Alice Springs crisis: observations on remote policy

 

Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands,

But more when envy breeds unkind division:

There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.

Henry VI, Part 1, Act 4, scene 1

 

Yesterday, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, and three Indigenous Labor MPs (Patrick Dodson, Marion Scrymgour, and Malarndirri McCarthy) visited Alice Springs to meet with the NT Government, and local community interests.

 

I am loathe to write too much about the unfolding situation in Alice Springs given the amount to material being published in mainstream media. I don’t propose to set out a comprehensive account or summary, and instead would refer readers to the front page reports in the Australian, the ABC and the Guardian over recent days. Below is a quick snapshot of my posts in relation to alcohol policy in remote Australia over the past year or so. I include them to both provide some deeper background, and more importantly to make the point that for close observers of this policy realm (are there any in Government?) it has been very apparent for a considerable time that business as usual was not sufficient and would eventually lead to disaster. Bad as things are, it is not clear that they will not get worse before they improve.

 

In February 2022, I posted a blog reporting on what amounted to a clear decision by the previous Government not to extend the Stronger Futures legislation related to alcohol (and some other issues such as remote stores licencing which has implications for food security in remote communities). That post was titled The Commonwealth is taking us headlong into a remote policy chasm: but who cares? (Link here).

 

In May 2022, I published a post outlining the ongoing social and governance catastrophe in remote Australia (link here). That post dealt with alcohol issues only tangentially, but reinforced the deep structural and systemic underpinnings of the current crisis.

 

In early June 2022, the NT Government announced its approach to loosening the controls on alcohol regulation across remote communities and town camps. I published a post linking to criticism of this approach, and explored the likely rationale for the NTG decision (link here). I argued that the NTG decision was a cynical exercise in encouraging drinkers to remain in remote communities and out of Darwin and major towns. In the case of Central Australia, the systemic incentives to leave underfunded communities are much greater than mere access to alcohol; hence the current issues in Alice Springs.

 

In August, I published a post titled Alcohol policy reform in remote Australia: a potential roadmap. This post dealt with remote Western Australia (link here), and made the case for the Commonwealth to inject itself into the remote alcohol policy arena.

 

In December 2022, I published a post titled Cataclysm and crisis: the two sides of the policy tragedy engulfing remote northern Australia (link here). That post was headed with a quotation from Hamlet: ‘This bodes some strange eruption to our state’. The post concluded as follows:

The inability of governments to envisage, understand and put in place effective strategies to address the multiple facets of the economic and social cataclysm facing remote communities amounts to a massive and fundamental failure. This failure is in and of itself a crisis; a crisis of governance capability, a crisis of will power, and ultimately a crisis of government legitimacy.

The implication that inevitably follows is that the solutions (for they will inevitably be multiple) must go beyond focussing on a single issue (housing, or health or food security or alcohol, or crime, or education, or incarceration, or unemployment or economic development, or land tenure, or dispossession or the impact of colonisation). 

 

I recommend reading those previous posts to obtain an inkling of the systemic underpinnings of the current situation in Alice Springs.

 

Below, I lay out a series of observations that are not getting much critical attention in the current media tumult. They are not intended as a comprehensive analysis of the current situation nor are they in any particular order.

 

First, there have been statements by both Government, the Opposition, and the NT Government seeking to blame their political opponents for the flow on from the decision to allow the Stronger Futures legislation that curtailed access to alcohol across many remote NT Aboriginal communities. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called on the Government to reinstate the alcohol bans that expired in July last year (link here and link here). Yesterday, the Prime Minister argued (link here) that the Stronger Futures legislation had expired before the first parliamentary session under the new Government (elected in May 2022). While technically correct, the new Labor Government always had the option of moving to reinstate the legislation, or proactively engaging with the NT Government to ensure alcohol controls were not loosened. In the final analysis, the new Government could have announced an intention to reinstate the Stronger Futures legislation in the event that the NT Government failed to legislate in similar terms. The NT Government spent months mischaracterising the Stronger Futures legislation as racially based and thus discriminatory (link here and link here) while ignoring the fact that it was designed as a special measure under the Racial Discrimination Act which allows ostensible discrimination that is designed to benefit the people of a particular race. The Albanese Government, the former Morrison Government, and the Labor NT Government all had the opportunity to ensure that the Stronger Futures legislation continued with a zero or miniscule interregnum. Rewriting history to blame political opponents while seeking to avoid responsibility merely serves to signal that politics continues to play a major role in managing the response of our political elites to the situation in Alice Springs.

 

Second, as my previous posts made clear, the current issues in Alice Springs are (i) symptomatic of underlying structural and systemic policy challenges; and (ii) are constituent elements in a much more geographically expansive crisis that has been ebbing and flowing across remote Australia for decades, and had become significantly worse in the past three to five years. Alcohol abuse is a significant element in this crisis, but it is far from the only factor in play.

