Inquiry into Truth and Justice Commission Bill 2024: Submission 125

This submission is made in my personal capacity as a non-Indigenous PhD student at the Australian National University in Canberra. My doctoral project aims to promote two-way understanding by strengthening the ability of Australian parliamentary inquiries to work with language speakers and First Nations interpreters at public hearings. This aligns with article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which calls on national governments to ‘… take effective measures to ensure that Indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.’

This work is relevant to the evidence-taking practices of the Truth and Justice Commission proposed in this bill, especially to taking evidence in language from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island language speakers. Brief comments on specific clauses of the bill follow.