Energy regulation disparities in remote Australia

 

Comparisons are odorous.

Much Ado About Nothing, Act three, Scene five.

 

This week, the journal Nature Energy published an extraordinarily important article titled Geographies of regulatory disparity underlying Australia’s energy transition (link here). Authored by researchers at the ANU, University of Melbourne, and Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs, the article lays out in in stark and disturbing detail how remote and Indigenous communities are structurally and systemically disadvantaged in terms of regulatory protections related to the ongoing – and arguably accelerating – energy transition towards reliance on renewable energy resources. What makes this research particularly important is the extraordinarily detailed levels of analysis that provide irrefutable evidence of the patters and extent of systemic disparities.

 

This research article is the latest in a series of pathbreaking research papers that have opened up a line of sight into the complex energy related challenges facing remote Australia as it confronts the consequences of climate change. I have previously published a post on earlier research by members of this research team (link here). See also references #8, #19, #52, #61, and #68 in the current article.

 

The abstract to the most recent article states the primary research finding, which focusses on:

the geographic and socio-demographic characteristics of settlements likely to be underserved by regulations to: protect life-support customers, guarantee service levels, clarify connection requirements for rooftop solar, require disconnection reporting and set clear and independent complaints processes. Assessing whether communities receive fewer than four of five protections, we find that Indigenous communities are 15% more likely to be underserved across multiple metrics and remote communities are 18% more likely to be underserved. 

 

As the authors note in their introduction, summarising the paper’s conclusions:

Our study identifies settlements with fewer extant legal protections for electricity services, mapping those at risk of further exclusion from the benefits of energy transition. We find that life support protections, guaranteed service levels and disconnection reporting that are ubiquitous for residential customers within urban and regional areas are often absent in remote settlements. Remote settlements and settlements with majority Indigenous population are respectively 18% and 15% more likely to lack comprehensive regulatory and legal protections compared with non-remote and non-Indigenous settlements.

 

The authors have undertaken an extraordinarily detailed level of analysis and produced a series of vivid maps that illustrate the geographical extent of disadvantage, but also the complex inconsistencies in regulatory coverage that permeate the energy system nationally. I strongly recommend readers access the full paper (it is open access), scan through the maps to get some sense of the geographical spread of the disparities in regulatory coverage, and read (at the very least) the Discussion section of the paper.

 

The following paragraph provides an insight into the extent of the analysis upon which the analysis rests:

We reviewed each of the 284 documents recording legal protections pertaining to 3,047 settlements across Australia as of 1 July 2022, including those small settlements with fewer than 200 people. Of these 3,047 settlements, the 51 settlements missing data on relative socio-economic advantage are included in mapping but not the subsequent statistical analyses. Our review indicates that an estimated 5 million Australians (approximately 20% of the population) are living in settlements where not all customers are guaranteed protections across the five dimensions of life support, rooftop solar connection, disconnection reporting, guaranteed service levels and clear and independent complaints processes.

 

The Discussion section of the article is essential reading and makes a number of arguments that have enormous force and merit. I have not sought to summarise the authors arguments in that section here, but in what follows I don’t seek to detract from them in any way. There are however two important additional points I would make that readers should consider when reading the research article.

 

The first relates to the argument the authors make about the rationale for removing energy regulatory disparities. The authors argue that regulatory disparities in the energy sector should be addressed because Indigenous peoples’ lands will be crucial to the nation’s energy transition — a point made in a recent seminar by Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh (link here) — and it is thus likely that they will at once be contributing to the nation’s energy transition while simultaneously missing out on full access to energy related services. This point is obviously correct, but as a rationale for addressing disparity it is in my view incomplete.

 

The systemic disparities afflicting remote and indigenous communities extend well beyond the energy sector and demand a more extensive and wide-ranging investment of public resources. Remote housing provision, water infrastructure, communications infrastructure, investments in quality services in educations, health and ecological services all demand greater attention, yet are not assisted by focussing solely on the desirability of a just energy transition. The policy rationale for addressing systemic and structural disadvantage must be found in a more comprehensive and dare I say it, a more radical rationale based around the notion that Australian citizens deserve to have equal access to citizenship ‘entitlements’. The power of this research is to demonstrate once again, and with extraordinary analytical rigour, that this notion has never applied across remote Australia, and the gap continues today with no obvious policy mechanism or commitment in place which will address it.  

