And ’tis not done.
Th’ attempt and not the deed confounds
us.
Macbeth, Act Two, scene two.
In this post I focus on two recent expositions on Indigenous
policy. The first by the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and
Cabinet, Glyn Davis, always an eloquent and thoughtful speaker, was aspirational
and focussed on values and possibilities; the second by Pat Turner, was
grounded in the hard scrabble of advocacy and holding governments to account.
In his IPAA Annual Address to the Australian Public Service
2023 (link
here), Davis outlines his vision for the future of public administration and
public policy in Australia:
The changes of the past 40 years are too profound, too
entrenched. The options opened by technology, and public expectations of
service delivery, suggest instead that future practice will be a hybrid.
A synthesis looms. There will
be services, as now, for which government relies on competitive markets and
external advice. The use of consultants in government will rebalance in light
of public opinion, but we can never retain all necessary expertise within the
public sector. Buying skills for some tasks will continue to be the right
choice. We have many IT experts in government, but the reality of complex
system design and implementation amid rapid technology change is unlikely to
favour in-sourcing. The key is the decision about when to go to market.
Evidence over four decades shows that outsourcing can be a valid choice, but is
not intrinsically a better option.
We might anticipate therefore
a broader mix of public and private provision funded by government, delivered
by networks of government agencies, not-for-profit partners and sometimes
private companies. These will form long term alliances around shared program
responsibilities. Evaluation will guide further investment choice.
Davis then spent some time discussing the merits of place-based
approaches to program and services delivery:
In a placed-based approach,
local needs and priorities set the agenda. Participation, co-design and shared
delivery all become essential. A placed-based approach asks the community to
lead, local needs and priorities set the agenda. Participation, co-design and
shared delivery all become essential…
Government follows, not leads …
A place-based approach requires the public sector to cede control over inputs
and outcomes. This does not sit comfortably with electoral cycles, or with
ministers keen to make announcements. Instead it makes officials truly servants
of the public. It will not be simple to align a place-based citizen approach
with traditional public service auditing, reporting or accounting for results. Yet
empowered communities provide a vital way to address consistent program
failure. We will never close the gap if public servants in Canberra think we
can solve the housing, health, employment and educational challenges of
Papunya.
As I experienced when visiting
central Australia earlier this year with colleagues from the National
Indigenous Australians Agency, the women and men of Papunya have very clear
ideas about what their community needs. They are frustrated by the lack of coordination
between levels of government and by poorly directed investment. They are ready
to lead. What they want is a say in local decisions. A voice even. A
place-based approach calls into question much we take for granted about public
administration. It extends an invitation for fresh thinking.
There is much more of interest in his speech, and I recommend
it to readers. Davis’ speech deserves a longer and more detailed critique than I
can provide here. On general matters, he too easily skipped over the structural
issues evident from a close reading of the robodebt royal commission, or the
issues raised by the recent ‘consultancy scandals, and public sector code
issues’ as Davis euphemistically termed
them.
The commentary on Indigenous issues was to my mind too
short on analytic substance and too long on rhetoric. Of course, there is
substantial merit in maximising local input and decision making in relation to
service delivery, and place-based approaches have much to recommend them.
Yet the problems bedevilling the Indigenous policy domain
reflect an incapacity of government and the public sector generally to successfully
implement these aspirations. Place based approaches have been talked about by Indigenous
Affairs Ministers since Brough in the early 2000s; Secretaries of Commonwealth Departments
were made champions for specific communities; Peter Shergold (while Secretary
of PMC) made on the ground implementation a focus and priority; the Rudd Government
appointed a Coordinator General for Remote Indigenous services …. yet arguably
in many cases the circumstances of community members have worsened.
At a deeper level, however, the meta message in Davis’s
speech, exemplified in the bold text above, is that the problems of Papunya are
not the responsibility of public servants in Canberra and Darwin. It is true
that public servants cannot ‘solve’ problems by fiat, or by throwing money
around like confetti, but the key structural and institutional settings that
shape policy and hence the lives of Indigenous people in Papunya (and Western
Sydney) are the responsibility of governments and hence public servants. The ‘housing,
health, employment and educational challenges of Papunya’, and across every
other place in the nation, are shaped by the political decisions made by governments,
which are in turn both shaped by the advice provided by the public service, and
particularly its senior echelons, in both Canberra and state and territory
capitals. They are also shaped by the quality of service delivery. While delivery
of services can be contracted out, or shared with local community organisations,
responsibility for its quality and effectiveness should not and arguably cannot
be contracted out by our elected governments. Yet that is the implicit (albeit
perhaps unintended) message in Davis’s speech.
Which brings me to Pat Turner’s important and insightful interview
with host Larissa Behrendt on ABC Speaking Out (link
here).
Turner is the Convenor of the Coalition of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Peak Organisations which plays a
crucial role in the Joint Council that oversights the National Agreement on Closing
the Gap. Her comments cover quite a bit of territory and again, I recommend the
transcript be read in full.
Turner articulates her agenda as being centred on driving a
change in life outcomes for Indigenous people which she defines as involving ‘a
real say in shared decision-making’. She
notes that she has written to the Federal Government on behalf of the Peaks
advocating a series of proposals on how the government could accelerate its
efforts on closing the gap post referendum. These include the establishment of
a closing the gap fund with contributions by all levels of government. She also
argues that the key mainstream national agreements on housing, education and
health should make much greater provision for ensuing that states and
territories use these programs to close the gap.
In assessing the role of Governments to date, Turner doesn’t
hold back:
At the Commonwealth level I
have to say that we, the Peaks, have been doing the heavy lifting to ensure our
people are properly supported by big funding agreements and arrangements,
including the housing Australia Future Fund, the Housing and Homelessness
National Agreement and the Social Housing Accelerator Fund. Now, these funds
and agreements have billions of dollars in them, and so far, only 200m, out of
those billions, has been earmarked for refurbishment of Aboriginal housing.
This is simply not good enough. Housing is an absolute priority for our people
and I’m really so proud and commend the people of Santa Teresa for the recent
High Court’s decision on housing. This decision makes it clear that governments
need to be doing so much more on housing and accord the priority to Aboriginal
housing…
In relation to the post referendum policy context, Turners comments
are interesting, focussing on the underlying meaning and purpose of the
referendum rather than the semantics:
…. Actually, I don’t really
want to use the word voice anymore, because I think it distracts. I think
though our own self-determining bodies, our own bodies that will pursue our
self-determination in the way that people decide at the local and regional
levels, and government’s just one element of that. Do that independently of
government, not you know, wait for government to come, and say well we want to
set up regional, or national voice and we’ll do it this way, this is what we
want you to do. I want our people to work that out for themselves.
Turner’s interview is important both for the messages it is
sending to governments regarding the seriousness of Indigenous interests in
pursuing better Indigenous outcomes, but also for the implicit criticism of government
performance to date. Importantly she also has a message for the wider Indigenous
leadership.
Both Davis and Turner are in effect speaking about the same
issues. Davis focusses on the aspirational, Turner on the tangible challenges. Both
are astute and inherently political bureaucratic operators, positioning themselves
for the challenges ahead.
I would argue that Davis’s approach is largely defensive
and passive, with an unfortunate meta message that while highlighting the opportunities
for shared decision making implicitly seeks to absolve governments and public
servants from responsibility for failure. Turner’s approach is more proactive,
and inherently ambitious, but in seeking to cajole governments to do better fails
to acknowledge the sheer size and complexity of the challenged facing the
nation in changing for the better the life outcomes of residents in Papunya, Perth,
Kulumburu, Western Sydney, Bruny Island, and the rest of this wide brown land.
6 December 2023
