March 19, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode, Nyoka shines a light on the urgent and ongoing challenges that Aboriginal communities in Western Australia face. With a focus on the impact of systemic issues on children and families, we delve into the critical topics of inadequate care services, funding shortages, and the repercussions of these deficits.
Recommendations throughout this episode:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nyyani/
https://nyyani.com/
Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au
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The Black Magic Woman Podcast is hosted by Mundanara Bayles and is an uplifting conversational style program featuring mainly Aboriginal guests and explores issues of importance to Aboriginal people and communities. Mundanara is guided by Aboriginal Terms of Reference and focusses more on who people are rather than on what they do.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Black Magic Woman Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the
land we have recorded this episode on. We also acknowledge
traditional owners of the land where you, the listener or viewer,
are tuning in from.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We would like to pay our respects to our.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Elders past and present and acknowledged that this always was
Aboriginal land and always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome to
the Black Magic Woman Podcast with Mandanara Baals. Thank you
so much for joining us for another episode of the
(00:36):
Black Magic Woman Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I've been enjoying a.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Few days here on beautiful Wadjack Nungar Country for people
that don't know Wadjack Country. I'm in Perth, Western Australia,
I would say probably further from places like Fiji and
Altero are also known as New Zealand, so I'm a
long way from home. A big shout out to my
(01:02):
beautiful family. I know they're missing me, my little Feller's
Jeta and Tiger Lily Adela Machia always saying that Mom
doesn't give them a shout out. So I'm sitting here
on the couch yearning with a beautiful sister. Niokam Morgan,
who's going to introduce herself. So Sis, thank you very
(01:22):
much for jumping on the podcast. I always asks people
in their own words, and it's easy just to say,
tell us you know who your mob is, and a
little bit about where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
So I come from Sheperdon originally you're the older people.
I'm the eldest of nine children from my mom. I
grew up in between Shepardon and Rockampton and Queensland joscally.
My dad was Southea Islander. My father was Italian, so
(01:55):
we spent a lot of time going up and down
the Newell Highway as children, and then we went to
We lived in Brisbane for a little while as an
early teenager and then moved back to Shepperton. My high
schooling was in between Melbourne and on the Sunshine Coast,
and then when I was fifteen, I was only young.
(02:19):
I felt pregnant with my first baby, had him at sixteen.
One of the things that always stuck in my head
as a child and seeing a lot of things that
children shouldn't see and been exposed to a lot of
things and growing up before your time because mom and
dad separated when I was seven, was that my children
were never ever going to live my life, and they
(02:42):
was never going to be exposed to police raids, police brutality,
because we've seen all this as children in the eighties
and nineties, and so I was really hard on myself
as a young parent and still them, I suppose and
had a high standard because I didn't want my children
to go down that path.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Can I stop you for one minute when you said
high standard, I talk about black follows. We have high
standards for ourselves, for our community, for our families. And
it's interesting in a non Aboriginal society or the white
fallow world, people don't think we have high standards for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And there's two sides of that high standard. One is
because we are a proud culture and we have a
lot of those qualities, qualities of family, a lot of
the values. The other side of that is also is
colonization and the legacy, the legacy of genocide, where we
(03:45):
as mothers can't let our guard down. We parent on eggshells.
We parent on eggshells because of the fear of welfare
and the fear of losing our children.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
The fact that we're under constant surveillance, yes by government
or it is yes by those organizations that work or
are contracted by departments of Children's services, a child protection
and being under constant surveillance. Like you said, we walk
on eggshells. Yeah, my mum didn't register any of her babies.
(04:19):
My birth certificate was well, my birth was registered in
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's the fear.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And we're talking about within people's living memory and recent history,
not over seven generations. We've there's also the intergenerational stuff.
But that's real, that's today, that's.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Us, that's right, that is us as black mothers, and
we you know we so I spent a lot of
time supporting young people. You know, my professional career was
in children and family services across the board, working in
different agencies from you know, hospitals, child protection, prisons, you know,
doing men's behavior change programs, working in the original college
(05:02):
in Hillsville, Borrower, supporting our people, empowering our people, and
you know, through my own personal experiences as well. That's
Nyani was born. Because there was no voice for the voiceless.
There was you know, we needed to. I'd spent many years,
(05:23):
you know, in child protection and and a lot of
my time in that sector was spent ensuring that my
colleagues were culturally aware ensuring that they could go and
do a culturally safe assessment on Aboriginal families because engagement
is you know, was necessary. We have a lot of
(05:45):
our children falling through the cracks in different areas, you know,
health education, to name only two of those. There's and
I was gonna say those assessments, yes, as soon as
you said culture safe assessments.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Those assessments already discriminated against abridge and on toush Under people.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Don't they Yes, they do.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And right now in Queensland, I just saw Josh Kremer
on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Deadly is Brother.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
If you haven't heard the episode with Josh Kremer, jump
on and have a listen.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
The class action.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
They're calling for Aberginal and tosha Under families to come
forward with submissions. Yes, because of you know, like you said,
culturally safe assessments, culturally safe practice.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And when we look at we look at the legacy
of colonization, and we look at the protection acts and
where child protection in this country came from. And when
we look at it, child protection was an act of genocide.
At the end of the day, that's what it was.
And unfortunately that's still going on. You know, those practices,
(06:58):
those culturally unsafe practices are still continuing in this country.
And that's why we have the high level of removal
of Aboriginal children from their families.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
What are we talking about in terms of data or
statistics just to give well when with some of our
listeners and viewers and insight into not what just we
know as part of our lived experience as aberage and
women that hold families together, but the data, you would
know some of the data.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So when we talk about child protection in Western Australia,
we have over five thousand children in care total, three thousand,
six hundred plus of those Aboriginal children in care, so
that's more than fifty percent. That's a lot of children
in care.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
In New South Wales.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
If those kids are in care for two years, the
guardian or the foster care can go for guardianship till
they're eighteen. Yes, after two years. Our mothers, our women
have no chance of getting their kids back if they
(08:06):
can't meet you know, the standards, the expectations.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And when we talk to you know, I'm talking to mothers,
they don't know what their rights are, they don't know
what to do once their children are removed. They don't
know they're being left out in the cold, you know,
they have a child removed, they lose their income, which
is generally centering, they lose their housing, they become homeless.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You know, it's that leads to mental health.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yes, if the mental health wasn't already there at the start,
it leads to their people in terms of depression, anxiety,
opportunities to get a job or go and do further studies.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That all impacts.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
It impacts. So we come in and you know we're talking,
you know, we empower them, We give them the knowledge
that they required. We will, you know, walk a journey
with them to have their children, you know, come back
to them and reuniting family, reuniting families, and if they can't,
you know, if they don't have the capacity to parent
(09:13):
their child, then we look at who's a safe person
or who's a person in your family that has the
capacity to raise your children, because we want our children
back in our families. We want our children in their
community because we know that they thrive when they are
with their mob.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And there's nothing like being with your own mob.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
As a black fell yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You know, like I grew up in a household, and
I always say this sys that I had the privilege
to grow up with my abruged mother and father. My
mum was removed, she was awarded the state, she was institutionalized.