 

Third, the media reports on social dysfunction across remote Australia invariably focus on events in particular places and at particular times, but rarely do reporters step back and provide a holistic and coherent narrative that joins the dots both geographically, and in terms of the multiple sectors impacted. Media hype, however accurate, rarely provides the full picture, and is not adequate for policy formulation. Yet increasingly, Governments have abdicated on their responsibility to prepare and publish comprehensive, accurate and and coherent policy relevant analyses across the breadth of public policymaking. Analysis has given way to propaganda and public relations. This abdication of responsibility is particularly costly in relation to remote Australia given the thin levels of public discussion and knowledge of what goes on in remote places and communities.

 

Fourth, in the context of the present tumult around alcohol regulation, and the promulgation of a confusing amalgam of geographically constrained temporary and ongoing policy proposals by both the Federal and the NT Government, no media outlets have asked the PM, the Leader of the Opposition, or the NT Chief Minister, to reveal the level of political donations to their party organisations from interests associated with the alcohol industry. Given the crisis of legitimacy surrounding the quality of governance in relation to these current issues, it seems an obvious question to ask policymakers and politicians: how does the community know that you are not conflicted in proposing policy solutions that should be in the public interest. Political donations are theoretically made public, albeit after a considerable delay. However, there is nothing stopping any of the political players shaping policy in relation to the social crisis rolling out from compiling and publishing in a clear and transparent form the donations received from alcohol industry corporations over say the past three years. The absence of such a transparent statement from policymakers and their political opponents should provide cause for concern in relation to the policy solutions that are being proposed.

 

Fifth, there appears to be a correlation between the substantial pull back and withdrawal of the Commonwealth from the remote policy arena over the past decade and increasing levels of dysfunction. The NT Government does not appear to have the policy and financial capability to make a difference, and nor does it appear to have the political will power. The State Governments of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland are too focussed on managing the complex issues of urban development in their respective major cities to give the particular needs of remote regions the priority they require. The 1967 referendum gave the Commonwealth a legislative and policy remit for Indigenous affairs for a reason, yet the Commonwealth’s role is being incrementally dismantled without any public debate or consideration.

 

Sixth, this morning on ABC Radio National, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney recounted visiting the Alice Springs Hospital last night in the company of Marion Scrymgour, the member for the seat of Lingiari. The Alice Springs hospital has 16 beds in its Intensive Care Unit. Minister Burney mentioned that she was shocked to learn that last night, 14 of those beds were taken by women who had been the victims of violent assaults. This window into the lived experience of too many remote women and their families is more than a warning of the seriousness of the rolling crisis across remote Australia. It is more than a prompt for governments to take action. It is more than an indictment on the quality and legitimacy of our systems of governance across northern Australia. It is damning evidence of the complicity and responsibility for these outcomes of those Australians (myself included) who take an interest in public policy. 

We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to solve these issues. If we are don’t, future historians will write about us and the policies we implemented as no better than those of the perpetrators of colonial violence. Solving these structural and systemic issues, borne of sustained and ongoing exclusion and inequality, is in the public interest and the national interest.

[This post was revised on 29 January to correct a small number of typographical and grammatical errors]

 

Demographic dynamism demands targeted policy responses

 

Simply the thing I am

Shall make me live.

All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, iii.

 

I’ve written previously about the demographic trends shaping Australian Indigenous policy and drawn out a series of policy implications (link here). One of the points made by the ABS spokesperson quoted in that post related to the explanation for the substantial growth in the Indigenous population between 2016 and 2021 (185, 000 or 23 percent, compared to a 5 percent increase in the general population). The spokesperson noted that the Indigenous population changes were ‘partly explained by changing identification over time’. She gave no estimate of the relative significance of new identifiers in contributing to the ongoing population growth.

 

In their 2018 research paper Indigenous identification change between 2011 and 2016: evidence from the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, ANU researchers Nicholas Biddle and Francis Markham (link here) estimated that in 2016:

The net increase from identification change was therefore estimated to be 84 607, or 13.7% of the in-scope Indigenous population in 2011.

 

One of the points I made in my earlier blog post was that:

no Australian Government appears seriously focussed on exploring the linkages and implications for policy of the rapidly changing demography of Indigenous Australia. Over the past two censuses the ABS has provided a window into what amounts to an ongoing revolution in the demographic shape of Indigenous Australia, but the response from policymakers on what this means and how they intend to respond has been determined silence.

 

A recent academic discussion paper titled American Indian Casinos and Native American Self-Identification (link here) shines a light on the relationship between population dynamics and economic opportunity through an analysis of the relationship between the flow of benefits from casino ownership and the  incentives to self-identify as native American. This paper, by economists Francisca Antman and Brian Duncan of the University of Colorado reinforces the potential significance of institutional policy incentives in shaping demographic change, albeit in the US context.

 

The paper is of interest to Australians not for any direct analytic correlations (the institutional contexts in the US and here are significantly different), but for the deeper implications that are raised by the analysis. In particular, it examines the possible drivers of the significant shifts in self-identification amongst Native Americans over the past few decades. In turn, this raises the question, what is driving the parallel shifts in self-identification in Australia (noting that there are no casinos on Indigenous owned land in Australia).

