SHANKS, Mr Matthew, Director, Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations CHAIR: Welcome. Although the committee does not require you to give evidence under oath, I should advise you that this hearing is a legal proceeding of the parliament and therefore has the same standing as proceedings of the respective houses. The giving of false or misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of parliament. The evidence given today will be recorded by Hansard. It attracts parliamentary privilege and is being broadcast live with audio on the parliament's website. I remind members of the gallery that you need the express consent of the committee before taking photos or filming. If you see anybody taking photos or filming, it is because they already have the express consent of the committee to do that. I will now hand over to you, Mr Shanks, to make an opening statement. Mr Shanks then spoke in an Indigenous language— Mr Shanks : Thanks for having me. I'd like to briefly refresh the committee on our traditional owner representative organisations and remind us all it's not just individual people who experience racism but also the structures we set up to protect country and culture. I'm a Nira-bulok man of the Taungurung nation and board director of the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations. It is a statewide body for and by traditional owners. We don't duplicate or take away from the functions of traditional owner corporations. Rather, we drive change on statewide issues and make sure we're not easily divided and conquered by those who benefit from short-changing traditional owners. The term 'traditional owner corporation' might not be familiar. We're not talking about a business owned by an Aboriginal person. We're talking about a uniquely Aboriginal cultural governance structure. Traditional owner corporations are the legally, socially and culturally recognised organisations for and by traditional owners of country in Victoria. Think of them like governments representing their communities and country; it's self-governance. Our detractors may say traditional owner corporations slow things down and get in the way. I could say the same for members of parliament. An attack on traditional owner corporations is an attack on traditional owners' sovereignty. We know traditional owners have rights in land, culture, knowledge, traditions and practice, and these rights must be protected. Our corporations are a large part of how this happens. They're inclusive, representative and culturally authoritative places that hold collective rights on the community's behalf. They're obligated to act in the best interest of mob and country, and they're governed by family groups in the right cultural way. They're also under extreme pressure. Traditional owner corporations perform important cross-cultural tasks in a low-funding environment, all the while, as you know, they face systemic and interpersonal racism every single day. Corporations that should be proud of themselves have taken their logos off office doors because racist attacks don't just stop and start at the individual. Under attack too are the organisations we establish to protect our rights and promote our culture. It's a pleasure to be here speaking for these organisations' rights and interests, and I welcome the committee's questions. CHAIR: Thank you very much for the opening statement and for your submission. You highlight in your submission the ongoing exclusion of traditional owners from governance and decision-making. Can you tell us more about that and its links to racism? Mr Shanks : Sure, and it's complex. Governments are, through policy and legislation, compelled to engage with, communicate with and partner with traditional owners. Successive governments have set up structures, processes and pieces of legislation that guide how that should happen. Often we find, on the ground when it happens, that engagement just doesn't happen, or it happens far too late, or it isn't resourced or supported in culturally appropriate ways. Often entering into those rooms is unsafe for Aboriginal people. There isn't a knowledge or understanding, and, often, that not only feels like that is disrespect. It is disrespectful. We see broad scale attacks on traditional owners in the media, and on Aboriginal people in the media and elsewhere. We see it on social media, and we hear it spoken at pubs, sporting clubs and in social environments. Many of us overhear and experience those things, and we have to deal with those kinds of situations on a daily basis. And that flows into workplaces and when we're engaging with governments and what have you. Often for seats at the table for decision-making processes, when it comes to rights for country, health or education, our positions are afterthoughts or tokenistic. They occur through frameworks that were never built for us or by us. It's so much harder for us to have an actual say that can be heard by those systems and institutions that are not only not built for us, but they're also against us. CHAIR: Your submission emphasises truth-telling, treaty and strengthening traditional owner authority. Can you tell us a bit more on strengthening traditional owner authority? Mr Shanks : One of the things that the federation worked really hard on, in the years prior to treaty legislation getting up in Victoria, was the advocacy for that to be recognised, engaged with and passed. A big part of our work, at the time, was developing policy papers to highlight systemic barriers and issues faced by traditional owner communities and their representative organisations. In Victoria, the Yoorrook truth and justice process was about highlighting that injustice—not just systemically but individually from the day of colonisation. The federation and the work that we do and have done in the past seeks to identify ways in which traditional owners have been pushed out, ignored, deliberately attacked and sidelined; produce and present recommendations to resolve that; and break down and rebuild systems and structures. But that can only be done through knowledge of our experiences and our people being empowered to speak to those