Her mother was a ward of the state, she was removed,
she was I've got five generations on my mother's side
that was stolen children. That's five generations of trauma that
(09:58):
my mother unknowingly passed onto.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Her eight babies.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
One of my four of my sisters have been in
out of prison. Two of my sisters have had their
children removed. Now my nieces, my sister's.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Children, they've got their children removed.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
So there's obviously, you know, the system isn't working. And
we know that the system you know, has done nothing
really to support Aboriginal women in particular to build capacity
or capability. And you know, in terms of preventative stuff,
(10:33):
how are we working with families when we identify before
the children are being taken or before the children are
at risk?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So there's not so a lot of the fund A
majority of the funding when it comes to these issues
goes to out of home care. There's no funding's minimal
funding there's minimal funding for prevention.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, out of home care.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Some of those providers are non organizations NGOs, Yes, yep,
because a lot of people don't realize you've got the government.
The government have the funding, that's right, and the funding
then usually gets obviously dispersed to service providers on the ground.
So whether it's a Mission Australia, anglic Care, Uniting Care,
(11:19):
some of these are faith based organizations that were also
removing our kids, Like I can't literally sis when I
looked into this. I was delivering cultural capability training for
one of these faith based organizations and my elders, two
(11:39):
of them, Money Mary and Annielilla. They actually wrote the
kinship principles in Queensland. They got that legislation over the line.
But these are the steps that you need to take
before you remove a kid and put them into a
non Aboriginal home. Those principles never been not just enforced,
(12:03):
but enacted. Yeah, and there's no accountability. And this is
back in the nineteen seventies when Honey Lila, my business
partner at black Card, she was the chairperson of Aboriginal
Child Camp. Annie Mary Graham was the manager of these
two old girls are both professors at the University of
Queensland working founded Black Card with me.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The only workshop.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
In ten years that they wanted to walk out on
was with one of these organizations. The level of disrespect
amongst this grew majority under the age of thirty, majority
fresh outer university, and they did not have children, and
(12:51):
they are in, they're in and.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
When you work. When you look at when I came
to work in chop protection in West Australia, all the
care teams which is the teams that look after the
out of home care the children that have been removed
from their families and put into care. Majority of those staff,
the case managers, were fresh out of university, didn't have
(13:15):
life experience assurances and don't have children of their own, and.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They are making these decisions that impact on our lives.
That the individual, the child, the siblings, the family, the mother,
the community, the grandmothers, the aunt is, the uncles, the
whole community suffer. The whole community grieve when our children
are taken from this sort of tight unit.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So what do you think needs to be done.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Obviously there's a class action happening in Queensland. What do
you think as an aviaginal woman that's dedicated most of
your career to working in these spaces.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
What needs to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Our families need to stick together. Our families need to
come back together, Our communities need to stick together. We
need to stop relying on the government to improve our
lives because it's not going to happen. No, it's not
going to happen at all. We need money in prevention.
That's where the funding needs to start, going into prevention.
We need to work together and to come together to
(14:21):
bring our kids home. Our children belong with family and on.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Your T shirt, yes that's exactly your our kids belong
with family. How do we get though?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Government are in control If people don't understand that aviational people,
you are constantly fighting for self determination and autonomy. We're
not in control of our own affairs. As black fellows
living in this country now known as Australia, we have
no control. We don't have a say when it comes
(14:53):
to policies that impact on our lives. And this is
one example, one example, but this is crucial.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
If a child is not.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Raised in their Aboriginal family and connected to their Aboriginal
culture and identity, you wonder why we have the highest
rate of youth suicide than anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Closing the gap.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
If you look at the last report and you can
go onto the Productivity Commission's website, have a look on
the dashboard in real time, the gap isn't closing. The
last report, it's said that in the last twelve months,
closing the gap was failing. So what are our alternatives
in terms of now thinking about blackfellows that are running
(15:36):
their own show.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
We're doing our own thing. We're in business.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
We're doing the best that we can to be able
to provide these essential services to family and community.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
What can we do as black fellows in business?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I think that we're you know, we are doing it already.
So when we talk about self determination going into business,
the self determination is becoming independent. I've employed myself, I've
given myself a job, you know, and you know, Nayani
is not going to be a one man's show for
a long time. Where I'm already strategizing how we scale up,
(16:20):
how we get family coaches in every capital city in
Australia and then we start on the regions.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So that's what's missing.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
So we build the economics in community, we give each
other positions. It doesn't matter if you know, if I'm
a quarry working on a long our country, I'm a
black woman with experience, with lived experience.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You didn't just take the most.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yes I didn't. I didn't. And that's the difference too,
And and it's you.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Know, our communities need to support us.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I live on the Sunshine Coast. I'm not a cat
becovering woman.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I live in Brisbane as well, and going between. I'm
not a yogurt or durable woman.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
But I know that the work that I'm doing in
this space, not just with podcasting, but with upskilling mostly
non Aboriginal people with cultural capability, cultural competence and getting
them to understand Aboriginal culture and history. I'm doing the
work with my elders right across this country. And that's
(17:24):
what brought me here to Ward Jack Noonga Country is
to give Australians an understanding of our shared history. It
starts with truth telling, because if you don't understand the
position that we're in in twenty twenty four now, if
you don't understand the position, if you don't understand why
(17:44):
your organization's got a reconciliation actually, but if you don't understand.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Why closing the gap was born, then we're going backwards.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So we need to understand the past to make sense
of the present to then figure out a way forward.
And this is you know, with us as blackfellows, understanding
our own trauma, our own family history. For me to
understand my mum was removed them and I didn't know
all of this growing up because I never spoke about it.
