Recent Budget Developments for Indigenous Specific Funding

The Government released the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) on 15 December 2015. It is worth quoting the introductory overview in full:

The Government is focused on building a stronger economy to drive further gains in employment and prosperity. The 2015‑16 Mid‑Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) shows the Government's fiscal position is forecast to maintain an improving trajectory over the forward estimates period, despite changes in economic parameters detracting from the fiscal outlook since the 2015‑16 Budget.

The Australian economy continues to perform well, transitioning from strong resource investment‑led growth to broader‑based drivers of economic activity. Employment growth has strengthened as the economy transitions to more labour intensive sectors. While business investment intentions currently remain subdued, conditions conducive to stronger business investment are in place.

Building on Australia's economic growth record requires sound government finances, continued investment in Australia's productive capacity and policy settings that support the innovation and drive of Australian workers and businesses. This underscores the importance of the Government's integrated national plan for economic growth and jobs.

The MYEFO outlines the key policy/budget decisions taken since the budget in May 2015. Accordingly, it is worth reprising briefly the key indigenous related budget decisions over the past two financial years.

2014 Budget: Indigenous Specific Decisions.

The most significant decision for Indigenous interests in the 2014 Budget was the decision to rationalise and reduce funding for Indigenous grant programs:

The Government will achieve net savings of $534.4 million over five years through efficiencies resulting from the rationalisation of Indigenous programmes, grants and activities administered by the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Health portfolios.

Over 150 Indigenous programmes and activities which recently transferred to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet will be consolidated into a new Indigenous Advancement Strategy which is comprised of five programmes focusing on Jobs, Land and the Economy; Children and Schooling; Safety and Wellbeing; Culture and Capability; and Remote Australia Strategies. This rationalisation will eliminate waste and duplication. Funding provided to the Torres Strait Regional Authority will also be reduced to achieve similar efficiencies in its administration of grants. A new Remote Community Advancement Network will be established in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (2014 Budget Paper Number 2).

The five year period began in 2013-14, and average well over $100m per annum for the four subsequent years. The other major funding reduction was the cut of $15m over three years to the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, reversing a decision taken by the Labor Government in its 2013 Budget to allocate a further $15m over three years to supplement the $29m previously allocated. The future viability of the National Congress must now be in grave doubt.

On the positive side of the ledger, the Government allocated $13.4m over four years to the Clontarf Foundation; $2.5m to the NT Police for community liaison officers; $10.6m over four years to support up to 250 existing renewable energy systems in remote Indigenous communities in WA, Qld, and the NT; $54.1m over four years to construct police stations in up to seven remote Indigenous communities in Qld, WA, and SA; $18.1m (from within existing appropriations) for school attendance strategy in the NT, WA, Qld, SA, and NSW; $3.8m to the AFP to continue the NT Child Abuse Task Force for one year;  $6.8m over one year for schools with significant numbers of remote indigenous boarders; and $25.9 over one year for Indigenous teenage sexual and reproductive health programs.

Thus total reductions of $550m over four years in Indigenous specific funding were offset by new appropriations of $117m.

In addition, the Government allocated $101.1m for the continuation of income management programs in existing locations where funding was due to expire, and in addition added Ceduna to the list of income management locations. These are not indigenous specific programs, although a large proportion of welfare recipients subject to income management are Indigenous.

2014 MYEFO Indigenous specific decisions

There were three Indigenous related measures in the 2014 MYEFO. The Department of Finance was provided with $31.5m from the budget contingency reserve to fund the remediation of contaminated land subject to the Kenbi Land Claim across the harbour from Darwin.

The Commonwealth allocated $46.3m for ongoing funding of municipal services while it negotiated with the states and territory and $120.9m for payment to the states and territory to reimburse them for taking on the funding responsibility for municipal services funding in remote communities. While this is clearly a state and territory responsibility, the Commonwealth has funded it for many years. This is likely to be an ongoing source of contention between the Commonwealth and the states as it seems likely that the states will have little incentive to maintain current funding levels going forward, and there appears to be no mechanism to ensure that they maintain and indeed given demographic change, increase funding for municipal services in remote communities.

The third and largest decision was the reform of the still new Remote Jobs and Communities Program. The measure description is set out below:

The Government will provide an additional $94.9 million, and redirect existing funding of $1.5 billion over four years from 2014‑15, to reform the Remote Jobs and Communities Programme (RJCP) to implement work for the dole in remote communities. The additional investment will contribute toward the provision of meaningful work‑like experience for job seekers, such as house painting and maintenance of community facilities, to aid transition into employment.

All adults aged between 18 and 49 living in remote Australia, not in work or study, with a capacity to work and in receipt of income support will be required to participate in work for the dole activities for up to 25 hours per week, throughout the year.

The Government is also reforming outcome payments for employment service providers to facilitate the creation of a demand driven remote employment service that rewards employment outcomes, and reduces incentives to refer job seekers to training not linked to a job.

This delivers on the Government's election commitment. Further information can be found in the press release of 6 December 2014 issued by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs

The Government made no mention at the time of the source of the extra $95m. It transpired that the funding was sourced from reductions to the allocations for remote Indigenous housing. This was finally announced in the 2015 Budget (see below).

