What We Can Do: A Menu for Allies
A practical companion to Social Justice for First Nations: The Challenge for Allies — concrete actions, organised by what you have to give, with the campaigns and tools to plug into today.
The argument in the companion essay leaves ally communities with an uncomfortable question: not whether we mean well, but whether what we do actually moves power. This menu is one attempt at an answer, grounded in the diagnosis Professor Megan Davis has set out over two decades and the Blueprint the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Katie Kiss, tabled in federal parliament in June 2026.
Five conditions still need to be built before structural reform can succeed, and each item below is aimed at strengthening at least one of them:
- Durable civic literacy about the Constitution, the Uluru Statement and what Voice, Treaty and Truth actually mean.
- Resistance to disinformation, so the next reform proposal is not drowned in manufactured doubt.
- A mobilised constituency large enough to make political erasure costly for governments of either colour.
- Visible, working proof that First Nations-designed and community-controlled models succeed.
- A formal rights architecture — a national Human Rights Act and full implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — so rights do not depend on which government holds office.
The first four conditions draw on the analysis of Megan Davis and Gabrielle Appleby; the fifth is a foundation of Commissioner Kiss's Blueprint. The framing that follows, and any errors in it, are the author's own.
Three strategic rules I try to hold myself to
Treat the state as an interested party, not a partner
Governments of every colour have shown they will suspend their own laws or repeal their own legislation when it is politically convenient. Assume that by default, and ask what makes reversal costly — not what makes a minister feel comfortable.
Treat a change of government as a milestone, not a finish line
A friendlier government is a short-term, reversible gain, not a destination. Hold whichever party governs to the same standard, and keep pressing when a government you support retreats from First Nations justice commitments — that is often the moment allies go quiet, and it is exactly when pressure matters most.
Support existing infrastructure instead of building parallel structures
First Nations-led organisations already exist to do this work. An ally's job is usually to fund, amplify, staff or defend that infrastructure — not to invent a new initiative that duplicates it.
Order of priority
Before choosing where to put time or money: First Nations-led organisations first (ATSILS, NATSILS, land councils, community-controlled services). Ally organisations second (ANTaR national, ANTaR Queensland) — they exist to amplify and resource First Nations-led work, not to substitute for it. Voting and electoral engagement third — necessary, but the least of the three because it changes who holds an already-flawed structure rather than the structure itself.
Quick start — if you only do five things this month
- Set up a recurring donation to ATSILS Queensland or your state/territory Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service.
- Read the Social Justice Report 2025 executive summary and share one finding with your network.
- Join Save Victoria Park or the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance mailing list.
- Write one letter to your state or federal MP raising a specific Social Justice Report 2025 recommendation, and ask for a written response.
- If you have a vote: support the strongest candidate on First Nations justice in your seat, and use your preferences to reward genuine commitments rather than default loyalty to any one party. Between elections, keep writing to your MP.
Use your money to fund structural fights
Fund Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILS, NATSILS) directly — frontline legal defence is chronically underfunded.
Support language revival and cultural camps run by First Nations organisations in your region.
Back justice reinvestment campaigns: Change the Record and Raise the Age.
Fund the Indigenous Human Rights Network and similar rights-monitoring bodies.
Support cultural heritage defence campaigns directly, including Save Victoria Park.
Offer bridge-funding to community organisations facing gaps between government funding cycles.
Redirect money your workplace or community group currently spends on symbolic reconciliation events toward the organisations above.
Use your time to do the risky and tedious work communities can't always carry
File Right to Information requests and help communities interpret the results.
Draft or co-sign inquiry submissions and human rights complaints on specific policy failures.
Prepare a submission responding to the Social Justice Report 2025's recommendations.
Run public-record campaigns that track government commitments over time.
Help with enrolment drives and doorknocking in seats where First Nations justice is on the ballot.
Provide court support or watch-house support rosters where communities ask for it.
Handle event logistics for community-led truth-telling and cultural events.
Leverage institutions to make costly, public commitments
Push your workplace, university or professional body to make a specific, measurable institutional commitment — not a statement.
Advocate publicly for a national Human Rights Act and full implementation of UNDRIP.
Redirect institutional reconciliation-week spending toward the funding priorities in Section 1.
Write to your federal representative naming a specific Social Justice Report 2025 recommendation and asking for their position.
Move union or professional-association resolutions in support of Raise the Age, Treaty processes or cultural heritage protection.
Press Queensland representatives specifically on National Justice Reinvestment Program funding allocation.
