The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Committee (ATSIEC) and TAFE ATSIEC decided at its June 2006 meeting the ongoing theme for all Seminars will be “Our Voices, Our Vision”, with a topical theme selected for each annual Seminar. The topical theme for the 2007 Seminar is “Our Right to be heard”.

This topical theme is in recognition of how the ATSIECs will determine their involvement in the work of the AEU and its campaigns. The campaigns selected for this Seminar were the AEU Public Education Campaign and the ACTU Your Rights at Work Campaign. To give effect to this, Lead Papers were presented by two notable speakers. Mordy Bromberg, Barrister-at-Law SC, presented the morning Lead Paper identifying the major changes that the Work Choices Legislation has brought about, in the context of the fundamental rights an industrial relations system should provide for, with a particular focus on the impact this is having on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment.

The afternoon Lead Paper was presented by Nicole Watson, Senior Research Fellow at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney. Ms Watson's paper was on the rights to quality public education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and how programs and funding are at the whim of Governments. Ms Watson argued that a legal instrument such as a Treaty between the Aboriginal Nations and the Australian Government would guarantee a seat at the table for Indigenous peoples when decisions regarding education are being made. This would protect the right to the provision and access of quality public education and she cited the successes the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand, Canada and the United States have had in this regard.

The Lead Papers were followed by Syndicate Sessions which were: “Engagement in the ACTU Your Rights at Work Campaign” and “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement in the AEU Public Education Campaign”. The outcomes from the Syndicate Sessions are designed to identify how the AEU Indigenous membership will engage in the two selected campaigns. This entailed identifying the issues, the objectives for engagement, strategies to achieve the objectives and assess success.

The elements of the Your Rights at Work session included engaging members in the work place, public spaces, community groups, Government MPs and also encouraging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to enrol to vote. The elements for the Public Education Session were TAFE/VET, Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary Schooling and Community Participation and Engagement. Both sessions were extremely successful.