 

The second argument that needs to be made, and which is only implicit in the analysis of the research article, is the role of the Commonwealth in the federation and under the Closing the Gap National Agreement. For the past decade, the Commonwealth has run dead on taking a robust role in pushing the states to deliver services to all Indigenous citizens. The 1967 referendum gave the Commonwealth power to legislate because the states and territories were not delivering across the board: in energy, housing, health, employment, essential services, communications and more.  Of course the Commonwealth should step up on energy disparities across the nation, and actively and proactively pressure the states and territories to address these systemic services deficits. As the paper notes, the Commonwealth lacks access to data that even measures these energy disparities (refer to footnote 70 in the Discussion section of the article). But, in line with my first point above, the Commonwealth should step up across the board in pressing the states to deliver equal levels of services, including regulatory arrangements to all citizens residents across remote Australia.

 

Next month, we will see the Productivity Commission’s final report on its Review of Closing the Gap (link here). Whatever that report says, the lens which will best give the best measure of the quality of the Commonwealth’s response to that forthcoming report will be the extent to which it decides to shift its approach: that is, away from being just one of the nine government parties to the Agreement (an assemblage that at present might accurately be likened to a clowder of cats whose only skill is in producing policy confusion and turmoil) and towards an approach which proactively adopts the role of ringmaster or overseer, focussed on ensuring consistent and policy relevant processes are applied to the management of the Closing the Gap Agreement.

 

Such a shift in approach would increase the likelihood that policy and program inputs are made accessibly transparent, that states and territories will be held accountable for and therefore that tangible outcomes are delivered across the Indigenous policy domain including in areas such as energy regulation. One obvious and simple example of the sort of change I am advocating would be for the Commonwealth to promulgate a template for the state and territory Implementation Plans under the agreement that radically simplifies their format and length to say five or ten pages (like a Cabinet submission), rethinks the decision that they are produced each year, and lays out a template that ensures that they become real working documents rather public relations exercises and interminable lists of supposed actions and activities. At present these Implementation plans are a joke, and if they are not fixed, the National Agreement will be a joke.

 

Moreover, the Commonwealth should substantively acknowledge that there is more to Indigenous disadvantage than focussing on 19 closing the gap targets and broaden its current approach to the Priority Reforms at the core of the National Agreement (especially Priority Reform 3) to ensure a tangible focus on issues such as energy regulation shortfalls across remote Australia.

 

The pathbreaking research at the centre of this post has opened a window onto a previously hidden vista of systemic regulatory disparity in relation to access to and the provision of energy, but simultaneously reinforces out nation’s ability to ignore and live with continuing and much broader systemic disparities between remote and non-remote Australians. This is what structural exclusion looks like.

 

The citation for the article discussed above:

White, L.V., Riley, B., Wilson, S. et al. Geographies of regulatory disparity underlying Australia’s energy transition. Nature Energy (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01422-5

 

19 January 2024

Meta-promises: the new shape of Indigenous policy failure

                                                 

His promises fly so beyond his state

That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes

For every word...

Timon of Athens, Act one, Scene two

 

Following my previous post on ‘Unattainable expectations’ (link here), I received a number of comments from readers that raised issues that I had overlooked, or under-emphasised (though in my defence, I would state that I try to keep this blog focused on policy rather than politics (noting that the distinction is arguably artificial at best).

 

I thought it might be useful to share the comments from two anonymous readers, lightly edited to remove gratuitous comments which might colloquially be described as ‘pissing in my pocket’ along with my response to reader #1. Among the takeouts from these comments are the intensity of the intertwining of politics and policy (something which I tend to under-emphasise) and secondly the explicit and implicit trade-offs and opportunity costs involved in policy development.  I urge readers to read the commentaries both literally, but also through an interpretive lens that points to the complexities inherent in both designing, implementing and (especially from an Indigenous perspective), influencing policy.

 

Reader #1:

Mike is always an incisive commentator, and this blog is no exception - and yet I confess to having some dissatisfaction with elements of it.  In trying to sift my own responses I've had to face the fact that my own strong opinions have to some extent hindered a ready embrace of all Mike's observations.  Strong opinions can often be the enemy of good judgment, but they are also inevitable when one has been so long engaged with these issues.

 

One of the great benefits of my recent overseas sojourn was the opportunity it afforded to escape the exhausting and dispiriting barrage of argument and conjecture that had become almost unbearable when the referendum reached its miserable crescendo.  But now that I am back I must again face up to the issues Mike raises.

