as the ability to cause or prevent change’.175 Change can
occur or be made to occur through constructive or destructive use of power.
Colonisation has been a powerful, destructive force for change in the lives of Australian Indigenous people.
Baker176 shows three distinct periods in coloniser/colonised relations. These periods are: invasion/frontier
violence; intercession by often ethnocentric and paternalistic groups; and a re-assessment of responsibility
to Indigenous needs around the 1960s by Government. Aboriginal people call these distinct periods the
massacre times; the forced removals and separations; and the assimilation/child removal times. Within
these three periods, principles of systemic power and control of the colonised prevailed, facilitated by
three main types of power abuse or violence:
• overt physical violence;
• covert structural violence - subordination and enforced dependency;
• psychosocial dominance.177
These strategies, used successfully to colonise large groups, are similar to those used to brainwash prisoners
of war178 and are also successful in maintaining unequal power relationships in male / female associations.
179
Overt physical violence is the quickest, most effective way to establish power over others.180 The
violence of the fist, the boot, a knife or gun terrifies or intimidates both victims and witnesses until they
feel they must comply. Thereafter, threats are all that are needed for control.
The Queensland Aboriginal reserves were established in response to the levels of frontier violence that left
many groups traumatised and dispossessed.
They hardly had any food in the camp…I asked them why they did not go into the bush and
kill possums, and dig yams. They replied, ‘Whitefellow along yarraman [horse] too much
break him spear, burn yambo [humpies], cut him old man with whip; white man too much kill
him kangaroo.’181 …They come into here like hunted wild beasts, having lived for years in
a state of absolute terror. Their manifest joy at assurances of safety and protection is pathetic
beyond expression.182
Meston’s proposed reserves became detainment camps and prisons. People were transferred to them
at the direction of the Minister or his designated Aboriginal ‘Protectors’, often under brutal circumstances.
Two women and two men were forced at gunpoint, chained together for 240 miles [380
kilometres] and forced-marched across the peninsula to Laura for transportation to Palm
Island. A previous group, were beaten by the police, flogged en route several times, including
one woman who was six months pregnant. She had been sexually assaulted.183
Structural violence includes the systematic dispossession and (attempted) destruction of Indigenous power
resources; relationship to and ownership of land; economic autonomy; law and political processes; cultural
and spiritual beliefs and ceremonial practices, and social and family relationships. Legislation that removed
people to reserves, took children from their mothers and fathers, and separated husbands and wives, also
enforced a dependency on the economic, educational, legal, health, religious, welfare, political and social
systems of the colonisers.
During this time, people were incarcerated both on what were called reserves through a legislative ‘total
control system’, and within the prison system, for actions designated by the colonisers as criminal.
White Australia has created historical and social conditions [for Aboriginal people] that are
violence-provoking.184
These established layers of inequality and dependency185 continue today.
No matter what their age at death they all had files – in many cases hundreds of pages of
observations and moral and social judgments on them and their families; considerations of
applications for basic rights, determinations about where they could live, where they could
travel, who they could associate with, what possessions they could purchase, whether they
could work and what, if any, wages they could receive or retain. Welfare officers, police,
court officials and countless other white bureaucrats, most unknown and rarely seen by the
persons concerned, judged and determined their lives. The officials saw all, recorded all,
judged all, and yet, knew nothing about the people whose lives they controlled.…Aboriginal
people were removed at the whim of others, crowded into settlements and missions and in
impoverished camps on cattle stations. Always there were non-Aboriginal people giving
orders, making decisions in which the opinions of the Aboriginal people were not sought nor
heeded. Aboriginal families could be separated, children removed if judged too light-skinned,
placed in homes or boarded out as servants of non-Aboriginal families.186
Psychosocial domination187 or as it is sometimes referred to, cultural and spiritual genocide, is the greatest
violence of all. Cultural genocide occurs when oppressors believe that the oppressed are non-persons and
treat them as such.188 When oppressors impose their own cultural and social values on the oppressed, the
consequences are profound. ‘The most terrible fear we can experience is the fear that our identity, our self,
is about to be annihilated.’189 Cultural and spiritual genocide attacks the essence of Aboriginality. People
come to believe that they are valueless, and that their cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices are inferior.
190 They accept and adopt the identity, values, the beliefs and behaviours of their oppressors, or
worse, are torn between the oppressors’ world and their own.
When people come to believe that their own culture is inferior ‘they build their own prison and become
simultaneously prisoner and warden’191 and even executioner.
All my life I never felt as though I fitted in. I was never treated the same as the white kids
and they let me know it. All through school us black kids were never treated as equal to the
white kids by the teacher nor by their parents. The only time I really fitted in was when I was
at home or with our people in the park. They understood me there. We all shared a similar
background and felt no good until we got together in the park. The drinking helped us all to
forget. Some of us have moved on but others somehow got caught up in relying on it to dull
their pain.192
Most of us girls were thinking white in the head, but were feeling black inside. We weren’t
black or white. We were a lonely, lost and sad displaced group…We were brainwashed to
think like a white person but not accepted because [we] were black…a lost generation.193
People throughout the consultation process consistently expressed similar feelings.
2.4. WOMEN’S SOCIOPOLITICAL THEORY
Some Aboriginal women are uncomfortable with feminism as an imposed construct .194
I have done a lot of feminist subjects as I found to a certain extent feminism offers a theoretical
framework that comes closer to analysing my oppression as an Aboriginal person than
anything else. But even feminism falls quite short of the mark. While studying in a feminist law
class, where I thought I’d feel more comfortable, I was confronted by these white women who
said they wanted to hear ‘different voices’, they wanted to hear Aboriginal women speak up.
But it was just lip service.195
Nevertheless, feminist theories provide a general understanding for women. Since the mid- 1980s, when
State and Federal Government Task Forces prepared reports and made recommendations, the major
legal and bureaucratic interventions in domestic violence have been largely derived from feminist theory
and practice. Cameron, quoting Root (1992) argues:’experiences of oppression, dehumanisation, horrors
and atrocities in the struggles of millions of people can be approached using a feminist analysis. Such an
analysis broadens the scope of experiences, includes a sociopolitical context, and seeks a deeper understanding
of trauma through “stories”, or narrative accounts of life experiences.’196 Whatever the interpretation
of feminism, however, at its most fundamental level, it is based upon the notion of patriarchy.
[Patriarchy is]…a familial-social ideological, political system in which men – by force, direct
pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette, education and the
division of labour, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female
is everywhere subsumed under the male.197
However, there are some problems with a feminist analysis of violence from an Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander perspective. The major focus has been on the socialisation of men and women into their
respective roles, without acknowledging that race oppression is also relevant in the social construction of
who Indigenous people are, as men and women. Brunnbauer, an Aboriginal woman, reflects that violence
against Aboriginal women may be viewed as an outcome of patriarchal male domination and oppression of
women generally, mediated through beliefs, practices and behaviours that serve the interests of men.198
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men have adopted the behaviours, attitudes and beliefs of their male
colonisers in the way they interact with their women. However, the issue is more complex than that.
Bennett, another Aboriginal woman, points out that Aboriginal women do not have purely gendered experiences
of violence, rendering them powerless under men. Like Aboriginal men, they have experienced the
effects of colonisation and the consequences that followed.
To focus on socially constructed gender roles espoused by feminist theories only, is to ignore the colonial
conditions that also create a sense of powerlessness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men as well
as women.199 Bennett’s summary of the main Aboriginal responses that contrast with feminist intervention
was adapted200 to show Aboriginal women’s perspectives on family violence, and their relevance to understanding
causal factors and consequences.
These points highlight the dilemmas in attempting to apply feminist theory to Aboriginal women’s experiences
of violence and expose essential differences that must be taken into consideration in solution-focused
interventions into the escalating violence. Many Aboriginal people want to address violence from an
Aboriginal perspective. This can only happen if they are included in this debate. To date this has not yet
been the case.
Figure 4 An Indigenous sociopolitical perspective on family violence
CONCEPTS ABORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE
Gender, patriarchy and family violence Aboriginal
women say patriarchy cannot fully explain violence as Aboriginal women do not have a purely gendered experience of
violence. In traditional Aboriginal societies there were specific gender roles that were complementary and respectful and lores that
protected the preservation of them.