 

The abstract of the paper states (inter alia)

This paper links Native American racial self-identification with the rise in tribal gaming across the United States. We find that state policy changes allowing tribes to open casinos are associated with an increase in the probability that individuals with American Indian ancestors will self-identify as Native American and a decrease in the probability that individuals with no [documented] American Indian ancestry will self-identify as Native American. … These results are consistent with a conceptual framework in which we tie racial identification to economic motivations as well as social stigma associated with affiliating with a racial group for those without documented ancestral ties. Our results underscore the importance of economic incentives and social factors underlying the individual choice of racial identity.

 

The conclusion notes (inter alia):

By linking Native American self-identification rates with the rise of tribal gaming, this paper offers one explanation for the dramatic changes observed in the number of individuals identifying as Native American since 1990. We find that the signing of the first tribal-state gaming compact is associated with a significant increase in the probability of self-identifying as Native American for individuals with American Indian ancestry... At the same time, we find that the same policy change is associated with a decrease in the probability of self-identifying as Native American for individuals without [documented] American Indian ancestry…

… While the magnitudes of our estimates are large, so are the overall changes in racial identification of the Native American population which have been documented elsewhere (Liebler et al. 2014; 2016, 2017). This suggests that the economic factors explored here may play an important role in this important demographic shift…

… Nevertheless, these results break new ground in linking racial identity and economic incentives, and should raise concerns for policymakers and researchers alike given widespread interest in monitoring the persistence of racial gaps in socioeconomic outcomes and how they are impacted by changes in policy. Not only can racial self-reports change over time, but, as seen in this study, dramatic demographic responses to policies are possible over even a relatively short period of time. It is also important to note that while we have focused on casino openings that confer positive net economic benefits on populations with strong ties to minority groups and thus increase their likelihood of identifying with the group, we expect that the opposite result would hold if negative economic effects were predominant. Thus, in contexts where discrimination in employment, education, and mistreatment by society overall prevail, the affected populations of self-identified racial groups could actually fall.

 

The paper identifies limitations to the analysis and potential alternative explanations (social rather than economic factors) for the extraordinary growth in self-identification amongst Native Americans since 1990. Nevertheless, the data on the growth in casino compacts on native American land since 1990 is enormous, totalling 780 new approvals (see Figure 1, page 48), and the parallel shifts in self-identification over the same period are difficult to ignore. The authors quote research that suggests that around 40 percent of the self-identified native American population in 2000 had not identified in 1990 and that the native American population almost doubled between 2010 and 2020 (pages 2-3). These dynamics mirror the demographic shifts underway in Australia.

 

So what insights and conclusions should we take away from this comparative analysis of US demographic developments and the demographic shifts underway in Australia?

 

First, there is to my knowledge no recent detailed research exploring the underlying causes of the demographic shifts underway across Indigenous Australia. There is a strong case for policymakers in Australia to commission research that seeks to understand these dynamics better. The US research suggests that we should look for economic explanations as well as social and political explanations.

 

Second, the US research persuasively makes the case for native American demography being much more dynamic than is generally recognised (especially amongst policymakers). The same conclusion probably applies here in Australia.

 

Third, the US research argues that while the incentives for self-identification are currently positive, they are not fixed, and under different circumstances — where discrimination in employment, education, and mistreatment by society overall prevail —  might also operate in a negative manner. This conclusion has considerable intuitive appeal, but raises a paradox in the Australian context at least. The 2022 Reconciliation Barometer reports that the percentage of the First Nations sample in their survey who have not experienced at least one form of racial prejudice in the last six months has steadily dropped from 61 to 40 percent over the past eight years (link here: page 15). Yet if increasing discrimination drives non-identification, why is the trend in Australia towards greater identification?

 

Fourth, notwithstanding its appreciation of the innate dynamism of demography, the US research arguably under-emphasises (ignores) the likelihood that new identifiers are the descendants of individuals and families that previously hid or downplayed their native American ancestry. In other words, the recent spike in identification may be a delayed correction to an earlier fall. This may well be a factor in Australia as well.

 

Fifth, if economic factors are at play in driving greater identification in Australia, what institutional shifts might be at play? One possibility may be the adoption of Indigenous procurement policies by Australian Governments. While they appear to have had a significant impact, I am not aware of any independent research or evaluations that demonstrate this unequivocally. It is probably time for governments and policymakers to commission a truly independent assessment of these policy initiatives to ensure that the various schemes can move to the next stage. See this 2015 blog on the IPP (link here). Alternatively, if the causes are social in nature, it is not immediately obvious what might be driving this shift. Perhaps the most plausible candidate may be the increased role of identity in our multicultural society?

 

Sixth, the most important implication of the cross national evidence for significant demographic dynamism within Indigenous populations is to point to the importance of policymakers incorporating an appreciation of ‘denominator effects’ in assessing and analysing statistical indicators in policy frameworks such as closing the gap. In particular, there is a risk that the political imperative for policy action related to poor and disadvantaged Indigenous citizens will be attenuated by a growth in the number of middle class ‘new identifiers’. In turn this suggests that looking forward, there will be an imperative for both policymakers and Indigenous advocates to focus greater attention on cohorts within the Indigenous population who are vulnerable to extreme disadvantage, rather than focussing on data and indicators that are framed as averages or adopt overarching perspectives.