2015 Budget: Indigenous Specific Decisions.

The key Indigenous related decisions in the 2015 Budget were the announcement of the cessation or amendment of a number of key Indigenous related National Partnership Agreements with the states and Northern Territory.

The National Partnership on Remote Indigenous Housing was ‘reformed’:

The Government will replace the existing National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing with a new Remote Indigenous Housing Strategy over three years from 2015—16 totalling $1.1 billion.

Funding will be provided to the New South Wales, Western Australian, South Australian, Queensland and Northern Territory governments to build new houses and refurbish existing houses in remote Indigenous communities. Funding will also be provided to build employment—related accommodation in urban and regional areas for Indigenous Australians who relocate from remote communities for work or training.

Funding will also focus on achieving agreed outcomes, including increased Indigenous home ownership and employment, and improved property and tenancy management.

Funding of $95 million associated with the existing National Partnership Agreement has been redirected to the Reform of the Remote Jobs and Communities Programme measure announced in the Mid‑Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2014—15.

A new National Partnership Agreement on Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment was established at a net additional cost of $61.3m. The measure description is set out below:

The Government will redirect funding of $988.2 million over eight years to establish a new National Partnership Agreement (NPA) on Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment. The new NPA will replace the existing NPA on Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory, at a net additional cost of $61.3 million over four years from 2015‑16. The new NPA will prioritise schooling, community safety and employment.

The new NPA includes funding of $154.8 million in 2015‑16 for the Northern Territory Government to take on full responsibility for delivering municipal and essential services in remote Indigenous communities.

Commonwealth administered funding of $1.4 billion, currently part of the NPA on Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory, will not be included in the new NPA. This funding will continue outside of the NPA framework and be administered by the departments of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Social Services and Health to provide services and support for Indigenous Australians.

Other sundry budget measures included the cessation of the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Public Internet Access (a holdover from the NT Emergency Response) and the inclusion of $6.7m in the Indigenous Advancement Strategy; the allocation of an extra $15m for payment to South Australia in return for their agreement to fund Municipal Services in the APY Lands; and continued funding of $10m over five years to extend ABSTUDY assistance to remote Indigenous boarders.

The Government also allocated a further $146.7m over three years to extend income management in current locations for a further two years to 30 June 2017. As noted above, these are not indigenous specific programs, but do engage a significant proportion of indigenous welfare recipients.

2015 MYEFO Indigenous Specific Decisions

There were three Indigenous related measures included in MYEFO.

The Government has increased investment in its remote employment reforms:

The Government will provide $25.9 million to provide increased incentives for job seekers to work and to strengthen the mutual obligation framework in Community Development Programme (CDP) regions.

From 1 July 2016, a new Remote Income Support Payment (RISP) will replace Newstart, Youth Allowance (other), and certain Parenting Payment Single, Disability Support Pension and Special Benefit payments, including supplements and allowances, for job seekers in the selected regions. The RISP will be administered weekly by local CDP providers, enabling more immediate application of financial penalties for job seekers who do not comply with mutual obligation activities. Further, to encourage job seekers to take up employment, the income free area of the RISP will be increased to the equivalent of the minimum wage.

A Community Investment Fund will also be established to reinvest non‑compliance penalties in economic and community development activities in remote communities.

The cost of this measure will be offset from the Indigenous Advancement Strategy over the forward estimates.

Further information can be found in the press release of 2 December 2015 issued by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

The expenditure falls in the first two years (2015-16 and 2016-17) and savings of $22m are harvested in the following two years.

The Government announced further investment totaling $80m in its school attendance strategy:

The Government will invest $80.0 million from the Indigenous Advancement Strategy over three years from 1 January 2016 to continue the Remote School Attendance Strategy. The Strategy seeks to improve attendance rates in targeted remote communities across the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales by supporting families and communities to ensure that children attend school.

This measure extends the 2014‑15 Budget measure titled Remote School Attendance Strategy — extension.

The cost of this measure will be met from within the existing resources of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Further information can be found in the press release of 25 September 2015 issued by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

In addition, MYEFO announced a cut of $17.8m to Indigenous grant programs in 2018-19 derived form an ‘indexation freeze’ and announced further expenditure on the Department of Human Services remote services programs in 2019-20 (outside the normal four year budget estimates timeframe).

Overall, the Government has used MYEFO to reinforce its stated priorities in the employment and school attendance areas, increasing expenditure in these priority areas by over $100m over four years. However, this is entirely funded from within existing ongoing appropriations for indigenous specific funding, and future funding reductions of some $17.8m for existing Indigenous programs are locked in.

Assessment

I don’t propose to attempt more than the provision of some high level observations in relation to the Government’s budget decisions over the past two years. A full assessment would require additional commentary on the size and allocation of the existing Indigenous specific budget. These are reported within departmental appropriations and are not easily identified. In a previous era, Governments would provide an Indigenous budget summary each year but this has been discontinued.

The measures reported above are just the changes to the underlying appropriations and forward estimates, and thus do not provide a complete picture of Indigenous specific budget outlays. Having said that, the delineation of Indigenous specific budget measures is not entirely cut and dried, for a range of methodological and dare I say philosophical reasons. For example, one might wish to distinguish funds provided to Indigenous groups and funds provided for Indigenous groups, or to distinguish positive and negative expenditures in relation to Indigenous citizens, and give greater weight to funding designed to assist Indigenous citizens directly rather than funding designed to regulate behaviour.

