Dispossession and belated steps toward reconciliation in Colorado

 

Th’offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence’s loss

Sonnet 34.

 

Last week Colorado Government Jared Polis (link here) formally rescinded proclamations of the then Territory Governor John Evans.

 

The two orders were made by former territorial governor John Evans in 1864. The first required “friendly Indians” to gather at specific camps and threatened violence against those who didn’t comply. The second called for citizens to “kill and destroy” Native Americans who were deemed hostile by the state.

 

Here are links to a couple of the numerous media reports: (link here; link here). An excellent article laying out the background and recounting Indigenous lobbying that led to Governor Polis’ rescission can be found here.

 

The 1864 proclamations are widely held to be responsible for a notorious massacre the following year at Sand Creek. A 2014 article from the Smithsonian magazine by Tony Horwitz (link here) lays out the contextual background to the massacre as well as providing a rather horrific account. I recommend readers take a look at this article.

 

These events, distant as they are, should provoke us here in Australia to ask questions about our own history. Does Australian history contain parallels with the US experience? Even where we acknowledge dispossession, do we relegate it to some distant past? How should the past be acknowledged in the present? Are there events and policies that we have effectively forgotten?

 

 

A strong start for every Indigenous child: early childhood policy and deep disadvantage

 

 

Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,

Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe!

Richard II, Act 4, scene 1

 

The OECD has released a new working paper on early childhood education policy. The working paper is titled A strong start for every Indigenous child and authored by Australian authors led by Inge Kral of the ANU. The working paper (link here) provides an extremely useful comparative assessment of development in early childhood education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

 

Early childhood is a key policy issue in the Indigenous policy domain, and arguably underappreciated insofar as it is largely subsumed by the broader mainstream policy frameworks dealing with early childhood.

 

The latest Productivity Commission annual data report (link here) provides a quick snapshot of the relevant early childhood targets:

 

TARGET 3: By 2025, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in Year Before Full time Schooling (YBFS) early childhood education to 95 per cent.

Nationally in 2020, 93.1 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the Year Before Full time Schooling (YBFS) age cohort were enrolled in a preschool program. This is an increase from 76.7 per cent in 2016 (the baseline year). Nationally, based on the most recent year of data, the target is on track to be met.

 

TARGET 4: By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) to 55 per cent.

Nationally in 2018, 35.2 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children commencing school were assessed as being developmentally on track in all five AEDC domains. There are no new data since the baseline year of 2018.

 

In relation to Target 4, the Productivity Commission data (see Figure CtG4.1) indicates that over the decade from 2009 to 2018, the relevant figure has increased from around 25 to 35 percent. The target chosen – 55 per cent by 2031 would require the rate of improvement to double, which in turn would require significant increases in investment.

 

The Commonwealth recently announced its commitment to investing a further $122m in new funding for an Early Childhood Education Package (link here and here). This is a welcome injection of funds. What is unclear however, to reiterate points made in my previous post (link here), is that early childhood education is funded by both the Commonwealth and state and territory levels of government, and it is unclear (a) what levels of funding overall is presently being invested by both the Commonwealth and the states/territories; and (b) what level of funding would be required to increase services, particularly where need is greatest, and thus bring outcomes for Indigenous children up to the same level as for mainstream community children within a reasonable period.

 

It is clear then that the OECD working paper is timely and important, as it provides a wealth of informed insight into both what has been happening on the ground in the three national jurisdictions under consideration, and what will be required to ensure policy engagement is both effective and successful.

 

I don’t propose to attempt to summarise the OECD working paper, but will cherry pick a few paragraphs to illustrate some (but not all) of the important insights included. I recommend interested readers take the time to have a quick look at the report itself.

