Your dishonour
Mangles
true judgement, and bereaves the state
Of
that integrity which should become it.
Coriolanus Act three, Scene one.
According to ABS
census data from 2021 (link
here), one-third (33.1%) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Australians were aged under 15 years compared with 17.9% of non-Indigenous
people in the same age group. The median
age nationally of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population was 24
years. While remote and very remote Indigenous populations comprise only 15
percent of the national Indigenous population, and two percent of the Australian
population, they are amongst the most disadvantaged citizens across virtually
every social indicator.
In recent
months, there have been several articles focussed on the plight of remote
communities; places where the demographic profile is heavily slanted toward
those under 24.
In October, Daniel
James, a Yorta Yorta man wrote a searing indictment of government policy in Central
Australia in The Monthly titled Children of the intervention (link
here). More recently in The Saturday Paper (link
here), Ben Abbatangelo, a Gunaikurnai and Wotjobaluk writer wrote a searing
— yet hopeful — indictment of the
situation in Wadeye titled Yidiyi
Festival returns hope to Wadeye. I have quibbles with both articles related
to their focus on particular places thus de-emphasising the wider structural drivers
of disadvantage across remote Australia generally, and their implicit choice of
temporal perspectives. Both articles are nevertheless extremely powerful
critiques of Government policy neglect and ineptitude, while not ignoring the
complexity and nuance which bedevils any close analysis of these issues.
It was within
this overarching policy context that the Joint Council on Closing the Gap met
last week. The Joint Council includes every Minister for Indigenous Affairs in
the federation plus representatives of the Coalition of Peaks. Their communique
(link
here) mentioned a number of issues, but focussed particular attention on
one specific issue:
Joint
Council discussed critical matters regarding youth justice and agreed that
Target 11 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (the National Agreement)
is an urgent priority that requires collective action across multiple
government portfolios and jurisdictions to deliver on the ground results. Target
11, to reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people
(10 – 17 years) in detention by at least 30 per cent by 2031 is not on track to
be met. Joint Council agreed to escalate this urgent priority and progress
work that will achieve improved accountability, coordinated jurisdictional
actions and outcomes. It was agreed that Joint Council Co-Chairs write to First
Ministers to seek details of how their governments are currently taking steps
to meet Target 11, including consideration of remand, alternative accommodation
and health and disability care and education in youth justice facilities.(emphasis added).
According to
the Productivity Commission Closing the Gap dashboard (link
here):
Nationally
in 2022-23, the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people
aged 10–17 years in detention on an average day was 29.8 per 10,000
young people in the population (figure CtG11.1). The 2022‑23 rate is above the
previous three years (from a low of 23.6 per 10,000 young people in 2020‑21)
but it is a decrease from 32.1 per 10,000 young people in 2018‑19 (the
baseline year). Nationally, the trend for the target shows no change from the
baseline. This assessment is provided with a low level of confidence.
So while
current levels of youth detention are less than the baseline, they have been
rising in the last year.
The Joint Council
response is entirely bureaucratic in nature, and reeks of going through the
motions. It is unclear why they focus on youth detention and not also on incarceration
more generally. Writing to First Ministers for information that should be in
the Implementation Plans required by the National Agreement will take months,
and as it turns out, if you dig deep enough in the Productivity Commission
dashboard, half of the jurisdictions will be able to point to recent improvements
and those that can’t will find some other bureaucratic formulation to describe
their efforts as deeply committed and focussed on improving accountability and
coordinated consultation to prioritise urgent action….or some such …
The real
problem, which goes to the heart of the renegotiated targets under the 2020 National
Agreement is that nationally, detention rates for First Nations youth are currently
28.8 per 10,000 compared to mainstream youth detention rates of 1.1 per 10,000.
In Queensland, detention rates for First Nations youth are 46 per 10,000. Of
particular interest is the fact that in Western Australia in 2010, youth
detention rates were 79.7 per 10,000 and have dropped to 34.6 in 2022-23, a
halving of the rates over twelve years (although still at levels above the
national rate for Indigenous youth detention). I don’t know how WA have
achieved that outcome, but that would be a question worth asking. It
demonstrates that progress can be made. But the bottom line is that nationally,
First Nations youth are 28 times more likely to be in detention than
non-Indigenous youth. That is the real issue and the real tragedy. It
should be cause for a national strategy to fully (not partially) close the gap,
to bring Indigenous youth detention rates down to 1.1 per 10,000. It is worth
remembering that these are point-in-time statistics; the levels of Indigenous
youth that are placed in detention in any one year will be considerably higher.
The current levels of Indigenous youth detention should be a national scandal.
And it should be a focus for governments to commission detailed and independent
analysis from criminologists, sociologists and anthropologists as well as their
policy advisers.