(18:15):
So now for me being in business China develop training
and training packages, I never get a call from any
child protection agencies. I never get a call from any
of those providers that have those contracts. And they're the
ones that are removing children, making those decisions, or they're
the ones that are going and checking on them, but
(18:39):
they don't have any foundational knowledge for them to make
better decisions to keep our families together. So it's like
they're coming in with a mindset already. They've already made
up their mind that they're going to take children. So
before that even happens, there are key average organizations all
(19:01):
around the country that should be doing the prevention work
and should be doing or should be funded to do so.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And the and the issue is that when you're struggling
as a parent, as a mom or a dad, there's
where do you get the help from? Where do you
go for support? Because you bring up the agencies whether
you know they're no. Now you flag and yourself for
support because they don't help that you've got to be.
(19:29):
You've got to be under child protection to get the support.
That's where the funding is, and that's where all the
funding is. Once you say in bottom, yeah, yeah, a bottom.
Next minute, children taken because you've asked for help, because
you've asked for help.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I've heard this says that a lot of people are
the ones that have put their hand up. They didn't
get the knock on the door, They put their hand
up and then found themselves in a position that their
children were taken and then it's an uphill battle to
get your children back.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So do you work with families? You try, You do
a lot of the family the prevention. You're trying to
work prevention.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So we do to focus on keeping keeping kids at home,
keep the kids at home.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yet keeping the kids at home or in the family,
you know, because extended we always forget about the cousins,
you know. So you know, it's about supporting parents to
look after themselves, and everybody needs a break. There's a
time when people need a break. You know, things happen
in our community. You know, we have a lot of
(20:30):
deaths in our community. We're interconnected, We're so you know,
we're very connected. So when people talk about people, oh,
she went to a funeral last week and she's gone
to another one this week, Well, yeah, that does happen.
That's our reality. That's our reality. Some days there's more
than one funeral and you've got to make a decision
to go to communalis, you know. So there's a lot
of grief, and there's intergenerational trauma. There's a lot of
(20:51):
traumas poverty. What about the poverty in our communities and
we talk about the we talk about living the living
expenses right raising in the last year since COVID, how
are our people making inns meat? Yeah, I don't understand it.
I go to the supermarket and I get a basket
of stuff for dinner and there's one hundred and forty
(21:12):
dollars for three people.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, a lot of Aboriginal people are living below the
poverty line.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
And the data is there.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You don't have to go too far on Google to
find what we're talking about. Everything is there to back
up what we're talking about, but the fact that only
one in ten Indigenous people are financially secure, one in ten. Yes,
in my family, I feel that I'm the one in
one hundred. I feel that there's a lot of people
in my family and community that unfortunately will never be
(21:42):
in a position to buy a home, home ownership in
this country like.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
For white fullers.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And let's just be real here, there's a lot of
intergenerational wealth passed down, that's right, yes, right, Whereas in
for us that wealth wasn't passed down.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
We helped create it, but it.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Was then dispersed to the owners of the properties and
then back to government. So here we are in twenty
twenty four and still have some of the worst living
conditions in the world. And we're talking about third world countries.
We're comparing our mob in this country, a developed country
(22:22):
and probably the richest country in the world when you
think about mining and resources, one of the wealthiest countries
in the world. And yet we still got blackfellows in
a living in third world conditions.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
So poverty plays a big.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Part in an education in our people were denied an education,
our people have been locked out of the economy to
participate in business or to start their own businesses. So
for any of our mob in particular that are listening
or watching on YouTube that might be struggling and they
(23:01):
haven't asked.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
For support, although I don't know where to go, they
don't know what their rights are. You know, we will support,
you know, jump on our website, booking a discovery call
and we can have a chat. We'll have a yarn.
It's a yarn and sometimes that's all it is. Sometimes
it's that one thirty minute discovery call where it can
(23:27):
empower my clients to get on with it, you know,
to achieve what they thought was unachievable. Of course, to
give them, you know, the sense of hope back and
hold onto faith because yeah, the system is not built
for our people. You know, when we look at the
(23:50):
State of West Australia, they only had one original out
of home care service until late last year when there
was some contracts given to other Aboriginal providers. One out
of home care service provider out of I think it
was about one hundred and twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And more than fifty percent of children, more than fifty
percent of the children living in our home care in
Western Australia, our Aboriginal kids. Yes, and yet only last
year a few service providers yeah, gone to funding as
black organizations.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Abriginal organization.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
That's absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
It is disgusting.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
But it's not surprising, is it.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
No, it's not surprising. It's not surprising. And when we
talk about and when we talk about funding and money,
we talk about if it costs one hundred thousand dollars
as a base for one children out of home care,
time's up by three thirty two hundred.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That's a lot of money. Yes, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's a business, it's an industry.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
It is. It's become an industry. Our children have become
an industry. Our families have become an industry.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
And all I could think about with our children and
heeding family, needing, community, needing culture, needing a sense of belonging.
You know that that's what sets people up, not success,
It sets us up to live a full life, to
(25:21):
be able to reach our full potential as black fellows
in this country. It needs to start with our children
having access to their community, having access to culture, having
access to their families. What about our women in prison,
you know, because w Way has got the worst statistics
in the country with women in prison. In fact, average
(25:45):
nor women are the fastest growing prison demographic in the country,
if not in the world.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
That's how bad it is.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
There's for some reason, I'm not too sure why what
happened in twenty fifteen sixteen, our incarceration rate of Aboriginal
women just increased dramatically. Now there's a majority of those
women that are incarcerated that are in prison are mothers.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
The artists.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
So where are the children. We do have some facilities
where children, mums can have their babies. You know, mums
are given birth whiles they're incarcerated, so they can have
their babies and tell that's twelve months old. Some mothers
can have their children and tell their about four years
of age. In some minimum security prisons. The uptake of
(26:42):
those programs are higher for Aboriginal people than non Aboriginal people.
But the work that we're going to be doing in
the prisons is around connection to children whilst in prison
and reconnecting after prison, but also our cultural authority as
(27:04):
mothers as well, and how we keep that because regardless
if we're in prison or not, we're still mothers and
we still have that role and it's very important. The
system has us thinking that we're not good enough, that
we've failed, that we've failed, we've failed as mothers, we've
(27:26):
failed our children. We haven't failed our children.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
The system has found the system.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Has failed us. They have failed us.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And our children are the ones that are punished in
the end.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yes, So it's so we're doing some work there. That's
I'm excited about that to be doing that.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Because it's hard to sometimes keep hope and to be optimistic.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
So when you said I'm.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Excited about that, I wanted to say to you, what
are you looking forward to for twenty two for what's
on the radar, what's on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
The prison work, the prison which is so important.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yes, I've also started some preliminary conversations with the Parent Institute.