 

Below are a number of extracts from the working paper:

 

Here is the Abstract:

This Working Paper was developed to assist policy makers, education and Indigenous leaders, as well as education practitioners, to better support Indigenous children’s early learning and well-being. The paper focuses on early years policies and provision in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Canada. It sets out a synthesis of evidence on children’s early development, with a particular focus on the conditions and approaches that support positive outcomes for Indigenous children. The Working Paper then outlines a set of promising initiatives that seek to create positive early learning environments for Indigenous children. Drawing on the available evidence and promising approaches, the paper presents a framework for strengthening Indigenous children’s early learning and well-being.

 

From page 12:

The size of early learning effects on adult outcomes is significant. As set out in Figure 3, four key longitudinal studies have found effect sizes on adult earnings ranging from 10% to 25%.

 

From pages 17-18:

Nonetheless, almost all trends pertaining to child health and well-being in Australia are worse for Indigenous Australian children (Wise, 2013[38]). In addition, a clear gradient is evident of increasing disadvantage the further children live from major cities (Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre, 2017[39]). …  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in remote Australia are more likely to experience a lack of access to appropriate services, known to mediate the impact of adversity in early childhood (SNAICC, 2020[40]).

 

From page 19

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children account for 44% of all children in remote areas in Australia, despite making up less than 6% of all children in Australia and are 12 times as likely as non-Indigenous children to live in remote areas (SNAICC, 2020[40]).

 

From page 42:

The states and territories where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are provided free or near-free access to preschool from age 3 tend to achieve the national “Closing the Gap” target of 95% enrolment of Indigenous children in the year before school, whereas this is not achieved in states where such provision is not made (Early Childhood Australia., 2019[105]).  

 

From page 45:

In Australia, a shortage of qualified Indigenous educators and difficulty in accessing training, particularly for educators in remote areas, are significant constraints.

 

According to Minister Wyatt’s media release (link here), the recent Commonwealth investment of $122m includes $82m to expand the Connected Beginnings Program to create four new replication sites in Queensland and Victoria. If we take a moment to think about this, four new sites, no matter how beneficial they will be in improving life opportunities for the Indigenous children in their footprint, will have only a marginal impact on addressing the needs of Indigenous children nationally.

 

While any increase is welcome, the increase offered here will clearly not be adequate to double the rate of progress required to achieve parity in Target 4 of the Closing the Gap framework. There is clearly a need for a much more rigorous assessment of the resourcing required to address deep seated disadvantage amongst pre-school age children in the Indigenous community. A failure to do so will perpetuate disadvantage into disadvantaged children’s adult years, and constrain the nation’s ability to address deep-seated disadvantage within a reasonable period.

 

The OECD working paper lays out a coherent rationale, and a persuasive roadmap, for improving the access of Indigenous children to early childhood education. It emphasises the sorts of interventions that work, the multiplicity of factors that can constrain the full development of children, and provides an evidence base for prioritising policy reform and increased investment in this area.

 

The OECD paper also reinforces the crucial importance of allocating available resources on the basis of relative need. It is clear from the available data that regional and remote areas require greater policy attention and significantly more investment if we are to remove both inequality within First Nations communities, and the disparity between First Nations and the wider mainstream community.

 

What the OECD working paper doesn’t do is assess the level of resources required to meet the targets adopted by all Australian Governments in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Yet this is a necessary step in the policy development process.

 

To my mind, the OECD working paper A strong start for every Indigenous child should be considered closely by the relevant agencies in each jurisdiction. A proactive bureaucracy could make use of the working paper to inform development of a succinct policy proposal to relevant Ministers and Cabinets, linking the strategies and approaches required with a summary of existing jurisdictional program investment, and identifying the opportunity and benefit of lifting investment in early childhood services for Indigenous communities based on a clear assessment of need. In addition, there would be benefit in the Joint Council on Closing the Gap established by the new National Partnership on Closing the Gap considering the OECD working paper, and in interrogating the issue of just what level of investment would be required to make a real and sustainable difference to the life opportunities of Indigenous children across the nation.

