Indigenous culture, ethics & space law

[Music plays and the Earth can be seen spinning in space, and inset images appear of a female operating a computer, a satellite dish, and a female smiling at the camera, and then text appears: Space Careers Wayfinder]

[Image changes to show Prof Deen Sanders talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a ‘Deloitte’ sign on a brick wall, and text appears: Professor Deen Sanders, OAM, Lead Partner, Deloitte Integrity]

Prof Deen Sanders: Hi, my name is Deen Sanders. I’m lead partner for a business called Deloitte Integrity.

[Image changes to show a view looking down on Newcastle, and text appears: Newcastle, NSW]

I grew up in Newcastle, went to senior school there, junior school and senior school in Newcastle.

[Image changes to show the UNE Armidale campus, and text appears: UNE Armidale]

Then went to university up in Armidale, up the northern coast as well as many other universities over the years.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

In my day of course many people left school in Year 10 to pursue trades or other sorts of work. Very few of us went on to university.

[Image changes to show Deen sitting at an outdoor table working on a laptop]

Only a handful of us actually went to university from my school.

[Image changes to show a close view of Deen talking to the camera]

I remember being uncertain about what I’d do and where I’d go. And, you know, I also remember it being exciting and challenging.

[Image changes to show a teacher talking to a group of students in an auditorium, and then the image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

We are all of us made by those influential teachers, some of their directions, some of their gentle nudging. In fact I only went to university because teachers stood up for me.

[Image changes to show a view looking up at the Deloitte building in Sydney, and text appears: Deloittes, Sydney]

Deloitte is a very large firm. We’re the world’s largest professional services firm.

[Images move through of different cities around the world]

We operate in every country, 400 000 people work for Deloitte or more.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show the Deloitte building, and then the image changes to show Deen talking again]

I began my life out of university, in fact in social work and psychology and went to work in community services and social work spaces, and decided at the time that that wasn’t going to necessarily help me fix the world in the way I wanted to fix the world.

[Image changes to show a close view of a law symbol]

So, I studied law then and went into the fields of law and regulation and education around law, and focussing on how do we get people to do the right thing, how do we encourage people to do the right thing.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show Deen and another male walking along a walking path and up to a viewing platform]

But I now know that’s actually just part of indigenous cultural leadership, that our whole culture is built around the idea of wanting to help people and wanting to encourage people to be better participants in their life and in their relationship to nature and landscapes.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a rear view of Deen and the male looking out over bushland from the viewing platform]

What’s the right way of behaving? What’s the right way of building trust?

[Images move through to show a view looking up at Deen and the male as they look out from the viewing platform, a view of bushland, a pair of glasses resting on paperwork, and Deen talking]

So many professions like law or medicine and other sort of spaces like that have ethical frameworks that underpin them.

[Images move through to show views of Deen looking at a smartphone]

How do we do the right thing, not just what is the right thing.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show Deen driving a 4-wheel drive utility vehicle along a dirt road]

So, I think that the difference between that and say morals is that morals are often a personal driving force about what do we personally believe about the world, what do we personally believe about our role in that world.

[Images move through to show Deen talking to the camera, Deen and a male getting out of the utility vehicle and walking towards the camera, a ‘Finchley Aboriginal Area’ welcome sign, and Deen talking]

But ethics, and in particular in indigenous conceptions of ethics, it’s not so much about my own personal view but what we share, what is our shared commitment, what is our shared responsibility to the world we live in or to the care of landscapes and nature, or the care and practice of culture, or the care and practice in society. So ethics to my mind is more of a collective consideration, something we negotiate together.

[Image changes to show Deen and the male looking at prints embedded in the rocky ground and talking, and then the image changes to show a close view of a person walking through a paddock]

We once all used to be only 100 years or so ago, all of us as a global set of communities, in almost direct relationship with landscape. We all lived or worked or survived in landscape agricultural activities or mining or other activities.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

So, it’s not that long ago as a global connected set of peoples.

[Image changes to show a facing view of a utility vehicle moving through a flooded creek bed towards the camera, and then the image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

But if we take the view that primary function each of us have is to have a better relationship with our country, with our space, then technologies that allow us to enhance that understanding, or sometimes to even see that in ways that we weren’t otherwise able to are always going to be beneficial.

[Images move through to show a rocket being launched and then moving through the air, a satellite moving over the Earth, and Deen talking to the camera]

Space exploration and geospatial orbit, better capacity for understanding landscapes through better imaging of the landscape are all exciting initiatives to help us more deeply understand the sensitivity of our ecosystems, but also frankly the opportunities for us to impact on them positively.

[Images move through to show two utility vehicles moving through the ASKAP array in the desert]

And we should encourage exploration. We should encourage innovation.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a satellite orbiting the Earth]

But we also need to encourage shared recognition of the outcomes, that space is for all of us. Space belongs to all of us and it belongs to none of us.

[Image changes to show clouds scudding across a night sky]

It is something that every single human being on this planet sees every single night.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a view looking into space]

It's one of the few things that we genuinely share.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

So space law is an exciting field of change right now too. The difficulty of course with space as everybody knows is there is no uniform law. There is no shared practice or application of law for every country in the world.

[Image changes to show an aerial view looking down on the ASKAP array, and then the image changes to show Deen and a male looking down at prints in the rocks, and then talking together]

So, the exciting thing about Australia’s role in the global space conversation is that along amongst the world, we have the world’s oldest continuous culture that has stories for space, that has stories for governance and law, and can lead those conversations in the global community.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show Deen and the male looking at the prints in the rocks again]

So, it’s important to find a way in modern space exploration in the technologies of space and the power and politics around space.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

To recognise the role of humanity as the primary custodian of that space. It’s become very common to talk about all of the opportunities and exciting roles in space, in science, and in technology, in STEM emerging in those particular spaces but I think it’s more than that too.

[Image changes to show a rear view of a person looking up at a night sky]

I think every kid has an opportunity to be in the space sector because space needs the poets. It needs the artists. It needs the teachers. It needs the storytellers.

[Image changes to show Deen talking to the camera]

It needs everybody for space.

[Music plays and the image changes to show a view looking down on Earth from space]

[Image changes to show the CSIRO logo and text appears: CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency, Space Careers Wayfinder 2022 except where otherwise indicated, The Space Careers Wayfinder materials may be used, reproduced, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided by all acknowledgements associated with the material are retained, Space Careers Wayfinder is a collaboration between the CSIRO and ANU]

[Image changes to show the ANU logo on a white screen]