Nevertheless, the decisions reported above allow a number of high level observations to be made.

First, in contrast to the previous Government, the Abbott / Turnbull Government has not quarantined Indigenous interests from budget cuts. Moreover, it is clear that already substantial Indigenous specific financial reductions for the forward estimates are locked in. While it is not absolutely clear from the budget papers, there appears to be a net reduction across the forward estimates over the past two budget cycles of at least $217m.

The caveat here however is that the Government does not always identify the matching savings options allocated against new expenditures while it is well known that ministers are required by the budget rules administered by the Finance Department to offset all new expenditures with savings. In these circumstances, the extent of the budget cuts to Indigenous specific programs could be substantially larger.

Second, when the impact of internal reallocations is taken into account, it is clear that a much larger shift in budget priorities is underway. In short, this entails a shift away from remote housing programs (an area of continuing and dire need) and away from generic funding within the Indigenous Advancement Strategy and towards remote employment programs and school attendance. This will inevitably lead to further contraction of the Indigenous community sector going forward.

Third, it is clear that particularly in relation to remote communities, the Commonwealth continues to fund state and territory responsibilities to a significant level. The stand our examples include the funding for school attendance (what happened to the idea of truancy officers in state and territory education departments?), remote power generation, and policing. All of these are core state and territory responsibilities. Moreover, it has been prepared to compensate the states and Northern Territory generously for taking on the responsibility of municipal services, a function which the budget papers note is a state responsibility, but without publishing the terms of those agreements nor identifying mechanisms by which the states and Northern Territory will be held to account for the ongoing delivery of those services.

Fourth, while the rationalisation and cuts to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy funding has been the subject of much angst in the Indigenous community, and indeed is currently the subject of an ongoing Senate Committee inquiry, there has been very little focus on the structural implications of the budget decisions taken. In particular, it is not clear which areas are likely to be de-prioritised as the inexorable search for savings proceeds. While the Government is prepared to outline its narrative on jobs, school attendance and economic development, it is much less willing to identify where the cuts are falling, and to provide an explanation or rationale for the decisions it is taking.

Fifth, while it is clear that the Northern Territory faces substantial challenges, there remains a concern that the extremely generous decisions in relation to the NT across virtually all areas of Commonwealth indigenous funding is designed to assist the Northern Territory Government retain electoral support within Indigenous communities. The centralization of decision making on funding within the Office of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, who happens to be a Senator for the NT, creates a clear impression of conflict of interest.

Sixth, funding the cessation of funding to the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples is a retrograde step, given that the Congress was a largely indigenous initiative and there is no other national representative body of voice for Indigenous interests. While Governments of all political persuasions find organisations such as the National Congress uncomfortable, there is much to be said for having a body which speaks for the entire spectrum of indigenous interests. It may be that Congress will find a way to become independently viable, but it is already clear that it is struggling to provide the quality output and advocacy which characterised its early years.

Seventh, the Government’s decisions to centralize most Indigenous specific responsibilities within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet raises very real questions (if not doubts) around the ongoing commitment of mainstream agencies to ensure that their programs are tailored in ways which ensure they target the most disadvantaged and that Indigenous citizens who are undoubtedly well represented within that cohort are assisted to take advantage of the services available within mainstream programs.

Eighth, the cessation of two Indigenous specific National Partnership Agreements (the NPA on Remote Indigenous Housing, and the NPA on public internet use in the NT), and the removal of all Commonwealth expenditures from within a third, the former National Partnership Agreement on Stronger Futures in the NT will have two adverse consequences: it opens up the option of further unilateral reductions in funding into the future, and it increases the flexibility and control of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs in funding allocations (see the fourth point above).

Ninth and finally, perhaps the most important issue embedded within MYEFO and the Government’s budget decisions over the past two years relates to the overarching allocation of resources for Indigenous specific programs. The Productivity Commission recently reported to Government that the Close the Gap targets were largely not being met. In these circumstances, one must ask whether the Government’s decision to ensure funding for Indigenous programs are subjected to substantial and ongoing reductions, and to fund its priorities through reallocations from within existing program allocations, while other parts of the budget are quarantined or augmented, makes sense and is fair.

Brutus on leaders and power

…. He would be crowned.

How that might change his nature, there’s the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder

And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,

And then I grant we put a sting in him

That at his will he may do danger with.

Th' abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

Remorse from power. And, to speak truth of Caesar,

I have not known when his affections swayed

More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof

That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

Whereto the climber upward turns his face.

But when he once attains the upmost round,

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend.

Shakespeare Julius Caesar Act II, scene 1.

Ruminations on the assessment of Ministers for Indigenous Affairs

The working lives of ministers for Indigenous affairs share much with ministers of other portfolios. They all work within the same political system, and face many of the same challenges and constraints.

But the Indigenous policy domain is in many important respects sui generis and any attempt to describe or comprehend it is confronted by the reality that it is characterised by a multiplicity of facets. These facets include the wide span of functional policy areas involved – health, education, welfare, land, and so forth; the fact that policy implementation is shared by all three levels of government, plus in many cases a fourth tier of NGOs, Indigenous organisations, and outsourced providers. Perhaps most significantly, the indigenous policy domain necessarily involves a host of inter-cultural issues; must of necessity (and whether recognised by policymakers of not) deal with the consequences of dispossession; and often incorporates more opaque symbolic or ideological expectations beyond the more visible interests in play. These latter characteristics are not part of the policy environment elsewhere across government.