experiences. Yoorrook provided an opportunity to do that in a colonial framework. There's no getting around that. That produced many barriers to an ability to talk in our way, but I think mob came together and talked our truth in our way and on country. Every now and then, I see the impacts of that peek through when we're speaking with bureaucrats or broader community and what have you. Every now and then, in a stream of complete ignorance of our experiences, people are starting to hear, and that creates opportunities and relationships that we need to derive benefit from and we need to derive strength from. Those kinds of things have a real benefit and a real impact to our people and to our elders, as small as it may be. It starts with truth-telling and people understanding our experiences and our truths. CHAIR: I'll share the call. We have some limited time. I might go to Senator Thorpe next. Senator THORPE: Thank you for appearing. You say it starts with truth, but your organisation was running around with a 'yes' flag. If the 'yes' flag was for putting us into the colonial constitution, it wasn't about truth-telling first; it was about assimilating us into their white, colonial constitution. You say that truth must come first and truth-telling is important. Why didn't you say that back then? Mr Shanks : The federation advocated for truth-telling processes before the 'yes' campaign. That's part of the work that we did ahead of the treaty process in Victoria, so we were saying it back then. Do you mean specifically during the campaign? Senator THORPE: Yes, because the Uluru statement, which has caused so much harm in this country, called for constitutional recognition first—which a lot of Aboriginal people didn't support, including members of your organisation. But we didn't hear anything coming from your organisation during the referendum saying: 'No, we need to tell the truth first. We need everyone in this country to understand the truth first.' Tell us why you didn't advocate for the truth rather than going into the colonial constitution, which is not about treaty and not about truth? Mr Shanks : Like I said, we have advocated for truth and we have pulled together policy papers talking to truth-telling and the importance of it. I think the role of the federation as a statewide body representing statewide interests is to support conversations and advocacy and amplify the voice to take steps forward. Part of the truth of all of this is that we have colonial systems and structures that have imposed their own will over country and over our people. We're all familiar and aware of that. We've resisted that in many ways, including establishing institutions, processes and organisations. There's a history of elders coming together and advocating for collective rights activation and changes to statewide policy, processes and legislation that the federation has been on the journey with and has been built out of. Our role is to advocate for things that raise the high-water mark for as many Aboriginal people and traditional owners as possible. That is our purpose and that is what we strive to do. Senator THORPE: You're the peak body for traditional owners, would you say? Mr Shanks : We're a statewide body. We advocate for matters that traditional owner corporations come together regularly—monthly and quarterly—to have conversations about, including policy projects, legislative reform processes and all of those kinds of matters. Senator THORPE: How many traditional owner corporations are part of the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations? Mr Shanks : How many traditional owners? Senator THORPE: How many member corporations do you have? Mr Shanks : Currently, I think we have five members to the governance structure—seven corporations. Senator THORPE: Seven? Out of how many? Mr Shanks : Twelve. Senator THORPE: Out of 12 corporations, you have seven? Mr Shanks : Yes. Senator THORPE: How many clans are there in the state? Mr Shanks : There are many clans and there are many ways to— Senator THORPE: How many? Mr Shanks : I couldn't put a number on it. Senator THORPE: There are over 40 and you have seven around the table. Mr Shanks : Yes. Senator THORPE: Okay. I just wanted to make that clear. Is your organisation interested in working at all with Aboriginal young people, particularly those who are hitting the justice system? Is there any role that your organisation plays or could play in that space? Mr Shanks : There's a role that it absolutely could play. Our governance structure is that we have seven member corporations that activate a role on the board, and they're instructive of our strategy and understand how those things work. We also have a forum where all 12 traditional owner corporations formally recognised by the state— Senator THORPE: Formally recognised by the colonial state. Mr Shanks : Yes. They come together and participate in decision-making and influence policy. Our priorities come from that forum. Those representative organisations direct our priorities. Senator THORPE: With the 12 colonially recognised bodies that the minister for Aboriginal people in the Victorian government decides get a seat through the colonial process—you talked about cultural governance, but you have to be accepted by the colonial process before you get a seat at your table—does youth justice come up at all? Do people care about the incarceration rates of Aboriginal people and the removal of children and the deaths in custody rates? Mr Shanks : Absolutely. Those are conversations all the time, yes. Senator THORPE: And what do you do about that? Mr Shanks : Lots of things. We do lots of advocacy directly and indirectly on a whole bunch of matters. One of the primary advocacy points is around investment and traditional owner led economies, and that includes employment opportunities. Traditional owner corporations are among the highest employers in regional areas—regional cities, local government areas and all of those sorts of things—providing opportunities for mob, of any age but including youth, to gain experience and paid employment in Aboriginal organisations that work for and with their own communities. It strengthens