So the Parent Institute is does work on the brain.
So one of the programs that I'm very interested in
is around using the DNA to get to look at
(28:29):
mental health m HM. Because we know that our mental
health is an issue, and because you know, and that's
also to prevent suicides, but also our people are put
on a lot of prescription drugs for their mental health,
of course, and you know they don't all work for them,
(28:52):
or you know that they might be on the right.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
What if they can't a script, what if they cannot
afford their prescriptions, that's another issue.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
It's another issue. Look, a lot of people don't see
a counselor or a psychologist because they can't afford to
pay for one. The waiting list is too long. Culturallyafe,
culturally unsafe.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
There's not enough psychologists that are black fellows that actually
understand the experience that we have, which is unique unfortunately
to black fellows.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah. So, and you know, again we talk about assessment tools,
and assessment tools aren't culturally appropriate. They don't consider our
cultural needs. So it's you know, and these are the
things that we want to change. We want to improve
people's well being all over, you know, their spiritual wellbeing,
(29:42):
their emotional, you know, their mental health. And that's that's
I'm excited for that, and also hoping that we can
do some work within the juvenile justice area, hoping to
do that. And I say, I'm excited about this, and
(30:03):
you know, people say, oh, why are you excited for that?
You know, because it's about breaking the curses.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
That's been around for how many generators.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Breaking the curses of genocide, getting our families back together,
empowering our young children. You know, in the state of
West Australia, we have one neused detention center and that's
in Perth.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Long way from home.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
It's a long way from home for a lot of
So what it does is it disconnects children because they
are children from their family, from their community, from their
cultural practices. Families can't visit, it's a long way, they
don't have the funds, they don't have the accommodation.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Just let people know that's Banksier, that's the attention center,
and there is there is a lot of international pressure
on Banksia at the moment right in terms of breaches
of human rights that detention center. Most people I actually
educate people about Dondale and Banksia to let people know
(31:08):
that some of our children in these detention centers, especially
in Dondale.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
There was a.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Documentary called and you can have a look at it.
It's Australia's Shame and it highlights the treatment of Aberiginal
children in Dondae Youth Detention Center and the expert on camera.
I will never forget these words. It haunts me some days.
He said that the treatment of aberishin Or children in
Don Dae Youth Detention Center was up there with the
treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Yes, our children and
(31:41):
not rehabilitating in these centers. They're coming out traumatized.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
The data is there, the evidence is there. There was
an inquiry into dondale Go and read the report.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
So in terms of Banksia, when you said there's one
detention center here, I had to call out a name,
the distention center, because a lot of people don't even
know what's happening in Banksier.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
No, and it's horrible what's happening there. And you know
when we talk, when we hear about the riots that
happen in Banksier, what about the little ten year old
that's in there on remand that's been exposed to this
it's been traumatized by the riots. You know, what about
the twelve year old? So there's a lot happening. Yeah,
and our children shouldn't be exposed to this behavior. So
(32:30):
hopefully we can get in and we can start doing
some work, because what we need to do is we
need to reduce these incarceration rates, and it's up to
us to do it. Yeah, not the government.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah that I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
But people always say, you know, if they're in there,
they're meant to be there and all of this stuff. Look,
let's put that aside for now. Yeah, because if you
don't understand our shared history in this country, then I
don't think you should even have an opinion. If you
don't understand systemic and institutional racism, oh you have never
(33:04):
been on the receiving end of racism and discrimination. I
don't think you're informed to an opinion. So I have
these arguments with people every now and again. When when
I when I really feel fired up. So doing the
work that you do, obviously you're doing a lot to
also inspire a lot of us deadly black women to
wrap up our yarn. What keeps you going? How do
(33:27):
you look after yourself? How do you look after Naoka?
Speaker 3 (33:32):
I go shopping for shoes. I walk every.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Every day, and that's okay, every day to do.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
That for ourselves, to treat ourselves, to play for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
But I walk just about every day. I do plarties
twice a week, and I eat well. Yeah, you know,
I look after myself. Yeah, because if I don't look
after myself, nobody else is going to do it. Yeah,
and that's it.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
And I think that's the most and that people realize that,
you know, we're in business where moms where aunties were sisters,
we're granddaughters. We're doing a lot in our community as
mothers because culturally that's.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
What we've always done. That's all we know. So I
just want to.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Say I have literally waited for a long time to
finally have this yarn. I didn't think zoom was the
right way to do the yarn, to just sit and
have a yarn and kind of catch up at the
same time. You know what I saw Louis Vuitton downstairs.
I was walking to the workshop yesterday and I stopped
(34:40):
at the doorway and all I heard was my husband
saying keep walking. So I just wanted to say, I
absolutely love everything you do, the fashion, the dresses. Every
time I see different events and online and the beautiful
posts that you put. You remind me me to love myself.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, you remind me to look after myself when I
see your post. You know, sometimes I feel like, oh,
I couldn't do that. I couldn't post that, And I'm like, no,
why can't I feel, you know, comfortable in showing people
that I look after myself, that I treat myself.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Why, you know, that's something that I always struggle with.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah. No, we shouldn't have to struggle with that. And
you know, we are allowed to We're allowed to be flash. Yes,
there's nothing wrong with us being flash. No, and you
know Louis Vuton, I walk up. I have a personal
shopper in Louis Vuitton, now you know. And it's why
(35:44):
can't I have that as afforded to the rest of
the community. Yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
So it's an interesting just as black women that make
our own money, I'm not government funded.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You're not government funded.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
You might get some government funding, but our core business
realize on us bringing in that money and employing other people,
you know, and paying our own bills and paying our mortgages.
People think that successful Aboriginal people and business must be
government funded. How could you potentially be successful without the
government support?
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Well, let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Now, I know a lot of blackfellows that are successful
and that have made it, and that are also you know,
getting to that point where they realize their own success
and that should be celebrated.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I can't wait for us to catch up again and
you know, find opportunities and make the time for each
other to catch up and just have a yarn. So
thank you so much for making time for me today.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
I can't wait to get shopping with you. On that note,
I just want to say thank you very much for
tuning in, listening, and watching now on YouTube. Hope you've
enjoyed this yarn. Until next time. Both now. If you'd
like any more info on today's guest, please visit our
(37:07):
show notes in the episode description. A big shout out
to all you Deadly Mob and allies who continue to listen, watch,
and support our podcast. Your feedback means the world. You
can rate and review the podcast on Apple and Spotify,
or even head to our socials and YouTube channel and
drop us a line.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
The Black Magic Woman podcast is produced by Clint Curtis.
