So may the outward shows be
least themselves:
The world is still deceived
with ornament.
The
Merchant of Venice, Act 3, scene 2.
Recently there have been signs of improved relations
between the Northern Territory Land Councils and the Commonwealth. This post
sets out to document some of the public milestones in that process, examines
the possible motivations of the respective parties, and asks what this means
for remote policy generally.
But first, some context. The NT land councils are
established under Commonwealth legislation and constitute hybrid statutory
corporations. Their members selected by Aboriginal communities, their funding
guaranteed (subject to ministerially approved budgets) outside the budget
process, their expenditures audited by the ANAO.
The key financial mechanism within the NT Land Rights Act
is the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA). It is funded by automatic
appropriations by the Commonwealth equivalent to the royalty revenues accrued
by the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory from mines on Aboriginal land;
thus the term ‘royalty equivalents’. The ABA is used for three broad purposes (I
am ignoring some minor technicalities here). First, section 64(3) requires 30
percent of all ABA revenues be paid to land councils for distribution to
corporations whose members are affected by the resource project that generates
the royalty equivalent appropriation. Second,
section 64(1) provides for an amount determined by the Minister to be paid from
the ABA to fund the administrative costs of the Land Councils. Third, the Minister
can determine further amounts to be paid ‘to or for the benefit of Aboriginals
living in the Northern Territory’ (s.64(4)). An advisory committee is
established to assist the Minister in this latter function.
The four land councils (NLC, CLC, Tiwi LC, and Anindilyakwa
LC) operate as key institutions and gatekeepers in relation to Aboriginal land extending
over more than fifty percent of the NT. Moreover, their significant budgets and
employment, their influence over royalty distributions, and their networks into
the broader Indigenous domain means that they exercise significant political
power within the NT. As early as 1988, they were described as
‘para-governmental’ in nature (in an article I co-authored with Jon Altman).
Consequently, the land councils have multiple points of interaction with all
three levels of government in the Northern Territory and these extend from
cooperative to conflictual modes of engagement.
Recent
Developments
I want to point to six seemingly independent data points,
and argue that they are elements in the separate, but overlapping, larger political
and policy strategies on the part of both the Commonwealth and by implication the
Land Councils.
Data
point one: the 2019-2020 Annual Report of the NIAA (link
here), which includes the financial statements for the ABA, includes the
following salient information. As at 30 June 2020, the net assets (excluding
future commitments) of the ABA were $1,266 million (let’s call it $1.26bn), a
19 per cent increase over the $1.06bn at 30 June 2019 (p.173 NIAA Annual Report).
This increase was the result of higher mining royalty revenue collections by
the NT Government, largely originating from manganese mining at Groote Eylandt.
Data
point two: the Minister approved $10m in emergency support payments
to the four land councils as part of the larger $123m COVID-19 support package
approved in April 2020. This is mentioned in the ABA Annual Report at page 173.
In addition, but not explicitly mentioned except in the financial statements,
the Minister approved an increase in administrative support funding to the four
land councils of $24.2m, up from $61.4m to $85.6m. The two larger land councils
were the major beneficiaries. This represents an unannounced and unexplained
increase in funding of 39.4 percent over the previous year’s funding (refer
p.162 NIAA Annual Report).
Data point
three: In both a speech to the NLC (‘Connecting and activating
the Northern Territory’) and in a media release, Minister Wyatt announced on 25
November 2020 what he termed a ‘$100m stimulus package for Indigenous
businesses and jobs in the NT’ (link here
and here).
In the speech, he asserted that he was signing off on a Land Council
proposal. In the media release, he
states:
“Working with the NT Land
Councils, we are releasing $100 million from the Aboriginals Benefit Account
(ABA) for Aboriginal people to create and sustain jobs through capital
injections in ‘shovel-ready’ economic, social and infrastructure projects.”
(emphasis added).
Data
point four: In the speech to the NLC, the Minister attacked the NT
Government for their failure to make adequate progress on housing upgrades
funded by the Commonwealth.
It is unacceptable that so
many Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory live in over-crowded and
inadequate housing. This is despite the Commonwealth committing to providing
the Northern Territory with $550 million over five years to deliver 1,950 new
bedrooms, equivalent to 650 houses, in remote NT communities.
The Northern Territory
Government’s roll out of these houses is slow – and it is unacceptable.
The NT Government is
responsible for housing and essential services. People in remote communities
should expect their housing services to be provided – just as they would in any
other location in Australia.
The fact that this is not
happening is a disgrace – and in the year 2020 – and looking ahead to 2021 -
something that neither I nor the Northern Territory Government should allow to
happen.
Data
point five: In the same speech, the Minister stated:
I
am serious when I say – where we have failings – we must explore new ways of
working. To this end, I note that the Land Councils are continuing to develop a
proposal which would see a direct partnership established with the Commonwealth
for the provision of housing services in the NT – led by the Central Land
Council. We don’t need to accept the current situation as the only option.
