Hello, my name is Carolyn Briggs and I'm the principal at Minnabah Aboriginal Primary
School in Armadale. Today we've had a very successful event held in collaboration with
the University of New England, SIFE, the New England Community Mutual, and Berth's
Destined Marriages and Faxia. It was recognised a few months ago that some of
our students, a significant number of our students, didn't have birth certificates
or and or weren't registered and we decided to do something about it.
Well we're the psych team from UNE, students in pre-enterprise and we've
had a long-standing relationship with the Minnabah School for the last seven
plus years maybe and in the last three years we've started running a financial
literacy project with New England Mutual out here with the students in primary
school and we started off by just running workshops on you know what money
is and how to save it and just basic level things for children to learn
about financial literacy and we decided that we'd probably need to start
something there was a bit more hands-on a bit more practical. A lot of schools
run programs where you set up a bank account and put in $2 a week or
whatever and so we went about starting that process and then realised in order
to open up a bank account you need a birth certificate and that's sort of
where this whole project stemmed from that initial realisation that a lot of
Aboriginal people across Australia don't have birth certificates which is a real
issue. So then it was research about well how big is the issue and what are the
causes why aren't people registering their children or applying for birth
certificates and we discovered that a lot of it was just because it had been
put off or because of the cost of the birth certificates so then we decided
well maybe we could do something about it. So we spoke to Richard Torbay and on
our behalf he appealed to the Attorney General's Department and the New South
Wales Registry of Birth Descent Marriages agreed to help us and reduce the
cost of the birth certificates and then we had to find funding so then for the
past six months we've been looking at different avenues. Yeah we sort of formed a
working committee of different government and non-government agencies in our
local area to help us facilitate and run this day I suppose and to get that
funding and have it all organised with BDM to get them out and have a list of
people that would be here on the day and make sure that it would run smoothly and
have all of the day's events run well. Can you explain to us a little bit about how
new the mutualised come involved in the birth certificates? Sure we've been here for about three or four years
doing a financial education program for kids to try and bring them in give them
skills in just basic money knowledge and that's a thing and it was through that
process that we with the CIFU&E students found that up to 95% of the
students here didn't have birth certificates for one reason or another
and when we researched that further we found that it was a national problem so
what we're seeing here locally is actually a national problem so we decided
to you know we pride ourselves as being part of the community and so we thought
well let's see whether we can actually change this and help the CIFU students
through this process. The big thing is the fact that it costs so much money
the $48 to apply for a birth certificate is a burden when you've just had a
child and the process of applying for a birth certificate is quite onerous you
register your child and then you have to complete more paperwork for a birth
certificate and pay the cost so I believe that that's probably the biggest
dissonance to you.
So Rob how have you guys been involved in today's event? Well we've been involved in a
tolyska because we want to see kids get birth certificates where we come in
contact with them as young adults if they don't have birth certificates they
can't get driver's licenses and they get in trouble with the courts. That could be a
real impact later on reoccurring wouldn't it? It's a real problem for the rest of
their life if they haven't got one. The other purpose of being out here today is
to provide handouts and information for any general legal problems they may have
any advice they might want we're on hand to help them as much as we can.
They couldn't even put it in writing that the children are in her care for her to be able to do it.
Because what happens they told us that if the child is not actually the son or
daughter of the person then we have to have proof, some proof that the child
was in their care. So that's what the issue is proving.
Did she actually come in today and was turned away? No she tried to get that proof first because she realised that she would need that.
There's plenty more families like that. Exactly. The lady that's out there now
rose that's applying right now she has two children in her care that are here
and she won't be able to get theirs either. No and it's not fair.