Black Magic Woman Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the
land we have recorded this episode on. We also acknowledge
traditional owners of the land where you, the listener or viewer,
are tuning in from.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We would like to pay our respects to our.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Elders past and present and acknowledged that this always was
Aboriginal land and always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome to
the Black Magic Woman Podcast with Mandanara Baals. Thank you
so much for joining us for another episode of the
(00:36):
Black Magic Woman Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I've been enjoying a.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Few days here on beautiful Wadjack Nungar Country for people
that don't know Wadjack Country. I'm in Perth, Western Australia,
I would say probably further from places like Fiji and
Altero are also known as New Zealand, so I'm a
long way from home. A big shout out to my
(01:02):
beautiful family. I know they're missing me, my little Feller's
Jeta and Tiger Lily Adela Machia always saying that Mom
doesn't give them a shout out. So I'm sitting here
on the couch yearning with a beautiful sister. Niokam Morgan,
who's going to introduce herself. So Sis, thank you very
(01:22):
much for jumping on the podcast. I always asks people
in their own words, and it's easy just to say,
tell us you know who your mob is, and a
little bit about where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
So I come from Sheperdon originally you're the older people.
I'm the eldest of nine children from my mom. I
grew up in between Shepardon and Rockampton and Queensland joscally.
My dad was Southea Islander. My father was Italian, so
(01:55):
we spent a lot of time going up and down
the Newell Highway as children, and then we went to
We lived in Brisbane for a little while as an
early teenager and then moved back to Shepperton. My high
schooling was in between Melbourne and on the Sunshine Coast,
and then when I was fifteen, I was only young.
(02:19):
I felt pregnant with my first baby, had him at sixteen.
One of the things that always stuck in my head
as a child and seeing a lot of things that
children shouldn't see and been exposed to a lot of
things and growing up before your time because mom and
dad separated when I was seven, was that my children
were never ever going to live my life, and they
(02:42):
was never going to be exposed to police raids, police brutality,
because we've seen all this as children in the eighties
and nineties, and so I was really hard on myself
as a young parent and still them, I suppose and
had a high standard because I didn't want my children
to go down that path.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Can I stop you for one minute when you said
high standard, I talk about black follows. We have high
standards for ourselves, for our community, for our families. And
it's interesting in a non Aboriginal society or the white
fallow world, people don't think we have high standards for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And there's two sides of that high standard. One is
because we are a proud culture and we have a
lot of those qualities, qualities of family, a lot of
the values. The other side of that is also is
colonization and the legacy, the legacy of genocide, where we
(03:45):
as mothers can't let our guard down. We parent on eggshells.
We parent on eggshells because of the fear of welfare
and the fear of losing our children.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
The fact that we're under constant surveillance, yes by government
or it is yes by those organizations that work or
are contracted by departments of Children's services, a child protection
and being under constant surveillance. Like you said, we walk
on eggshells. Yeah, my mum didn't register any of her babies.
(04:19):
My birth certificate was well, my birth was registered in
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's the fear.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And we're talking about within people's living memory and recent history,
not over seven generations. We've there's also the intergenerational stuff.
But that's real, that's today, that's.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Us, that's right, that is us as black mothers, and
we you know we so I spent a lot of
time supporting young people. You know, my professional career was
in children and family services across the board, working in
different agencies from you know, hospitals, child protection, prisons, you know,
doing men's behavior change programs, working in the original college
(05:02):
in Hillsville, Borrower, supporting our people, empowering our people, and
you know, through my own personal experiences as well. That's
Nyani was born. Because there was no voice for the voiceless.
There was you know, we needed to. I'd spent many years,
(05:23):
you know, in child protection and and a lot of
my time in that sector was spent ensuring that my
colleagues were culturally aware ensuring that they could go and
do a culturally safe assessment on Aboriginal families because engagement
is you know, was necessary. We have a lot of
(05:45):
our children falling through the cracks in different areas, you know,
health education, to name only two of those. There's and
I was gonna say those assessments, yes, as soon as
you said culture safe assessments.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Those assessments already discriminated against abridge and on toush Under people.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Don't they Yes, they do.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And right now in Queensland, I just saw Josh Kremer
on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Deadly is Brother.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
If you haven't heard the episode with Josh Kremer, jump
on and have a listen.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
The class action.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
They're calling for Aberginal and tosha Under families to come
forward with submissions. Yes, because of you know, like you said,
culturally safe assessments, culturally safe practice.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And when we look at we look at the legacy
of colonization, and we look at the protection acts and
where child protection in this country came from. And when
we look at it, child protection was an act of genocide.
At the end of the day, that's what it was.
And unfortunately that's still going on. You know, those practices,
(06:58):
those culturally unsafe practices are still continuing in this country.
And that's why we have the high level of removal
of Aboriginal children from their families.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
What are we talking about in terms of data or
statistics just to give well when with some of our
listeners and viewers and insight into not what just we
know as part of our lived experience as aberage and
women that hold families together, but the data, you would
know some of the data.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So when we talk about child protection in Western Australia,
we have over five thousand children in care total, three thousand,
six hundred plus of those Aboriginal children in care, so
that's more than fifty percent. That's a lot of children
in care.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
In New South Wales.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
If those kids are in care for two years, the
guardian or the foster care can go for guardianship till
they're eighteen. Yes, after two years. Our mothers, our women
have no chance of getting their kids back if they
(08:06):
can't meet you know, the standards, the expectations.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And when we talk to you know, I'm talking to mothers,
they don't know what their rights are, they don't know
what to do once their children are removed. They don't
know they're being left out in the cold, you know,
they have a child removed, they lose their income, which
is generally centering, they lose their housing, they become homeless.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You know, it's that leads to mental health.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yes, if the mental health wasn't already there at the start,
it leads to their people in terms of depression, anxiety,
opportunities to get a job or go and do further studies.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That all impacts.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
It impacts. So we come in and you know we're talking,
you know, we empower them, We give them the knowledge
that they required. We will, you know, walk a journey
with them to have their children, you know, come back
to them and reuniting family, reuniting families, and if they can't,
you know, if they don't have the capacity to parent
(09:13):
their child, then we look at who's a safe person
or who's a person in your family that has the
capacity to raise your children, because we want our children
back in our families. We want our children in their
community because we know that they thrive when they are
with their mob.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And there's nothing like being with your own mob.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
As a black fell yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You know, like I grew up in a household, and
I always say this sys that I had the privilege
to grow up with my abruged mother and father. My
mum was removed, she was awarded the state, she was institutionalized.