Gender and power Both Aboriginal men and women are relatively powerless in white society. Traditionally, men and
women were relatively equal in Aboriginal Communities.
Family violence and empowerment Empowerment
of Communities is essential to address family violence. Aboriginal women may be unable or unwilling to fragment their
identity by leaving the Community, kin, family or partners.
Commonality of women’s experience There
are differences of class, culture and status that affect understandings and experiences of family violence, of patriarchy and oppression.
Oppression and inequality are not shared equally by Aboriginal and white women. Differences must be acknowledged and addressed.
The influence of the social context. Capitalist
conditions and colonial mentality create powerlessness and impact on the construction of gender roles and on family violence in
Aboriginal Communities. Family violence can only be addressed by adopting Aboriginal world views of the problem and approaching it
from a holistic perspective.
Attitudes to men Domestic violence is a direct result of the breakdown of Aboriginal lore, and its replacement with
white sexist/racist norms. ‘White society’ glorifies violence and tells our men this is what confirms them in their manhood
(Lucashenko and Best, 1995).
Focus of intervention Family violence is a Community issue involving men, women and children. Aboriginal men’s issues
must also be addressed. Aboriginal women are also sometimes ‘perpetrators’ of violence against other Aboriginal women, men and
children. The ‘collective personal’ is the ‘political’.
Legal responses Although traditional violence in Aboriginal societies was a legitimate form of social control,
unsanctioned violence against Aboriginal women was considered illegal and severely punished. However, ‘gamin’ traditional law, which
is supported by misinformed people, is now being used as justification for indiscriminate bashings and sexual violence. Current legal
responses are not appropriate. The legal system itself has functioned abusively on Aboriginal people.
Substance abuse and violence The abuse of alcohol and drugs is one of the causes/contributing factors of violence in Aboriginal
families and Communities and symptomatic of transgenerational trauma. In many cases both abuser and victim have been drinking.
Feminist theory does provide a perspective on power within the ‘socially structured and culturally
maintained patterns of male/female relations’.201 However, its usefulness is limited, both within the
broader society and within Indigenous situations. Violence is often an aspect of patriarchy.202
However…patriarchy is not natural and women haven’t always been oppressed…patriarchy is
only 5000 to 7000 years old and that [sic.] pre-patriarchal cultures were based on strong
bonds between women, women and men, and between adults and children….Life and power
were shared equally between the sexes.203
According to N. L. Jamieson, ‘In order for male dominance to get its initial grip on societies it had to turn
whole cultures upside down.’204 The British brought with them an entrenched patriarchal system that
legitimised the acculturation and dispossession of a race they considered inferior. This cultural violence has
contributed to the continuation of patriarchy in Australia, where it is now firmly entrenched in society. In
patriarchal societies young men may be socialised into using violence as a tool of domination and control,
205 and young women are socialised into subservience in both social and personal relationships.206
Over time, these socialised positions become encased within the systems and structures of society and
perpetuate themselves207 and become the norm.
Patriarchal colonisation brought with it particular forms of violence that promoted, in turn, powerlessness
in colonised groups. Patriarchal colonisation also restructured the gender relationships in colonised groups,
to exemplify the structural relations of the colonisers.208
The unique dimensions of violence against Aboriginal women, and indeed violence generally within Aboriginal
Communities, are a result of complex factors and sociohistorical consequences. While individual
narratives are vital in understanding how violence is experienced, each story must also be located in the
collective story, including accounts of how men, women and children experience violence.
2.5. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
Sociological theories focus on social factors implicated in the incidence and escalation of violence, both
within families and within communities generally. While it is acknowledged that social problems and psychological
problems are not isolated from each other, psychological factors are discussed in Subsection
2.6.
Violence in Indigenous Communities must be considered in its historical and sociostructural context, for ‘to
construct [violence] as an “Aboriginal problem”, or to simply incriminate alcohol, denies a history of overt
violence to Aborigines and the contemporary covert violence of cultural exclusion and institutional control’.
209
The National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party has written:
Domestic Violence, which is frequently associated with alcohol consumption, cannot be
attributed to any one cause. Domestic violence has its roots in institutionalisation, incarceration,
loss of role, loss of parental and role models, low self-esteem and alienation.210
Brunnbauer listed what has been ‘identified by Aboriginal women and their Communities as contributing
to family violence … arising out of their experiences of oppression, racism, dispossession, dislocation
and disenfranchisement within Australian society’.211 The combined list by Brunnbauer shown in Figure
5 is a complex and cumulative set of interactive social and structural factors.
Figure 5 A sociological overview of factors contributing to Indigenous oppression and violence
VIOLENCE
2.6. PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
Psychological theories are also important to consider when conceptualising violence. The theories provide
a framework for analysing the complexities of the historical impacts on Indigenous peoples, in traumatic
distress and its transgenerational effects on individuals, on families, and collectively.212 However, Western
psychology has generally focused on individuals and pathologised individual behaviour without placing the
individual into a whole environment or community.213
Psychology has continued to decontexualise the individual, examining the patient as an
isolated entity without considering the larger sociohistorical causes of personal distress. As
a result, cultural absences and political wounds are ‘interiorised’(i.e., located in the self)
and thus blamed on the victim. While psychologists have been treating the empty self, they
have, of necessity, also been constructing it, profiting from it, and not challenging the social
arrangements that created it.214
On the other hand, Eastern psychology and Indigenous psychology understand self as part of something
much larger, providing a transpersonal perspective.215 Psychological theory must begin to relate the predicament
of the individual to his or her environment without losing sight of the individual. While some
psychological theory is in danger of blaming the victim, or detracting from the responsibility of the offender,
there is a substantial body of evidence in support of both inter and transgenerational transmission of trauma
in relation to violent behaviour. In the Western psychological context, violence is perceived as learned
behaviour passed down from parent to child. It is also seen as related to psychological disorders, the
manifestation of physiological problems such as trauma or those associated with the influence of alcohol
and drugs.216 The transpersonal experiences that many Indigenous people have suffered cannot be explained
within the confines of Western psychology.
This Report has referred to the results of interactive psychological factors across generations. Many
Indigenous children have been profoundly hurt and emotionally and socially abused by the process.
Because of the compounding circumstances of dysfunction in Indigenous Communities, people cannot
express the pain of the hurt they have experienced and as a result, they have become oppressed. Expressing
feelings have resulted too often in misuse of alcohol and other drugs, and alienation from their
own families and Communities. Non-Indigenous Australians generally have not understood the pain that
Indigenous Australians have suffered, nor that abuses occurred.
Restricted access to education about the processes, and the inability of educational institutions to teach
what is needed has limited people’s ability to understand both the cause and effect of past violence
against Indigenous peoples and the effect that this can have on the behaviour of their children.
Photo courtesy of the Queensland Museum.
2.7. THE ABUSE OF ALCOHOL AND OTHER ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES
I have read literally hundreds of Sentencing Remarks where judges of the District and Su-
preme Courts throughout Queensland have said time and again that something must happen
about the alcohol problem in remote Communities and indeed over the past two decades217
have commented repeatedly that still nothing has been done. I could literally
chronicle the Judicial remarks made over the past twenty years alone which portray the
most damning indictments against successive administrations during the past two decades
and indeed throughout the century. It is so graphic that I doubt that any defence could
properly be mounted to an action against the Government for failing in its duty to people in
these Communities, particularly against the background of the repeated comment and entreaty
judicially that the authorities act to do something. They have utterly failed, neglected
or refused to do so.…While people continue to promulgate the view that it’s ‘just the way
they live and they do it to themselves’ and similar non-cerebral utterings, the case against
the various administrations continues to grow. The fact of the matter is that the governments
have involved themselves in what is in truth a pernicious trade.…What is the difference
between knowingly selling alcohol to people whom you know are grossly damaged
physically and mentally by such sale and who become or continue to be addicted to it on the
one hand and on the other hand selling heroin or amphetamines or any other illicit drugs or
opiate. If you conclude that there is in reality no difference, then you would conclude that
the present administration and past administrations are arguably just plain drug dealers.
