I first set foot in a prison over 25 years ago.

The local Aboriginal Health service had asked me to do a weekly clinic for the Aboriginal women in the Adelaide Women’s Prison.

I was interested. I was aware of the recent Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC.) And, as a doctor, I was concerned because of the many conversations I’d already had with Aboriginal mothers and grandmothers about family inside prison and their worries for them. These worries for family were often so distressing that their own health was deeply affected.

This initial connection to women inside and their families has set me on a quest that has consumed me ever since-a journey to understand what is driving incarceration for Aboriginal people and what we can all do about it.

We lock up Aboriginal people at the highest rate of any group in the world. Every year we publish the numbers. We document the decline. More people are locked up every year-10 times more, 15 times more, 17 times more Aboriginal people locked up than non-Aboriginal people. We call it a ‘national disgrace’ and still we watch, and we document.

I am not Aboriginal. I am balanda, pirinpa, kartiya, goonya, wadjella, all language names for being non-Aboriginal. I am a whitefella. It’s an identity I’ve struggled with all my working life.

So is it OK for me to speak up about Aboriginal incarceration, or am I taking away from voices of Aboriginal people who need to be heard?       

When is my idea of helping actually helpful, or am I doing more harm than good by reinforcing the existing systems of injustice and disadvantage and power?

The outcome of the Voice to Parliament referendum in late 2024 galvanised my commitment to speak up.

The Voice was not the responsibility of Aboriginal Australia to convince the rest of us. It was our chance to take responsibility, and we failed.

It is no accident that our whitefella systems don’t work for Aboriginal people. Those of us who have worked and fought inside them to try to make things better for Aboriginal people know it’s not a matter of chance.

We whitefellas created these systems, we whitefellas maintain them and we whitefellas as a nation collectively condone them.

So spurred on by the recurring sound of the clank of the prison gate in my head as it closes behind me, it is time to tell a better story, to face our whitefella responsibility and to make this right.

I’m Anthea Krieg. Welcome to Good Mob Mad System.