Data
point six: Notwithstanding the Minister’s visit focussing on a major
funding announcement directed to job creation, there was no mention of advice
from the Northern Australia Indigenous Reference Group established by Ministers
Canavan and Scullion to assist in the implementation of the Government’s 2015
White Paper on Northern Development: ‘Our North, Our Future’. The Department of
Industry , Science Energy and Resources website lists the most recent meeting
of the IRG as December 2019 (link
here). There appears to be a major hiatus of the IRG’s work since the
changeover in ministers from Canavan to Pitt and from Scullion to Wyatt. This
parallels the Government’s decision to discard (without announcement) the Prime
Minister’s Advisory Group on Indigenous Affairs (link
here).
Implications
So what are we to make of these events, individually and
together?
Over the years I have worked in proximity to Ministers, I
have observed a tendency for Ministers to adopt a transactional mindset when
making decisions that bestow favours or benefits on particular interests. For
this reason, in relation to the Minister’s unannounced decision to increase
Land Councils’ funding, it is a reasonable to assume that he made the decision
with an expectation of a quid pro quo
of some kind. He may or may not have had a discussion with key Land Council
players regarding his expectations, and I am certainly not suggesting that any
such expectation is necessarily inappropriate let alone illegal.
The most plausible reason for the Minister to seek to woo
the NT Land Councils are to obtain a political advantage or benefit of some
kind. An outcome that created a disincentive on the Land Councils to support
the Labor Party either in the NT or federally, or to not criticise the Liberal/National
Party aligns with the political agenda of the Liberal/National Party Government
federally and of the CLP in the Territory.
There was a Territory election in August 2020 just two
months after the end of the year where the increased funding occurred. There
may well be a Federal election in the second half off next year. Indigenous
voters in the NT are no longer rusted on Labor voters and have shown in recent
elections that they are prepared to vote for either party and/or Independents.
There are also indications that many Indigenous voters have tuned out and do
not vote despite the existence of compulsory voting (link
here). While Labor has won both
House of Representatives seats in the NT in the last election and won a return
to Government in the Territory in August, the margins are not so wide,
particularly in some electorates, that it would not be worth investing in
raising political support for non-Labor parties and candidates.
An essential element in pursuing a successful political
strategy such as appears to be in place here would be to promulgate a pro LNP /
CLP narrative amongst key Indigenous thought leaders and interests and/or to
negate pro-Labor or Green support from key organisations and leaders. Some version
of this strategy is likely behind the motivations of Minister Wyatt in going
out of his way to improve relations with the Land Councils while promulgating
an anti-NT government narrative on housing. Whether such a strategy will work
is unclear.
Of course, the Indigenous leadership of organisations such
as the Land Councils understand these motivations, and the risks of governments
effectively buying their silence. These issues go with the territory.
While the description above might accurately be
characterised as a statement of the obvious:
‘politicians indulge in political behaviour’, my concern is to focus on
the associated implications for policy when institutional domains become
politicised.
One of the risks with the overt politicisation of an
institution such as the ABA is that it can inhibit the emergence of good long-term
policy outcomes.
A key challenge for engaged citizens, including Indigenous
citizens, seeking to understand what is occurring in relating to policy development
in particular sectors are the extraordinarily poor levels of transparency and
the absence of well presented and basic information to underpin announcements
and ongoing government decisions.
In the present case, for example, there is no information on
the public record about the nature of the Land Councils’ proposals to which the
Minister is responding in announcing his $100m ‘stimulus package’. The policy
effectiveness of this initiative in creating and sustaining jobs (the Minister’s
objective) will depend in large measure on the quality of the grants made from the
ABA. Given that last year the ABA only spent around $20m in general grants, it
is not clear that there exists a pool of high quality ‘shovel ready’ projects
to fund. In the absence of a comprehensive evaluation, it is unlikely we will
ever find out how that goes however, as neither the Minister nor his
predecessor publish in an accessible place information on grants made under
section 64(4), nor any information on the outcomes of the grants made. I was
critical of this in a 2017 post (link
here), and note that previous Governments up to and including the
Rudd/Gillard/ Rudd Government did make such information accessible and
available. The last major evaluation of the operations and effectiveness of the
ABA, undertaken by Jon Altman, was published in December 1984.
Similarly, in relation to remote housing, the lack of
transparency is overwhelming. Minister Wyatt’s critique of the NTG is data free
although he clearly has access to detailed performance data as it is standard
in funding agreements. The NIAA website does not provide basic data on the
progress of expenditure in relation to the Commonwealth’s $550m investment in
the NT. The NT Housing and Local Government Department website does provide
some quite basic information but has a range of shortcomings including a lack
of clarity on timeframes being reported upon (link
here). That data shows that while the NTG has spent or contracted some 40%
of its own allocation, it has only spent or contracted 28 % of the
Commonwealth’s allocation. What is unclear from the table is whether the Commonwealth
allocation began after the NT allocation. Also unclear is what action has been
taken by Commonwealth officials to ensure that the Commonwealth contribution
was being prioritised, a matter that ultimately is Minister Wyatt’s
responsibility.