That is to say – dealers in death.218
The consultative process advanced alcohol as the most pressing concern of Indigenous people. Of the 43
submissions received from individuals and various agencies, 91% of the overall submissions, and 100% of
those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including Community Councils and organisations,
cited alcohol and other drugs as major factors for attention if the issue of violence is to be successfully
addressed. This subsection reflects the voices and submissions that should be heard, in order to understand
how people experiencing violence relate it to alcohol. The fact that they took the time to make
submissions and attend consultations reinforces their call for immediate intervention.
It is widely accepted that people drink alcohol for a variety of reasons, including as a way of coping with
deep-seated, unresolved problems. While alcohol is regarded as a mitigating factor in violent circumstances,
it should not be used as an excuse for the violence occurring. It is vital to recognise the role of
alcohol in deaths and injuries through violence, in general ill-health, and also in family and Community
breakdown. It is also important to acknowledge that many people do enjoy alcohol in moderation:
We have a lot of social drinkers who are responsible in the way they drink. The impression that
all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are violent and are drunks must be changed.219
However, both the consultations and the submissions generally focused on alcohol as featuring prominently
in violence and its use therefore must be addressed as a priority.
2.7.1. Alcohol and other drugs – an historical overview
While alcohol was identified as the major trigger of violence, there were also concerns about people
mixing it with yarndi (marijuana).
Alcohol is not the only problem here…. My ex, he was real violent. When I was eight months
with my last, he kicked me in the stomach to try to get rid of the baby because he said it
wasn’t his. It was but he wouldn’t believe me.
He would be worse when he ran out of yarndi. That’s when he would get into the kids too,
really belt into them before he started on me. I left him, got away, and with this new one I
keep feeling something is wrong with him because he doesn’t argue or hit me. I keep wondering
what’s wrong.220
Yarndi used alone, however, was seen as preferable to alcohol.
He’s all right when he is on yarndi. He’s not the same person. When he is drinking he drinks
straight rum and you can’t look at him sideways or you would get a backhand.221
In fact, yarndi is seen as a pacifier and some women actually buy it for their husbands to avoid being
bashed:‘When he’s on the yarndi he sits in front of the TV like a little lamb.’222
Indigenous people can sometimes be easy targets for pushers peddling alcohol and illegal substances,
especially when they live in areas where there are other marginalised people and high rates of unemployment.
When people are forced into living conditions that they do not benefit from and do not want
- the anger can be for a number of reasons and it simmers away at an alarming degree and
on occasions is barely hidden. When judgment is clouded with alcohol dependence there is
little in the way of reasoning to prevail. Anger and frustration manifests itself in more drinking,
more alcohol abuse and more violence. It doesn’t matter whether someone is angry
about feelings of dispossession or lack of self-respect or lack of respect for others or lack of
a future or lack of money, lack of services, lack of facilities, lack of health when there are so
many ‘lacks’ to choose from.223
The drugs help to take away the pain, they make people feel better. Lots of people are
traumatised by violence experienced during their childhood.224
With the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the invaders brought convicts, settlers, policies of colonisation,
new diseases, and the Westminster system of justice. They also brought alcohol, in the form of rum. The
consequences of the introduction of colonial policies, Western ‘justice’ and alcohol are still being dealt
with today.
Rum was used as an insidious form of social control over the convicts, and as currency or for barter in the
development of this country. From the outset, alcohol was part of the colony’s economic base and a
political tool. Alcohol made life easier for stressed, oppressed, and traumatised people in the eighteenth
century and continues to be used in this manner today.
The image of the drunken Aboriginal is a colonial construction, predating the ready availability of alcohol
to Indigenous people. Alcohol was used to engage Indigenous Australians in discourse, to pay for
labour, to attract people into settlements and to lure people into assimilation. Indigenous Australian
women were encouraged to consume alcohol, which was used by white men to barter for sex.225 Young
girls and boys, well under the age of puberty, were fed alcohol and used for sexual gratification. This
abhorrent type of behaviour was unheard of among Aboriginal people prior to invasion.226
Alcohol is therefore part of Australian history, and both alcohol and opium are part of Queensland’s
history.227 The legacy of alcohol lives on to create abject misery. As recently as three years ago, Aboriginal
artists reported being paid in cartons of beer by an art gallery proprietor in Alice Springs.
During the consultative process in Indigenous Communities, informants indicated the extent of the damage
being caused through the abuse of alcohol:
One of the harshest realities for us as Aboriginal people is that we are letting the grog and
drugs kill us. I don’t think we know how to stop and we will mourn the many loved ones we
have lost through grog and drugs. Some have been perpetrators. Some have been victims.
Many have been both.228
One of the difficulties is dealing with the alcohol. The problem is that it is now so firmly
entrenched. I worked for the Aboriginal Legal Service, and saw many examples of children
as young as eight being alcohol-dependent and in some cases sniffing petrol and glue. The
spiral of violence actually commences with children beginning to access alcohol and then
becoming dependent upon it. In other words if something isn’t done to save the children
from alcohol by the time they’re eight, then it’s too late.229
Alcohol is not the most important ingredient in the violence. The ingredients are complex –
boredom – anxiety – insecurity. Who do our young people look up to? Alcohol is just a
symptom.230
In my opinion if you placed 1,200 or so European people on Mornington Island, housed
within the same way in such proximity to the hotel on the hill, you would quickly have an
identical situation of dependence upon alcohol, despair and violence. The people in the
Communities are all poor. It is very difficult to be sophisticated when you have no money
and little to look forward to in life. Motivation is a hard commodity to come by when you
are dependent upon alcohol. Respect is hard to come by when young people in the Community
see the older members of the Community behaving in a way that is guaranteed to
engender disrespect. Once again, it is the alcohol.231
The biggest problem in this town is there are no services for men. Aboriginal men need a
crisis service – not just an alcohol service but a crisis service – often the violence occurs at
a time of crisis – when the person has increased his alcohol intake.232
Many of the women using the shelter have multiple problems – they are experiencing domestic
violence – have alcohol and other drug problems – have mental illness – they have
been sexually abused as a child, which is a contributing factor to domestic violence - alcohol
abuse and mental illness.233
I drink because I feel better. I feel good when I drink because I don’t hurt so much and I
am not frightened so much.234
The last quote contains the words of a young mother from Mornington Island who was a regular victim of
family violence but also stated that she felt ‘no good’. She said her feelings came from her experiences as
a child witness to violence. Indigenous informants stated clearly that alcohol and drugs helped people to
cope with feelings of powerlessness, despair and helplessness. Informants also stated that few services
were available to encourage users to free themselves of addiction. They needed worthwhile programs,
rehabilitation and counselling services run by appropriately trained workers.
2.7.2. Alcohol and violence
Many of those people that drink grog, drown their feelings in grog and drugs. The only thing is
then they forget that everyone else has feelings and they can do a lot of damage when they start
punishing in a fit of rage as they do, have you seen them when that happens, it’s a sad sight.235
Submissions in the consultations forcibly stated that if the issue of alcohol were addressed, violence would
decrease. Many people with severe alcohol addiction indicated they would like stop to drinking, but there
are no services available to help them.
Alcohol and substance abuse are proven contributing factors in violence, suicide, murder
and rape. The underlying issues which exacerbate the drinking of alcohol are controls ex-
ternal to the means of our people, dispossession, poor housing, poor health, education.236
The men say – ‘We got nothing - can’t get a job - so I’m fighting with my wife’. DV here is a
lot to do with boredom. Nothing to do except go together all day, sleep together all night. A
lot of DV happens where the person is sober, but it is easier to just talk about the alcohol.237
Men are largely in an alcohol spiral and have lost the self-respect that they ought to have.…If
the problem with alcohol abuse is tackled and beaten, then the incidents of violence and
abuse against women and children will drop to a staggering extent. Offenders have indicated
they wish to go to prison to get away from alcohol.238
Indigenous people say alcohol is a huge problem, but its use must be studied in the context
of their situations. Alcohol consumption ‘cannot be understood or given a meaning except
in relation to the dependent situation of Aboriginal people within the Australian state’.239
Alcohol is used in a structured manner, to mitigate needs that have both positive and negative
consequences. Alcohol enables anger and despair to be expressed without responsibility
for the consequences.240 Alcohol provides a sense of belonging to a group, although it
may be a social group of drinkers. When alcohol use increases with greater availability,
children are at risk of being abused and neglected,241 and of witnessing of violence between
adults, thus learning behaviour which may lead them to violence in turn.
