Yoorrook means more Separatism

By Anthony Dillon 9 July 2025

The Yoorrook Justice Commission’s final report has arrived. In this article I give a brief response, focusing on three key elements of the report: assumed impact of colonisation, cultural safety, and self-determination. I choose these three because the are prominent in the report and more importantly, because they are part of the standard rhetoric that has shaped Aboriginal affairs for at least a few decades.

With regard to colonisation, the Commission’s summary report states: “First Peoples’ lives are profoundly shaped by the enduring impact of colonial invasion ...” Really? Could reminiscing about the past be more about excuse making in the present? Stan Grant, in his 2016 Quarterly essay, wrote: “But history—the history of dispossession and ensuing suffering—can be an all-too convenient explanation for what ails us.” Could that be what is happening here? The report states that “the brutality of coloni­sation” has in part, contributed to “higher rates of drug and alcohol issues, family violence, housing instability and home­lessness” for Aboriginal Victorians.

Those problems affecting Aboriginal people just described, are real. We all agree on this. However, the cause isn’t colonisation. If it was the cause, then all Aboriginal Australians could claim to be suffering and unable to move on. However, many Aboriginal Australians are doing very well today and have done so for many decades. How well are the Aboriginal authors of the Yoorrook report doing? Has colonisation held them back?

I’m not saying that colonisation is irrelevant, but only that assigning it as a significant cause of the problems facing Aboriginal Australians’ today is misleading and extremely disempowering. Colonisation, or a person’s past more generally, is but one factor among many that determines their behaviour and wellbeing today.

In Australia it doesn’t matter how unfortunate your past or current circumstances are, there are always fellow Aussies, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, ready to lend a helping hand. That’s what we do. Utilising the help available is what enables people to thrive. Perhaps people are not victims of the past, but only victims of the lies they have been fed about their past?

The term ‘cultural safety’ featured prominently throughout the report. To give but one example: “Cultural safety and stability is the first thing that is needed to help young people in cus­tody. There is nothing better for rehabilitat­ing a kid who has been in custody to be able to learn about their roots, find connection in that with their family and kin, and return to Country once they are released.”

Teach these kids that they are Australians with the same needs as other Australians and that they are not the endless victims of colonisation or racism, and they will be less likely to end up in custody in the first place.

So why do the authors of the Yoorrook report harp on about cultural safety? Janet Albrechtsen nailed it in The Weekend Australian recently when she wrote that cultural safety is a term that “keeps Indigenous activists and academics in jobs.”

The term ‘cultural safety’ and similar expressions such as ‘culturally appropriate’ are code for the insistence that only Aboriginal people should be the ones helping Aboriginal people. This is often called ‘self-determination.’ Quoting from the Yoorrook summary report: “Self-determination means transferring decision-making power, authority, control and resources to First Peoples … so that [they] can make decisions about the things that affect them.”

But isn’t self-determination a good thing? Don’t all Australians have the right to self-determination? Well, it depends on how you define self-determination. It is good when applied at the level of the individual, where it means an individual making decisions or taking actions that he or she believes are in their best interest. For example, you and I may decide we want to get healthy, but ultimately, we each decide for ourselves how best to reach the goal of being healthy. You might choose going to the gym, while I might choose to do walking and swimming.

At the group level, self-determination typically means members of the group making decisions on behalf of and for other group members. The Yoorrook report calls it a “collective right.” For Aboriginal Australians, such an approach might have some merit if they were an homogenous group whose members had vastly different needs from non-Aboriginal Australians. However, none of this true. Aboriginal Australians are very diverse in nature and have the same fundamental human needs as non-Aboriginal Australians.

In the case of Aboriginal people where the Yoorrook Commission appliess self-determination in a collective sense, I believe it is actually separatism. That is, Aboriginal Australians are kept separate from other Australians, perhaps not in a physical sense, but in terms of what services are required to address their needs and how they access them. All this does is encourage an us-them mentality.

Importantly, the report mentions how self-determination is needed for child protection. For any child in need of out-of-home care, selection of a carer should be about competence and not colour.

I am all for Aboriginal people being active in roles that contribute to the health and wellbeing of other Aboriginal people. However, non-Aboriginal people also have the right to help their fellow Australians, who just happen to have some Aboriginal ancestry. And of course, Aboriginal Australians also have the right to help non-Aboriginal Australians. I see this simply as Australians helping other Australians.

So how well has the separatist approach worked. Former Aboriginal politician, Alison Anderson, has stated: “The idea that separate development was the answer provided hope for many and jobs for an increasingly powerful few. However, it has failed.”

We know what works. Recognise that Aboriginal Australians have the same fundamental needs as other Australians. Recognise that the commonalities between both groups far outweigh any differences. And of course, never forget that Aboriginal affairs is everyone’s business.

For the next State or Territory thinking of conducting a truth-telling exercise, I hope I have saved you time and money.