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Session CP1: Solid work you mob are doing

1. Helen Bishop: Creating environments to support culturally effective dispute resolution practice

Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow pdf 1.4MB

Abstract

We Indigenous people of Australia have for too long had decisions made about us and for us. These decisions often hide behind facades of consultation. Can anyone point to any meaningful consultation that informed the Northern Territory Emergency Response? In reality the ‘consultation’ that occurs is a glib time-wasting exercise. However effective consultation can provide information to us so that we can come to understand and build an opinion about the subject of the information. Consultation leads us to make decisions relevant to our human interests and needs. When we are not involved or consulted it leaves us outside the decision making process and creates too many opportunities for others to make decisions for us about us, our lives, our values, our communities and importantly our futures. But how can we assert that consultation is an effective beginning to involving us and then move from being informed to being actively involved and represented at the community level?

This presentation looks to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as a model of consultation, engagement and involvement that Indigenous people of Australia need to use to support our deliberate involvement in matters that concern us. The ADR approach is an effective and inclusive means to build relationships make decisions, problem solve and build solutions cooperatively for the sake of our adequate representation, aspirations and our longevity.

Author bio

Helen Bishop is of Aboriginal, Australian and Irish descents and was raised in Darwin, NT. She is of Koongurrukun decent and strongly connected to the people of the Finniss River, (Bachelor/Litchfield Park regions). Helen’s Koongurrukun heritage is without doubt strong and stems from the matriarchal line of her family and her Irish descent (McGuinness) comes from her great grandfather. Helen has strong ties to land, language, countryman and culture. Her professional and personal life is often driven and supported by the strong influences of the McGuinness brothers Jack and Joseph, who were Indigenous leaders who campaigned hard for the human rights of Indigenous people throughout the Northern Territory and Queensland in the early 1940, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. As Helen states; their works influenced her from childhood into a woman, where she discovered her own passion to fight for Indigenous equality in Australia.

Helen completed her Bachelor of Arts (Aboriginal Studies) in 1995. Today, she continues to inform herself and is currently undertaking her Masters in Human Rights Practice (Curtin University of Technology). In this field, Helen has passed each subject with ‘distinction’ or ‘high distinction.’ At the same time, Helen completed her Masters in Conflict Resolution (La Trobe University) and graduates in May 2009. Currently, Helen is on leave without pay from Curtin University of Technology as a Lecturer with the Centre for Aboriginal Studies and is developing alternative dispute resolution awareness and practice for countryman for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency based in Darwin.

Helen has been involved in building an awareness of the vital need of Aboriginal people to have access to culturally safe and effective alternative dispute resolution practitioners and services. She was appointed by the Federal Attorney General as a member to the National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council, (NADRAC) and convened the Indigenous Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management research project undertaken by NADRAC. On her retirement from NADRAC (after 3years of service) she became a member of national consultative group of Indigenous dispute resolution practitioners to guide the NADRAC project. Further, Helen was a consultative group member of the Indigenous Facilitation and Mediation (IFaMP) being undertaken by the Native Title Research Unit of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). She continues to maintain her resilient passion for effective engagement of Indigenous people to create realistic solutions and believes alternative dispute resolution is an effective means to achieve this.

Helen has written a number of papers (both published and unpublished) concerning equality, alternative dispute resolution, human rights and power imbalance. Her 1st major paper: “Issues of Power Making Peace – Is the playing field really level? A Koongurrukun Perspective” was delivered in Darwin at the 2004, 7th National Mediation Conference (published on LEADR website). Her 2nd paper: “An Equal Engagement: Using Human Rights to Improve Indigenous Lives” was delivered at Curtin University’s: 2004 - 8th Annual Humanities Graduate Research Conference and has gone on to form her major research project Communication, Representation, Voice and Choice: Facilitating Conversations on Indigenous Needs and Aspirations - A Research Discussion Paper for Masters of Conflict Resolution and is to be published in 2009.

2. Toni Bauman, Juanita Pope: Indigenous Dispute Resolution Federal Court Case Study Project

Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow pdf 2.3MB

Abstract

Title: ‘Solid work you mob are doing’: Case studies in Indigenous Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management in Australia: A Federal Court of Australia and AIATSIS project.

In 2009, the Federal Court of Australia delivered the final report of the Case studies in Indigenous Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management in Australia (2009, ed J. Pope and T. Bauman) to the National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Committee (NADRAC). The report presents the research findings of a number of in-depth case studies and smaller snapshot examples and identifies a number of critical factors in effective practice and identifies strategies for implementing them, both of which are applicable to all Indigenous communities whether ‘remote’ or ‘urban’.

The Report concludes that there is an urgent need for a national Indigenous dispute management service with regional panels of expert Indigenous and non-Indigenous dispute management practitioners. Such a service can provide consistency in standards and training approaches and build on and integrate with existing networks such as community mediation centres and justice groups to provide timely, responsive, culturally and physically safe services that Indigenous people can feel they genuinely ‘own.’

The three case studies concern:
• a mediation at Halls Creek, Western Australia which resolved a long-running ‘feud’ involving three generations of women, and was conducted by three Indigenous practitioners (conducted by David Allen);
• a mediation carried out by a NSW Community Justice Centre in a NSW south coast town, involving a dispute between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal neighbours (conducted by Margaret O’Donnel); and
• the work of the Tiwi Youth Diversion and Development Unit in managing family and community conflicts on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory (conducted by Rhiân Williams).

The snapshots include the Ali-Curung Law and Justice Committee; an entrenched feud in a remote community of ‘Thetown’; Indigenous experience within a Family Relationships Centre; Community Justice Group mediations at ‘Gintji’ in Northern Queensland; and the Nguiu Jealousy Program in the Tiwi Islands.

Author bios

Toni Bauman is a Research Fellow and an anthropologist, mediator, facilitator and trainer. She has over thirty years experience in a wide range of Indigenous matters including: land and native title claims; agreement-making; governance including decision-making and dispute management processes; cultural heritage; negotiation and partnering; National Parks and Indigenous Protected Areas and joint management; government policy; art and craft; evaluation; social impact; feasibility studies and tourism. She has worked as a staff member and consultant for a range of organisations such as Land Councils, Native Title Representative Bodies, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority in Darwin; the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council and the NSW Partnership Community Program. Between 2003 and 2006, Toni ran the Indigenous Facilitation and Mediation Project in the NTRU; and in 2008, advised the Federal Court on its Indigenous dispute resolution and conflict management case study project. She also undertakes a range of speaking engagements and facilitates a wide range of workshops.