 

The complicating opinions of mine that I refer to can be seen as twofold:

Firstly, I harbour a deep anger towards the Prime Minister for the way he conducted the referendum discussions and I hold him primarily responsible for its failure.  His messages were weak and disingenuous and his leadership was an abject failure.  He tried to be Whitlamesque in his election night commitment, but then seemed to think that if he hugged enough people at Garma and whined enough about it being 'a gracious offer from Indigenous people' (what rubbish!) we'd all follow.  It was a shambles and I find it hard to forgive him.

 

And yet I am less inclined than Mike to condemn him for not now rushing to articulate a bold Indigenous policy agenda.  Mike fears that it signifies "a deep-seated lack of  ambition", but I think it is not inappropriate to reflect for a while after the referendum disaster, and that having already significantly raised Indigenous expectations only to have them turn to ashes, he would do well to avoid doing so again without significant pause. As Shakespeare’s words would suggest, this is not a time for more promises. And, as Aunty Pat has said, perhaps the post-referendum wasteland affords opportunity for Indigenous agency to emerge and to flourish.

 

I was really surprised that Mike seemed to make no connection with the Voice in his comments about the problems inherent in suggestions that a particular section of the community might have excessive influence over the development of national policy that directly affects them.  That was precisely a key reason the referendum went down; a lack of clarity as to whether the Parliament would indeed have ultimate control of and responsibility for the policy settings in Indigenous affairs.  The PM did not help with his lame comments about "it would be a brave government that ignored the advice of  the Voice", which raised the obvious question about whether Albo's government would in fact have the bravery Mike and the nation would have wanted it to have.

 

Secondly, I have never been at all comfortable with "closing the gap" rhetoric, which Mike appears to accept without question - (along with Pat, although she, as head of "the Peaks", is structurally locked into accepting that rhetoric).  I find myself wishing that Nugget Coombs were still with us, as I have no doubt he would be calling all this stuff out as being essentially assimilationist.  As one who has had a long and ongoing involvement with remote communities, I find the whole closing the gap agenda to be objectionable - assimilationist, and continuously viewing Aboriginal people and their communities through a negative lens.  Will they never be acceptable until they live like us and think like us?  Perish the thought!

 

My experience of remote community life at its best is that it has a vitality, a joy, an intensity of relationship, and a general exuberance that our own atomised, disconnected, self-obsessed society can never know.  When I first went to [a remote community in the NT] at age 22 I was stunned and amazed that people could live with such laughter and intense connection; it was a revelation.

 

At the risk of appearing foolish, let me put it like this: Perhaps the gap that needs to be closed is that between a society in which loneliness, unhappiness and alienation is an increasing problem and societies in which vitality and connection are a daily reality (yes, along with poverty, boredom and outbursts of violence).  My point is that there is no real gap; it all depends on what we are measuring - and the measurements we currently use are ethnocentric and assimilationist.

 

I like the way Mike finishes his piece by suggesting what Albo might have said, and his penultimate paragraph, articulating a vision for what the referendum could have achieved.  His final paragraph, however, might have said a little more - might have suggested how we actually get beyond the dismal "bipartisan mediocrity' of the last decade.  I'm not sure myself, but I think it might start with a celebration of everything that sets Aboriginal society apart from ours - not its negatives, but its joyous and exuberant connection.

 

Reader #2 provided the following commentary in response to Reader #1: 

Thanks [Reader#1] for copying me into such a thoughtful and considered response. Herewith a few comments on the post and your response from my perspective.

 

Regarding the Prime Minister-in a broader context I believe the whole referendum  campaign was misconceived from the outset. It’s death knell rang from the moment the PM was reduced to tears at its initial launch-political campaigns are only won when strategies are hard headed and identify and manage the risks - neither occurred in this context and wishful thinking abounded. Albanese needs to wear a fair proportion of the blame but when the true story ultimately emerges  there are a number of others who refused to accept,  let alone countenance considered advice.

 

One the key problems is that Labor came into office with only one discernible policy in Indigenous affairs that being the Voice as a miraculous instant cure all for all Indigenous and the nation’s ills. This was partly a product of their poor record in Opposition keeping the Coalition accountable over the past 10 years plus a chronic failure to develop any detailed in depth policies of their own.  As a result they assumed Office and merely maintained a business as usual approach consistent with the policies and structures adopted by the coalition via its 10 year program rather than pursue the necessary systemic reforms required. As Mike highlights this means Indigenous interests are still stuck with Coalition policies and its  government agency structures and the associated short term policy / reactive thinking - most of which continue to have proven disastrous for remote communities in particular.