Alcohol is associated with getting drunk, feeling powerless, aggressively articulating feelings of anger and
distress, and engaging in interpersonal violence.242 Because Indigenous people have a different cultural
construction for alcohol use than other Australians, responsibility for violent behaviour can be easily attributed
to alcohol. The excuse given is that ‘it was the grog’. A clear message throughout the consultations
was that blaming alcohol for violence is no longer acceptable. Alcohol-related deaths and injuries, and in
particular violence against small children, must be condemned in the harshest terms, and those responsible
must stand accountable.
However, it was also believed that the design of programs to reduce the consumption of alcohol and other
addictive substances must take cultural aspects into account. The therapeutic properties of alcohol must
be replaced by programs with real meaning that have long-term benefits for health and well-being. Suitable
strategies should be devised in collaboration with expert alcohol and drug workers.
When groups of Indigenous people live in cities, strategies to reduce alcohol consumption and illicit drugs
are hard to monitor. In contrast, the isolation of some regional Aboriginal Communities could be used in
their favour to contain the use of alcohol and illicit drugs and to outlaw their ready access through more
stringent surveillance. It is important to give priority to strategies to help Communities to utilise their
isolation. One strategy is to conduct road checks of vehicles and people entering Communities, and another
would be to set up an easily accessible notification hotline, with guaranteed anonymity. Apparently
reporting of information from isolated regions to drug hotlines has been less effective than expected, because
of confidentiality concerns.
2.7.3. Costs of the abuse of alcohol and other drugs
The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA), in a report commissioned by the Royal
Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, summarises the impact of alcohol in the following terms:
• Aboriginal alcohol misuse has a devastating effect on family life by precipitating domestic
violence and sexual abuse;
• Widespread alcohol misuse by parents and other Aboriginal adults provides strong negative role
models of drinking and parenting behaviour for children;
• The misuse of alcohol has damaging effects on Aboriginal life in the social and cultural spheres.
For example, heavy drinking has been linked to the neglect of important ceremonies in traditional
Communities;
• Although alcohol is not the only cause of family and community disruption, it is seen as a
primary cause by many Aboriginal people.243
The summary of the report on alcohol-related violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities244
found:
• violence is pervasive;
• women are more likely to be victims and men perpetrators;
• violent episodes are often associated with drinking.
The relationship between drinking and violence is not directly causal, but alcohol may facilitate or incite
violence by providing a socially acceptable excuse for the negative behaviour. Indigenous women associate
violence with alcohol, often seeing it as a contributing factor or a cause, or listing it as one of the reasons
for increased violence. The Task Force found that contemporary patterns of family violence do not accord
with traditional practices of resolving disputes. Traditionally, forms of confrontational aggression and structured
violence were used in disputes, but family disputes today are often unstructured when alcohol is
involved. The relationship of alcohol and violence is not yet fully understood.245
Noel Pearson has written that ‘Ours is one of the most dysfunctional societies on the planet today; surely
the fact that the per capita consumption of alcohol in Cape York is the highest in the world says something
about our dysfunction’.246 In every document or study on violence within Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander situations, the issue of alcohol and its effects are raised. In fact, most of the women in Cape York
say alcohol causes violence. Canteens on Communities are a continuing source of contention. There are
calls to ‘close the canteens’. While this opinion was expressed throughout the consultations, a more powerful
call was for the canteens to be properly run. It is important to recognise that not all canteens were put
into place by the will of the Community.
For years the people of Aurukun said no to a canteen at public meetings and in a referendum.
However, after Aurukun received Local Government status, the then Local Government
Minister, Mr Russ Hinze decided it was discriminatory for the Aurukun Community
not to have a canteen like other Queenslanders. A canteen was built in the middle of Centenary
Park, in the midst of the children’s playground equipment! Great role modelling for the
children as they play around the canteen at night.247
I’ve seen children in school holidays hanging around outside the canteen…in the middle of
the day drinking glasses of beer. Some children roam around until the early hours of the
morning. Neglect is the real problem…and this lack of supervision leaves opportunities for
children to be sexually abused.248
As children use their playground in which the canteen is now located, they see their elders drinking, and
they witness the violence that results from the grog. This influences social learning. The messages given
to the adults and children of the Aurukun Community were clear. The State had power, and they were
powerless. Their opinions and concerns were of no consequence. Both Hunter and Miller249 pointed
out ‘today’s parents are the offspring of the first “legal Aboriginal drinkers”, many of whom have grown
up in settings dominated by violence and alcohol. Role models for peaceful settlements of disputes are
few’.250 Drinking and violence are both ‘socially learned responses, maintained by a system of reinforcements
or lack of intervention’ 251 and the direct intervention of the State into Indigenous lives.
It is also important to recognise the women who have worked relentlessly over the years to limit the
damage of alcohol. At the present time, Doomadgee does not have a canteen, by the grace and tenacity
of the lone woman on the Council, Clara Foster, who has successfully blocked all endeavours by other
Councillors and the State and Federal bureaucrats to fund a canteen for Doomadgee. In the early
nineties, the Mt Isa ATSIC regional office funded a consulting architect to travel to Doomadgee, to
begin the process of drawing up plans for a canteen. Around that same time, two children drowned in
an open sewerage drain.252 Both the State and Federal Governments were engaged in discussion about
whose responsibility it was to put in place proper sanitation at Doomadgee, and at the same time,
discussion continued about whether Doomadgee should have a hotel, to keep the money spent on grog
in the Community.
Who cared about the open sewerage drain and the dangers it posed for children?
2.8. Cultural and spiritual violence
The most profound form of violence violates the spirit and soul, tearing at individual and collective
identity. Colonisation and postcolonial interactions have made many Indigenous people feel
disempowered and dispirited, as they face an isolating and brutalising life.
Traditional values have been eroded and the other men in the Communities simply do not
have the same respect from others…that they once had.253
The attempted genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through colonisation has
subjected Indigenous people to a continuing process of destruction evidenced in the confusion, desolation
and despair in the minds of the young and in the eyes of the Elders, who are only too aware of how
much such experience has cost.
The roots of contemporary Aboriginal spirituality lie in traditions based on 40,000 years of ceremonies
and rituals enmeshed in cyclical reverence of life, death and creation.
While the effects of colonisation of the lives of Aboriginal people varied from area to area, many clans
resisted the intrusion of the colonisers and suffered the consequences of family dispersal, dispossession
of land and in many cases, death. Diseases and malnutrition caused many Aboriginal people to accept
the shelter and food offered by the colonisers, often to their own peril. The provision of water and food
laced with poison was not an unusual occurrence in early interactions between Aboriginal people and
the invaders.
The lives of many Aboriginal people altered forever as they were rounded up and placed on communal
missions and reserves. The increasing dominance of Western civilisation eroded many aspects of the
traditional way of life and fragmented both the cultural and spiritual bases.
Aboriginal people fought hard to retain their cultural identity and continued to practise their culture, even
in the face of the most devastating consequences. Hidden by Elders from the managers of missions and
other authoritative figures who inflicted severe punishment if cultural practices were witnessed, many of
the traditional beliefs and rituals were handed down through generations as secret business.
The National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their
Families, the Bringing Them Home report, detailed in both implicit and explicit terms the tragic circumstances
and effects of genocide on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Photo courtesy of Queensland Museum.
Indigenous children have been forcibly separated from their families and Communities since the first
days of European occupation of Australia. Violent battles over rights to land, food and water sources
characterised race relations in the nineteenth century. Indigenous children were kidnapped and exploited
for their labour.254 In Queensland and Western Australia, the Chief Protector used his removal powers
and guardianship powers to force all Indigenous people onto large and highly regulated government
settlements and missions, to remove children from their mothers at about the age of four years and place
them in dormitories away from their families and to send them off the mission at about the age of fourteen
to work.255
The practice of giving young Aboriginal men and women to establishments or households to use for
labour exposed them to both sexual and physical violence without any form of recourse from authorities
who were often aware of the abuse and ill treatment inflicted.