 

Indigenous Australia is heterogenous with substantial differences deriving from geographical location, income distribution structure, age structure, and family structures to name just a few of the sources of internal difference. Increasingly, good policy will be defined by its capability to simultaneously address heterogeneity as well as the overarching shared experience of indigeneity. This is an important policy agenda for the future. The most obvious area requiring greater focus by policymakers is the intersection of disadvantage in its various forms and remoteness as this is the area most at risk from the current shifts in the demographic characteristics of the Indigenous policy domain.

 

Systemic myopia: Public investment challenges in remote Australia

 

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks;

When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;

When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?

Richard III, Act 2, scene 3.

 

My previous post focussed primarily on the social cataclysm engulfing remote communities through the primary lens of social and property violence and the impact of anti-social accelerants such as alcohol. Rather than focussing on spelling out the inevitable and significant implications for families, children, and the social stability of the communities, I sought to argue that there was a shortfall in the capabilities of governments to ensure citizens were able to live peaceful lives, thus raising questions regarding the legitimacy of governments.

 

In this post, I turn my attention to some of the sustained and systemic shortfalls in public investment in remote communities, and particularly capital investment requirements. While it would be foolhardy to argue that adequate public investment is all that is required (sufficient) to meet the complex challenges facing remote communities, I would ague that it is a fundamental prerequisite (necessary) for doing so.  Of course, even so, public investment must be well targeted, sustained, and be well designed. Accordingly, if we turn the proposition on its head, long term absence or under-provision of high quality public investment can be seen as a fundamental precursor, if not a major cause, for ongoing social dysfunction within remote communities. We cannot expect to address the social challenges in remote communities without ensuring that public investment is adequate and high quality.

 

Of course, the overwhelming majority of Australians have minimal experience of the conditions of remote communities. Families resident in remote regions constitute only 2.3 percent of Australian families (link here). While we may complain about the quality of government services, we expect, and mostly receive, a first-world level of government service provision from three levels of government. This is far from being the case in remote Australia.

 

A number of recent reports relating to infrastructure provision illuminate this observation.

 

Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA), a body not previously on my radar, has recently released an extraordinarily useful report titled Remote Communities: Improving Access to Essential Services (link here).

According to its website, IPA is

Australia’s longest standing infrastructure think tank, formed in 2005 as a genuine and enduring policy partnership between Australia’s governments and industry. We exist to shape public debate and drive policy reform for the benefit of the national interest.

Our public sector membership is drawn from Commonwealth, state and territory infrastructure, planning, environment, finance and treasury departments, as well as government-owned corporations.

Our private sector members include major financiers, law firms, contractors, consultants, equity and debt investors, infrastructure technology providers, super funds and operators.

 

The IPA Remote Communities report is extraordinarily accessible, setting out key data points and utilising clear and striking graphics. I recommend readers take a look at it (not least because I cannot do it justice in this brief post). The report seeks to do two things. First, it lays out in stark terms the essential services shortfalls facing remote communities: communities ‘consistently experience poor water quality services’, ‘electricity supply is often unreliable’, and ‘have limited access to telecommunications services’. Contributing factors include ‘isolation’, ‘lack of meaningful engagement with communities for service delivery’, ‘inequality barriers’, lack of resources’ to utilities charged with delivering these essential services; a ‘systematic lack of transparency and reporting’, ‘skills and education shortages’, and inconsistent regulation and poor governance continue to impede improvements’. This is a pretty challenging set of constraints. The report then goes on to identify a range of technological possibilities, noting that ‘There are a variety of established technologies and governance approaches being applied across all jurisdictions — but they are coming at a glacial pace for most remote communities.

The Report’s second aim is to lay out the way forward. It argues for establishing a national minimum service baseline based on government commitments to National Cabinet, and a process whereby governments are accountable for meeting the baseline. It suggests existing Community Service Obligations should be ‘evolved’ or transitioned into Community Infrastructure Partnerships which lock in obligations to innovate, improve transparency, provide a social licence and facilitate collaboration and coordination between sectors. Funding and financing mechanisms for remote infrastructure should be reviewed and updated and regulatory reform undertaken to support community infrastructure partnerships.

 

The report appears to be unaware of the recent moves (yet to be included in the Productivity Commission Information Repository) to establish a new Closing he Gap target for community infrastructure (link here and link here ). The new target is framed as follows:

Target 9b: By 2031, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households: Within discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities receive essential services that meet or exceed the relevant jurisdictional standard; In or near to a town receive essential services that meet or exceed the same standard as applies generally within the town (including if the household might be classified for other purposes as a part of a discrete settlement such as a “town camp” or “town based reserve”.

 

The new target 9b differs from the IPA recommendation insofar as it accepts current jurisdictional essential services standards (which may in fact require strengthening – see below), whereas the national approach advocated by the IPA Report would ensure both uniformity and reduce the likelihood that some jurisdictions standards will lag national expectations. One would hope that the forthcoming Productivity Review of the National Agreement (link here) would recommend that the Joint Council consider amending target 9b to ensure appropriate/strengthened national standards for remote essential services are applied.