Consequently, more than in other areas of government, ministers addressing Indigenous policy issues are confronted by issues akin to refracted images which change shape depending on the facet or lens through which they are observed.

Perhaps the most important point to note is that while the office of Minister is crucially important, and deserves the utmost respect, the incumbents are invariably human, and contain and often embrace enthusiastically the entire spectrum of human characteristics. Accordingly, as individuals, they must earn our respect and in practice, sometimes don’t deserve to do so.

Like most politicians, ministers are generally well intentioned and entered politics to pursue the public interest broadly defined. However, they are by definition successful politicians which means they have learnt to work with and within the political system, a system which is deeply flawed in its capacity to meet the needs of Indigenous citizens. The odds of at least some of these systemic biases rubbing off on a minister’s approach to his or her portfolio are in my experience extremely high.

Achieving ministerial office requires exceptional dedication and hard work, primarily in what I consider the drudgery of politics. Aspirants for ministerial office must be prepared to join a party (with all the advantages and disadvantages that this entails), seek and win preselection, maintain this support over a number of electoral cycles, win office as either a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate (the prerequisites for doing so vary for each), and keep winning over a number of electoral cycles. Ministerial aspirants must be able to relate successfully to the community at large, the political party they have joined, the constituencies which the party serves, their electorate, and the media. They must learn to operate (some might say manipulate) the internal machinery of their party both inside and outside the parliament as well as the parliament itself and its committees. Only then will they be expected to take a deeper interest in policy issues.

This is a long winded way of pointing out that the skills required to become minister for Indigenous affairs have virtually no relevance the Indigenous policy domain. This is arguably as much an advantage as a disadvantage, but it does mean that a minister’s capacity to understand the portfolio is very much dependant on his or her capacity to learn on the job, both intellectually and in terms of personal relationships.

In these circumstances, there is inevitably a risk that the working habits and traits which have necessarily become second nature and which are likely to be seen as the reason for the ministerial aspirant’s success will continue to be applied whether or not they are consistent with the demands and requirements of what is an inter-cultural realm. Indeed, there is no guarantee that a minister will continue to have any enduring interest in the Indigenous affairs policy domain beyond his or her term of office (though interestingly more than a few previous ministers have retained a strong ongoing engagement with Indigenous issues beyond their term of office).

What then is the lived experience of a minister for Indigenous affairs? 

Perhaps the primary observation should be about power. The perspective of those external to the minister and his or her advisers is generally that a minister by definition has power, and has the capacity to use it.

This assumption is false from a number of perspectives. The capacity of ministers to accrue and exercise power varies considerably, and for an individual minister can vary over time. Perhaps more importantly, the complexity of Indigenous interests, their organisations, the heterogeneous nature of indigenous leadership, and the propensity of indigenous interests to expect government to successfully address what are deep seated structural issues means that even the best ministers appear to make little headway.

Clearly ministers are powerful in the sense that they have access to cabinet, the bureaucracy, and the business sector, and thus are potentially influential, but this ‘power’ is easily overestimated, and often quite limited.

From the minister’s own perspective, their exercise of power is often perceived as hugely constrained, with every potential policy change attracting a multitude of critics, and often few supporters, often requiring the expenditure of political capital to just get onto the cabinet agenda, let alone be approved, requiring substantial time and energy just to navigate the maze of central agency rules and controls (with the concomitant reality that a minister will only have two or three major policy reform opportunities within his or her tenure and thus needs to choose carefully which ‘reforms’ to pursue). Moreover, once approved in principle, the public debate begins and the minister must craft a narrative which is aligned to the Government’s overarching agenda and endure the pain of media scrutiny and often attack, and build a voting coalition within the senate prepared to support any legislation involved.

Governments, and therefore ministers put themselves forward as offering national solutions to national problems. We are entitled to take them at face value and hold them to account. We would be naïve however to accept unquestioningly the claims of governments and ministers that they possess the wherewithal to provide solutions. The world is complex, ministers can only address a finite number of issues within their term, and many issues are not susceptible to direct intervention or remediation.

Moreover, it is useful to remember that the decisions taken by ministers and governments two years ago, or five years ago, or ten years ago, are almost always still largely in place and being administered and implemented by the bureaucracy. As a rule of thumb, I would assess that less than ten percent of the institutional structure (what I term the policy infrastructure) in place at any one time will be the subject of current political and policy debate and decision making. Accordingly, ministers are only dealing with less than ten percent of the public policy infrastructure at any one time.

Those who blithely criticise ministers for their lack of achievement, or incapacity to address a particular issue are generally choosing to ignore the constraints outlined above.

I have outlined these realities not to absolve ministers nor defend them for lack of performance, but merely to inject a sense of reality into just how difficult these jobs are, particularly in areas (such as Indigenous affairs) where there is not universal and ongoing community and electoral interest. This perhaps too theoretical analysis provides a precursor to the discussion below on the strategies available to ministers for indigenous affairs in pursuing their remit.