 

I too have issues with the closing the gap assimilationist rhetoric but as it stands it remains the only remaining show in town- for remote communities it at least opens the door to press  governments to adopt an approach that commits priority resources to those areas of greatest need which are disproportionately in remote Australia -- as it stands the results of the virtual dismembering of programs by previous governments  such as CDEP, remote housing , outstation support and education have been a disaster for remote communities and are all currently on show by way of their virtual abandonment by government and the results and human suffering on display both in towns like Alice and so many remote communities. Other factors such as the negative impacts of social media, modernity and loss of agency in general are all adding other dimensions to this equation. When combined they act together effectively undermine and disrupt / displace traditional culture.

 

I responded to Reader #1 as follows (edited to remove less important points):

Thanks for your considered response!... One of the purposes of my blog is not so much to persuade people to my view, as to persuade them to think harder about the complexity of the policy issues involved, especially related to remote Australia.

 

I have set out some responses below. I do however feel that too much of the public discussion on Indigenous policy is undertaken within rather narrow and informal parameters, and often it is narrow cast to specific cohorts of recipients who do not speak to one another...hence my gratitude for receiving your own well informed and insightful views.

 

I don’t disagree with your assessment of Albanese, however I was pointing to this notion - that I consider to be deeply embedded in the way we think about these issues -  that the world can be split into two separate and cleanly divided parts, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and hinting or suggesting that it is a key reason why mainstream Australians essentially decided that it was not their business, and they didn’t need to support it...

 

I agree that there shouldn’t be more promises that won’t be kept. And I see the logic in now taking stock following the defeat of a referendum without a plan B...When you are in a hole stop digging...My perspective however is that the whole policy edifice of the government should have been more than just one proposal, and secondly, they might have openly and actively engaged with the community (black and white) about what their policy approach beyond the Voice should be from the date of their election...in short, a smart government avoids the holes in the first place...

 

Your views about closing the gap are extraordinarily relevant, particularly for remote communities, and particularly in relation to the threat of imposed assimilation...moreover, the original closing the gap architecture was not well designed, and the Morrison refresh and current version (done supposedly in partnership with the Peaks) even less well designed...I agree that Nugget would likely be a vehement critic...and it seems that even on its own terms, the closing the gap process is unlikely to work...I do take a different view from you on the utility of a negative lens ... I agree wholeheartedly that Aboriginal communities can exude remarkable positives that are easily overlooked by outsiders and policymakers....unfortunately, a complex and insidious web of grog, drugs, anomie, the onset of modernity, coercive and at times racist policy assumptions, plus a deep-seated lack of inclusion and investment by mainstream institutions has taken a huge toll....many of my blog posts on remote Australia emphasise these negatives not because I see Indigenous society as innately negative or deficient but because a child suffering violent abuse or neglect or FASD or who cannot read and write will not have the opportunities she deserves (many of which include the positive experiences you refer to)...I see policymakers as responsible for these shortcomings, not Indigenous people...

 

[In relation to the suggestion that the gap does not exist] I disagree with you at the margin....there is a gap, but in remote communities it is qualitatively different than in non-remote, and requires different solutions, ideally which involve codesign and partnership with communities themselves....

[In relation to saying more about the policy solutions]...My intuition is that Indigenous interests have to develop an independent advocacy capability and capacity beyond the reach of government co-option.

  

Conclusion

It strikes me that the perspectives of the two readers, each of which have considerable merit, along with my response to reader #1, together demonstrate just how complicated it is to first reach a consensus on what are policy priorities, and second to determine appropriate policy responses across the breadth of the Indigenous policy domain. Yet our public discourse on Indigenous affairs generally, and Indigenous policy in particular, seems quite limited and narrow.

 

There is a deficit in the quality of public discourse on these issues, especially in relation to remote communities. This deficit is not without real world implications: it leads to deep-seated reluctance to address policy complexity in public discourse, and allows simplistic ideas and approaches to gain traction without serious public analysis and critique. This is the ecosystem in which promises are made, expectations raised, and re-raised , and re-raised again, without any government official ever taking responsibility for the absence of tangible action and the concomitant outcomes of legitimate expectations being left unaddressed, and promises breached.

 

While we all have a responsibility (at least in my view) to seek to improve the quality of public discourse on these issues, Ministers in particular have a responsibility to engage with the community at a level of sophistication that is almost entirely absent from public discussion. When was the last time we have seen a minister identify in a spirit of dialogue with the community, potential policy options, rather than making specific promises? We need more of the former and less of the latter. In turn, engaged advocates must increase the demand for greater policy sophistication (particularly in an age of codesign and partnership) if they expect the supply to increase. We have now reached a meta-state in which governments of all shades promise to have a policy, and then fail to deliver.

