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Overarching themes from the
combined women’s voices
Like the women who contributed to Wiyi Yani U Thangani, the women who contributed to this
Report were primarily interested in two overarching and tangible things:
the impact on community, its cohesion and benefits flowing to it
the protection of Country and culture.
As discussed in section 5.1 on the human rights approach, our connection to Country cannot
be separated from our culture, and our rights to culture. Neither can it be separated from our
wellbeing more generally, including our other social and economic rights like the rights to
health and education. The denial of our right to self‑determination underlies the denial of those
other critical rights.
The high-level themes addressed in this section are also necessarily interconnected. The lack
of access to justice is the main way that First Nations women and communities experience the
structural racism of the native title system. Lack of access to justice includes denial of the right
to free, prior and informed consent, the right to culture, the right to other social, economic and
cultural rights such as to health, and property rights. It also manifests as a lack of transparency
and accountability in the sub-systems within the native title system, and this is experienced as
a lack of ability to participate properly, and a lack of appeal options, accessible remedies, and
due process rights.
As with Wiyi Yani U Thangani, overlayed across all the other themes in this Report is the theme
of gender discrimination. Through this lens, we can see how women in the native title system
are denied access to justice and self‑determination, and can experience this denial differently
from men. One significant difference is from the perspective of community disputes and the
impact of violence and threats of violence. Another significant gender-based difference is in
the fact of reliance on historical evidence which emerged through the non‑Indigenous male lens
and the impact this has had on the value placed on women’s knowledge.
No one theme can be meaningfully considered or addressed alone when looking to reform of
Australia’s system of land justice. But it can be distilled down to one ultimate theme: the need
for reform to include a genuine power shift.
Australian Human Rights Commission
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