Scanning the history of the past three decades, I see three broad approaches by ministers to fulfilling their role.

One approach is to leave policy formulation and implementation to the bureaucracy and use the office of minister purely as a platform to pursue the minister’s political agenda howsoever he or she defines it. This is a particularly feasible strategy because the level of media and community interest in the detail of Indigenous policy is minimal and quite diffuse. The risk of being called to account for not doing anything is actually extremely low.

The second approach is to create a policy façade or fig leaf, generally based on identifying a set of tractable second or third order policy issues which appear susceptible to resolution, and use the pursuit of these ‘policy objectives ‘ as a means of creating the appearance of progress while simultaneously avoiding the intractable hard long term choices and decisions. Indeed, by focussing on second order issues, attention is diverted from first order issues. Such an approach requires the development of a high level narrative which purports to lay out the rationale for the policy agenda being pursued. The risk here is that arbitrary and irrational changes in the pursuit of the appearance of policy change create uncertainty and confusion amongst Indigenous interests and the community generally. Change is inevitable, but it is not always positive. Again, the lack of sustained media analysis and the regular appearance of apparently positive announcements make this an eminently viable strategy for a risk averse minister, particularly one keen to be promoted to a more senior portfolio.

The third approach is to forego guaranteed short term wins and focus on longer term structural and institutional changes which will not only have ongoing impact, but which change the incentives and signals which operate across different areas of the indigenous policy domain. Importantly, like the second approach, driving structural change requires an over-arching narrative or ideology. The difference is not in the existence of the narrative, but in the substance of the changes being proposed.

Clearly, these three approaches are not sharp alternatives in that ministers can adopt elements of each, particularly at different times during their tenure. However, it is my assessment and contention that most ministers fall into one or the other of these three categories. Moreover, it is my experience that no one political party has a monopoly on any of these approaches, and I can think of both Labor and Coalition ministers for Indigenous affairs who have adopted or been prone to adopting each of the approaches.

It is worth making the point too that while the first and second approaches are in my view wasted opportunities, the mere fact that a minister pursues the third approach is no guarantee of success. In particular, the strategic objectives being pursued must be appropriate in the sense that they will lead to positive and sustained policy outcomes. And the strategy must be implemented successfully, which is contingent upon a range of factors, not all within the minister’s control. Perhaps the two most important of these factors are the effective use of the intellectual capital which resides within the bureaucracy, and competent engagement with key Indigenous stakeholders and interests. And even where a minister is successful, there is no guarantee that a future minister will not undo his or her structural reforms.

How to assess the performance of ministers for Indigenous affairs is an inherently fraught and subjective task. A Prime Minister’s criteria for success will be different to those of an Indigenous person in Kempsey or Cunnamulla. Prime Ministers will look to political criteria, such as the perceptions of the wider community in relation to the portfolio, the way the portfolio’s key stakeholders have been managed, whether the portfolio is subject to sustained public criticism, and the minister’s overall contribution to the Government’s agenda. Indigenous interests will look to impacts on funding, commitment to longstanding Indigenous policy aspirations and thus will be much more sensitive to the ideological alignment of the minister to Indigenous concerns.

To my mind, a conclusive view requires a retrospective perspective of at least ten years, and even then assessment will be subjective and open to interpretation. My instinct however in attempting to assess the performance of ministers is to ask the question, ‘what long term structural reforms of benefit to Indigenous interests did the minister pursue and put in place’?

On this basis, and looking back over the past thirty years, the major structural shifts in Indigenous policy have rarely been driven by ministers, but can be seen to have been the product of deeper forces, and to have often involved prime ministers and the development of a degree of (eventual) bipartisanship.

Take the entry of the Commonwealth Government into the Indigenous funding and policy arena, initiated after the agreement of the Liberal Government headed by Prime Minister Harold Holt (pushed internally by backbencher William Wentworth and after the Arthur Calwell led Labor party had previously adopted it in its platform) and then proactively advanced by the Whitlam Government.

Or consider land rights, introduced in the NT at the instigation of Prime Minister Whitlam, enacted by the Fraser Government with Prime Minister Fraser’s strong personal support; the failure of Minister Clyde Holding’s National Land Rights proposals, followed by the judicial recognition of native title, and the Keating Government’s subsequent Native Title Act driven personally by Prime Minister Keating.

Or consider Minister Gerry Hand’s apparently successful attempt to establish a broad based representative structure in ATSIC with both a regional representative structure and an executive arm replacing the former Department of Aboriginal Affairs and thus linked closely to the executive arm of government. This was dismantled by Prime Minister Howard with the active support of the Labor Opposition Leader Mark Latham within ten years.

Or consider Minister Mal Brough’s Northern Territory intervention (in reality initiated by the Prime Minister Howard in the lead up to the 2007 election at Brough’s suggestion) involving the use of the ADF, compulsory acquisition of five year leases over communities, strict alcohol and other controls, and the introduction of income management, all backed by the potential lifting of the Racial Discrimination Act. The incoming Labor Minister Jenny Macklin inherited these revolutionary policy shifts and responded by significantly increasing investment in housing and infrastructure in remote NT communities, by progressively discontinuing the more offensive aspects of the policy (the lifting of RDA protections, the use of the defence forces) while contentiously continuing the welfare reforms. The initial policy shift was driven by the Prime Minister as much as Minister Brough, and Labor’s Macklin, constrained by the Senate, was left to attempt to find the middle ground of bipartisan consensus.

