Three Recent Developments of Interest

There have been a number of recent developments of interest in the Indigenous policy space which will likely be overwhelmed by the release of the annual close the gap statement this week. Set our below are brief comments on the release of the NT Government’s new Aboriginal Affairs strategy, a new evaluation report from the Castan Centre on the NT Intervention, and the passage of an amendments package to the AIATSIS legislation.

NT Government Aboriginal Affairs Strategy

The NT Chief Minister and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Adam Giles MLA issued a new Aboriginal Affairs Strategy. His press release is here, the policy document itself is here. I confess to mixed feelings in relation to this announcement –the focus of the press release is understandably on Indigenous employment targets, contracting targets for Aboriginal businesses, and public service targets. In each of these areas, progress looks positive.

The policy document ticks all the right boxes (although glossing over the issue of school attendance and focussing instead on ‘retention’), is written in an accessible and easy to read style, and emphasises the Government’s commitment to engagement with Aboriginal Territorians. Moreover, it commits the Government to a detailed monitoring and evaluation process, and reflects a ‘whole of government’ approach to administration of Aboriginal policy issues, which involves the Chief Minister's Department in oversighting line agencies who have functional service delivery responsibilities. The Commonwealth could learn from the Territory in this respect.

My reservations relate to what is not included in the policy document, namely the absence of any description of the choices and trade-offs the NT Government will be making in key policy areas, the absence of any detail on the pathways it seeks to pursue to achieve some of its policy objectives (for example in relation to land policy), and the total absence of any data relating to the levels of resourcing for Aboriginal issues, and particularly for remote communities.

Of course, the Commonwealth is a huge player in NT Indigenous affairs policies, by virtue of the fact that the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 is federal legislation, and the fact that the Stronger Futures funding and policy frameworks, which replaced the NT Emergency Response (better known as the NT Intervention), in many respects dwarf the NT Government’s efforts and capabilities. The NT Government’s policy document is thus strangely silent on the Commonwealth’s role in Indigenous affairs strategies in the NT.

 

The Castan Centre Report on the NT Intervention

The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at the Monash University Law School released a report evaluating the NT Intervention against key human rights principles. I don’t propose to undertake a comprehensive critique, but will content myself with noting that while the initial policy actions were draconian, unjust and arguably misguided and misdirected, the policy framework has been substantially and comprehensively overhauled in the eight years since it was initiated. This makes policy evaluation difficult, but also opens up a risk (to which I would argue many critics have succumbed) that the anti-intervention political rhetoric has not been adjusted to take the subsequent policy changes and developments into account.

Moreover, the process of reconceptualising the NT Emergency Response as the Stronger Futures policy framework involved very substantial levels of investment, in the billions of dollars, over the past decade. While Government policies need to be justifiable on their own terms, and of course ought to meet our domestic and international human rights obligations, the reality is that without the difficult political challenges thrown up by the Howard / Brough actions, Labor would not have made these investments and numerous Aboriginal communities across the NT would be languishing without the facilities and infrastructure which have been funded by the Stronger Futures investments. The critics of the NT intervention invariably ignore these positive outcomes.

Of course there is still a legitimate judgement to be made: do the negatives outweigh the positives? Views will differ on this, but I would make two points: the first is that reasonable people might reach different conclusions on this question; the second is that while it is now hypothetical and notional, arguably Aboriginal people in the NT should have a say in making such a judgment. The elephant in the room here is that our systems of policy development and political decision making do not appear to have found a way to engage Indigenous interests prospectively in these types of calculations.

 

Amendments to the AIATSIS Act

The Parliament has passed an amendments package to the AIATSIS legislation which establishes the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The legislation appears to be largely uncontroversial and I understand it was developed in conjunction with the AIATSIS Council. AIATSIS is an important part of the institutional landscape in Indigenous affairs, as its library and collections are unique and extremely valuable resources in documenting the place and achievements of Indigenous peoples within the nation. The legislation has been allocated to the education portfolio under the current Administrative Arrangements Orders, whereas I would argue that if should sit within the culture and heritage arms of Government. A key issue for the future will be funding as these sorts of institutions always have difficulty justifying their budget bids and are in many ways soft targets as budget pressures grow.