The Task Force was provided with numerous accounts of people who had been taken away from their
parents as children; some had since found their way back home and others were still searching. They
had all suffered physical violence and emotional and psychological abuse. The victims who came forward
spoke of cruelty inflicted upon them that defies any sense of humanitarianism. One forty-year-old
woman provided the following account:
They took me from my parents when I was only five and they also took my brothers who
were four and nine. I remember being the back yard playing with my brothers and a man
came walking up the side of the house, he had with him two other men, all of who wore
uniforms. I remember my mother screaming for my dad and begging the men to leave us
alone and that she would do anything if they did not take us away from her. I remember
being so scared, so terrified that I hurt so much inside I thought I was going to drop dead
from fright. They threw us into the back of the car and drove away before we could give
mum a hug; we never even got time to see our dad because he was at work. I kept looking
out of the back window of the car, hoping with all my might that my mum would
somehow catch up to us and make everything alright.
But she never did, we didn’t have a car and there was no one that she could turn to for
help. I remember my baby brother trembling really hard and he wet himself. My older
brother just kept looking out of the window. I knew he was crying but he wouldn’t say
anything ‘cause mum and dad would always tell him how he must act when with white
people.
My brothers and I were taken to a home and each day we would sit and hold each other
as if we were frightened that even that was going to be taken away. My older brother
used to say he would look after us and he wouldn’t let anyone touch us or hurt us, not if
he could help it. One day when I went to find my brothers they had sent them to another
place and I cannot tell anyone, even today the terrible pain I felt inside and the deep
sense of fear that I had as to what was going to happen to us. I prayed that mum and dad
would come and get me but I found out many years later that they could not find out
where they put us. Even to the day she died, our mother kept searching, I found her too
late.
When I was fourteen they put me out to work for a local land owner and his wife. When I
arrived, he told me that I was to be one of his best livestock and that is the way he
treated me. I was kept chained up under the house with the dogs at night, I had chains on
my legs and after I had all my meals I had chains put on my wrists.
The only time I was let off the chain was when they wanted me to work or when he took
me upstairs once a month when the wife was unable to do it. I would lie there screaming
for him to stop and begging the women to help me but somehow they just didn’t listen. I
prayed to God for me to die and when that didn’t happen I tried to run away. He caught
up with me and told me that he had to teach me a lesson for my own sake and what
happened next I still feel even though I am now forty. He ripped my blouse off and tied
me to a post under the house and whipped me with the stockwhip until something happened,
I must have passed out because after what seemed like eternity, I couldn’t feel it
anymore. I thanked God because I thought he had let me die.
I was made to live with the man and his wife for another five years, and whenever he
thought I did something wrong he would give me a hard backhand across the face or pull
me into the shed and tell me he was doing what he was doing as a way of punishment and
that I should never forget it. If you cried he would hit you some more. I begged the missus
for help but she never seemed to worry about what was going on. I never saved any
wages from the time there and it was only after he died that I was made to go back to the
mission only not to the same one, to another far away from my family so that I would not
be able to see them. I have spent my whole life trying to understand why these things
happened. I just don’t understand. I was a young child for God’s sake, I had done nothing,
we were always fed and clothed really well and we had lots of love from mum and
dad, I just don’t know why they did what they did to us, I don’t think we will ever
know.256
The woman showed the Task Force members the wounds on her back from the whippings she suffered
and it was reported that the scars were so deeply furrowed that it was hard to believe that a young girl
of fourteen could have survived such an ordeal.
Many accounts were given to the Task Force of ordeals experienced by Aboriginal men and women
when they were taken away as children and placed in missions, in institutions and fostered out. Even
those who eventually went to a home where they were not physically or sexually violated reported
experiencing a deep sense of loss and a lifetime of grieving as a result of being taken away from the
family as part of the government practice.
All of my brothers and sisters and I were taken by authorities. I remember being so
scared; none of us knew where they were taking us, all we knew was that it was a long
way away. The youngest of us was three and the oldest was nearly eleven and they made
him work like a man when he was just a boy who was just as frightened as the rest of us,
but he would never show it. That used to make them angry because he would never react.
I remember finding him crying once and he said not to tell anyone because that would
only make them push him to do even more harder work than what he was already doing.
They were really cruel to him and he was only a young boy of eleven. 257
Generational responses to the forced removal of children have contributed to dysfunctionality in many
families and inability to cope with the associated stresses.
When I was young my father was a warrior and I grew up thinking that I was going to be
a warrior and when I got to be older all I saw was the grog, men sitting looking into
space with no jobs and no future. 258
The younger generation are often rebellious and antagonistic against authority figures and in some cases
institutionalised, having spent many of their formative years in missions or in youth detention centres.
This has been the case for a number of young men taken away from their family at an early age.
For the parents and families of those people taken away, the process and its consequences were equally
damaging. Made to question their abilities as parents, both culturally and on a gender basis, many
parents suffered immense grief and guilt because they could not stop the authorities from taking their
children.
In many cases, both parents and the children exposed to the barbaric process turned to alcohol and or
substance abuse as a means of blotting out bad memories.
I was in the kitchen when I heard my sons scream and without even looking, I knew what
was happening because that was always my biggest fear. I ran outside and they were just
putting them in the car. I ran at the one in uniform and I grabbed at one of my children to
pull him away. But they just knocked me to the ground. I begged them not to take them
from me and but they said they would be better off with someone else rather than the
likes of me. I watched and screamed while they drove away and the look on my sons’
faces I never forgot, I still see it in my mind today. I thought I was going to go mad. No
one will ever be able to remove the deep feelings of hurt and anger that you have inside
when something like that occurs. I grew angrier every day. I searched for my boys for two
years; every time I saw someone who looked like them I would call out their names but it
wasn’t them. I realised after searching for two years that they were not coming back. I
just couldn’t cope with life anymore and so I tried to do away with myself. It didn’t work
and so I spent the next twenty years looking down the neck of a bottle because that was
the only way I could block out the pain that I felt from losing my boys and the grief that I
suffered when I knew that they would not be coming back. I always prayed that they
knew I loved them and that I was looking for them.259
In a gross act of negligence, few records were kept of the names of the children taken away, where they
were taken from or where they were taken to. While there have been many speculations about exactly
how many Aboriginal children were removed by the Government, the actual figures will never be
known.
Family violence is affecting us all and it has got to stop but we have got to get them to
understand that we were once placid people but now you wouldn’t think that would you.
Where do we go from here I am not sure. I don’t think we really understand how many of
us have been affected and how many of us will never been found. The alcohol, the breaking
of culture and the hurt that many of our people carry with them, does not excuse the
violence that we witness, but must be acknowledged and addressed if there is to ever be a
break in the cycle of violence and abuse that we are seeing.260
Where we go from here I am not sure. I don’t think we really understand how many of us
have been effected by the abduction of our children, how many of us were taken away
nor if they will ever be found. The whole practice is one of deceit and callousness.261
The effects of alcoholism, stress and traumatisation lie dormant in the minds of many Aboriginal people
who are now parents and grandparents of the next generation. For many of these people, the ramifications
are evident in their dysfunctional and dispirited state. A number of them have been further violated
or have become the perpetrators of violence themselves.
Spiritual and cultural violence was cited by many informants as one of the significant factors in the
current turmoil being witnessed in Aboriginal Communities. It will continue to rise unless Governments
work with Indigenous people to help heal the injuries.
Informants saw violence as an expression of suppressed inner pain. While this observation is not meant
to excuse offending behaviour, it should provide a basis for introducing interventions into violence by
providing counselling services and other initiatives.