 

What is clear is that the policy frameworks required to address disadvantage in early childhood education are known to policymakers. What is missing is the political will to drive the necessary policy reforms, and to make the necessary policy investments. The opportunity to make a difference stares us in the face. Yet so too does the prospect of failure. We should prevent such a failure, resist such a failure, lest our children, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, cry woe!

 

The Commonwealth Closing the Gap Implementation Plan: a provisional assessment

 

Hamlet:                      What news?

Rosencrantz:            None my Lord, but that the world’s grown honest

Hamlet:                      Then is doomsday near?

Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2

 

This morning the Prime Minister released the Commonwealth Closing the Gap Implementation Plan (link here). The National Agreement on Closing the Gap agreed by all Australian jurisdictions with the Indigenous Coalition of Peaks a year ago provides for each party to the agreement to develop an implementation plan to lay out how the commitments made in the agreement will be implemented.

 

This post amounts to a provisional assessment of where we are at. The issues involved are simply too complex to be comprehensively analysed in a few hours. Nevertheless, in the interest of getting an alternative perspective into the public domain, I have decided to lay out my initial assessment.

 

At the time the Federal Budget was handed down in May this year, the Commonwealth advised that it would be deferring specific funding on Closing the Gap until the midyear publication of the Commonwealth Implementation Plan

 

In the May Budget, the Commonwealth allocated in excess of $600m in Indigenous specific funding, focussed largely on income support and employment, education, and health including mental health, including $149m for statistical surveys related to mental health and violence.

 

In response to the May Budget, Pat Turner, the CEO of the Coalition of Peaks issued a media release (link here) stating inter alia:

“We are encouraged to see significant funding in areas of aged care, Indigenous skills and jobs, mental health and women’s safety; but this is very much a ‘wait and see’ budget as the majority of funding directed towards Closing the Gap won’t be announced until later in the year,” she said…

… “Given the massive new investments seen in this Budget, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a legitimate expectation that there will be a significant boost in funding in all areas of Closing the Gap — including implementation of the Priority Reforms in the National Agreement that we believe will accelerate the closing of gaps,” Ms Turner said.

 

The Prime Minister’s Implementation Plan covers a plethora of initiatives and actions of variable significance, covering both mainstream and Indigenous specific actions and allocations across four Priority Reforms and 17 Closing the Gap targets. Alongside, the Government has announced more than $1bn in ‘new investments’ (link here) as part of the Commonwealth’s implementation plan.

 

There are a number of ways to assess and consider the Government’s announcements: one is to focus on the four priority reforms; a second to assess the actions and associated investment allocated to each of the targets; and a third to focus merely on the dollars invested. While funding is arguably not the best criterion to use in assessing the quality of these announcements, it is the criterion that the Government itself has focussed on.

 

The first paragraph of the Prime Minister’s media release (link here) notes that the Government has committed ‘more than $1 billion in new measures to support to help achieve Closing the Gap outcomes’ [sic].

 

The Coalition of Peaks has issued a media release (link here) welcoming the new funding, albeit noting that more needs to be done:

We have a long way to go to seeing improvements in the lives of our peoples across the country and for the gap in life outcomes to be closed, but today is an important step forward in making this a reality.

 

Of the $1.1bn in ‘new investments’ listed in the Prime Minister’s media release, four broad initiatives account for some $880m. A Territories stolen generations redress scheme (link here) has been allocated $379m and will run for five years; remote health clinics and staff housing is allocated $254m; early childhood education is allocated $123m; and three education initiatives are allocated $126m. These allocations are clearly welcome, but they also serve to highlight areas where the Commonwealth has decided against investing new funds. For example, the Commonwealth invested $5.5bn over ten years in remote housing provision in 2008, and the current Government has not renewed this except in part (it has previously invested $500m over five years) in the NT where it has potential landlord liabilities in relation to long term leases.

