Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
No Winners, No Losers: Just
Truth, Justice and Mercy.
Professor Kerry Arabena
School for Indigenous Health
20 July 2012.
Cultural Healing by Mandy Thomas
Three Key Issues:
1
Review current framing of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples.
2
Identify a campaign in which everyone is
precious.
3
Provide an alternative discourse.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
2
Time to speak of these things:
 We are taking charge of our lives.
 More resources, better education, advanced
technology.
 Australians are better informed.
 Leaders are future focused.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
3
What Our leaders say about Constitutional
Reform?
 Widespread support for recognition and removal of
discriminatory clauses.
 Improve the status and lives of First Peoples
 Build a human rights foundation, build a reconciled nation
 Test of national maturity
 Shared future as united Australia. We are one people.
 Complete unfinished business of the nation.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
4
2012 – 40th Anniversary of Tent Embassy
40th Anniversary of Tent Embassy
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
5
Dominant discourses in Reform Agenda.
Human Rights Discourse - posits reform as human
rights entitlement.
Advancing Reconciliation – in the preamble and/or in
body of Constitution.
Achieving National Maturity – recognises shared
history, recognises equality, deepen appreciation.
Sovereignty – Oldest democratic entitlement is self
determination in the context of ‘country’.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Discourses are in response to 4 ideas
governing our affairs:
First Peoples
Reform discourses
‘Officials’ key discourses:
 Human Rights
‘The Nature of the Problem’
 Reconciliation
‘Not us’ or ‘the other’
 National Maturity
‘Control and Responsibility’
 Sovereignty
‘Capacity and Competence’
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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What would a new Discourse need to
achieve?
 Constitutional Reform Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples:
“… it (the Constitution) is broke and has been broken since 1901...”
 Proposal that is a ‘win’ win’ for all Australians.
 Equality is everybody’s business.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Public responses to our ‘disadvantage’:
 Constitutional Reform  Public Sphere
– Future for all
– Produce equality
– Human Rights
– Healing
– Representation
– Stronger Futures
legislation
– Already achieved 1967
– UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous
Peoples
– National Healing
Foundation
– National Congress of
Australia’s First Peoples
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Public responses to our ‘disadvantage’:
 Constitutional Reform
– Overcome disadvantage
– Sovereignty
– Land Rights
– Unity in Nation
– Promote work
– Acceptance and
Understanding
 Public Sphere
– Closing the Gap
– Tent Embassy 40th
Anniversary
– Designated Aboriginal
Land
– Lateral Violence
– Generation One
– Reconciliation
Australia
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Campaign on Preciousness
 Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people
are inestimately
precious people
 Appeal to our common
humanity.
 Take the point that
some conclusions are
just not acceptable
 Violation to the
consensus that any
race of people can be
denigrated or controlled
by implementing the
powers in a clause in
the Constitution
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Truth, Justice and Mercy
 Truth, in its fullness has to be told and heard.
 Justice ensures we are accountable to the principle
of equality in diversity.
 Purpose of Justice is to bring loving action and
accountability to the words: My Fellow Australians.
 Mercy will create new beginnings, know the frailty
of the human condition and stand beside each
other with acceptance, compassion and support.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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An alternative discourse - At the forefront of the
nation building exercise…
Be a celebration of all we are and all we have achieved:
Professors, lawyers, barristers, judges, teachers, health workers, doctors,
nurses, academics, politicians, dancers, athletes, public servants,
business owners, entrepreneurial thinkers and actors, Chief Executives,
marine biologists, social scientists, rangers, researchers, corrections,
youth agencies, lecturers, representing us locally, nationally and
internationally.
We work in health, education, academia, natural resource management,
in regional autonomy, leadership development, organisational
management, youth empowerment, media marketing and public policy,
land purchasing, economic development, human rights and political
strategy.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Taking the lead on innovation and practice:
 Innovation in primary
health care and uptake
of technology e.g.
mobile messaging.
 Sustainable water use
and energy production.
 Business owners of
companies turning over
millions.
 Create employment use
national and
international partners.
 Carbon mitigation.
 Evoking excellence and
appreciating diverse
 Forefront of design and
thinking.
ecological services.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Reliance on the Law is not sufficient:
 Australians living free
from discrimination,
achieving respect and
their aspirations
founded in citizenship
principles of security
and certainty, and a
stake in the country.
 Peace through acts of
truth, justice and mercy.
Endurance happens
when each voice and
the social energy it
produces are
incomplete without the
other. And so, into
dialogue we must go.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Dialogues that are drawn to peace:
 Contribution to
Australia as collectives
in ways that are richly
diverse.
 Need to describe who
we can be together in
these challenging
times.
 Find a common stake
that we have in one
another, and let our
politics and spirit reflect
that as well.
 As our union grows
stronger, that is where
the perfection begins.
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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Constitutional Reform will be achieved:
“…When we greet each other as equals, when we
are celebrated for the what we all do to enrich the
nation, then we invest in a future for our children on
terms that are celebrated in the foundational
document of this country. One in which Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders are recognised as the
Indigenous peoples, and a document that celebrates
equality and despises discrimination. This is how we
build a nation, 24 000 000 stories and counting.”
No Winners, No Losers: Just Truth, Justice and Mercy
20th July 2012
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