These arguably random selections suggest to me that ministers for Indigenous affairs, when assessed against the criterion of the extent to which thy drove major structural policy reform, are more often than not merely placeholders within the political system, and are neither as powerful nor as influential as the wider community, the media, and Indigenous interests often assume.

This is not to say that individual ministers don’t have the capacity to do great good, particularly to Indigenous citizens (and ultimately to the nation). But a focus on ministers alone is an inadequate approach to understanding and assessing the state of play in Australian Indigenous public policy.

It does suggest, at least to my mind, that the solutions to the challenges of facing the nation in Indigenous affairs are to be found amongst a broader set of interests and policy drivers than the office of minister for indigenous affairs within the Commonwealth Government.

The makeup of the Parliament, the state of the economy generally,  the bureaucracy, mainstream government portfolios, state and local governments, and perhaps most importantly, the capacity and capability of Indigenous interests themselves will be the locus of many of the opportunities and challenges the nation faces in indigenous affairs over the coming decades.

Paradoxically, these are the very areas which are under-analysed and reported by the media and more serious political analysts in an Indigenous policy context. This gap is itself a source of potential inefficiency as each of the potential drivers of policy innovation in Indigenous affairs will perform better if they are subject to transparent and informed scrutiny.

Finally, a hypothesis: while I have argued that we tend to over-estimate the influence of ministers for Indigenous affairs in determining outcomes in Indigenous affairs, might it not be the case nevertheless that the comparatively weak influence of ministers for Indigenous affairs on the state of Indigenous policy outcomes as evidenced in the historical record is the product of poor oversight of the Indigenous policy domain by civil society generally? Do we as a nation get the ministers for Indigenous affairs we deserve?

Shakespeare on Gestures

....There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gestures...

The WInter's Tale, Act 5, scene 2

Gesturing towards the Future

Megan Davis' essay 'Gesture Politics ' in the December 2015-January 2016 edition of the The Monthly is an excellent commentary on Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous policy in Australia. It provides essential background and context to the fraught debate on constitutional recognition.

I don't propose to revisit her arguments, but merely take the opportunity to recommend it as essential reading for anyone keen to understand the state of play on constitutional recognition, and in particular, the political underpinnings of what is often portrayed as a legal issue.

Davis' key paragraph is this:
We are not seeking recognition. We are seeking more. We are seeking formal, institutionalised safeguards and the right to be consulted, and to participate actively in decision making.

This aspiration goes to the heart not just of the debate on constitutional recognition, but to the place of Indigenous peoples within the nation.

COAG and Indigenous Affairs Policy

COAG and Indigenous Affairs policy



Prime Minister Turnbull chaired his fist meeting of COAG on 11 December 2015 in Sydney. Set out below is an edited extract of the press conference transcript held after the meeting which sets out only the comments relating to Indigenous affairs:

COAG Press Conference with Premiers and Chief Ministers Sydney

Prime Minister:

Welcome, everybody. I want to thank the leaders of the states and territories and of course the President of the Local Government Association for a very good discussion. It was a very good and cooperative, congenial discussion today over many issues and we've reached agreement on some very important priorities…..

I'm sure Adam will speak about this also but we've agreed on a new strategic framework that puts Indigenous economic participation at the heart of the national agenda and that is absolutely critical.

We recognise - as in the Chief Minister's words - this is not just a social issue, this is an economic issue and we need to prioritise our economic advancement, economic participation by Indigenous Australians.

Chief Minister Giles:

Prime Minister – congratulations on your first COAG. I think it was a very important meeting from the Territory perspective.

We have also had the opportunity of reaffirming COAG's position with yourself as new Prime Minister on statehood for the Northern Territory, working towards 1 July 2018, that's a very important message to Territorians. We've had the opportunity of talking a little bit about the federation reform and I think that will continue a lot more into 2016.

But, particularly, today was a day where you and COAG have made your mark on Indigenous affairs, particularly around indicating the need for the development of a strategic framework for Indigenous economic participation. That is something new in Australian conversation. We often hear about social outcomes, Closing the Gap targets. We don't put enough focus on business and employment opportunities that drive social and cultural change so the decision by COAG today to come back at the next meeting in 2016 with a framework that can acknowledge national principles and priorities but work bilaterally with States and Territories, what we can do to advance economic opportunities for Indigenous Australians I think is first rate in terms of a new initiative for Australia.

We've been doing it in the Northern Territory for the past couple of years, seeing major changes both in the public and private sector and to be able to acknowledge that and seek to advance those collective desires through a strategic framework across the nation and other jurisdictions is really important and it shouldn't go unheralded with your leadership today and all the colleagues around the table. So, thank you very much for that and I look forward to 2016.

In a media statement released after the COAG meeting titled Health funding, statehood and Indigenous economic development key COAG issues for NT, Chief Minister Giles noted inter alia:

The health funding challenge, statehood, domestic violence prevention and increasing opportunities for Indigenous economic development were key issues for the Northern Territory at today’s Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.

