How can Parliaments engage meaningfully with Indigenous communities?

This workshop, chosen by the CPA New South Wales Branch as Host Branch of the 67th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, will explore the role of how Parliaments can meaningfully engage with indigenous communities. 

In order to effectively represent their diverse communities, Legislatures need to hear from individuals with diverse perspectives, backgrounds and experiences.

The 66th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Ghana in October 2023 held a workshop examining how Parliamentarians and individuals could encourage and implement humans rights values in the Commonwealth.

A key aspect of upholding human rights is to ensure that all people and minority groups, including Indigenous Peoples, are able to meaningfully engage with their respective Legislatures. Australia is home to the oldest continuous civilisation on earth, the Aboriginal peoples, a diverse mix of First Nations peoples and original inhabitants who have lived on the land for a continuous 60,000 years.  

This workshop will focus on how Parliamentarians and society as a whole can establish and implement frameworks which allow for meaningful engagement with Indigenous Peoples.

The workshop will hear from panellists who, through lived experience and professional expertise, share what can be done to establish parliamentary frameworks that support and meaningful engage with Indigenous peoples.  

The recommendation proposed for endorsement by workshop delegates is as follows:

• Parliamentarians across the Commonwealth have a responsibility to establish and implement parliamentary frameworks which enable active and meaningful engagement with Indigenous Peoples.

The Parliamentarian: Related Articles

• The Parliamentarian 2021 Issue Two: Building a Sustainable Future by looking at Foundational Knowledge: The Participation of the Indigenous in Caribbean Governance
  
  
• The Parliamentarian 2017 Issue Three: Increasing Indigenous Parliamentarians in Australia and Celebrating 150 years of Canada’s confederation and Parliament’s recognition of indigenous peoples