Into the blizzard: the current policy announcement blitz in the Indigenous policy domain

 

May the winds blow till they have wakened death

Othello Act 2, scene 1.

 

Almost a year ago, in September 2020, I published a post ‘Ways of Working’ assessing the Government’s broad approach to the Indigenous affairs portfolio based in large measure on a close reading the Minister Wyatt’s speeches (link here). I think that post is worth re-reading in full. In that post I noted:

If my reading of the Minister’s speech is correct, this is indeed a far-reaching policy agenda. It is not new, but is arguably a sharper and more overt justification and rationale for what has effectively been the Coalition Government Indigenous policy settings since it came to office. It implicitly seeks to justify policy inaction, shifting policy and funding responsibilities to the states and territories wherever possible, the substantial budget reductions and policy reversals since 2013, and the failure to step up and substantively address the investment implications of sustained disadvantage. Most importantly, it appears to implicitly seek to justify ongoing social and political structural exclusion through the use of rhetorical tropes designed to resonate with Indigenous citizens: self-determination, empowerment, and listening to as yet unheard voices. [emphasis added]

 

In recent weeks, the Minister has announced a veritable whirlwind of policy initiatives. This post aims to lay out the most significant announcements and assess at a high level their substantive policy and political significance. In particular, I ask the question: is it time to revise my  earlier conclusion that a core element of the Government’s approach to Indigenous affairs is a covert adherence to substantive policy inaction?

 

Before we list the recent announcements however, it is worth listing a number of the most prominent reviews and policy development exercises in the Indigenous policy space initiated by the Government, but for which there is as yet no substantive formal closure or completion.

 

In chronological order, the Government is presently sitting on recommendations from:

 

• The Australian Law Reform Commission on native title from 2015 (link here). While there have been technical amendments made to the Native Title Act in the period since this report was issued (link here), they do not address the substantive recommendations of the ALRC. See my previous posts on native title here, here and especially here.

 

• The 2015 COAG investigation into Indigenous land tenure (link here) which was technically endorsed in principle by COAG, but never implemented by any jurisdiction including the Commonwealth.

 

• The Indigenous Reference Group on Northern Australian apparently provided a series of 36 recommendations to the Government in 2017 (see their submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the Opportunities and engagement of traditional owners into the economic development of northern Australia – link here), but they have not been made public and there has been no response of any kind. The IRG web page on the website of the Commonwealth agency responsible for ‘northern development’, the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, (link here) has ceased listing any IRG meeting communique’s as of December 2019. The implication is that the IRG has ceased to operate.

 

• The Productivity Commission review into Indigenous evaluation delivered to Government in October 2020 (link here). See my September 2020 post which predicted the likely lack of action in relation to this issue (link here).

 

• The process to develop an Indigenous Voice was established by the Government in November 2019, and has apparently provided its final report to the Government although the Government’s web sites do not actually confirm this. The Minister last issued a media release on the matter in January 2021 (link here) when the Interim Report of the Advisory Groups established to provide advice to Government was released. I published a post on some of the key underlying issues involved in designing a Voice in February (link here). My recent academic paper on codesign included a case study on the Voice (link here).

 

Recent announcements include:

 

• In May 2021, the Government announced its intention to codesign a replacement for the Community Development Program (CDP), the controversial program that combines and links income support with a punitive conditional job search requirement. The Government has recently announced that this new program will henceforth be called the Remote Engagement Program and released a Discussion Paper. In recent days (1 September) the Minister announced the introduction of legislation to provide for a supplementary payment for participants in the pilot trial sites involved in developing the new policy architecture (link here). A group of academics at the ANU and UQ have recently published a short paper suggesting the principles that should be guide the design of the new program (link here).

 

• On 5 August 2021, the Commonwealth issued its first implementation Plan as required by the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here). There has as yet been no comprehensive assessment of the Implementation Plan published. Early response from ANU academics and myself, which must be regarded as provisional, have raised various concerns (link here and here).

 

• On 24 August, 2021, the Government announced a National Roadmap for Indigenous Skills, Jobs and Wealth Creation (link here). The National Roadmap will (when completed) include short , medium and long term priority actions. The Minister recently announced a series of 12 roundtables to assist the development of the new Roadmap, kicking off the first roundtable by appointing 16 ‘Industry Champions’ to assist in developing the National Roadmap and driving change. I have a number of concerns that flow from my reading of the Discussion Paper, but will need to draft a separate post to explore them fully.

 

• On 25 August 2021, the Minister introduced a Bill (the ‘Economic Empowerment Bill’) to amend the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, in its words, the most comprehensive set of reforms to ALRA since its enactment in 1976 (link here). I previously published a post expressing deep scepticism regarding the overall approach to these changes based on an earlier announcement of the proposals (link here). I am yet to closely consider the proposed legislation.

 

• On 25 August 2021, the Minister introduced a Bill to make further amendments to the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders) Act 2006 (CATSI Act) (link here). The amendments appear to be largely technical in nature. The Government decided, against pressure from native title interests, to not draft a separate part of the CATSI Act for native title bodies. Instead, PBCs are treated like any other CATSI Corporation. While this is a defensible position (it will not increase the complexity of the legislation), there is a risk that the unique requirements of native title bodies will not be given adequate attention by regulators into the future.