The Chief Minister updated Leaders on progress towards statehood with a joint report from the Northern Territory and Commonwealth Governments to be provided at the next meeting of COAG in 2016.

“Statehood is about equality and ensuring Territorians are not treated as second class citizens so I’m pleased all Leaders continue to support the Northern Territory’s resolve to become Australia’s seventh state by 1 July 2018,” he said.

Mr Giles welcomed the Leaders’ agreement to a new approach that put Indigenous economic participation at the heart of the national agenda.

The Chief Minister said the Territory Government had implemented a range of innovative policies to significantly grow Indigenous business development and job opportunities across the Territory, especially in remote communities.

“We’ve set a number of ambitious employment targets and policies including doubling public sector Indigenous employment from 1800 to 3600 employees by 2020, and initiating Aboriginal employment requirements for all Government infrastructure contracts above $500,000,” he said.

“In addition, we’ve introduced a new remote contracting policy aimed at ensuring 70 per cent of small contracts for construction repairs and maintenance in remote Aboriginal communities go to local Aboriginal businesses by 2017.

“These policies set a clear direction and encourage Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal businesses to work together in a spirit of partnership across remote areas to build wealth creation for remote Aboriginal communities.

“The innovation in the Territory’s approach is that culture and economy are not treated as mutually exclusive, but as the essential ingredients in delivering improved social outcomes in areas of education, health and justice.

“The Northern Territory Government looks forward to working with the other States and Territories, the Commonwealth Government and Indigenous leaders to develop targeted actions to boost Indigenous economic participation right throughout the country.”

In a communique issued later that day, COAG outlined its decisions on Indigenous issues:

Indigenous economic development

Leaders agreed to the development of a new strategic framework that puts Indigenous economic participation at the heart of the national agenda, recognising that economic participation underpinned by cultural participation leads to improved social outcomes. The framework will drive genuine cooperation, including with Indigenous leaders, to ensure we learn from and share what works. It will also support an increased focus on place-based solutions. This will support increased economic independence and reduced reliance on welfare, and help achieve Closing the Gap targets.

Early childhood and school education are both critical in opening future economic opportunities for Indigenous children. COAG agreed to prioritise and accelerate efforts in this area, and set a new early childhood education Closing the Gap target of 95 per cent enrolment for all Indigenous four year olds by 2025, extending beyond the expired 2013 target for remote communities.

COAG welcomed Northern Territory Chief Minister Giles’s proposal for more targeted national and bilateral action to boost Indigenous [economic] participation. Leaders will discuss a range of actions at their next meeting, featuring innovative approaches to procurement that promote entrepreneurialism and real jobs.

COAG considered the report of the investigation into Indigenous land administration and use that it commissioned in October last year. To better enable Indigenous land owners and native title holders to use rights in land for economic development, jurisdictions will implement the recommendations of this report subject to their unique circumstances and resource constraints.

All jurisdictions reaffirmed their shared commitment to the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Commonwealth Constitution, and noted the Commonwealth’s announcement of a Referendum Council to lead a significant national consultation process on recognition. COAG noted the importance of state and territory governments being engaged in this national consultation process, and Premiers and Chief Ministers agreed to participate.

Key points arising from the above record include the brevity and selectivity of the Prime Minister’s comments, the absence of commentary from any of the major states and the ACT to the Indigenous issues apparently discussed, and the lack of any real detail as to what will be included in the proposed strategic framework for Indigenous economic participation.



Indeed, it is what was not mentioned in the First Ministers’ Press Conference and the Chief Ministers Media Statement which is of most significance.



The announcement in the communique of a revised ten year target for early childhood education participation target is essentially an admission of defeat by First Ministers. The Commonwealth has made school attendance in remote Australia a flagship program, and the target for early childhood participation in remote areas was originally devised in acknowledgment that early childhood programs offered one of the most decisive policy levers for improving educational outcomes in remote regions, and played a key role in driving good health outcomes as well.



The Productivity Commission report National Indigenous Reform Agreement Performance Assessment 2013-14 released to Governments in November 2015 and publicly on 2 December 2015 assesses progress on the Close the Gap targets. The early childhood target, originally aimed for 95 percent enrolment in pre-schools for four years olds in remote communities by 2013. The Commission reported that the target had not been met falling short by ten percentage points, albeit after substantial gains in enrolments over the five years of the target.



The Commission noted that it is attendance, not enrolment which matters, yet COAG in refreshing the target, and pushing it out to 2025 has retained a focus based on enrolment. Table 4.1 in the Commission’s report indicates that the NT has a substantial discrepancy between enrolments and attendance of almost 20 percentage points; a discrepancy which is not present in other jurisdictions. By extending the timeframe to ten years, shifting the goalposts away from remote enrolments to national enrolments, and ignoring the Productivity Commission’s observation that it is attendance which matters, COAG has essentially taken the pressure off the worst performing early childhood jurisdiction in the nation, and concomitantly reduced the likelihood that the least engaged Indigenous pre-schoolers in the country receive priority attention from policymakers.



