Roberta Sykes

Redfern resident and Harvard Graduate Dr Roberta Sykes acted as a consultant to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Death's in Custody. A dedicated black rights activist, Dr Sykes has authored seven books and has received the Australian Human Rights Medal, Australia's highest Human Rights award.

Well there are so many concerns that I hardly know where to start so let me begin by saying that I support no particular political party. I trust there are people from right around the political spectrum united by what’s happening with our Nation and what’s happening with Aboriginal people. I am for or against things that happen regardless of which party is in power and that said what we are now witnessing is a tragedy. The abolition of the Social Justice Unit of the Human Rights Commission is an assault. It is not just an assault on Aboriginal people, remember when they come for us in the morning and no one speaks up there may be no one left when they come for you.

We must speak up for human rights Sir Ronald Wilson author of the Stolen Generation report is gone, Mic Dodson Social Justice Commissioner is gone, the whole department is gone but there is no carpet big enough to hide the history they uncovered. I remember what life was like before there was a Social Justice Unit, before there was a Human Rights Commission when we weren’t served in hotels when we weren’t allowed to go into to get a bed in a motel I remember those days I wasn’t a small girl I was already a grown woman. Surreptitiously a whole range of Aboriginal funding programs have also been abolished. The Aboriginal overseas study award program has gone. I am aware of this mainly because I run a voluntary foundation Black Women’s Action in Education Foundation BWAEF. Now BWAEF has been going in one form or another for over twenty years our aim is to provide private sponsorship to Aboriginal people whose educational goals are considered over ambitious by the government education funding sections.

We currently have an Aboriginal woman doing a Doctorate in law at Harvard University a very ambitious aspiration she will graduate this year. But within the last three months BWAEF has been approached by not one but two Aboriginal tertiary students who locally and in the middle of their studies were being cut off from funding here. Both were in their mid to final stages and both were medical students. Now in the past two hundred years Australia has only graduated 28 Aboriginal doctors nationally and for all that time right up to the present there has been a continuing crisis in Aboriginal health. I have to ask you does this make sense to stop funding successful Aboriginal medical students now! The lives of Aboriginal people depend upon it!

The united efforts of women both Black and White around the issues of justice and peace are impacting on governments whether they are prepared to admit it or not. Now I want to congratulate all the women and men who have been involved and continue to be involved in Women for WIK , in the Sea of Hands and in Women for Land Rights and Native Title. I want to offer you also the opportunity to be involved helping to correct the educational imbalance. The work my foundation does is not public we have no high flyers but it is vital to the future of equality in Australia. We receive no government funding so we don’t have unlimited enrolment cards and we have no glossy brochures even though we have been going for twenty years.

So I have to ask you only those people who are really interested please take the literature I am about to hand out moving amongst you. If you are unable to get your hand on one take down the address contact me anyway. It does seem that we the people are going to have to pick up the areas of long term responsibility which our government is shedding but this shouldn’t we too hard as women and along with our few helpers we have always carried a heavy long term responsibilities we just have to keep on keeping on Thank You very much