Australia Indigenous rights 'embarrassing', UN envoy says

UN Special Rapporteur Albert Barume said Friday that the protection of Indigenous people's rights in Australia was “embarrassing”, citing cases of women being shackled while giving birth and high rates of Indigenous children in detention.

Barume spoke in Sydney at the end of a two-week visit. He said Indigenous people's rights were “unsafe” in Australia because they were controlled by states and territories rather than the national government.

He said he had been denied access to youth detention centres in Queensland and the Northern Territory, which have the highest rates of Indigenous youth incarceration. He said officials in those jurisdictions also refused to meet him.

Government data cited in the supplied information shows that more than 90 percent of children in detention in Queensland and the Northern Territory are Indigenous. Nationally, Indigenous Australians make up 6.6 percent of the youth population but 60 percent of detained children aged 10 to 17, and 79 percent of detained children aged 10 to 13.

Barume urged Australia to set a national minimum age of criminal responsibility at 14 and to invest in programmes to prevent crime rather than jailing children. He also said the failed 2023 referendum on recognising First Nations people in the constitution had “opened a floodgate of racism” and urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government not to abandon the idea.

Australia's attorney-general's office said Queensland and the Northern Territory's decision not to cooperate with the UN envoy's visit did not reflect the position of the Albanese government. It said the government was working with states to implement Australia's international obligations.