 

The IPA report is an exceptionally comprehensive and far sighted assessment. It proposes an extremely ambitious agenda; one which will be highly susceptible to governments’ reluctance to commit to new expenditures, and governments’ propensity to baulk or fall at the implementation stage. Nevertheless, this is an extraordinarily important report, and deserves wide circulation and attention across the Indigenous policy domain.

 

Notwithstanding the vision and focus the Report’s authors have brought to this analysis, I do have one criticism. The focus on water, power, and telecommunications is in my view too narrow. The policy reforms advocated by the Report should be broadened to include sewerage, roads, cadastral and related land surveys, and most importantly, housing in remote communities. The vast bulk of housing in remote communities is public housing, and it is a core component, a core foundation, for the associated essential services that we normally see as infrastructure. As the largest public housing peak body in the US notes on its website (link here):

Public housing plays a critical role in our nation’s public infrastructure, providing families with a stable home and helping them gain access to other services, including education and health. When we invest in public housing, we help low-income families achieve self-sufficiency and improve life outcomes, but we also generate economic growth, bolster productivity, and positively impact support services while significantly decreasing costs.

 

Of course, the IPA is not alone in Australia in failing to see social housing as infrastructure. Infrastructure Australia was very slow to acknowledge that social housing is infrastructure (link here and link here) and when it did, it never really gained traction within the bureaucracy and beyond.

 

Indeed, in the last year of the former Government’s term, it took steps to explicitly ensure that Infrastructure Australia did not consider social housing. In April 2022, the Shelter WA website reported (link here) that the former Deputy PM and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Barnaby Joyce, issued a Statement of Expectations to the Board of Infrastructure Australia (link here) that omits inclusion of social infrastructure such as social and community housing in IA’s list of priority sectors.

 

The Shelter newsletter states:

…As reported by Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA), regrettably, the new statement of expectations removes social infrastructure from the list of priority sectors despite its inclusion in IA’s 2021 Infrastructure Plan, and affordable housing being the most frequently cited infrastructure gap in regional areas. This is step backwards in efforts to treat housing as essential infrastructure.

 

What the Shelter website does not mention is that housing shortages are endemic in remote and regional Aboriginal and Torres State Islander communities, and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are over-represented in waiting lists for social and community housing in regional and urban locations. Moreover, if one were to aggregate the outstanding remote community housing needs across regions or jurisdictions and treat addressing them as individual projects, the financial costs would exceed the capital costs of many of the major economic projects that Infrastructure Australia recommends (and the North Australia Infrastructure Facility funds: link here).

 

The failure to gain traction is evident in the recent release of the Independent review of Infrastructure Australia, and the associated Government Response to the Review (link here). The Independent Review recommended (pages21-22) that Infrastructure Australia’s remit be expanded to include social infrastructure, albeit without seeking to define or stipulate just what such a term covers:

The Review recommends that Infrastructure Australia’s remit be expanded to include social infrastructure (where it is relevant to the infrastructure investment project, or place and precinct in question) as well as future investment challenges where Infrastructure Australia’s position as the national advisor best enables it to incorporate those challenges in its advice and analysis.

 

Disappointingly, (particularly given the Government decision to make Infrastructure Australia a more influential adviser on infrastructure matters) the Government Response adopts the Barnaby Joyce approach, and effectively set this recommendation aside:

Support in part. The Government considers Infrastructure Australia’s focus should be on nationally significant projects relating to transport, water, communications and energy infrastructure, in support of Australian Government functions.  From time to time, it may be appropriate for Infrastructure Australia to consider social infrastructure implications where it is part of broader network analysis or place-based project advice. Where required, the Government can request this work through the Statement of Expectations. The Government notes that this approach minimises any duplication with regional and urban policy and program functions within the Australian Government…

For those who require a translation from bureaucratic parlance, this means ‘not on your nelly’!

 

Yet the Infrastructure Australia Regional Strengths and Infrastructure Gaps Report released recently (link here: Overview report) identifies the availability, diversity and affordability of housing as the most common identified gap across regional Australia (page 11) and in relation to Indigenous communities’ concerns, noted (para.4.7.7 page 38):

The availability, affordability and quality of housing was highlighted across consultations as being a key issue for First Nations communities. The 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit (Challenge 126) identified that housing is not meeting the needs of First Nation communities across remote Australia, exacerbating health, education and well-being outcomes. Overcrowding is leading to poor outcomes for First Nations peoples in Remote Areas, which is also identified on our Infrastructure Priority List.

 

It is worth contextualising these persistent shortfalls. This week, Infrastructure Australia released its 2022 Market Capacity Report which identifies significant risks and pressure on the infrastructure pipeline currently in place across the nation. But more saliently for Indigenous citizens in remote Australia, the report notes that the current 5 year pipeline of major public infrastructure projects ‘is valued at $237 billion - an increase of $15 billion in the last 12 months and equivalent to 6.7% growth’ (link here). Or to contextualise the Commonwealth’s effort in relation to remote housing, where it has allocated $100m for the NT over five years, this represents on my calculation 0.04 percent of the total five year public infrastructure pipeline.