Her mother was a ward of the state, she was removed,
she was I've got five generations on my mother's side
that was stolen children. That's five generations of trauma that
(09:58):
my mother unknowingly passed onto.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Her eight babies.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
One of my four of my sisters have been in
out of prison. Two of my sisters have had their
children removed. Now my nieces, my sister's.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Children, they've got their children removed.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
So there's obviously, you know, the system isn't working. And
we know that the system you know, has done nothing
really to support Aboriginal women in particular to build capacity
or capability. And you know, in terms of preventative stuff,
(10:33):
how are we working with families when we identify before
the children are being taken or before the children are
at risk?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So there's not so a lot of the fund A
majority of the funding when it comes to these issues
goes to out of home care. There's no funding's minimal
funding there's minimal funding for prevention.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, out of home care.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Some of those providers are non organizations NGOs, Yes, yep,
because a lot of people don't realize you've got the government.
The government have the funding, that's right, and the funding
then usually gets obviously dispersed to service providers on the ground.
So whether it's a Mission Australia, anglic Care, Uniting Care,
(11:19):
some of these are faith based organizations that were also
removing our kids, Like I can't literally sis when I
looked into this. I was delivering cultural capability training for
one of these faith based organizations and my elders, two
(11:39):
of them, Money Mary and Annielilla. They actually wrote the
kinship principles in Queensland. They got that legislation over the line.
But these are the steps that you need to take
before you remove a kid and put them into a
non Aboriginal home. Those principles never been not just enforced,
(12:03):
but enacted. Yeah, and there's no accountability. And this is
back in the nineteen seventies when Honey Lila, my business
partner at black Card, she was the chairperson of Aboriginal
Child Camp. Annie Mary Graham was the manager of these
two old girls are both professors at the University of
Queensland working founded Black Card with me.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The only workshop.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
In ten years that they wanted to walk out on
was with one of these organizations. The level of disrespect
amongst this grew majority under the age of thirty, majority
fresh outer university, and they did not have children, and
(12:51):
they are in, they're in and.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
When you work. When you look at when I came
to work in chop protection in West Australia, all the
care teams which is the teams that look after the
out of home care the children that have been removed
from their families and put into care. Majority of those staff,
the case managers, were fresh out of university, didn't have
(13:15):
life experience assurances and don't have children of their own, and.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They are making these decisions that impact on our lives.
That the individual, the child, the siblings, the family, the mother,
the community, the grandmothers, the aunt is, the uncles, the
whole community suffer. The whole community grieve when our children
are taken from this sort of tight unit.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So what do you think needs to be done.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Obviously there's a class action happening in Queensland. What do
you think as an aviaginal woman that's dedicated most of
your career to working in these spaces.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
What needs to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Our families need to stick together. Our families need to
come back together, Our communities need to stick together. We
need to stop relying on the government to improve our
lives because it's not going to happen. No, it's not
going to happen at all. We need money in prevention.
That's where the funding needs to start, going into prevention.
We need to work together and to come together to
(14:21):
bring our kids home. Our children belong with family and on.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Your T shirt, yes that's exactly your our kids belong
with family. How do we get though?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Government are in control If people don't understand that aviational people,
you are constantly fighting for self determination and autonomy. We're
not in control of our own affairs. As black fellows
living in this country now known as Australia, we have
no control. We don't have a say when it comes
(14:53):
to policies that impact on our lives. And this is
one example, one example, but this is crucial.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
If a child is not.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Raised in their Aboriginal family and connected to their Aboriginal
culture and identity, you wonder why we have the highest
rate of youth suicide than anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Closing the gap.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
If you look at the last report and you can
go onto the Productivity Commission's website, have a look on
the dashboard in real time, the gap isn't closing. The
last report, it's said that in the last twelve months,
closing the gap was failing. So what are our alternatives
in terms of now thinking about blackfellows that are running
(15:36):
their own show.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
We're doing our own thing. We're in business.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
We're doing the best that we can to be able
to provide these essential services to family and community.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
What can we do as black fellows in business?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I think that we're you know, we are doing it already.
So when we talk about self determination going into business,
the self determination is becoming independent. I've employed myself, I've
given myself a job, you know, and you know, Nayani
is not going to be a one man's show for
a long time. Where I'm already strategizing how we scale up,
(16:20):
how we get family coaches in every capital city in
Australia and then we start on the regions.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So that's what's missing.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
So we build the economics in community, we give each
other positions. It doesn't matter if you know, if I'm
a quarry working on a long our country, I'm a
black woman with experience, with lived experience.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You didn't just take the most.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yes I didn't. I didn't. And that's the difference too,
And and it's you.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Know, our communities need to support us.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I live on the Sunshine Coast. I'm not a cat
becovering woman.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I live in Brisbane as well, and going between. I'm
not a yogurt or durable woman.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
But I know that the work that I'm doing in
this space, not just with podcasting, but with upskilling mostly
non Aboriginal people with cultural capability, cultural competence and getting
them to understand Aboriginal culture and history. I'm doing the
work with my elders right across this country. And that's
(17:24):
what brought me here to Ward Jack Noonga Country is
to give Australians an understanding of our shared history. It
starts with truth telling, because if you don't understand the
position that we're in in twenty twenty four now, if
you don't understand the position, if you don't understand why
(17:44):
your organization's got a reconciliation actually, but if you don't understand.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Why closing the gap was born, then we're going backwards.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So we need to understand the past to make sense
of the present to then figure out a way forward.
And this is you know, with us as blackfellows, understanding
our own trauma, our own family history. For me to
understand my mum was removed them and I didn't know
all of this growing up because I never spoke about it.
(18:15):
So now for me being in business China develop training
and training packages, I never get a call from any
child protection agencies. I never get a call from any
of those providers that have those contracts. And they're the
ones that are removing children, making those decisions, or they're
the ones that are going and checking on them, but
(18:39):
they don't have any foundational knowledge for them to make
better decisions to keep our families together. So it's like
they're coming in with a mindset already. They've already made
up their mind that they're going to take children. So
before that even happens, there are key average organizations all
(19:01):
around the country that should be doing the prevention work
and should be doing or should be funded to do so.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And the and the issue is that when you're struggling
as a parent, as a mom or a dad, there's
where do you get the help from? Where do you
go for support? Because you bring up the agencies whether
you know they're no. Now you flag and yourself for
support because they don't help that you've got to be.