If they want to help us heal and to stop the violence that we are seeing, then we must all
go back to the beginning and help some of out people start again for it is those people
who are stuck in a vacuum where they are now adults, but there is a small and vulnerable
child, confused and abused in all manners, that is lurking deep within. The trouble is this
situation may describe too many of us. Everyone I have spoken to has been affected by
the process of being taken away, being brought up on a mission or having suffered some
form of discrimination or abuse at the hands of authoritative figures either in the schools,
when you go to get a job or just by watching what has happened to your family. You can’t
experience these sorts of pain and not expect some of it to be retained in the young mind.
I think that is where much of this violence is coming from, unresolved conflict which has
been allowed to fester within and with no counselling available for many years, the
individual has often resorted to other means for release i.e. alcohol which encourages
other difficulties to surface which in some cases is abusive and aggressive behaviour
which can act as an agent for unresolved and pent-up feelings that have no other form of
release.262
When a child’s development is arrested, when their feelings are repressed, especially hurt
and anger, they grow up to be an adult with an angry, hurt child inside them which has
never recovered from the original pain. This angry young child will contaminate that
person’s adult behaviour until they are given the right type of support to help them recover.
For many young people their behaviour is the result of previous abuse, which has
contaminated them, forcing the hurt child to do the only thing they can to deal with the
pain - rage at authority263 or strike out at those who are equally as vulnerable such as
their loved ones or those in the Community.264
Although it is not wise to use this analysis as a generic explanation of the violence in Aboriginal Communities,
it provides one explanation.
Many people in Indigenous Communities have been forced to adapt to Western culture, while non-
Indigenous people have not shown a matching acceptance of Indigenous culture. To survive this conflict,
Indigenous people have gone through a process of acculturation whereby they have had to adapt to
survive, with many trying to live between two worlds. This has been their dilemma for generations;
acculturation has been forced upon them, resulting, in many cases, in generations of dysfunctional
people. Acculturation can produce a sense of low self-esteem, powerlessness, confusion, cultural
disorientation, and alienation from the strength of cultural values. Many Aboriginal people feel lost,
unable to live in the Western world but unable to go back to the old culture neither.
Indigenous people can feel isolated from themselves and from society:
Many of our people feel isolated and alone…can we build a life with anyone when we
can’t even build life for ourselves?265
It does not matter what you do to get a better life, you will always be struggling because
we just cannot fit into the white man’s world and our Communities are changing so
quickly. I think many of us are lost. We really look after each other here [in prison] and we
make sure we protect each other and we help set each other on a straight path. It’s when
you get out that it all falls apart. There is nothing there for us no matter how hard we try,
you cannot get a job. You find it hard to be able to rent a place and you always feel as
though white people don’t trust you. We used to be able to rely on our families and our
Communities, but they forget us when we are in here and then we get out we get angry.266
The high levels of institutionalisation of Aboriginal children and adults is the result of
systemic racism - unchecked, forced acculturation and continued shaming in order to
institute a different and more subtle form of genocide - where the power and resources to
self-determine and heal is not available.267
Historical events have produced, for today’s Aboriginal people and governments, a set of
complexities and concerns that must be dealt with if we are to set the path straight for
our future generations. The unhealed wounds of being taken away, the unresolved conflict
that is individually or collectively being aroused, must all be dealt with in a way that
helps the disempowered to feel empowered and the alienated and isolated, to feel in
control and in charge of their lives.
A large percentage of Indigenous youth, currently working through the cultural conflict
that they are experiencing, are potentially being placed on a path for future conflict
which will fester into something much more serious unless action is taken now to help
them deal with the crisis that has evolved. The adults already bound by the inner turmoil
they have experienced must be helped to feel a sense of belonging, of productivity and of
positivism in the eyes of others and more importantly, within themselves. We must work
with governments and agencies to help bring our people out of the dark so that we can
deal with the ramifications of past actions and work toward environment that nurtures
what is required for the collective good.268
While economic sustainability is essential, of equal importance is the social and cultural
sustainability of our people which makes up the very essence of who we are. It is through
the revival of our spirituality, our connectedness to land and through the respect for self
and others that we may be able to turn the situation around and instil in the minds of our
people a renewed sense of optimism and strength that is urgently required. This will be a
significant step toward addressing the violence and alcoholism, both of which have
resulted from the cultural and spiritual fragmentation that our people have suffered as a
result of past actions and political and social practices that have been imposed.269
Part of the restorative process will need to focus on the land, because the healing, spiritual aspects of land
have largely been unacknowledged until recently:
Our land also has an important role to play in healing. The land is a powerful healer, as is
the sea. When your ancestors have walked these places for millennia, they hold an energy of
timelessness that invokes serenity and the feeling that one is not alone, but in the presence
of these ancestors, who are able to communicate via the senses and convey the feelings and
thoughts that are most conducive to healing. When we are able to sit on our land in contemplation
and hear, feel or see the spirits of our old people, then we have been to a place
within ourselves of great depth and connectedness. It is this place that we need to go to in
order to truly heal ourselves; and once we have learnt how to do that, then we move forward.
270
I find my peace here now – it is something you can’t explain – just to lie under the trees and
look up at the sky, with a fish line in the water. It doesn’t matter if you don’t catch a fish. It’s
just so relaxing.271
E n d n o t e s
Section 2 – Causes and contributing factors
Section 3:Rhetoric or Reality? The Extent
of Violence
Not everything that is faced
Can be changed
But nothing can be changed
Until it is faced.
James Baldwin
(1924-87)
3.1. RHETORIC OR REALITY? THE EXTENT OF VIOLENCE
In order to address the escalating violence in Indigenous Communities, it is necessary to gauge its extent
and its effects. This section provides both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the violence and its
impact on the lives of Indigenous Australians, and begins with a number of accounts gathered through
the consultation process.
For years I’d come home and he’d be drinking at the kitchen table. He’d be there with a
two-litre bottle of Bundy rum. I’d have my clothes ripped off me. He’d be kicking me and
bashing me. I’d go running screaming out of the house … He threw me down the stairs, over
the balcony onto the hard concrete. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill me. I should be dead because
of what he did to me. And I just can’t tell you how frightened I was. I can’t tell you either
how cruel he was to me.
Over the years it was the same every payday, any day he could get money…six or seven
nights a week. Mostly it was my money. I couldn’t stay in the house or he’d have killed me
for sure. I’d run away or get into the car and drive. I’d sleep in the car or on the beach with
the homeless people. Then I’d go back into the house in the morning and shower and go to
work and pretend nothing was happening to me.
To add to my problems my eighteen-year-old daughter returned home. Instead of having
another woman for a companion, I now had two alcoholics on my hands… and a drug
addict. Then I found out her father was supplying her. I had them both abusing and
fighting me. My only option was to kill him or do something in my job …that resulted in
me getting six years but it got me away from the violence. Being locked away was the
first peace I’d had in years. With all my troubles I never considered suicide. Never even
thought about it.
I served two years and when I came home I found him in bed with my daughter.
This time he came home drunk and I’d only just started to get tea ready. He picked up the
saucepan of boiling potatoes and tipped it all over me and then started bashing me with the
heavy saucepan. He smashed me right across the face and the started belting me around the
shoulders and wherever he could hit because I was trying to get away and screaming for
someone to help me. Blood was pouring from my face. He had me by the hair trying to rip it
out by the roots. No one came to help me. They all stood outside trying to get a good look
through the door. But someone at least called the police and they took me to hospital. I
couldn’t see out of my eyes for days and I was scalded all down one side…
…He came to visit me in hospital and cried and said he was sorry. Like a fool I went
home and every night in bed, he’d warn me what he would do to me if I tried to run
away. I’d lie there wondering where I could go for help. I didn’t know where to even start.
I was terrified. And it happened again. And it did… lots of times. Still I was too scared to
leave. Twice I overdosed and another time I slashed my wrists but he’d say he was sorry
and call for me at the hospital. I just went home with him because I was too frightened to
ask for help. You don’t know how relieved I was when he went to jail. My big worry now
is where do I hide when he comes out. I don’t have anywhere to go and I know it’ll all
start again but this time it will be worse because he’s going to want to get even. He’s
going to make me pay for this. I might have to pay with my life.272
Very violent, that’s all I can say about my childhood. My parents used to fight a lot, both
mum and dad would get drunk along with a number of others who would come to play
cards and then the fighting would start. It was as though the grog released something
inside them ‘cause they would soon go from loving people to someone who would fight
anyone just for looking at them. Dad used to get stuck into mum while us kids would hide
under the bed, in the cupboards, anywhere, even in the car or in the bush, until the fighting
would die down. You’d either go to sleep where you were or you’d wait and sneak
back into the house after the fighting had died down, which was always in the early hours
of the morning.
