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Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners and Country
The Marine National Facility acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands and seas that we live and work on across Australia and pays respect to their Elders past and present. We honour and celebrate the spiritual, cultural and customary connections of Traditional Owners to Country and its surrounding seas and oceans.
1. Vision statement
The Marine National Facility (MNF) facilitates excellent marine science for national benefit. The MNF achieves this by hosting Australian researchers and their international collaborators on voyages in Australia’s vast marine estate and beyond.
The MNF believes that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have made and will continue to make extraordinary contributions to Australia across cultural, economic and scientific domains. Furthermore, the MNF recognises the social and economic disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is committed to overcoming the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians.
The MNF Indigenous Engagement Policy Statement articulates opportunities to embed greater Indigenous engagement and promote increased participation by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the research facilitated by the MNF. Greater participation will ensure that science proposals will benefit from the insights that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can bring to the national challenges. It also provides a means of ensuring that the MNF maximise the opportunity for projects hosted by the Facility to contribute to addressing the challenges and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
2. Embedding Indigenous Engagement in MNF business
Recruitment
The MNF commit to supporting CSIRO’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment Strategy which aims to reach 3% employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people nationally within CSIRO by the end of 2018.
Influencing Indigenous Engagement with our Users
The MNF is in a unique position to be able to raise the profile and opportunity for Indigenous engagement in marine science programs through its influence as a key operator of a National Facility in the Innovation System.
To raise this profile, applicants for Granted Voyages with the MNF will be asked to articulate how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders will be engaged during the project design, voyage delivery and post-voyage phases, as well as details of what expected impacts are identified that will benefit Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people or contribute to Indigenous knowledge systems.
At this stage, responses to this question will not form part of sea-time approvals but prompt applicants to consider the actions that they can take to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
3. Input by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into this policy
This policy has been developed in collaboration with the CSIRO Office of Indigenous Engagement and is part of CSIRO's Reconciliation Action Plan.
4. Providing feedback on this Policy Statement
The MNF is committed to continuous improvement and welcomes your feedback regarding this engagement strategy and its application at mnf@csiro.au.