(19:29):
You've got to be under child protection to get the support.
That's where the funding is, and that's where all the
funding is. Once you say in bottom, yeah, yeah, a bottom.
Next minute, children taken because you've asked for help, because
you've asked for help.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I've heard this says that a lot of people are
the ones that have put their hand up. They didn't
get the knock on the door, They put their hand
up and then found themselves in a position that their
children were taken and then it's an uphill battle to
get your children back.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So do you work with families? You try, You do
a lot of the family the prevention. You're trying to
work prevention.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So we do to focus on keeping keeping kids at home,
keep the kids at home.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yet keeping the kids at home or in the family,
you know, because extended we always forget about the cousins,
you know. So you know, it's about supporting parents to
look after themselves, and everybody needs a break. There's a
time when people need a break. You know, things happen
in our community. You know, we have a lot of
(20:30):
deaths in our community. We're interconnected, We're so you know,
we're very connected. So when people talk about people, oh,
she went to a funeral last week and she's gone
to another one this week, Well, yeah, that does happen.
That's our reality. That's our reality. Some days there's more
than one funeral and you've got to make a decision
to go to communalis, you know. So there's a lot
of grief, and there's intergenerational trauma. There's a lot of
(20:51):
traumas poverty. What about the poverty in our communities and
we talk about the we talk about living the living
expenses right raising in the last year since COVID, how
are our people making inns meat? Yeah, I don't understand it.
I go to the supermarket and I get a basket
of stuff for dinner and there's one hundred and forty
(21:12):
dollars for three people.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, a lot of Aboriginal people are living below the
poverty line.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
And the data is there.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You don't have to go too far on Google to
find what we're talking about. Everything is there to back
up what we're talking about, but the fact that only
one in ten Indigenous people are financially secure, one in ten. Yes,
in my family, I feel that I'm the one in
one hundred. I feel that there's a lot of people
in my family and community that unfortunately will never be
(21:42):
in a position to buy a home, home ownership in
this country like.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
For white fullers.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And let's just be real here, there's a lot of
intergenerational wealth passed down, that's right, yes, right, Whereas in
for us that wealth wasn't passed down.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
We helped create it, but it.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Was then dispersed to the owners of the properties and
then back to government. So here we are in twenty
twenty four and still have some of the worst living
conditions in the world. And we're talking about third world countries.
We're comparing our mob in this country, a developed country
(22:22):
and probably the richest country in the world when you
think about mining and resources, one of the wealthiest countries
in the world. And yet we still got blackfellows in
a living in third world conditions.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
So poverty plays a big.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Part in an education in our people were denied an education,
our people have been locked out of the economy to
participate in business or to start their own businesses. So
for any of our mob in particular that are listening
or watching on YouTube that might be struggling and they
(23:01):
haven't asked.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
For support, although I don't know where to go, they
don't know what their rights are. You know, we will support,
you know, jump on our website, booking a discovery call
and we can have a chat. We'll have a yarn.
It's a yarn and sometimes that's all it is. Sometimes
it's that one thirty minute discovery call where it can
(23:27):
empower my clients to get on with it, you know,
to achieve what they thought was unachievable. Of course, to
give them, you know, the sense of hope back and
hold onto faith because yeah, the system is not built
for our people. You know, when we look at the
(23:50):
State of West Australia, they only had one original out
of home care service until late last year when there
was some contracts given to other Aboriginal providers. One out
of home care service provider out of I think it
was about one hundred and twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And more than fifty percent of children, more than fifty
percent of the children living in our home care in
Western Australia, our Aboriginal kids. Yes, and yet only last
year a few service providers yeah, gone to funding as
black organizations.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Abriginal organization.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
That's absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
It is disgusting.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
But it's not surprising, is it.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
No, it's not surprising. It's not surprising. And when we
talk about and when we talk about funding and money,
we talk about if it costs one hundred thousand dollars
as a base for one children out of home care,
time's up by three thirty two hundred.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That's a lot of money. Yes, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's a business, it's an industry.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
It is. It's become an industry. Our children have become
an industry. Our families have become an industry.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
And all I could think about with our children and
heeding family, needing, community, needing culture, needing a sense of belonging.
You know that that's what sets people up, not success,
It sets us up to live a full life, to
(25:21):
be able to reach our full potential as black fellows
in this country. It needs to start with our children
having access to their community, having access to culture, having
access to their families. What about our women in prison,
you know, because w Way has got the worst statistics
in the country with women in prison. In fact, average
(25:45):
nor women are the fastest growing prison demographic in the country,
if not in the world.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
That's how bad it is.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
There's for some reason, I'm not too sure why what
happened in twenty fifteen sixteen, our incarceration rate of Aboriginal
women just increased dramatically. Now there's a majority of those
women that are incarcerated that are in prison are mothers.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
The artists.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
So where are the children. We do have some facilities
where children, mums can have their babies. You know, mums
are given birth whiles they're incarcerated, so they can have
their babies and tell that's twelve months old. Some mothers
can have their children and tell their about four years
of age. In some minimum security prisons. The uptake of
(26:42):
those programs are higher for Aboriginal people than non Aboriginal people.
But the work that we're going to be doing in
the prisons is around connection to children whilst in prison
and reconnecting after prison, but also our cultural authority as
(27:04):
mothers as well, and how we keep that because regardless
if we're in prison or not, we're still mothers and
we still have that role and it's very important. The
system has us thinking that we're not good enough, that
we've failed, that we've failed, we've failed as mothers, we've
(27:26):
failed our children. We haven't failed our children.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
The system has found the system.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Has failed us. They have failed us.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And our children are the ones that are punished in
the end.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yes, So it's so we're doing some work there. That's
I'm excited about that to be doing that.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Because it's hard to sometimes keep hope and to be optimistic.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
So when you said I'm.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Excited about that, I wanted to say to you, what
are you looking forward to for twenty two for what's
on the radar, what's on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
The prison work, the prison which is so important.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yes, I've also started some preliminary conversations with the Parent Institute.
So the Parent Institute is does work on the brain.