culturally, it strengthens community and it creates opportunity that isn't otherwise afforded to Aboriginal people. I'm sure the committee's heard many stories about that. Senator THORPE: How does that help kids in jail, though? How does the employment opportunity help our kids in jail in so-called Victoria? I'm asking that because there's a real racism problem with the targeting of our children and our babies. If you're an organisation that has 12 out of maybe 40 traditional owner groups and you've got some power because the government likes talking to you fellas, what's the opportunity for children in jail now? Mr Shanks : We don't directly engage with programs dedicated to incarcerated Aboriginal youth. One example of what we advocate for is employment for Aboriginal people. That would give opportunities for people to intervene maybe before those pathways are in front of them or afterwards. It's not a primary focus. There are many organisations that do many things in regard to Aboriginal and traditional owner interests and rights. We have our remit, and that's where we operate. Senator THORPE: Traditional owners around the country have some land. Is there any conversation about that land being used for our children who need support, culture, healing, connection, song and dance? Are there any conversations about that? At the moment, what are the opportunities that our kids have? They're born into a racist country. If they survive being taken away from their mothers and survive coming out of prison or not being locked up, there's no land; there's nowhere for healing. There's no opportunity on country for our young people. I contacted your organisation to have a meeting with your CEO just about this, and I was told categorically that it's not your problem. I'm interested to hear from you. Is it part of your scope? Our kids are in danger here. Is it something that traditional owners are also considering as part of their remit when it comes to proper cultural governance and not corporate governance? Mr Shanks : I can speak to a specific example. I'll take your note about the meeting request back to our CEO. Again, the work of the federation is to advocate for opportunities and the rights and interests of traditional owner communities and traditional owner corporations. I'm a Taungurung man, as I mentioned. I work for my mob at Taungurung Land and Waters Council. One of the things that the federation has worked on is the development of the Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Landscapes Strategy, and a section of that talks specifically about injustice and identifies opportunities for country to be under the authority of traditional owners. That's both the public land estate—we don't use the term 'Crown land'—and private land. In private land, it's through acquisition and ownership and through partnerships and relationships with private landholders where there can be opportunities to heal and care for country. At Taungurung Land and Waters Council, we've worked to try to acquire properties, private properties, so that we have a whole say in how they're used. Leveraging, in part, the cultural landscapes strategy and things that have fallen out of that—reviews into policy, planning schemes and those sorts of things—have enabled us to pull together plans. We're in the process of building a community centre where our young people can come and practice culture away from the prying eyes of the public. Senator THORPE: Did you say 'a centre'? Mr Shanks : A cultural centre is the language that the Taungurung community is using for this place. It's a culturally designed building. It's indoor-outdoor, with a fire pit and ceremonial area and all those sorts of things. That's the language that my elders use. They have been advocating for a cultural centre, as many mobs have, for decades and decades. But this is on private land, and it's for us to do with it whatever we please. The one specific thing that talks to your point about youth is the opportunity for young Taungurung people to sit with and hear from their elders in our place, to hear our stories. It looks to ceremonial sites—I don't want to give away the location—on country so we can tell those stories. That's a primary influence in the design of it. That's one specific example of the flow-on from the work the federation did in statewide policy advocacy, the fact that we were able to leverage for those outcomes for community. Senator THORPE: I want to ask one more question before I pass on the call. The state government are about to destroy your country with a very big easement, which they're calling a firebreak, through mountain ash that could be World Heritage listed. This has been on the books for quite a while. They're about to start destroying your land, my land, the Central Highlands basically. Your totem, the walert, are about to become extinct. What's your relationship like with the state government, who want to do treaty with you and yet are stabbing you in the back and raping and pillaging your land? Mr Shanks : There's more than one example of things like cultural firebreaks that are destructive to country that are happening all day, every day. I think you're referring to Taungurung Land and Waters Council. Senator THORPE: It covers three; it covers Gunai, Wurundjeri and Taungurung. They are 10-metre easements. Its complete destruction of ancient trees and ancient totems. I'm just trying to get a feel for this. You have a Victorian government who want to hold your hand and, hand on heart, want to do treaty, but they're actually destroying your land and your totem that keep your culture and people alive. Mr Shanks : And it's more than treaty that the Victorian government talks to and promises and commits to. Obviously, there's native title determinations in Victoria as well that the Victorian government are party to. There's recognition of settlement agreements. By the same token, there are many groups in Victoria that have recognition settlement agreements, for example, and, as part of those community land use activity agreements, give small parts of a say in those types of activities, land use activities. We're forever in forms of