A birth certificate is a gateway to society. It is currency. Yet there are deeply structural, historical, financial and legal obstacles faced by Aboriginal people to getting, having and keeping this document. Without access to this currency, many people becoming dwellers on the fringes of society, invisible and not quite able to participate.

A birth certificate is required to engage with many basic government services. We require a birth certificate to get a driving licence, enrol in school, to get a government benefit and to get a tax file number. These services might be taken for granted for those of us who have easy access to them.

As a lawyer in the legal assistance sector, I often come across Aboriginal people who don’t have birth certificates or whose children don’t have birth certificates. Something as simple as not having access to primary forms of identification can easily escalate to create unresolved legal issues.

One of the first obstacles to getting a birth certificate is where a birth hasn’t been registered.

Birth registration is the process of a child’s birth being recorded with a state births, deaths and marriages registry. BDM registration is the starting point to proving an individual’s existence. The right to be recognised at law is set out in international human rights instruments. Without this recognition other key human rights, such as the right to education, may not be fully realised.

Birth registration forms are provided to new parents in hospitals at the time of birth. If the forms are lost then generally new forms have to be obtained from the relevant BDM registry. This means that new parents have to know that they need to do this and request a new form.

At a national level, there doesn’t appear to be clear data as to the precise numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people who do not have birth certificates or whose birth is not registered. A Western Australian study showed that an astounding one in five Aboriginal births were not registered.

Further, the Queensland ombudsman investigated the registration of Indigenous births in the state and found that between 15% and 18% of births to Indigenous mothers were not registered, compared with 1.8% of births to non-Indigenous mothers.

Non-birth registration in Aboriginal communities needs to be considered in its historical context. The links that might be drawn between the stolen generations and the non-registration of Aboriginal births are clear. The Bringing Them Home Report references the facilitation of the removal of Aboriginal children via hospitals under assimilation policies. If children are born outside the purview of the state, then perhaps interventions by child welfare agencies can be avoided. These traumas and these stories are passed on.

In light of this, any attempts to better engage new Aboriginal mothers in the birth registration process needs to go beyond mere education about the benefits of registration. Thought also needs to be given to how to heal and overcome the historical traumas perpetrated against Aboriginal mothers and families accessing health services.

The Queensland ombudsman report identified that cross-agency strategies were likely to be needed to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander birth registration.

There are potential opportunities for birth registration processes to be embedded more deeply into healthcare services and postnatal care for Aboriginal mothers.

Even once a birth has been registered, the fees associated with applying for a birth certificate are significant and varies from state to state. A person born the Australian Capital Territory can expect to pay $65 for a birth certificate. For a single person receiving the base rate of Newstart allowance with no children, this fee would amount to about 12% of their fortnightly income. Victoria has the lowest birth certificate application fees, at $33.80.

BDM registries are able to exercise discretion to waive fees. Again, this requires individuals’ to actively identify this policy and to ask for the discretion to be exercised.

It is easy to see how poverty becomes entrenched by requiring people to pay such significant amounts for a document that is mandatory for access to essential services.

Is it time to reconsider the user-pays service model if we want to get serious as a nation about tackling intergenerational poverty and trauma?

• Merinda Dutton is a Gumbaynggirr and Barkindji woman and lawyer. She graduated from University of New South Wales in 2013 with a bachelor of laws/ bachelor of jurisprudence. She was a director of the NSW Aboriginal Lawyers and Law Students Association from 2010 to 2014

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