 

Taken together:

• v  the IPA Report outlining the extraordinary remote infrastructure challenge (albeit narrowly focussed);
• v  the current inability of the Productivity Commission’s Closing the Gap Information Repository to provide information on housing progress (target 9) in remote areas — it is listed as future reporting (link here); and
• v  the deliberate decisions to narrow the remit of Infrastructure Australia to exclude advice on disaggregated remote social housing needs  in favour of geographically focussed commercial infrastructure;

all provide a rather pessimistic insight into the longstanding systemic challenges driving under-investment in public infrastructure within remote communities. These challenges are exacerbated by the deliberate decision of the former LNP Government (not reversed by the current ALP Government)  to not continue the public investment in remote housing provision in the 2008 National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing (link here;  link here and link here).

 

Yet the public investment shortfall is deepening as the challenges of climate change are rising (link here).

 

A recent research note in the Medical Journal of Australia by Simon Quilty, Norman Frank Jupurrula, Ross Baillie and Russell Gruen (link here) is titled: Climate, housing, energy and Indigenous health: a call to action. The authors first paragraph states:

Most Australians take safe housing and uninterrupted electricity for granted. Yet in remote Indigenous communities, low quality poorly insulated housing and energy instability are common. Most houses require prepaid power cards, resources are meagre, financial literacy is low, and people often have to choose between power and food. New evidence reveals extreme rates of prepaid electricity meters’ disconnection in these communities, making people with chronic diseases who depend on cool storage and electrical equipment particularly vulnerable. The convergence of excessive heat, poor housing, energy insecurity and chronic disease has reached critical levels in many parts of northern Australia, and a multisectoral response is needed to avert catastrophe. Medical professionals have a key role to play.

 

The article is short and highly recommended. Among other things, it argues for the strengthening of building codes and housing standards in remote settings, not the acceptance of existing standards.

 

To sum up, over the past two decades at least, public funding in core capital investments related to essential services, social housing, and community infrastructure has been severely deficient. This has undoubtedly reduced the levels of recurrent funding by governments in remote settings, and also limited the opportunities for local employment, and stronger economic development and progress. It is undoubtedly one of the key contributors to limiting the opportunities available to the rapidly growing youth cohort within communities. While reversing the sustained under-investment is not sufficient to address all the challenges facing residents of remote communities, it is a necessary element in any viable transition to a more stable future for remote communities. The onset of climate change is making addressing these challenges even more urgent.

 

Yet relevant policymakers appear to be both deaf and blind to the systemic and structural nature of the crisis their predecessors have initiated and for which they have the current responsibility to address. It is past time for the Commonwealth to step up, commit funding and ensure that the states and Territory are focussed on these priorities, which after all are core responsibilities of governments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cataclysm and crisis: the two sides of the policy tragedy engulfing remote northern Australia

 

This bodes some strange eruption to our state

Hamlet Act 1, scene 1.

 

Over the past two years, it has been increasingly apparent that remote communities across the north have been struggling. There has been an ongoing surge in youth crime across East Kimberley communities, particularly in Halls Creek , Fitzroy Crossing, Derby, Kununurra and elsewhere. A recent article in WA Today (link here) states:

A surge in crime across the Kimberley has been partly attributed to social media, with youths filming themselves stealing cars and challenging others. More than 300 children have been charged with offences in the region during 2022, according to figures tabled in parliament.

 

According to a January 2022 ABC news story (link here):

A surge in alcohol-fuelled crime across the Kimberley during the New Year's Eve long weekend has pushed frontline workers to the brink and angered residents who woke up to violence outside their homes. A steady stream of injuries and arrests from a night of relentless brawling in Kununurra overwhelmed paramedics, hospital staff and police officers for hours on New Year's Eve.

 

The same article reported:

In Derby, police attended more than 50 alcohol-fuelled family violence and assault incidents on New Year's Eve alone. Senior Sergeant Dave Whitnell took to Facebook the following day to announce temporary alcohol restrictions, barring the sale of spirits and full-strength beer. He told ABC Radio the restrictions had an immediate impact, giving frontline workers some respite for the rest of the long weekend.

 

In May 2022, the WA Government sent and extra 24 police to the region in Operation Regional Shield ‘to address soaring youth crime rates and criminal violence in the region’. The Operation identified over 600 ‘at risk’ children (link here). Just last week, a crisis meeting in Halls Creek of senior WA Government officials and the Halls Creek Shire met to discuss option to address the ongoing crime wave (link here). The headline says it all: ‘Kimberley crime wave prompts more police and youth 'social hub' to be built’.

 

Yet these issues are not limited just to the Kimberley nor to Western Australia.