In relation to the COAG initiated Land Administration review, initiated at the instigation of the Northern Territory at a previous COAG, First Ministers were entirely silent at their press conference.  There appears to have been little if any discussion of the substantive recommendations of the finalised report. Yet the Commonwealth is currently actively supporting the Human Rights Commission to progress policy development in what appears to be a parallel process, albeit with little clarity as to the actual proposals being advanced. As recently as Monday last week, the Attorney General and three human rights commissioners met with Indigenous leaders to press ahead with the land rights reform agenda begun earlier this year in Broome. The Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, in his recently released Social Justice Report called for greater coordination of the various land reform initiatives by the Commonwealth Government.



The COAG discussion was a real opportunity to provide greater clarity on this front. It is difficult to resist the interpretation that the Commonwealth is loathe to see any Indigenous issues raised before the next federal election, given the likelihood that any firm action would open up divisions within the Government between the left and the right.



To cut to the chase, the actual outcome agreed by First Ministers amounts to a classic cop out. They announced:

To better enable Indigenous land owners and native title holders to use rights in land for economic development, jurisdictions will implement the recommendations of this report subject to their unique circumstances and resource constraints.

The announcement is drafted to sound positive and to suggest support for Indigenous economic development, but involves absolutely no commitment, no timeframes for action, and provides no information on the part of the states, the territories nor the Commonwealth as to actual intentions.



It is worth noting that many of the report’s recommendations relate to the Native Title Act which could be unilaterally advanced by the Commonwealth given that it is Commonwealth legislation.



While Chief Minister Giles initiated the review, it was implemented by the Commonwealth under the direction of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, who is himself a member of the CLP in the Northern Territory. At the time the review was initiated, Scullion was involved in a tense standoff with the NT Land Councils over proposed amendments to the NT Land Rights Act, and it seems slightly odd that Giles proposed the review to COAG given that the NT land Rights Act is Commonwealth legislation. Giles total silence on the discussion and outcomes at COAG of the review he initiated is even odder.



In the year since, Minister Scullion has backed away from his attempt to drive a fundamental overhaul of the NT Land Councils, and is now working hard to build more productive relationships with the Land Councils.  Moreover, given that the NT faces an election next year, the disjunction between the high rhetoric of reform and the non-commitment to actual policy change in relation to Indigenous land rights reform seems to be designed more for electoral than policy purposes.



The announcement of a joint report from the NT and Commonwealth Governments relating to NT Statehood by 2018 are clearly in this same election-related category, though in this case the NT Government is keen to talk up the prospects of statehood in the lead up to the next NT election. Given the history of attempts to move to a state of the Northern Territory, it is clear that achieving statehood will be extremely difficult, and any substantive policy change has the potential to become a polarizing issue for Indigenous Territorians who have been wedded to implicit Commonwealth oversight of Indigenous affairs in the NT since self-government. Talk is cheap, action will be more expensive.



The silence of First Ministers on Indigenous policy issues generally is symptomatic of a more fundamental concern, namely the comparative disengagement of the states in the Indigenous affairs policy domain. The key policy responsibilities which drive outcomes in health, education, and housing for Indigenous citizens are primarily state responsibilities, yet we see very little acknowledgment of this in the public dialogue on Indigenous affairs and virtually no pressure applied to the states and territories for the slow progress on the Close the Gap targets.



The Abbott Government, by centralising all policy and program responsibilities within PM&C (Health excepted) effectively removed the responsibilities of mainstream agencies to focus on their Indigenous stakeholders and as a consequence relieved pressure on the states and territories to deliver outcomes through their own mainstream agencies. This is retrograde policy and needs to change. Poor institutional arrangements contribute to poor policy outcomes.



In a month where the Productivity Commission determined that the Close the Gap targets established by COAG over the past decade are largely not being met, the rhetorical focus by COAG on Indigenous economic development to the exclusion of underlying social indicators as well as to the acknowledgement of the importance of cultural and environmental aspirations of Indigenous citizens, appears at best insufficient and at worst an attempt to distract attention from the lack of progress on COAG’s past decisions and initiatives.



The total silence of COAG on the Productivity Commission’s call for a renewed focus on policy and program evaluation in Indigenous affairs merely serves to reinforce that Indigenous policy development has fallen into the doldrums, and currently lacks any clear policy leadership. Ideology and rhetoric flourish to the exclusion of solid policy innovation.



While COAG and the Productivity Commission have formal coordination and monitoring roles in ensuring the states and territories are up to the mark in addressing Indigenous disadvantage, the stark political reality is that it is the Commonwealth which must keep the pressure on the federation to keep moving forward in this area.



In circumstances where the laggard jurisdiction in so many areas is the NT, it is apparent that for a Prime Minister to appoint a Territorian as Minister for Indigenous Affairs has the potential to create a conflict of interest in political and policy terms. The Indigenous policy outcomes of the recent COAG meeting – particularly the silence on the early childhood target and the land administration review -  provide tangible demonstration that these concerns are more than hypothetical.



Prime Ministers are known to ask trusted experts and advisers “what are the two or three things I should do in the Indigenous policy area?” My unequivocal answer to that hypothetical question would be as follows: to replace ideology and rhetoric with substance, place a focus on policy over politics in decision-making, listen to local and regional voices, accept the inevitability of diversity amongst Indigenous interests, and put as much focus on policy implementation as on policy development, and thereby provide real, substantive and innovative leadership to the nation as a whole. The Prime Minister’s first COAG meeting falls short of this benchmark.







15 December 2015