Us kids would look out for each other because it was always one or two of us who would
cop it. It really hurt at first, but then it became so commonplace that you could shut the
hurt out, or at least that’s what I could do. I just kept thinking of the good times and in
the end, I think I even made them up just to keep me going.273
It was when we were put in the home when I thought maybe we would not survive. They
were cruel to us kids although the head Father would say that he was teaching us discipline.
I couldn’t understand that, when one of the young boys would get a strapping
where there would be marks left on their backs, on their legs for weeks. I always failed to
see how that was teaching us to be good. That was not so bad; it was the footsteps in the
night that always made us cringe. That was with one or two of the priests only and all the
kids would know what they did. Sometimes they would just quietly take one of the
younger boys with them or I recall one time when one of the kids from back home said
that one of the priests in particular would just hold his private parts and then leave
without saying anything, except he had him terrified. That boy hung himself and he was
only eleven. There was a teacher who wasn’t a priest who would look out [for] him, he
wanted us to know we could. I think we were too frightened to and anyway he only
stayed at the place for a short while; they replaced him with a teacher who hardly spoke
to us. I always regret not having spoken to that teacher, I still remember his name.274
I never really had any trouble learning but I couldn’t concentrate in school because I was so
tired all the time. I could not tell them about the fighting at home and what I saw. I told one
of the other kids once when I saw my dad bash my mum so bad there was blood everywhere.
I ran into the yard screaming with dada running after me and my brothers and sisters saying
we were going to be next.275
[Comment from an informant who learned to be violent in self-defence.]That’s the only way I
learned to survive; it wasn’t until I was much older that I realised that violence was not a
part of everyone’s life.276
The police used to come by regularly when we would be sitting in the park; sometimes they
would just start harassing one of the old men and the other young ones would come to their
aid. They would be taken into a toilet. We always knew what would happen then. They [the
police] would just come out and after a while when they had gone, we would go over and
find them lying on the floor with blood coming from the mouth or other areas where they
had sunk the boot into them when they were on the ground. There was one cop in particular,
he would do this regularly. Sometimes even when they would be doing nothing other than
sitting in the park together, this cop would just pick up one of the men or women and that
was it, you didn’t see them again. I found out later that they would end up in jail for vagrancy
or disturbing the peace or something even if they weren’t causing any trouble.277
My father died when he was only forty, he had never had a job and would often sit and talk
of the good times when he was young and how he had found it difficult in the white society
to fit in or to get a job. He eventually started drinking and even though he never hit mum or
us kids, he would pick a fight with anyone when he had been drinking. Mum would go and
look for him when he didn’t come home and eventually she would find him in the park
sleeping or on a bench. He was fine if he was left alone. My dad was bashed while he was
sleeping in the park and no one knew who did it, but he must have died a lonely death. His
face was smashed in and it was hard to tell whether he died from a heart attack or from the
wounds he got from the bashing.
I didn’t know how I was going to cope but my older brother seemed to step in and help me
and my mum and my brothers and sisters. He got into a scuffle with the police one night
when he had been drinking. He really was not any danger, he used to just go off and we
would just let him sleep it off and he would be all right. The police picked him up this night
and at about four in the morning, the police came and told my mum that he had hung
himself in the watchhouse cell.
I went wrong after that, I just couldn’t seem to be at peace and I got into the wrong crowd
and I ended up in trouble with the police. I was put into a juvenile detention centre and
while I hated it there, I made friends with a brother who came from down Walgett way. He
would spend a lot of time talking about his home and what it was like down there. One night
they found him hanging in his cell. I never found out why, I never even knew that he was
thinking about it. Death has been a major part of my life and for a long time I was angry
with the world. I would pick a fight with anyone, slash my own skin up and none of it would
worry me; I just used violence, I guess, as a protection against being hurt.278
Task Force consultations revealed that the level of violence in Indigenous Communities is much higher than
openly acknowledged or reported. Eyewitness accounts of horrific injuries, scarred bodies, stabbings,
bashings, sexual assaults and mentally traumatised victims resembled reports from war zones. The researchers
heard accounts of extreme brutality and depravity previously unknown to Indigenous Communities.
Violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities is not new. Indigenous women have been
attempting to raise the plight of their people for years. Many Community, departmental, service provider
and Government representatives are aware of the situation, and yet little, if any, intervention has occurred.
Rather than intervene, many Indigenous and non-Indigenous representatives have remained detached or
apathetic, or relied upon cultural politics to justify inability to intervene. This situation has allowed violence
to escalate, exposing victims to an existence that many people outside the Communities would find difficult
to articulate or comprehend. Through the consultation process, the Task Force learned of violent situations
that demand urgent attention.
Both state and national reports, such as those of the Canberra Department of Human Services and Health
in 1993, and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 1987 (published in 1991), and the
Social Justice Commissioner reports 1993-95, have highlighted the incidence and prevalence of alcohol
use and violence in Australia.
The findings from such reports suggest that research to date has, to varying degrees, linked domestic
violence, child abuse, crime and other interpersonal violence with alcohol consumption, but not conclusively.
‘This stems partly from the inherent methodological problems in conducting studies, but also from
the limited research undertaken, especially in the area of child abuse.’279 Contemporary literature appears
to view alcohol as only one factor in violence, and it is often raised in mitigation of an offence.
The 1999 Queensland Council of Social Service Inc. (QCOSS) document, People and Places: A Profile
of Growing Disadvantage in Queensland, concludes that a study of the most disadvantaged areas in
Queensland suggests that geographical location and social positioning are key factors in socioeconomic
disadvantage and are part of a growing social divide. Disadvantaged regions have reported high unemployment
and crime rates as having significant consequences for people there.280
The Task Force interviewed police and other Government representatives who reported that violence in
the Communities was reaching a critical level. ‘The type of weaponry used to inflict violence is getting
worse, they used to only use knives or pickets [from fences] or whatever, but now they are using all sorts
of weaponry to hurt their women.’281
Homicide is the most extreme form of interpersonal violence occurring in Aboriginal Communities. Statistics
show that of the 76 homicides committed in Queensland over the period 1993 to 1998, 26 victims
(34.2%) and 36 offenders (47.3%) were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
Statistics highlighting escalating crime in Communities should have already alerted both non-Indigenous
authorities and Indigenous organisations to a growing problem. Prevention and early intervention strategies
should have been introduced when Communities showed the first signs of deterioration and dysfunction.
In 1990, the National Committee on Violence reported to the Australian Government:
• In Queensland Aboriginal Reserves282 ‘the homicide rate for the 17 Communities under review was
39.6 per 100,000, more than ten times the Australian national homicide rate’.
• In South Australia, Aborigines, ‘who constitute approximately 1 per cent of the population comprised
at least 10 per cent of that State’s homicide victims’ (over a three-year period).
• ‘The Northern Territory Police advised … that in 1987 Aboriginal females were victims of 79 percent
of total deaths involving chargeable offences’.
• Homicide rates appear to be as much as ten times that for the general population.283
In 1992 Strang analysed Australian homicide statistics for 1990-91 and concluded, in common with earlier
studies, that Aboriginal peoples were vastly over-represented among both offenders and victims of
homicide, accounting for 21% of all offenders. The following table supports these findings.284 Information
was available on just over half of all offenders and of these, 75% were under the influence of alcohol at the
time of the offence. Alcohol was shown to be an important factor in offending patterns.
Table 1 Homicide statistics for 1990-91
States Percentage population Offender Victims
Queensland
Western Australia
Northern Territory 2.4
2.7
22.0 20
32
70 18
35
56
Source: H. Strang, Homicides in Australia (Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1992)
Increasing violence in Indigenous Communities has been identified as contributing to high incarceration
rates, thereby increasing the risk of deaths occurring in custody.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was a 1989 Commonwealth Government initiative.