negotiation or dispute where there are obviously conflicting views. Your question asked, 'What is the relationship?' It's tense and trying all day and every day. Where we try to draw strength from is our obligations to country, to our mother, to our elders, to our ancestors, and finding pathways forward to deconstruct and reconstruct colonial systems and structures that, like I said earlier, are built to harm us, are built to remove us. They weren't successful and we're still here. This inquiry, potentially reluctantly, was agreed to by the government, the so-called government of Australia. Our responsibility, as traditional owners, is to continue showing up and fighting, telling our truth, speaking and amplifying the voice of our communities and our ancestors. The federation seeks to amplify that voice from traditional owner communities right across the state and to find ways to deconstruct and reconstruct and build small pathways forward. There are many ways to do that, inside and outside of those colonial structures. We activate those pathways inside and outside of colonial structures. Senator THORPE: Thank you. CHAIR: Senator Liddle. Senator LIDDLE: I have a couple of clarifying questions because I'm not familiar with some of the work that's happening in this state. Do you have operational funding? Where does it come from? Mr Shanks : Yes. Our operational funding comes from two sources. I can speak broadly. I don't have all the details here in front of me. There are grant programs through the state government—for example, they would support the development of policies and strategies and those sorts of things. So the federation would support traditional owner corporations to come together collectively and talk to statewide policy processes. We have Federation Enterprises as well, which generates small returns that are invested into our operations. Our finances are publicly available through our annual report. Senator LIDDLE: You mentioned that you are also involved in acquiring property. Is that through other processes, like the ILSC, or is that something completely different? Mr Shanks : I'll clarify. The example that I gave was Taungurung Land and Waters Council, which acquires property. Traditional owner corporations, in various ways, work to acquire private land. Our role at the federation would be to provide forms of support. I mentioned the cultural landscapes strategy, which describes ways in which traditional owners could activate and work with governments—yes, ILSC is one of them—to source funds to purchase property that were stolen from us. Senator LIDDLE: That's their core business—to buy and acquire land that people have lost, where that's possible. I just want to ask you a question that might seem a bit out of left field. You talk in your submission about the challenges of recognition of traditional owners, particularly knowledge, experience and expertise. I'm wondering what thought you've given to the impact of artificial intelligence on the work that you do, and the future work that you'll do, in terms of being able to demonstrate and communicate your knowledge, experience and expertise. Mr Shanks : It's a great question, and it's one on everybody's minds, in every field, isn't it? Specifically in regard to artificial intelligence, there have been a few things that we've thought about. There have certainly been a lot of discussions about how we can engage in that space. Primarily what comes forward is the need for protections of Indigenous cultural intellectual property and safeguarding from the biopiracy and stealing of knowledge. Data sovereignty is extremely important if we want to think about opportunities for traditional owners to utilise, safely, our knowledge and our stories for economic prosperity. For industries like native food and botanicals, for example, protections need to be put in place. The same thing goes for the knowledge-generation industry, or whatever the right language is, around AI. The right protections need to be, and must be, in place to ensure that our knowledges—and, I mean, anybody's knowledges—and intellectual property can't be stolen and utilised in ways that could be harmful for us. That first, established, can then turn into creating opportunities for utilising those systems, if that's where nations choose to go. Senator LIDDLE: We heard in earlier submissions about the need for a definition of racism. It's a bit hard to quantify. If you go to AI, you get different versions. If you go to some of the relevant legislation, it's probably not entirely clear or well-defined either. Have you given any thought, in the context of how the work of your organisation is impacted, as to whether you have a preferred definition? Mr Shanks : Of racism? That's a great question that I'd probably have to take on notice, specifically, about a preferred definition of racism. Something that we talk about with traditional owner corporations a lot is how systemic racism is being left out of, and pushed out of, processes that affect us and our communities. Maybe those conversations are a bit more specific and nuanced to the context or the opportunity at hand. I'm not aware of work that we've done specifically to put forward a definition of racism, but certainly systemic racism and the removal of those kinds of opportunities that are presented or not presented to us are a core part of our work—hence the work that we do in a statewide manner on policies and strategies and submissions to processes like this one. Senator LIDDLE: Thank you. CHAIR: That concludes the time we have for questions this afternoon. You've taken some questions on notice, and there might be some additional questions on notice that come from other committee members. The responses to those are due by 28 August. The secretariat will let you know what those questions are and the due date. You'll be sent a copy of the transcript of your evidence today as well. If, when you take a look through it, there are any errors that you want to correct, you can do that. It's also an opportunity to provide additional information to the committee you think is useful for us and our considerations. Thank you very much for your time here..