Here you can write what strategies could be used to implement the recommendations. Please add your ideas after the point it refers to.
1. That all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages be recognised as Official Languages of Australia
- All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a right to be educated in the languages of their ancestors as well as others
- The right to interpreting and translating in a court of law and elsewhere - See Charter
- The right to name oneself in one’s own language
- The right to have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander placenames recognised
- The right to have laws written in one’s own language
2. That the Federal Government recognise that speaking an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language is a contributor to social cohesion including our kinship and relationships in a culturally diverse society.
3. That the government and its agencies take Indigenous languages seriously. Communication about government business (health, social security, policing etc.) and education are most effective if conducted using people’s first language.
4. This conference does not endorse the claims made by Noel Pearson that Aboriginal languages do not belong in schools (see article in The Australian)
5. That Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and linguistics courses be given serious consideration within national VET curriculum and help facilitate delivery of VET programs across state and territory borders.
6.That Federal and State Education Departments commit funds and resources to:
i) Training of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speakers to teach their own languages
ii) Provision of public spaces for people to meet and talk in their language
iii) Investigating individual cases where tutors wish to each in schools but do not satisfy existing criteria
iv) Support communities to develop school curriculum and resources in their language
7. That bilingual education programs be given serious consideration. This includes assessing the Aboriginal language component as well as the English component.
- Current bilingual education programs that have been undermined and reduced be continued
8. note that most of the recommendations of the National Indigenous Languages Survey report 2005 have not been implemented, and call for a review to recommend means of implementation.
9. The English language is imposed by government on Aboriginal languages which impact on our identity as 1st Nations people that we as the peoples of this land cannot allow ourselves to be brainwashed into doing the government’s work. This language makes Aboriginal people perpetually “invisible” by use of the language of power to fall into the control they exert over all of us through its financial control over people. Let’s take control and identify ourselves as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who own these lands.
10. That the Federal Government develop a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait languages policy.
11. That the Federal Government take immediate steps to act on the above recommendations, particularly with 2008 being the Year of Indigenous Languages
In particular key recommendations 1 and 4 have not been implemented:
(1) a pilot national program of Indigenous Language Nests;
(4) a National Indigenous Languages centre.
We call on the government to take steps immediately to implement these recommendations.
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