Of the 99 deaths investigated by the Royal Commission, 53% were people in custody for acts of
violence, 9% for homicide, 12% for serious assault, and 32% for sexual assault.285
Despite ongoing State and Federal attention and a subsequent increase in funding to address justice issues,
the custody rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have not decreased. On the contrary,
the imprisonment rates of Indigenous men, women and youth over the past ten years have risen, and are
predicted to continue to rise. The Social Justice Commissioner pointed out that between 1989 and 1995,
in New South Wales, the Indigenous prison population increased 113%, and both custody rates and
deaths in custody continue to increase.286 A similar pattern has been witnessed in Queensland and is
confirmed by the high incarceration rates of Indigenous peoples at both the adult and juvenile levels.
Indigenous people are still being arrested and incarcerated at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous
people who commit similar crimes. Fewer Indigenous offenders in correctional centres enjoy the privilege
of progressional release, either for work release, home detention or parole. The results of this inequality
are plain to see in the overcrowded correctional system and the high recidivism rates.
Tables 2 and 3 make the situation even more obvious. Table 2 shows national imprisonment rates from 30
June 1991 to 30 June 1995, while Queensland imprisonment figures for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander offenders only are given in Table 3, as well as offences. These figures show a rapid rise in imprisonment
rates from 1994 to 1998.
Table 2 287 National imprisonment for offences/charges by most serious offence/charge and identity,
involving interpersonal violence, per 100,000 adult population.
1991 1992 1993 1994
Offence/charge ATSI Other Rate/ratio ATSI Other Rate/ratio ATSI Other Rate/ratio ATSI
Other Rate/ratio
Homicide 158.9 9.8 11.6 131.4 10.1 13 114.9 9.9 11.6 138.1 8.9 15.5
Assault 333.9 7.7 11.4 269.5 8.3 32.5 322.7 9.1 35.5 402.9 7.8 51.4
Sex offences 228.9 9.2 11.7 206.8 10.4 10.9 198.9 11.9 16.8 232.7 12.4 18.8
Other offences against person 20.9 1.1 1.3 22.9 1.3 17.6 128.6 1.2 15.0 20.8
1.0 21.7
Source: Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Report (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service,
1998)
Table 3288 Imprisonment figures for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Queensland and
offences, including alcohol-related violence
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
All ATSI prisoners in Qld 664 771 874 1070 1075
Violent offenders 457 518 560 714 719
Sexual offenders 145 175 178 212 202
Breach of DV orders 62 69 109 136 157
Violent offences under alcohol 247 304 295 329 332
Source: Queensland Corrections, 1999.
The appallingly high arrest and detention rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth are causing
serious concern. The majority of young people in detention are aged between fifteen and sixteen years,
and between 50% to 60% of all juveniles detained in juvenile centres at any one time are Indigenous. In
North Queensland this proportion rises to approximately 90%. Between 5% to 10% of the children in
detention centres are female, the majority of whom are Indigenous.
With the current incarceration rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, it is important that
these factors are acknowledged as relevant to the broader discussion of violence. They compound the
disadvantage and pressure associated with the violence and aid in the conflict between youth and the
criminal justice system.
3.2. SOCIOECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE
The Queensland Council of Social Service Inc. (QCOSS) 1999, in People and Places: A Profile of
Growing Disadvantage in Queensland, was prepared to reassess the spatial dimensions of poverty and
disadvantage, building on a previous report compiled in 1995, Drawing the Line on Poverty.289 In the
current report, the 1996 Index of Relative Socioeconomic Disadvantage reveals that there are distinct
patterns of socioeconomic disadvantage across regional Queensland. Some of the areas of greatest disadvantage
have experienced longstanding socioeconomic depression. A number of Queensland regions have
some of the highest unemployment rates in Australia. The report concluded that the combination of demographic
and geographic data presents a disturbing profile of growing and deepening disadvantage at both
the individual and Community level.
The findings of the QCOSS report indicate that poverty in Queensland increased steadily over the four-
teen-year period from 1981-82 to 1995-96. During that time, the State’s poverty rate almost doubled.
The increasing poverty rate for single people aged less than 25 years is particularly disturbing, with single
people of all ages becoming increasingly vulnerable. They now comprise 64% of the poor in Queensland,
with sole parents most likely to be living below the poverty line.
The Relative Index report confirmed that Indigenous people are significantly represented in rural and urban
disadvantaged places such as Garbutt in Townsville (16.3% of population); Eidsvold (21.4% of population);
Boulia (25.6% of population); Paroo (21.7% of population) and Inala (7.5% of population). The
Drawing the Line on Poverty Report found that Indigenous peoples were the most disadvantaged in the
State.290 The geographical analysis does nothing to contradict this finding.
Increasing poverty, the lack of communal resources previously available through extended family structures
and growing demands on welfare agencies, indicate that many Indigenous people cannot meet
their own basic needs or those of their families. The Task Force has only anecdotal evidence to support
this assertion, but it is probable that a number of Indigenous families are on the verge of starvation, and
that the lean build of many people on Communities, accepted as ‘normal’, may sometimes indicate a
lack of adequate food. In its final summary, the Relative Index report warned that if the rate of poverty
in Queensland continues to increase as it has since 1981-82, the State will be faced with immense social
problems. This is already evident in the day-to-day experiences of many Community agencies. Most of
these agencies are stretched to their maximum client caseload capacity and have to turn people away.
When this occurs, it is the children, the single-parent families and the elderly who are most vulnerable
and often least able to obtain assistance.
This is a matter of serious concern for society. When socially marginalised groups experience profound
poverty, sub-groups emerge and increase competition for available resources. This contributes to the
cycle of deprivation and violence.
3.3. STATISTICAL CASUALTIES – WOMEN AND CHILDREN
While both men and women in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities may become victims of
extreme forms of violence, women and children are more likely to be violated emotionally, physically and
psychologically.
While violent acts are usually inflicted on men during fights with other men, the physical violence inflicted on
women often involves random assaults, bashings or rape. The offenders are not always Indigenous. Indigenous
women with non-Indigenous partners also reported being bashed. Some of these offenders were
casual acquaintances known to Communities to prey on Indigenous women. For many years, it was an
unchallenged belief that violence against Indigenous women was a culturally accepted practice. This situation
allowed many offenders to continue their behaviour without reprisals or punishment.
The National Committee on Violence against Women states that when men act violently toward women,
they do so because it allows them to control their victims through physical and/or psychological assault,
social isolation, economic deprivation, or fear. Women, as victims, may have multiple physical and psychological
assailants.291 The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody National Report discussed
the issues of violence against Indigenous women and children in various contexts. It acknowledged
that ‘appalling levels of domestic violence, rape and even murder have been cited as failing to attract the
due attention of police and the criminal justice system’. 292
There is both consistency and inconsistency between what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
believe is happening and the actual statistics. Forty-seven percent of Indigenous people in Queensland
questioned in the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander survey perceived family violence to be a
problem in their region. It was viewed as a problem by more Indigenous people in rural areas (56.5%)
than in the metropolitan areas of Brisbane (24.8%). There is clear statistical evidence that violence is a
critical issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly against women and children.
In 1988, the Queensland Domestic Violence Task Force estimated that domestic violence affects 90% of
Indigenous families living in DOGIT Communities.293 Indigenous victims of domestic assault were more
likely to be seriously injured than non-Indigenous victims of domestic violence.294
Barber, Punt and Albers reported over 70% of all assaults on Palm Island were committed against females,
and most of these involved ‘boyfriends or husbands who were said to be drunk at the time’.295 In
another North Queensland Community, with a total female population of 133 women over 15 years of age
(107 were over 20 years of age), there were 193 cases of injuries due to domestic assault in a twelvemonth
period to 30 June 1990.296 More recent Queensland statistics on domestic violence injuries,297
defined as assault perpetrated by any family member or specified partner, showed that it was most often
women (78%) who experienced violence in all age groups. Most domestic violence injuries (86%) affected
the 16-44 year age group, in which women suffered 91% of the injuries.298
Assault, including domestic violence, accounted for 42.8% of all injuries. In the 16-44 ag