Analysis of Human Rights for Indigenous People in Australia

This report examines the application of human rights to Indigenous people in Australia, focusing on the impact of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It analyzes improvements in educational practices, the development of land rights through legislation like the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and Native Title Act, and the economic empowerment of Indigenous communities. The report also critically assesses the Closing the Gap campaign, highlighting both successes and failures in addressing health and social inequalities. It emphasizes the importance of understanding these rights and policies for the advancement of Indigenous Australians, providing insights into the roles of various agencies and government initiatives. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and implications of human rights implementation for the social and economic well-being of Indigenous communities, with the goal of promoting awareness and future action.

Applied Human Rights
And Indigenous people

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY:-................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Human rights consists of certain group of laws which are inherent to all the human
beings despite of any nationality, gender, race, religion, ethnicity or any other status in order to
provide them equality or equal right within society. This includes right to life, liberty and right
to freedom from slavery, opinion, expression, education and torture (Osler, 2015). This report is
based on indigenous people and human rights for them as these people are experiencing
injustice from years. They are being tortured, killed or enslaved by other people of society and
also faced the discrimination in term of their personal and career life. Current report answer the
question i.e. Declaration on Rights of Indigenous people and how effectively it they are in
addressing the need of Indigenous people within Australia.
MAIN BODY
Indigenous peoples is refers to the ethnic group of individuals who are original owner as
well as caretaker of a given region in contrast of people that are settled, colonized or occupied
with the area more recently. These people consider themselves distinct from the societies as they
belong to different culture. The indigenous people are being criticised from years as they have
don't get equal opportunity within the society and they also get victims to genocide, salve
practices or torture. These people have been denied the rights of participating in governing
process of current state system and colonization practices also tried to steal their dignity or
identity as well as fundamental right of self determination. These all activities or steps taken by
other society are continuously affecting the further development or improvement of living
standard of indigenous people. Hence to overcome such issues, United Nation has make a
declaration over Rights of Indigenous People which affirms the minimum standard for dignity,
survival, security and well-being of Indigenous people so they they get equal space in the
society (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2019). For this the
government of Australia announced its support by the year 2009 in order to make the
negotiation between Indigenous people as well as government of the world for protecting the
rights of Indigenous community and providing them social justice .
With the declaration of human right for indigenous people several improvement with the
pattern of indigenous lives has been experienced from past few years as people started
considering them a part of society. This declaration contributed toward improving the

educational practices of indigenous people. As indigenous people experienced a widespread
socio-economical disadvantage and inequality like discrimination, violence, racism,
psychological distress etc. This in turn also negatively influence the employment, income,
opportunities and living condition of people (Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign,
2019). But with the declaration of human rights by UN, the condition of children education get
improved as the rate of developmental vulnerability among the indigenous children has dropped
from 47% in year 2009 to 42% in 2015. This encouraging progress is generally made in order to
reduce the gap in early childhood development results among indigenous and non-indigenous
children over time. In addition to this the educational development of indigenous children are on
track in order to halve the gap in year 12 for its attainment by 2020. The ratio of indigenous
people who fall under the age group of 20-24 that attained a year 12 and their equivalent level of
education get increased significantly by 45% within year 2008 and now increased up to 62% as
measured in year 2014-15 in comparison with the 86% of non-indigenous Australian. In
addition to this it has also been found that the proportion of indigenous people who have
completed their certificate III to advanced diploma is also get increased from past year as it has
been found that in year 2007-08 it is marked over 15% of indigenous who are pursuing their
Advanced diploma as compare to non-indigenous people that are over 25%. But as the time
passes and equal opportunity under human rights are provided to indigenous people this rate get
increased by 25% within year 2014-15 as compare over the rate of 27% for non-indigenous
people (Australia's welfare 2017, 2019). This improvement in educational practices of
indigenous people within Australia has contribute toward improving the employment rate which
provides them an opportunity to improve their livelihood by getting economical benefit.
By gathering information it has been found that after the implementation of human rights
to the indigenous people there is a huge improvement has been identified within the literacy rate
of the indigenous people. This information will support the indigenous and non-indigenous
people to determine the efforts that Australia government is putting in order to provide equal
opportunity to Aboriginal people among other society (Watson, 2014). It will support in
motivating other people belongs to indigenous society for moving forth higher education as
majority of these people are afraid of continuing their studies with other general Australian
public in order to escape from the criticism, torture, discrimination and exploitation In addition
to this it also help in improving the behaviour of general Australian toward the indigenous

people of Australia by getting a view over the criticism as well as discrimination that they are
facing from year so that it can be minimised.
These adoption of rights contributed toward reducing the gap of health and education
between the indigenous as well as non-indigenous people within society. But the Australian
government not get succeed in closing this health gap. This is because for promoting equality
and social justice among people the government of Australia has started a close the gap
campaign (Hanna and et. al., 2014). In this several health bodies operated by indigenous and
non-indigenous people, NGOs as well as human right organisation started working together for
providing equality in a health as well as life expectancy to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people. But the Australian government not able to achieve success in this campaign which is
getting evidenced from the ten year report presented by Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare. From this report it has been found that the morality and life expectancy gap is actually
increasing because of acceleration of non-indigenous population gain within these areas (Close
The Gap - 10 Year Review (2018), 2019). This failure occurs because the Closing Gap Strategy
mainly focuses on child and maternal health along with addressing the chronic disease like
smoking through tackling Indigenous smoking program. But there is not any kind of
complimentary systematic focus over building primary health service capacity. In addition to
this, another major reason behind widening of this gap is that the Closing gap Strategy required
a kind of reset to re-build the requisite architecture. In this national priorities like addressing
Aboriginal islander's health inequality have not diminished away and started getting more
worsen. Without a recommitment to such architecture the country is in a situation now where
the outcome of campaign is collective failure of Australian government.
The Closing Gap Strategy campaign would be beneficial if maintained properly as it
maximises the chances of getting equal opportunity by indigenous people, but the government
of Australia fails to reduce this gap and it even get widen due to increase in growth opportunity
to other Australian. Hence, the investigation gathered in this regard will support in presenting
the reasons or major causes due to which these targets not get able to accomplished so that
proper measures can be taken to improve this criteria (Jones, 2017). In addition to this, it also
support in providing information regarding the number of actions that can be taken in order to
achieve the targets set under Closing Gap Strategy campaign so that gap among them can be
minimised. This will contribute toward reminding the government regarding the area they have