 

 9 January 2024

Unattainable expectations

 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises

All’s Well that Ends Well, Act two, Scene one.

 

On 26 December 2023, The Australian ran a front page story headed ‘Voice “not my loss” Albanese declares’. 

 

In unscripted commentary made while serving lunch at a charity, the Prime Minister was apparently asked about his year and ‘some big losses’ such as the defeat of the Voice. According to The Australian, the Prime Minister replied:

Oh, no, no, no, no, very important to call that out. I am not Indigenous, so it wasn’t a loss for me. That stays exactly the same the way it is. I do think that it was disappointing for First Nations people but they’re used to you know, getting the, they’re used to hardship. It’s been the case for 200 years, and they are resilient and we will continue to do what we can to provide for closing the gap. But it’s one of the things about this debate, it was never about politicians, it was actually about the most disadvantaged people in our society.

 

On the Prime Minister’s media webpage (link here), there is an entry for the event, and a short transcript. However, it does not include these comments.

 

The Australian’s take on the comments was, in effect, to state the obvious: that the referendum defeat was a loss for him. Journalist Greg Brown commented that the PM’s claim ignored the enormous political capital he burned and ignored the fact that the referendum result ‘has left him without a policy agenda for Indigenous Australians more than halfway into a term of government’.

 

I raise the Prime Minister’s comments to focus not on the political jostling that is clearly occurring, but rather on some underlying implications for Indigenous policy. The first implication worth noting is his comment that ‘we will do what we can’ to close the gap. Embedded within this cautious phrasing is a deep-seated lack of ambition, and reluctance to ‘do what we must’ to close the gap. It may seem like semantic hair-splitting, but unfortunately the Prime Minister’s comments align exactly with the approach adopted by the Government.

 

If we take the view (as I do) that policy is what governments do, (not what they say they do), then clearly there is a government policy agenda. The problem is that they do not feel able to articulate it. They have no coherent narrative.

 

The core elements of the current Government’s Indigenous policy appear to be to keep their heads down, maintain a regular flow of small dollops of funding to a wide array of Indigenous groups (this was an underlying reason the previous government abolished multiple programs and merged them into the Indigenous Advancement Strategy), push financial responsibilities to the states and territories wherever they can (most notably under the rubric of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, a holdover from the previous government), and when in a tight spot, to buy time through resort to more consultation. When cornered by a crisis, they will allocate extra funding, the quantum carefully calibrated to ensure it is modest but can’t be criticised as too parsimonious. We saw this approach in the response to the crisis in Alice Springs last year. A brief summary is provided in the NIAA 2023-24 Corporate plan (link here), See also this previous post (link here) which predated the Government’s response package.

 

Apart from its support for a Voice, it is difficult to see any substantive difference between the policy approach adopted by the current Government and the previous LNP Government. The past decade of Indigenous policy has overwhelmingly been characterised by the prioritisation of rhetoric over substantive action. In terms of policy ambition, we have had what might be called bipartisan mediocrity.

 

The absence of a narrative describing a substantive policy framework that the Government feels able to talk about openly and without resorting to doublespeak is a double tragedy. A tragedy for Indigenous Australia, but also a tragedy for all Australians (whatever their background) who are required to live in a nation that is prepared to leave a significant proportion of its population in significant physical, social and economic distress.

 

The second implication embedded in the Prime Minister’s comments is more abstract, and yet to my mind enormously important. I particularly focus on his comment that he is not Indigenous and thus not impacted. Taking the Prime Minister literally, he is saying that the Voice (and by implication all Indigenous policy including closing the gap) are matters solely for Indigenous people. Unsurprisingly, this is a widely accepted view amongst Indigenous people. It is also extremely prevalent amongst many of their allies and supporters with politically progressive inclinations. I take a different, and more nuanced, view.

 

Just as Indigenous policy should not be a matter left exclusively to non-Indigenous policy makers, nor should it be left exclusively to Indigenous people. In fact, if one thinks about it, government policies even when framed as being directed to a specific group (e.g. pensioners, or home-owners) necessarily impacts all citizens: those policies have financial costs which fall on taxpayers; those costs also have opportunity costs (ie the dollars for one policy might be better spent elsewhere); and they may expand the freedom of action of the intended beneficiaries, but limit the freedom of action of other groups, both in the present, but also in the future. For these reasons, the development of policies is subject to multiple process gateways, both within the bureaucracy and then in the parliament, all designed to ensure that policy design meets the needs of all interests affected by a proposed policy. Policy implementation is also oversighted by institutions such as the Auditor General and parliamentary estimates committees.

