The Australian Psychological Society’s Apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People

Australia shares a colonial history with many other countries, including the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. This colonial history has deeply impacted First Nations peoples and is increasingly seen as underlying current Indigenous disadvantage (Waitoki & Levy, 2016). The emergence of a global Indigenous psychology is concerned with decolonization and based upon the right to self-determination enshrined by the 2007 UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (United Nations, 2008). The Declaration recognizes that Indigenous people have an inalienable right to self-governance, control over their lands, and practice of their cultures (see Hunter, Milroy, Brown, & Calma, 2012).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to experience significant inequalities and disadvantage in their health, life expectancy, education, and employment (Calma, Dudgeon, & Bray, 2017), and are overrepresented in rates of detention and imprisonment (O’Brien, 2018). The tremendous disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians represents a major human rights issue.