to work and also help in creating awareness among the indigenous people regarding the Rights
as well as policies that are formulated for reducing the gap of inequality among indigenous and
other Australians.
Despite of this, the declaration of Indigenous property right under Human right
contributed toward maximising the economical development over indigenous people land. The
connection to their land is the central importance for indigenous Australian and recognition of
rights for land and water is consider as the fundamental process of reconciliation. For providing
them right to their property, a National indigenous Australian agency work along with
indigenous people so that they learn the ways through which their land can become economic
asset to asset to them as per the cultural and spiritual asset. For this an law is passed i.e.
Aboriginal land Right (Northern Territory) Act 1976 which provide the traditional owners the
right of decision making over their Aboriginal land. Royalty from the mining activities over the
Aboriginal land within the northern Territory are being paid to the Aboriginal Benefit Account.
In addition to this, National indigenous Australian agency also started to negotiating the
township lease which is a kind of long term lease over the communities on Aboriginal land. This
lease support the bankable interest over the land which contribute toward a positive economic
development outcome as it provide owners a long term trade-able tenure. Despite of this an
another law is also passed by the government i.e. Native title Act 1993 which provide fund to
Native title representative bodies and service provider that work for assisting the native title
group across Australia. These bodies further support the indigenous people to get development
over their social, economic and cultural potential.
These land and economy programme assist the indigenous people in generating their
social as well as economic benefit by using their land as an asset to generate money. As these
program involves agencies which assist the traditional owners to make up the informed decision
regarding the manner in which they can utilise their property or land supporting long term trade-
able tenure by enabling the land reform and its administration to the indigenous land owner. As
a result of which the indigenous Australian people who are around 3 per cent of total population
holds up around 18.3 per cent of social housing tenancies. These constitutes 25% of the client
who are accessing the specialist homelessness services (Land and Housing, 2019). In addition to
this National indigenous Australian agency also work with the territory as well as state
government that are primarily responsible for the housing within Australia for delivering better

housing outcome for the indigenous Australian. These all contributed toward improving the
social as well as economic development of the indigenous people where economic development
will be achieved by keeping land over lease that ensures regular income and on other side social
development happens with the support of Australian government which provide house to
homeless people.
The Indigenous people are not much aware about the ways through which they can
effectively utilise their land or property in order to get economic benefit. Hence the rationale of
this information is that it support the indigenous people to get aware about the number of Act as
well as agencies that are formulated for their welfare which support them in getting best value
out of their land and property. With the help of this the indigenous people can contact with such
agencies so that they would be able to get adequate economic benefit from by utilising their land
in appropriate manner (Tobin, 2014). In addition to this it will also support in widespread the
information regarding improvement that has been marked in social and economic manner for
indigenous people after formation of such Act and agencies. It will also provide with the
information regarding the outcome of such practices to the agencies, general public as well as
other legal authorities to determine future course of action that leads to further improvement in
social and economic condition of the indigenous Australians.
CONCLUSION
From the information presented above it can be summarised that implication of human
rights are consider to be most crucial part of social and economic development of a country as it
contribute toward improving the living standard of people. In addition to this it also help in
providing the equal opportunity in term of education, position within society, employment,
economical justice etc. It is so because the policies under human rights ensure that each
individual inherent right to life, liberty and freedom despite of any discrimination in term of
nationality, language, ethnicity, sex, race and any other status.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Hanna, P. and et. al., 2014. Improving the effectiveness of impact assessment pertaining to
Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian environmental licensing procedure. Environmental
Impact Assessment Review. 46. pp.58-67.
Jones, P., 2017. Human rights, group rights, and peoples’ rights. In Human Rights (pp. 277-
304). Routledge.
Osler, A., 2015. Human rights education, postcolonial scholarship, and action for social
justice. Theory & Research in Social Education. 43(2). pp.244-274.
Tobin, B., 2014. Indigenous peoples, customary law and human rights-Why living law matters.
Routledge.
Watson, I., 2014. Aboriginal peoples, colonialism and international law: Raw law. Routledge.
Online
Australia's welfare 2017. 2019. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/australias-welfare-2017-in-brief/
contents/indigenous-australians>./
Close The Gap - 10 Year Review (2018). 2019. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-
social-justice/publications/close-gap-10-year-review>./
Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign. 2019. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-
social-justice/projects/close-gap-indigenous-health>./
Land and Housing. 2019. [Online] Available through: <https://www.niaa.gov.au/indigenous-
affairs/land-and-housing>./
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 2019. [Online] Available
through: <https://declaration.humanrights.gov.au/>./