We think maybe a way to deal with this would be to have that legislative change
in the way we can recognise a sustainable way of doing that would be to
connect getting a birth certificate with enabling parents to have Centrelink
payments or baby bonus for a new child and just connect it all up so that it's
not a disjointed thing and you can have other forms of identification for
those avenues it should all be just the one because it is it's the
citizenship that comes with the birth certificate that isn't being missed out
by all these families and they're just using other forms of identification
that aren't as strong. There are some things that you definitely need a birth
certificate for such as driver's licence, a passport, all these things that these
kids are missing out on and it's a real shame. So we're optimistic that the
90 or 100 children being signed up here today will have from today on
with access not only to financial services and that whole of life's of
financial services that they require but also that they're going to be able to
access ongoing education because I understand next from next year the
birth certificate tool will be a lot if the if students don't have birth
certificates they won't be able to access primary education so they can't access sporting
clubs they can't travel they can't get licenses so and to all intents and
purposes they're not officially Australian citizens until they actually have these
birth certificates so we're very proud to be involved in this process. Thank you very much.
It's amazing to see that they can actually apply for birth certificate themselves.
You can't even open up a bank account for these.
The Minister should be able to make allowances to give them the original when they need it
for the person who is the guardian so they can access all those things for every other child.
How much trouble is it to give them an original?
I don't know.
Especially the ones that are related to care.
That's right.
And they know about it too.
Well there's not really such a thing here.
I don't understand why they could be disverified.
They just needed a letter like a proper legal form of identification so a fine letter by dogs
or whoever it is the court or whoever has issued that.
So I think it's something we need to talk to ALS about maybe.
For the future of the minima project we're looking to expand what we've done here to
allow it to go to a broader community environment.
So we're hoping that we can organise this in a package that we can deliver to another school
or another part of the community that can then use this scaffolding to develop another project
like we've done here or another day like we've done here.
So I think to make it sustainable that is what we should be aiming at.
And if we're going for systemic change we need to alert...
Well there's a significant number of other kids that are here.
And some of them are in kinship care but it doesn't make any difference.
They don't recognise that relationship.
Which is part of the issue that we found here.
And they've identified it as a kinship carer.
But still it doesn't inspire you to do anything.
No. There should be some intolerance.
Exactly.
Oh well there you go. That's another thing.
So another thing to tell the government to change.
So is there anything else that can't stay with you?
That's probably the most significant thing I think that just came up today.
I'm starting to see that the only way we're really going to deal with this across the board,
across Australia is to do it through legislative change.
And so that's why we've been working with a lot of our local members
and trying to pass the words through to the federal government
to try and make this an issue that's no longer an issue.
And we'll continue to run the financial literacy program with the school next year.
Yeah with Baking Counts.
Ringler Mutual are going to stay on board and help us to deliver the workshops
and hopefully even open Baking Counts.
I think the most significant thing out of all of this is...
it wasn't that long ago that Aboriginal people could not even apply for a birth certificate
and it's certainly within my lifetime that that's happened.
And it's really important that we acknowledge that
and that we inform our families and our community about the importance of having a birth certificate
so that it opens many doors for their children and for their future.
There have been a lot of groups that have been willing to be involved in this.
I think we should thank a few of them.
The Birth Test and Marriages for their help.
Minibus School.
The rest of the Cyphreorganisation has been very understanding of...
we've had a lot of time spent in this.
Lions for cooking the barbecue today. Community Mutual.
The ALF.
What else have we got there?
Division of General Practice, Centrelink.
Salvation Army are here.
We didn't think we could.
We thought, God, this is a huge issue, how are we going to tackle this?
And then we thought, hang on, the way our Cypher group is,
is that we focus on our local issues and try and deal with them
and then make them grow out with them.
So we just went, well, what can we do?
And then it was just talking to one person, talking to the next person.
And we discovered we could do something.
A lot of work with Minibus School.
Yeah, they've been fundamental.
And then getting that working community together.
Once we had that, this was all rolling.
What's happening?
So today has been a huge success with almost 100 people
coming through our door to get registered
or to receive birth certificates today.
It's been a fantastic day.
It's been a nice community feel about it.
And it's been enjoyed by all.
We had music, we had a barbecue lunch as well.
Thank you.