 

How should we make sense of all this policy development activity?

 

The first point to make is that it is being laid down on a pre-existing policy terrain. That terrain is characterised by significant Commonwealth funding, notably the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (link here and link here); by demographic changes which have seen significant increases in the size and geographic distribution of the Indigenous community over the past decade, and portend major changes into the future (link here); by significant (but largely unacknowledged ) access to mainstream services and programs by Indigenous people; by a sustained effort by the Commonwealth to shift responsibilities and focus in the Indigenous affairs space to the states and territories wherever possible; and by the deliberate decision to withdraw funding from the portfolio underpinning the efforts on Closing the Gap; the most egregious example here was the decision to not renew the ten year $5.5bn National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing (link here). The recent media stories linking the outbreak of covid in western NSW to poor and overcrowded housing (link here) speaks forthrightly to the Commonwealth Government’s short sighted decision to cut short that program. It is worth noting that the decision to cut remote housing funding, and the associated decision to include a Closing the Gap target on national levels of overcrowding is consistent with a deliberate predisposition to downplay the needs of remote regions wherever possible.

 

Second, the pre-existing policy terrain is made opaque by minimising the release of meaningful information (or making it so difficult to find that it is effectively not released). The policy landscape is characterised by extremely constrained levels of transparency, an addiction to deflection and inaction (link here), and seriously degraded commitment to public sector accountability (link here).

 

Third, the Government can point to a number of policy successes: to mention the four that come immediately to mind, it has made substantial progress with the Indigenous Procurement Policy, though I continue to have some concerns about the robustness of the program (link here); it has maintained and expanded the footprint of Indigenous Protected Areas and Caring for Country ranger programs across the nation (link here); it has committed to (but not yet delivered on) a series of priority reforms as part of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here) (though I am less persuaded that the refreshed targets are in any sense being meaningfully pursued); and finally, it has recently committed to compensating up to 3600 individuals who are members of the Stolen generations and come within the Commonwealth’s responsibility (link here).

 

Fourth, a common theme in the recent announcements has been an element of future commitment rather than immediate delivery. Even the two legislative initiatives in the recent announcements section above are unlikely to be finalised before the election, and thus will need to be re-introduced if they fail to pass before the forthcoming election. The CATSI amendments largely technical; the ALRA initiatives are essentially a rearrangement of already appropriated funds to the ABA. Even the Government’s major policy success, the refresh of closing the gap and the successful negotiation of the National Agreement, is highly leveraged to future policy decisions.

 

Fifth, it is clear that the Government has consistently pursued a largely rhetorical policy narrative built around economic opportunity, jobs and wealth creation. This continues in the most recent National Roadmap discussion paper mentioned above. While this approach may work at the political level (in the same way that focussing on aspirational messaging attracts the votes of sole traders and tradies), it usually fails to deliver the substantive and tangible outcomes it promises. Perhaps the most obvious example after eight years of rhetorical policy announcements built around the importance of jobs, the current outcomes on Indigenous employment are desultory, and the closing the gap target is pathetic.

 

To demonstrate that point, it is worth noting that five in ten Indigenous people are not employed and the trend line is flat lining or decreasing (link here). Moreover the employment data has been carefully framed to measure only those aged between 25 and 64. The median age of the Indigenous population is around 20 years of age (link here). Of the Indigenous population in the age range 15 to 24, over four in ten are not in education or employed, and while the trend line is positive, it will be more than a decade before the gap with the wider community is closed on current policy settings (link here). Just think about the constrained lives and opportunities that lie behind these statistics. If the Government was serious about jobs and its policy rhetoric, and by the way, also serious about closing the gap, it would take action to establish a job creation program for Indigenous or low income citizens, targeted particularly towards remote Australia, rather than promulgating yet another roadmap, and announcing the third version of a program to deliver social security and job search services across remote Australia in eight years, namely its newly proposed remote engagement program.

 

Sixth, my subjective takeout based on the analysis above is that the Government’s policy agenda and the associated policy narrative is overwhelmingly shaped by politics. With an election looming, the announcement frenzy is focussed on creating the appearance of action, and thus minimising the chance that particular issues will emerge as matters of political contention without necessarily committing significant funds to a policy sector that is not high on the Government’s policy priorities. Unfortunately, the Labor Opposition appears unwilling to call the Government to account on these issues, preferring an election strategy based on mainstream bread and butter issues and focussed on the failures of the Government in relation to the Covid pandemic.

 

In conclusion, it is clear that  in relation to Indigenous policy, the Government is addicted to the appearance of action, while disguising policy inaction. Unfortunately, the Government has also learned to take out insurance against the absence of substantive action; hence its focus on codesign (link here) and the penchant for playing favourites (link here) and not wishing to hear critical advice (link here).

 

There certainly is a blizzard of policy initiatives underway in the Indigenous policy domain, but the likelihood that they will substantively address the challenges the nation faces in coming to terms with the deep-seated consequences of the dispossession and continuing structural exclusion of First Nations citizens seems extremely low. The continuing stream of announcements designed to shape a rhetorical rather than substantive policy narrative serves to deflect attention from the priority reforms required to drive real change for the better. Unfortunately, because this works as a political strategy, the winds will continue to blow hard.