Instead, governments
have squibbed the issue by inventing an arbitrary target, with the aim of
lowering the detention rate from 32.1 in the baseline year to 22.5 in 2031. Not
only did they invent an arbitrary target, they have failed to articulate a
coherent national strategy (and coherent state and territory strategies) to
meet this arbitrary and inherently unambitious target. By their inaction, they
are continuing to squib this issue day in and day out.
This is bad
enough. But target 11 under the Closing the Gap process is just one of numerous
targets which replicate the same strategy. Invent an arbitrary target that is
reasonably achievable; shift the responsibility from the Commonwealth to nine
separate jurisdictions each with their own policies and approaches, thus making
real accountability impossible. Avoid developing coherent and realistic policy implementation
plans by loading them up with hundreds of pages of bureaucratic flim flam, thus
avoiding real political accountability. And whenever an issue arises that emerges into
the public consciousness, claim to be concerned and throw a few dollars at it.
So for example,
there was no mention by the Joint Council of the challenges related to Target 10
which is framed as follows: By 2031, reduce the rate of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander adults held in incarceration by at least 15%. The
baseline adopted in the National Agreement was from 2019 a convenient and
almost surreptitious way of diminishing the magnitude of the trends that point
to not only an extraordinary level of hyper-incarceration of First Nations
citizens, but a substantial increase in indigenous incarceration rates vis a vis
mainstream population rates over the past fifteen years.
Interrogating the
dashboard reveals the following key data points:
- Nationally the level of mainstream incarceration in 2023 is 149 per 100,000. It has barely changed from 2009, when the national rate was 137 per 100,000.
- For Indigenous citizens, the national level of incarceration is 2235 per 100,000 in 2023, up from 1539 per 100,000 in 2009.
- In WA, the Indigenous incarceration rate is 3469 per 100,000 in 2023, up from 2817 per 100,000 in 2009.
- In the NT, the Indigenous incarceration rate is 3029 per 100, 000, up from 1700 per 100,000 in 2009.
The national indigenous
incarceration rate in 2023 is thus 15 times higher than the mainstream rate. In
2009, it was 11.2 times higher.
While it is
difficult to visualise the impact of these statistics, Ben Abbatangelo’s article
includes a description of the internal community violence that sporadically
breaks out, its consequences for the whole community, and notes, almost in passing,
the extraordinary statistic that that today, around 5 percent of the Wadeye’s population
is incarcerated.
What I find particularly
frustrating is that the blatant hypocrisy of governments, laid out in plain
view, fails to resonate in the public domain. Political Oppositions across the
federation (whether progressive or conservative) find it easier to look away or
pretend that the issue is being dealt with appropriately; after all they hope
to be in government at some future date and don’t wish to have made commitments
they don’t intend to make.
The media (with
honourable exceptions mentioned above) largely doesn’t look beyond the scandals
or antics of the previous week.
Indigenous citizens
become inured to the normalisation of violence in their lives, much of it is
lateral violence and fuelled by poorly regulated and controlled alcohol and
drugs.
The Indigenous
members of the Coalition of Peaks on the Joint Council appear to be unable to
see a way to go back to basics and call governments out for their inaction.
They fear (probably correctly) that if they were to criticise government too
openly, and too directly, they would first be defunded, and ultimately the
whole edifice of the National Agreement would be dismantled as it would not be
serving its purpose. The risks however are that they will ultimately be tainted
by their perceived complicity (link
here). And eventually a future, more punitive government will just decide
to dismantle the whole edifice wile blaming the victims for the ongoing
catastrophe.
Notwithstanding
the irony of my reliance on their data in this post, the Productivity
Commission blithely compiles and updates a plethora of data and statistics,
apparently oblivious to its role in diverting attention from the extent and
depth of the real-world crises and challenges confronting First Nations
citizens. The Commission’s appears focussed on compiling a profusion of data
and statistics which have limited relevance to the lived reality of many First
Nations citizens, and no relationship to either policy or the concerns of
governments.
For our
political class and elites, the whole edifice has become an elaborate exercise
in convincing mainstream Australia that our democratically elected governments
really do care about First Nations when the reality is that they do not give a
fig about closing the gap. In their mistaken and fundamentally narcissistic
view, it is just too hard.
Closing the gap
is as much about mainstream Australia as First Nations; it is about changing
the way mainstream Australia operates and shares this continent. I don’t claim
that there are simple solutions to these issues. They require hard policy work,
substantive political commitment, visionary political leadership, an ability to
see beyond simplistic ideological humbug, and a sense of empathy and
understanding that is exemplified in Australian notions of mateship, concern
for the underdog and for a fair go for all. What fundamentally concerns me, to
the point of disconsolation, is the deepening realisation that we live in a nation
where these ideas no longer reflect who we really are.
Addendum: for those who might be interested in a
more academic critique of closing the gap that reflects the ideas outlined
here, I refer you to a couple of Discussion Papers I wrote in 2021 (link
here and link here).
20 November
2024