 

The same principles and constraints hold for the development and implementation of Indigenous policy. The wider and deeper the remit of any policy initiative, the more important these processes are, and the less likely that governments will give up their power to make final decisions.

 

Of course, the primary intended beneficiaries of a policy should have a strong involvement in the development of the policy, but in a well working (inclusive) system of governance it is impossible for any single interest group to have a monopoly over all aspects of shaping and determining policy.

 

In contrast, and unfortunately from my perspective, embedded within the Prime Minister’s comments on the loss of the referendum is a view that Indigenous policy is something that only concerns Indigenous people. It is not how our system should work, and nor is it how our system works most of the time. I should quickly add that while I am focussing on the Prime Minister’s comments, they are salient not only because he is the Prime Minister (though that is an element) but precisely because they are widely shared across the political spectrum and have deep penetration both within First Nations circles and the wider non-Indigenous community.

 

One consequence of the Prime Minister’s perspective (which conservatives would describe as ‘woke’) is that it raises Indigenous expectations beyond the point that the system can or will deliver. This process of raising expectations rather than being honest with Indigenous people has been going on for decades. It is built into the DNA of our political system. The reality, however, is that the myriad interests and interest groups that inhabit our political and policy ecosystem will not willingly allow one interest group unfettered influence over policy, because that would have the consequence of opening the door to future adverse decisions against those interests acceding to the change. The Prime Minister knows this too, in his head, in his heart, and in his bootstraps.

 

The promulgation of a narrative that the Voice was solely for, or about, Indigenous Australians, or that Closing the Gap is solely about Indigenous Australians, is both incorrect, but also insidiously destructive as it involves a deliberate disjunction between rhetoric and underlying substantive intent. It is also destructive, because it gives non-Indigenous citizens permission to avert their gaze, to take no notice and to not give a fig about the state of Indigenous Australia. To have the Prime Minister effectively reinforce these propensities is immensely retrograde. It places a question mark over the extent of the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to closing the gap.

 

It is very easy (and unfortunately commonplace) for politicians to promise one thing and deliver less. However, it is in my view egregiously short-sighted and destructive of trust in our system of government for politicians to implicitly promise degrees of influence and engagement over policy development to any segment of the community that they know will not be met, not now, not in the future, never.

 

Unfortunately, from time to time, democratic governments do succumb to granting special interests extraordinary or near total influence over policy development. It happens because powerful interests find ways to insinuate themselves into the political system. When this occurs, it is termed ‘state capture’ and once uncovered (it invariably operates in secrecy) it is widely condemned. While he most extraordinary example of this in recent times is in South Africa (link here and link here), Australia is not immune (link here and link here). The reality is, however, that Indigenous interests do not posses the power and resources to even come close to capturing the state, notwithstanding the extravagant apoplexy which emanates from some quarters of the public sphere whenever there is talk of advancing the inclusion of Indigenous interests. Any greater inclusion of Indigenous interests will inevitably require the implicit agreement of a broad consensus of other interests within the Australian political settlement.

 

Conclusion

To sum up, I accept that I am making a somewhat nuanced argument. To make it more real, what would I have had the Prime Minister say?

 

First, given the political capital he invested in supporting the Voice, it does not ring true to say that he did not lose the political debate. But democracy is built on dialogue and debate, and ideally on reaching consensus. But when consensus doesn’t emerge, it is inevitable that there are people whose views are set aside. Losing is an essential element of a democratic system and is not any less honourable than winning. More importantly though, he should have stated that the Voice was an important initiative to improve our democratic system, that First Nations people were (and still are) structurally silenced in various ways and the Voice would have ensured that First Nations had the opportunity to formally express their views on major policy, and Parliament and the Executive would have had the opportunity to hear their views and concerns. Our democratic system, and thus all citizens, would have benefitted, not just First Nations. 

 

Of course, the significant policy implication embedded in this conclusion is that the structural silencing of Indigenous interests continues. This too should be a matter of concern for all Australians, not just First Nations. It is an outcome that is not assisted by adopting slick approaches based on rhetorical ambition and substantive policy mediocrity. Fixing that is an attainable expectation!

 

 

03 January 2024