Escalate advocacy through institutions you already belong to rather than starting new ones.
Spend your reputation where communities can't afford to risk theirs
Publicly challenge racist media coverage, including breaches of the Youth Justice Media Code.
Support the National Anti-Racism Framework's public advocacy.
Volunteer as a legal observer at protests, hearings or contested sites.
Support people through bail hearings and fines with practical, unglamorous logistical help.
Give visible testimony — at council meetings, in submissions, in your networks — when doing so shields someone with more to lose.
Cede platform and speaking opportunities to First Nations voices rather than positioning yourself as the spokesperson.
Join Allies for Uluru and participate in its coordinated campaigns.
Use your skills to build evidence and infrastructure
Document and archive removals of Indigenous leaders from public boards and statutory bodies.
Help communities archive and interpret Right to Information disclosures.
Offer pro bono legal, design or technical support to First Nations-led organisations.
Track implementation of Social Justice Report 2025 recommendations against public statements.
Provide communications, design or web development support to campaigns and services.
Support data analysis, video production or rapid media response for time-sensitive campaigns.
Use your vote — and your voice between elections
Give your first preference to the candidate with the strongest, most specific record on First Nations justice in your seat — not simply the candidate of your usual party.
Use preferences to reward candidates by their actual commitments rather than by party loyalty, and rank hostile or dismissive candidates low regardless of which party they belong to.
Use candidate questionnaires and public forums to get commitments on the record before you vote, then hold the winner to them.
Write to your MP now, between elections — sustained pressure outside campaign season is what makes commitments stick.
Campaign for the establishment of a Makarrata Commission and a standing constitutional commission along the lines Davis and Appleby propose.
Share clear, sourced voting information in your own networks so other allies can make informed, values-based choices rather than defaulting to habit.
In this parliamentary term — specific asks
- Press for the government's formal, dated response to the Social Justice Report 2025's twenty-five recommendations.
- Support the Free and Equal final report process on a National Human Rights Act.
- Back the Joint Standing Committee on Human Rights inquiry relevant to First Nations rights protections.
- Support the Joint Standing Committee inquiry into implementing UNDRIP domestically.
Common traps for allies — stop doing these
- Treating self-education as the finish line rather than the entry fee.
- Issuing statements of support with no attached action, funding or follow-through.
- Running feel-good events with no measurable deliverable for the community involved.
- Building parallel structures instead of resourcing the ones First Nations organisations already run.
- Freelancing into issues a community body is already managing, without asking first.
- Treating a government's promise as an outcome, and moving on before it is delivered.
Vehicles and tools
Build proof that community-controlled models work
- ATSILS and NATSILS
- Change the Record and Raise the Age
- Family Matters and SNAICC
- National Justice Reinvestment Program (NIAA) — $20 million per year from 2026–27
- Justice Reform Initiative
Build civic literacy and a mobilised constituency
- ANTAR and ANTaR Queensland
- First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance
- Save Victoria Park and other heritage campaigns
Build resistance to disinformation and media accountability
- Allies for Uluru
- Passing the Message Stick
- Youth Justice Media Code accountability campaigns
Legal, rights and accountability tools
- Human Rights Law Centre — National Human Rights Act campaign
- UNDRIP implementation campaign
- Makarrata Commission campaign
- Deaths-in-custody independent oversight campaigns
- Queensland Right to Information
- Australian Human Rights Commission and Queensland Human Rights Commission
- Paul Ramsay Foundation — Justice Reinvestment (philanthropic bridge funding)
Summary map
| Holding action | Builds toward constitutional change by… |
|---|---|
| Funding legal, language and justice-reinvestment services | Proving community-controlled models work at scale |
| Bridge-funding organisations between grant cycles | Keeping First Nations-led infrastructure alive to run the proof |
| RTI requests and formal complaints | Building a documented evidence base for accountability |
| Institutional commitments (workplaces, unions, universities) | Widening the constituency with public, costly-to-reverse pledges |
| Legal observing, bail support, public testimony | Defending people and due process the structural reforms would protect |
| Documentation and archiving of removals and decisions | Creating the record that makes erasure politically costly |
| Enrolment drives and values-based preferencing | Building the parliamentary numbers structural reform needs |
| Amplifying First Nations voices and ceding platform | Building civic literacy and resisting disinformation |
| Campaigning for a Human Rights Act, UNDRIP and a Makarrata Commission | Building the formal rights architecture that outlasts any one government |
| Holding government accountable to Social Justice Report 2025 | Keeping the official, evidence-based agenda alive between elections |