Statement - National NAIDOC Week 2022

The St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia urges all Australians to heed the call of this year’s NAIDOC Week theme, Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! and to support equality and opportunity for First Nations people.

The Society reaffirms its support for a National Indigenous Voice to Parliament to be enshrined in the Constitution and for a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making and truth-telling.

We support the Change the Record campaign, an Aboriginal-led justice coalition of legal, health and family violence experts whose aim is to end the incarceration of, and family violence against, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Children should have a safe home to live in, enough to eat, and be free to go to school. Instead, too many are being locked away in prison. Community-led solutions, which help children to learn from their mistakes, grow and thrive, should be funded.

The focus should be on family and community-based support services, not custodial sentences. We support recommendations by child psychology experts that the age of criminal responsibility be raised to at least 14 years.

We also restate our call for the federal parliament to increase funding and support for Aboriginal-controlled organisations to meet the 17 targets contained in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

The solutions are there. But we believe that real progress will not be made without a significant commitment of funding to strengthen community-controlled sectors and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. They are needed to deliver improved economic and social outcomes.

The St Vincent de Paul Society has a long history of partnering with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia to support the provision of food relief, material assistance and social services.

While the Society is not a First Nations organisation and cannot speak on behalf of First Nations people, we stand in respectful solidarity.

We honour First Nations cultures, lands, waters, histories and rights to live in a society free of economic, social and cultural oppression.