While the NT Government’s performance in recent years in
constructing remote housing and maintaining the existing housing asset base has
been underwhelming at best, and in many respects unacceptable, the hypocrisy
that suffuses Minister Wyatt’s narrative is breathtaking. His Government walked
away from funding responsibility for remote Indigenous housing nationally
notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s prior involvement over more than fifty
years. His Government refused to renew the ten-year $5.5bn National Partnership
put in place in 2008, and walked away from a ten-year allocation of $1.6bn or
$160m per annum in the NT. In the NT alone, it was replaced by a five-year offer
of $550m (or $110m per annum) only when the Commonwealth realised it was
exposed. Some ten years ago, the Land Councils decided to insist that in
relation to many (but not all) communities in the NT, they would only agree to
Commonwealth held leases to secure the NPARIH investments in those communities.
The Commonwealth assented. This meant that a total Commonwealth retreat from
funding would leave it with landlord responsibilities in relation to many
hundreds of houses in remote communities that it would have to deliver itself.
The suggestion by the Minister that he is considering a CLC
sponsored proposal for a partnership with the Commonwealth to deliver remote
housing in the NT is tantalising. It may be a positive sign. Or it may be
merely a ploy to justify inaction. Again, there is limited information
available on the public record; a media release from the Land Councils in July
2020 appears to be the only public record available (link
here). More importantly, the issue of the establishment of a Territory wide
community housing provider is not something that should be seen only through
the single prism of the existing public housing asset base, and nor should it
be seen as a way of bypassing the NTG (which was the implicit narrative
deployed in the Minister’s speech).
Given the substantial and potentially growing demand for
remote housing, there is a cogent argument for a large-scale community housing
provider across the NT, supported by governments and established with the
capacity to source private sector borrowings. The existence of a new and
alternative source of housing in remote communities would create significant
incentives for Government public housing providers to lift their game and offer
more choice to remote residents. The absence of a private housing market in
these locations, and the significant levels of poverty and formal unemployment
suggest that innovative policy solutions such as this idea should be explored.
Finally, the absence of the IRG from the Minister’s public
narrative is intriguing, and throws light on broader approaches by governments
to the use of appointed advisory bodies. I previously posted on the lack of
ambition of the Government’s policy agenda in the White Paper on Northern
Australia and the role of the IREG in that process (link
here). In particular, it aligns with a hypothesis that such bodies are used
as a means of internalising policy debate; as a means of managing down community
expectations; and slowing down policy development. Once the political and policy
agenda moves on, and/or the Advisory body membership refuses to adhere to the
implicit expectations of Ministers, the advisory body can be quietly sidelined
and eventually disbanded. This was the fate of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous
Advisory Council and appears to be the likely fate of the IRG.
To sum up, I would make three general points. They share a
simple assumption: that good policy is good politics; however good politics is
not always good policy.
First, it is past time that governments had a close look at
making better use of the ABA and the associated royalty flows into many
communities. An obvious way forward would be to initiate a forward looking
evaluation/review process in conjunction with Indigenous interests designed to
identify opportunities for better use of the existing royalty and royalty
equivalent flows in remote Australia. The risk Indigenous interests face is
that as the overarching governance of the current system becomes tired and
degraded, and in the absence of a culture of transparency, there will emerge
higher levels of politicisation, poor accountability, and perhaps even
corruption in the ways governments deal with these institutions. This would
undermine trust in the system, and could lead to significant reductions in
financial resources to Indigenous communities into the future.
Second, governments at all levels must lift their game in
terms of transparency and the presentation of clear and accessible information
to citizens. While this is relevant across the whole span of government
activity, it is particularly important in the Indigenous policy domain as it
operates to inhibit building the case for the necessary policy reforms to allow
Indigenous interests to achieve their political and policy aspirations. In the
absence of such transparency, citizens are within their rights to assume the
worst. Trust in governments is declining. If governments and politicians value
our democratic systems, they should demonstrate that by being much more
transparent about their decisions, the processes they use and the outcomes they
achieve. Statutory corporations in the Indigenous policy domain are not exempt
from these same dynamics, and indeed it is incumbent on the Minister to ensure
that they too meet normal accountability requirements.
Third, while the NT is a special case insofar as the
Commonwealth has specific responsibilities derived from the NT’s status as a
territory and the existence of Commonwealth land rights legislation, the policy
issues at play in the NT pertaining to remote communities are also present in
other jurisdictions. The Commonwealth should use its more direct policy
involvement in the NT to inform a new national policy approach responding to
the very specific needs of remote communities. In particular, while it espouses
the rhetoric of economic development, the current Commonwealth Government has
failed to pursue any substantive policy reforms that would deliver sustained improvements
in economic status. One obvious starting point would be remote housing policy;
a second would be to ensure that the financial provisions related to land
rights legislation in the NT and native title across the board are fit for
purpose. A third not discussed in this post would be to reverse course on the
punitive welfare policies applicable to remote Australia (link
here).
The challenge for the Government and its Minister for Indigenous
Australians is to ensure that the ‘outward shows’ of working with Indigenous
interests is more than politics, more than mere ornament, and delivers
substantive and sustained policy reform. The challenge for Indigenous leaders
and interests and mainstream citizens alike is not to be ‘deceived with
ornament’. Unfortunately, the fact that Shakespeare’s words still ring true 400
years after they were written is cause for pessimism rather than optimism.