So one of the programs that I'm very interested in
is around using the DNA to get to look at
(28:29):
mental health m HM. Because we know that our mental
health is an issue, and because you know, and that's
also to prevent suicides, but also our people are put
on a lot of prescription drugs for their mental health,
of course, and you know they don't all work for them,
(28:52):
or you know that they might be on the right.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
What if they can't a script, what if they cannot
afford their prescriptions, that's another issue.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
It's another issue. Look, a lot of people don't see
a counselor or a psychologist because they can't afford to
pay for one. The waiting list is too long. Culturallyafe,
culturally unsafe.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
There's not enough psychologists that are black fellows that actually
understand the experience that we have, which is unique unfortunately
to black fellows.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah. So, and you know, again we talk about assessment tools,
and assessment tools aren't culturally appropriate. They don't consider our
cultural needs. So it's you know, and these are the
things that we want to change. We want to improve
people's well being all over, you know, their spiritual wellbeing,
(29:42):
their emotional, you know, their mental health. And that's that's
I'm excited for that, and also hoping that we can
do some work within the juvenile justice area, hoping to
do that. And I say, I'm excited about this, and
(30:03):
you know, people say, oh, why are you excited for that?
You know, because it's about breaking the curses.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
That's been around for how many generators.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Breaking the curses of genocide, getting our families back together,
empowering our young children. You know, in the state of
West Australia, we have one neused detention center and that's
in Perth.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Long way from home.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
It's a long way from home for a lot of
So what it does is it disconnects children because they
are children from their family, from their community, from their
cultural practices. Families can't visit, it's a long way, they
don't have the funds, they don't have the accommodation.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Just let people know that's Banksier, that's the attention center,
and there is there is a lot of international pressure
on Banksia at the moment right in terms of breaches
of human rights that detention center. Most people I actually
educate people about Dondale and Banksia to let people know
(31:08):
that some of our children in these detention centers, especially
in Dondale.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
There was a.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Documentary called and you can have a look at it.
It's Australia's Shame and it highlights the treatment of Aberiginal
children in Dondae Youth Detention Center and the expert on camera.
I will never forget these words. It haunts me some days.
He said that the treatment of aberishin Or children in
Don Dae Youth Detention Center was up there with the
treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Yes, our children and
(31:41):
not rehabilitating in these centers. They're coming out traumatized.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
The data is there, the evidence is there. There was
an inquiry into dondale Go and read the report.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
So in terms of Banksia, when you said there's one
detention center here, I had to call out a name,
the distention center, because a lot of people don't even
know what's happening in Banksier.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
No, and it's horrible what's happening there. And you know
when we talk, when we hear about the riots that
happen in Banksier, what about the little ten year old
that's in there on remand that's been exposed to this
it's been traumatized by the riots. You know, what about
the twelve year old? So there's a lot happening. Yeah,
and our children shouldn't be exposed to this behavior. So
(32:30):
hopefully we can get in and we can start doing
some work, because what we need to do is we
need to reduce these incarceration rates, and it's up to
us to do it. Yeah, not the government.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah that I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
But people always say, you know, if they're in there,
they're meant to be there and all of this stuff. Look,
let's put that aside for now. Yeah, because if you
don't understand our shared history in this country, then I
don't think you should even have an opinion. If you
don't understand systemic and institutional racism, oh you have never
(33:04):
been on the receiving end of racism and discrimination. I
don't think you're informed to an opinion. So I have
these arguments with people every now and again. When when
I when I really feel fired up. So doing the
work that you do, obviously you're doing a lot to
also inspire a lot of us deadly black women to
wrap up our yarn. What keeps you going? How do
(33:27):
you look after yourself? How do you look after Naoka?
Speaker 3 (33:32):
I go shopping for shoes. I walk every.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Every day, and that's okay, every day to do.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
That for ourselves, to treat ourselves, to play for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
But I walk just about every day. I do plarties
twice a week, and I eat well. Yeah, you know,
I look after myself. Yeah, because if I don't look
after myself, nobody else is going to do it. Yeah,
and that's it.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
And I think that's the most and that people realize that,
you know, we're in business where moms where aunties were sisters,
we're granddaughters. We're doing a lot in our community as
mothers because culturally that's.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
What we've always done. That's all we know. So I
just want to.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Say I have literally waited for a long time to
finally have this yarn. I didn't think zoom was the
right way to do the yarn, to just sit and
have a yarn and kind of catch up at the
same time. You know what I saw Louis Vuitton downstairs.
I was walking to the workshop yesterday and I stopped
(34:40):
at the doorway and all I heard was my husband
saying keep walking. So I just wanted to say, I
absolutely love everything you do, the fashion, the dresses. Every
time I see different events and online and the beautiful
posts that you put. You remind me me to love myself.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, you remind me to look after myself when I
see your post. You know, sometimes I feel like, oh,
I couldn't do that. I couldn't post that, And I'm like, no,
why can't I feel, you know, comfortable in showing people
that I look after myself, that I treat myself.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Why, you know, that's something that I always struggle with.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah. No, we shouldn't have to struggle with that. And
you know, we are allowed to We're allowed to be flash. Yes,
there's nothing wrong with us being flash. No, and you
know Louis Vuton, I walk up. I have a personal
shopper in Louis Vuitton, now you know. And it's why
(35:44):
can't I have that as afforded to the rest of
the community. Yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
So it's an interesting just as black women that make
our own money, I'm not government funded.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You're not government funded.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
You might get some government funding, but our core business
realize on us bringing in that money and employing other people,
you know, and paying our own bills and paying our mortgages.
People think that successful Aboriginal people and business must be
government funded. How could you potentially be successful without the
government support?
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Well, let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Now, I know a lot of blackfellows that are successful
and that have made it, and that are also you know,
getting to that point where they realize their own success
and that should be celebrated.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I can't wait for us to catch up again and
you know, find opportunities and make the time for each
other to catch up and just have a yarn. So
thank you so much for making time for me today.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
I can't wait to get shopping with you. On that note,
I just want to say thank you very much for
tuning in, listening, and watching now on YouTube. Hope you've
enjoyed this yarn. Until next time. Both now. If you'd
like any more info on today's guest, please visit our
(37:07):
show notes in the episode description. A big shout out
to all you Deadly Mob and allies who continue to listen, watch,
and support our podcast. Your feedback means the world. You
can rate and review the podcast on Apple and Spotify,
or even head to our socials and YouTube channel and
drop us a line.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
The Black Magic Woman podcast is produced by Clint Curtis.
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