 

The Commonwealth’s most significant investment, the stolen generations redress scheme, is limited to former Commonwealth responsibilities in the Territories, and has a target of just 3600 potential recipients (see page 92 of the Implementation Plan). While the investment quantum appears significant (it equates to the price of 380 median priced houses in Canberra), the potential ameliorative impact on deep disadvantage across First Nations citizens is minimal. Moreover, while the ethical case for redressing discriminatory policies is unquestionable, whether this should be classified as closing the gap is much less certain. The real import of this measure is symbolic, a matter that would require separate consideration to fully explore.

 

My major criticism however of the Commonwealth announcement relates to the deliberate opacity and lack of transparency relating to government investments.

 

The action tables at pages 83 to 185 of the Implementation Plan list in the order of 200 to 300 individual actions (I haven’t counted them). Against each action, there is listed any relevant funding, along with a notation indicating whether it is existing or new investment. In many cases, the funding listed is indicated as being mainstream funding relevant to the target, but without any indication or estimate of what proportion of that mainstream funding should be notionally allocated to Indigenous citizens. Moreover, there is no consistent effort to allocate investments over a uniform timeframes. The action items list variable dates, with the majority of funding allocations having no link to the time span of the target.  While some funding is undoubtedly ongoing (eg the income support payments listed in relation to the employment targets) in many cases funding will have been allocated for only a few years.  

 

The result is twofold. First, the Implementation Plan is fundamentally incomplete with existing and new investments not aligned with the target timeframe. To take a random example, Target 10 has a time frame to 2031, but includes a range of funding allocations with timeframes ranging over three, four, five, and seven years. None of the funding extends to 2031. See pages 145 to 148 of the Implementation Plan. This contrasts with the first iteration of Closing Gap where funding was largely (but not entirely) locked in for up to ten years through the use of National Partnership Agreements under COAG, each of which had a specific implementation plan.

 

Second, it is actually impossible to calculate or assess the total level of resources allocated against each target, (and thus to make an assessment of how serious the Government is in relation to meeting those targets). It follows that it is also not possible to calculate the total investment in closing the gap. This problem is likely to be replicated across eight jurisdictions (my examination of the two available state Implementation Plans confirms that they suffer from similar issues).

 

The Commonwealth has made a point of claiming to be accountable (see the Prime Minister’s foreword to the Implementation Plan and pages 8 and 79), yet the deliberate decision not to be fully transparent about the investments being made is a fundamental constraint on that accountability.

 

To emphasise the risks that the public and Indigenous people will be misled either deliberately or through honest mistakes, one need look no further than the Prime Minister’s media release listing $1.1bn in new investments. Yet an examination of the action plan item for the investment of $254m in health clinics and associated housing indicates that $100m of the $254m (see page 98 of the Implementation Plan) is actually existing funding from the Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme. That single case drops the headline figure of $1.1bn in new investments to $1bn (see for example The Age article of 5 August which refers to the $1.1bn figure (link here).

 

For a Prime Minister trumpeting a ‘new partnership based on trust and truth’ (page 1 of the Implementation Plan), a $100m discrepancy may be neither here nor there. Others may disagree.

 

To my mind, the most important issue here is that we face a situation where First Nations citizens disproportionately suffer levels of inequality and deep disadvantage. As a nation, we have known about this for more than two decades, and have had a formal policy framework to address it since 2008. Yet our targets are partial (ie they aim to merely close part of the gaps); the policy reforms promulgated by governments are more fluff than substance, and are continually changing; the investments that governments allocate are inadequate to address the disadvantage we know exists, and have been declining over the past five years. We have established an elaborate bureaucratic and policy ritual designed to persuade ourselves that we are doing all we can to address deep-seated disadvantage and to close the gap. In reality however, we are effectively making a choice to not close the gap.

 

While the Coalition of Peaks deserves credit for seeking to move the government and the nation forward on this issue, and has successfully manoeuvred the Government into a rhetorical proclamation of good faith and serious intent, the reality is that the Commonwealth Government has successfully shifted responsibility for any failure to the states and territories, and bought insurance by locking Indigenous interests into taking at least partial responsibility for the outcomes.

 

So much for a new partnership based on truth and trust.