 

In late April 2022, ABC news reported (link here) that in Wadeye in The NT:

dozens of homes have been destroyed in recent weeks, amid widespread unrest. Police said 37 homes have been extensively damaged in the past three weeks, with efforts underway to "support and relocate some of the vulnerable". About 400 people, who were living in the overcrowded homes, are seeking refuge in the bush on the fringes of the community,

 

In July, the ABC reported (link here) that the NT Government had established a Task Force to assist the 545 people who had been displaced and  oversight repairs to the 125 houses that had been damaged since March (including at least 35 destroyed). Yesterday (9 December 2022), ABC news reported (link here) that the NT Police Commissioner stated that:

around five per cent of the community of just under 2000 people is currently in jail, following police operations both in Wadeye and Darwin.

The article also commented on the role of alcohol in contributing to the ongoing unrest:

As part of a four-week operation beginning in October, police roadblocks were set up to crack down on alcohol being smuggled into the dry community….Since the police roadblocks were removed, Thamarurr Development Corporation chief executive, Scott McIntyre, said he believed alcohol-fuelled violence had increased again. "[The operation] had a big impact on reducing the amount of alcohol coming into the community," he said.

 

According to the ABC, in November, for the second time in a month, access to the Alice Springs CBD was closed off by police due to an uncontrolled surge in vehicle thefts and misuse within the CBD (link here). The NT Police Commissioner sent in 40 additional police to manage the situation.

 

Last week the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs held public hearings in Darwin and Alice Springs as part of its Inquiry into Community Safety, Support Services and Job Opportunities in the Northern Territory. The Hansard transcript is not yet available. An ABC news article (link here) reported that the Committee heard evidence of an upsurge in alcohol related domestic violence, an increase in hospital presentations involving alcohol and violence, and calls for the reinstatement of alcohol bans that were lifted earlier this year.

 

A written submission to the Committee from the Alice Springs community advocacy group, the People's Alcohol Action Coalition presents persuasive data backing up the evidence provided to the Committee (link here).Amongst other things, this submission demolishes comprehensively the disingenuous rationale provided previously by a number of NT Ministers that the continuation of the previous alcohol restrictions would breach the Racial Discrimination Act.

 

Clearly, the crisis engulfing northern Australian remote communities and towns is widespread, long lasting, and ongoing. Its causes are undoubtedly complex and the consequences for the victims of violence and social chaos far reaching and serious.

 

Yet the media reports listed above (and many I have not cited) rarely reach national attention, and if they do, they do not lead to more than a transitory response by governments aimed at downplaying their significance and more often than not framing them as isolated instances of aberrant behaviour. Rarely is there any detailed Government commentary or policy analysis seeking to explain the deeper causes, and to deepen community understanding of the conditions facing most remote Indigenous communities. This reluctance reinforces the apparent incapacity or unwillingness of governments to pursue policies directed to ameliorating underlying and systemic issues and to adequately fund the sort of services required. Instead, governments appear determined to sequestrate the social and economic chaos and insulate mainstream communities from any detailed understanding of what is transpiring effectively out of sight and out of mind.

 

Stepping into the grandstand, it is apparent that this ongoing crisis has multiple facets. It has been developing for at least two decades, and the gross levels of under-investment in basic services by governments within communities (along with active policy antipathy to supporting remote communities) has seen an inexorable shift in population towards towns and away from the bush.  While the crisis is geographically dynamic, waxing and waning in particular locations, it is also functionally dynamic, exhibiting different characteristics (symptoms if you like) and concomitantly having multiple repercussions and ramifications. To give readers just a sense of this, I thought I would list the various posts I’ve written on different aspects of the remote crisis over the past two years. I don’t claim that this is any where near a comprehensive account, reflecting as it does my own interests and limited expertise.

 

Over the past two years, I have written numerous posts on this blog on the following topics (in bold) related to remote Australia. I have included underneath the title of each post (without context or attribution) key points made in that post:

 

Deflection and inaction: the Australian Government’s formal response to the Productivity Commission Review on Expenditure on Children in the Northern Territory 27 May 2021 (link here).

… What is crystal clear — even from a cursory reading of the report — is that the system for funding and delivering children’s services in the NT is not fit for purpose….the Government’s response is deflection rather than action. It reflects the deep-seated inability of governments to come to terms with the deep structural issues confronting disadvantaged Australians in remote regions.

 

Regulating Alcohol in the Northern Territory: in whose interest? 9 June 2021 (link here).

My recommendation to the NT Government is that they should take the opportunity of the publication of this report to undertake a fundamental reconsideration of their policy approach to alcohol regulation. To do otherwise will be to deepen their complicity in an entirely preventable scourge that is taking a terrible toll on many Territorians, including a substantial proportion of Indigenous Territorians.

[In relation to the Australian Government] Silence and sitting on the fence is not an adequate response to the ongoing health crisis linked to alcohol abuse across the NT and beyond.

 

A strong start for every Indigenous child: early childhood policy and deep disadvantage 9 August 2021 (link here).

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]).

 

Energy insecurity in remote Australia 13 January 2022 (link here).

Indigenous communities in remote Australia face dangerous temperature extremes. These extremes are associated with increased risk of mortality and ill health …. Poor quality housing, low incomes, poor health and energy insecurity associated with prepayment all exacerbate the risk of temperature-related harm … We find that nearly all households (91%) experienced a disconnection from electricity during the 2018–2019 financial year. Almost three quarters of households (74%) were disconnected more than ten times. …

 

See How We Roll [book review] 24 January 2022 (link here).

