TORRES NEWS THURSDAY 3 AUGUST 2023
NEWS 05
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7/9, 5/10, 2/11 & 7/12/23
Jesse calls for more to speak up on international stage BY CARLI WILLIS A Wagadagam and Yuin man has formed and organisation to help the international community gain insight into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs in Australia. Chairman and founder of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander International Engagement Organisation (ATSIIEO), Jesse T Martin, travelled with his Executive Director Jack Collard, a Whadjuk Noongar man from Perth, to give an address at the United Nations conference for the Expert Mechanism on the Rights on Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) earlier this month. He said the future of the organisation, now it had a foothold in the international community, was to facilitate opportunities for more Indigenous people and communities to participate in these spaces. “We’ve made sure we open the door to these to these different countries
Jesse T Martin at the United Nations in Geneva. Pic supplied. or these different places,” Jesse said. “From there, once we’ve got the door open, we are able to start linking in different Indigenous people or groups, organisations, or nations.” He said ATSIIEO was the only organisation he came into contact with at EMRIP who represented Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Australians interests, aside from the government. “As far as they’re concerned treaty does not come up
in discussions, self determination does not come up,” he said. “When they’re talking about Indigenous people on the international stage, they are not talking about our land rights, they’re not talking about our sea rights. “They’re not talking about our participation and our self determination within that space, that can only come from us.” He said it was crucial Indigenous people and grass roots communities were present on the
international stage. EMRIP’s theme for 2023 was ‘Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: a rights-based approach’. Mr Martin said he referenced the Australian Climate Case in his address to the conference. “You’re trying to say that you’ve got dominion over these over these particular islands, so you’ve got dominion over these particular people,” he said. “But that dominion comes with that particular responsibility.” He also referenced his father’s country where people were criminalised for fishing for abalone, a practice, he said, which was also at risk from climate change. “We want to make sure that our interests and that our particular situation, is conveyed to the international community from our lens and our perspective,” he said.
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First Nations health Enrol Now for 2024 and 2025 ENROL NOW for surveys on their way M 2024 & 2025 BY CARLI WILLIS For the first time in a decade three national surveys of Australia’s First Nations people by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are underway, and on their way to the Torres Strait. ABS teams were working across the country to conduct The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS), The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (NATSINPAS) and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Measures Survey (NATSIHMS). The teams were set to start in Gimuy/Cairns this month and Townsville in September. ABS Centre of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Statistics Director Shonella Tatipata said the teams would also come to survey Waiben and as many outer islands as possible. “We employ local people as community advisors, people that can speak the local language, as well as helping that conversation around the initial approach with the door knocking,” she said. ABS staff would start with door knocking homes to determine if there were First Nations people present before arranging a time to sit down and
conduct the survey. “The surveys are focused on essentially, understanding the health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” she said. “Really trying to understand or learn more about treatment and prevention of health and chronic health needs. [We] look at how has it changed since the last time these surveys were run and what’s important for them currently, in terms of their health needs.” She said the Health Measures Survey (NATSIHMS) was last carried out in 2013 and included a voluntary blood and urine collection component. Ms Tatipata said the the data collected at the time helped governments make a decision to lower the cardiovascular screening age for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from 40- to 30-years of age. She said it also helped to inform the Australian National Diabetes Strategy. “We don’t address all areas of closing the gap, but we’re a key resource for that framework as well,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for community to tell government, what their changing priorities for health and their chronic health needs are.” The ABS said the surveys should be completed by the end of December and data was expected to be released by the end of 2024.
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