Table Of ContentDecolonising Indigenous
Child Welfare
During the past decade, a remarkable transference of responsibility to Indigenous
children’s organisation has taken place in many parts of Australia, Canada,
the USA and New Zealand. It has been infl uenced by Indigenous peoples’
human rights advocacy at national and international levels, by claims to
self-determination and by the globalisation of Indigenous children’s organisations.
Thus far, this reform has taken place with little attention from academic and
non-Indigenous communities; now, Decolonizing Indigenous Child Welfare:
Comparative Perspectives considers these developments and, evaluating law
reform with respect to Indigenous child welfare, asks whether the pluralisation of
responses to their welfare and well being, within a cross-cultural post-colonial
context, can improve the lives of Indigenous children. The legislative frameworks
for the delivery of child welfare services to Indigenous children are assessed in
terms of the degree of self-determination which they afford Indigenous
communities.
The book draws upon interdisciplinary research and the author’s experience
collaborating with the peak Australian Indigenous children’s organisation to
provide a thorough examination of this international issue.
Dr Terri Libesman is a Senior Lecturer in the Law Faculty, at the University
of Technology Sydney. She has collaborated, researched and published for over
a decade with the peak Australian Indigenous children’s organisation.
This page intentionally left blank
Decolonising Indigenous
Child Welfare
Comparative Perspectives
Terri Libesman
5S yonļ|ap6a
9M
X 丄eX|OJ ^ jjeups ojond
M
e 0ļBSSHons0 gooļ>
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
A GlassHouse Book
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Terri Libesman
The right of Terri Libesman to be identifi ed as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Libesman, Terry.
Decolonizing indigenous child welfare : a comparative analysis / Terri Libesman.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-415-70569-1 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-315-88956-6 (ebk)
1. Children—Legal status, laws, etc. 2. Indigenous children—
Legal status, laws, etc. I. Title.
K3248.C55L53 2013
362.7—dc23 2013023246
ISBN: 978-0-415-70569-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88956-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1 From Indigenous child welfare to Indigenous children’s
well being 1
2 International law and the rights of Indigenous children 27
3 The legacy of the stolen generations 54
4 Locating moral responsibility 78
5 Comparative US, Canadian and New Zealand legal
frameworks 106
6 Australian legal child welfare frameworks 144
7 Comparative service delivery frameworks 172
Conclusion 211
Appendix: Summary of Australian legislation and
policy relating to Indigenous children in out-of-home care 218
Bibliography 232
Index 252
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Chris Cunneen, Linda Briskman and Brad McKenzie for their
generous comments on the manuscript. My motivation and inspiration for
writing this book is bound to my work over many years with the Secretariat of
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Care (SNAICC) and with
local Aboriginal children’s organisations in many parts of Australia and, through
this work, my contact with international Indigenous children’s organisations.
Material from my article ‘Can International Law Imagine the world of Indigenous
Children?’, originally published in International Journal of Children’s Rights (2007),
is reproduced here with the permission of its publisher, Koninklijke Brill NV. I
have had the honour of learning through this work from many thoughtful and
imaginative people and acknowledge their contribution to my ideas; in particular,
I would like to thank Muriel Bamblett, Julian Pocock and Cindy Blackstock.
Thanks to Rebecca McGrath for initial research assistance and Costa Avgoustinos
for his research assistance over a number of years. Many thanks to the University
of Technology Sydney Law School which provides a supportive and congenial
working environment, and also to my many lovely colleagues. Particular thanks
to Nicole Watson and Vanessa Forrest for their friendship and support through
this project and, lastly, thanks to Sol to whom this book is dedicated.
This page intentionally left blank
Chapter 1
From Indigenous child
welfare to Indigenous
children’s well being
Introduction
In 2000, an estimated 250,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge
in a march for reconciliation. It was three years after the seminal report of the
National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Children from their Families (NISATSIC)1 had been released and just a little
longer since the conservative Howard Government had been elected to offi ce. It
was a clear, cold morning in May, and Town Hall station was packed with people,
young and old, cramming into trains to get to Milsons Point, the northern side of
the Harbour Bridge, for the start of the walk. The atmosphere was charged and
highly anticipatory. Trains full of human cargo passed by and when we eventually
made our way into an already packed train, pushed tight against strangers,
incongruous images of cattle trucks forcibly removing Aboriginal communities
from their lands crossed my mind. I wondered if these strange images crossed the
minds of others on the train? This march was about history and memory: about
how collective and individual memories of the past would be carried into the
future. The atmosphere on the train was in fact full of camaraderie and
consideration. It was immensely exciting to walk with thousands of others across
the magnifi cent symbol that unifi es the north and south of the city, an icon of
Sydney’s beauty and the imagination of colonial forebears, which had now been
reinvented as a symbol of justice.
An ephemeral ‘sorry’ fl ared from a plane across the sky in defi ance of the
Howard Government’s refusal to apologise to the stolen generations. The debate
around an apology symbolised contested and dichotomised commitments to the
past: one of heroic and noble forebears who had through ingenuity and hard
work built a prosperous nation and another of violence, destruction of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander communities and breach of the most primal of human
1 N ational Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from
Their Families (1997), Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission (NISATSIC).