In the perilous movement of people through time and space, both places and kin are made and remade. A primary driver of movement is the opportunistic pursuit of resources: a meal, an adventurous ride, the numbing release of alcohol or ganja, the conviviality of assembled kin … All of these forms of Warlpiri movement, no matter their diversity, never seem to be in search of a destination per se.

 

Indigenous land and economic development in northern Australia 14 February 2022 (link here).

The bottom line arising from a closer reading of the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia’s report, …. is to reinforce how little the government has done since coming to office in 2013 to encourage the inclusion of Indigenous landowners and communities in economic activity.

 

The Commonwealth is taking us headlong into a remote policy chasm: but who cares? 18 February 2022 (link here).

In relation to alcohol, such an outcome would remove the alcohol regulation framework currently in place, and implicitly shift regulatory responsibility to the NTG. The SFNT policy framework was primarily focussed on harm minimisation. Any shift of responsibility to the NTG will introduce a number of levels of uncertainty.

 

The ANAO performance audit of the NIAA NT Remote Housing program 2 March 2022 (link here).

Of course, the more fundamental issue here is that the Commonwealth is the underlying owner of the assets, that are scheduled to revert to direct Commonwealth control in 2023. Yet it is deliberately underinvesting in the PTM, which means that the assets degrade faster than they should, will need to be replaced earlier than should, and the tenants (real families with real needs) will continue to live in sub-optimal conditions longer than they should. These are the nuts and bolts of structural racism, laid out in plain view by the ANAO, but not reflected in its findings or recommendations.

 

The ongoing social and governance catastrophe in remote Australia. 8 May 2022 (link here).

Remote Australia requires a ‘new deal’. It requires significantly increased government investment. Most importantly, it requires greater and more effective engagement with remote residents based on acknowledging their prior ownership, their violent dispossession, and an acknowledgment that mainstream Australia is the source of the fundamental disruption that is creating ongoing chaos. The ubiquitous assumption amongst mainstream Australia’s institutions dealing with remote Australia has been that the past is irrelevant and that we should all just look forward. This assumption has not worked and mainstream Australians need to be smart enough to rethink our fundamental approaches to the interaction of the nation state with remote communities.

 

Neil Westbury article on regressive changes to remote alcohol laws in the NT 3 June 2022 (link here).

In these circumstances, the current NT Government appears to have decided that rather than maintaining a system — based on their own reluctance to effectively regulate alcohol in towns — where remote residents who wish to drink have an incentive to come into town, they have decided to shift the problems back to remote communities.

 

Paying the rent: policy or politics? 26 July 2022 (link here).

…the structural issues that pervade the remote housing sector. These include gross and longstanding underinvestment by governments in addressing overcrowding, and in ensuring that existing remote housing assets are adequately managed and maintained…. In my view, the responsibility for addressing these issues falls primarily to the Commonwealth for three reasons. First, housing is central to much of the structural dysfunction that exists in remote Australia, and involves complex interaction between functional responsibilities of all three levels of government. In particular, the social security system is central to the administration of social housing in remote Australia…

 

Alcohol policy reform in remote Australia: a potential roadmap 14 August 2022 (link here).

…corporate alcohol interests have a stranglehold or veto over policy initiatives designed to address or mitigate the consequences of alcohol misuse. Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s reluctance to engage with these issues, the Commonwealth does have a policy responsibility. It is clear that the issues involved are structural and extend beyond any one state or territory. On its own this suggests that Commonwealth action may be necessary.

 

Conclusion

 

The succession of media reports over the past two years (and in fact the previous twenty years) makes it clear that there is an ongoing cataclysm across remote northern Australia. I hope my posts over the past two years commenting on a succession of more detailed policy reports, documents and events makes out a persuasive case that from a normative policy perspective, governments are failing to coherently and comprehensively address this ongoing cataclysm. The inability of governments to envisage, understand and put in place effective strategies to address the multiple facets of the economic and social cataclysm facing remote communities amounts to a massive and fundamental failure. This failure is in and of itself a crisis; a crisis of governance capability, a crisis of will power, and ultimately a crisis of government legitimacy.

 

The implication that inevitably follows is that the solutions (for they will inevitably be multiple) must go beyond focussing on a single issue (housing, or health or food security or alcohol, or crime, or education, or incarceration, or unemployment or economic development, or land tenure, or dispossession or the impact of colonisation). The solutions if they are to be effective must simultaneously and comprehensive make significant inroads into all of these issues. This is an enormous and extraordinary challenge confronting the nation. It is a challenge that appears to be either incomprehensible or inconceivable to governments and policymakers, yet it is extraordinarily real nevertheless not least to the lives of thousands of Australian citizens it adversely impacts.

 

Addressing it will require a national effort that starts from a premise of constructive engagement with Indigenous citizens and their representative and advocacy organisations, that renounces the use of simplistic and punitive policies, and that emanates from a consensus that transcends the limited imagination of governments and included civil society more generally.