This week saw an intriguing joint media
release from NT Chief Minister Giles and federal Minister for Indigenous
Affairs (and Senator for the NT) Nigel Scullion.
The pair announced funding of $15m for increased police
facilities and resources on Groote Eylandt.
Here is the text of the announcement, with emphasis added:
More support for policing on Groote Eylandt
Community safety on Groote Eylandt will be
increased through a greater police presence and improved police infrastructure,
thanks to a joint investment from the
Turnbull Coalition and Giles Country Liberals Governments.
Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Country Liberals Northern Territory
Senator, Nigel Scullion and I announced a
$15 million investment in policing on Groote Eylandt to upgrade local
police stations and increase police resources in the region.
“This investment will upgrade the
police stations at Angurugu and Alyangula and support additional police and
a new police dog unit," Minister Scullion says.
“Community safety is one of the key priorities of the Turnbull Coalition
in Indigenous Affairs and this funding will ensure police are spending more
time in community working with local residents.
“Importantly, the investment includes funding to support local
Aboriginal community police officers to make sure police work in partnership
with communities to improve community safety.
“I would also like to express my appreciation to the Anindilyakwa Land
Council Chairman, Mr Tony Wurramarrba, for
the significant co-investment that traditional owners have provided for these
police facilities.”
The Northern Territory Government has been working hard to combat crime
and improve safety throughout the Territory. Our Remote Policing Model helps to
ensure that police operations in remote areas across the NT are well supported
and resourced. It's a flexible policing model that maximises community
engagement across remote communities, which means we can deploy our resources
when and where they are needed most. The
funding has been provided out of existing resources from the Indigenous
Advancement Strategy.
No-one is going to begrudge the Groote community access to
adequate policing resources, and the focus on community safety and community
policing is clearly a major priority in anyone’s terms.
There have been ongoing community safety issues on Groote
for many years, and NT Governments have not been prepared to stand up to the
policy union’s longstanding antipathy to its officers being based, or staying
overnight, in the communities of Angurugu and Umbakumba, preferring to reside
in the mining town of Alyangula.
Most recently, in November last year a riot involving up to
60 people led to two deaths and six convictions. See press reports here
and here
and here.
The media reported police admitting that four police officers were unable to
control the affray. The media reports indicate that a number of the men
convicted are from the community of Umbakumba (which is not a beneficiary of
the announced funding).
The announcement appeared to coincide with a
ceremony on the Island attended by both Ministers to celebrate the renewal
of the longstanding manganese mining agreement between local Traditional owners
and South 32 which owns the Groote Eylandt Mining Company (GEMCO).
The rights of citizens to safe communities and safe lives
are clearly still a very live issue on Groote (and in many other remote
communities). Apart from issues of community safety, the communities on Groote
(and many others) continue to face significant shortfalls in housing, infrastructure,
health services, disability services, and financial literacy. Issues around the
robustness of local community governance are a continuing challenge.
The community is also a major node of an insidious
neurological disease, the Machado Joseph Disease,
which places increased social and health pressures on many families across
Groote Eylandt (and beyond). Minister Scullion reversed a $10m grant to the MJD
Foundation soon after being appointed as Minister, and is currently appealing a Federal Court
decision overturning his decision.
Labor and Coalition Governments have done much in the last
decade to invest in major communities such as those on Groote through programs
such as National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing, the
Stronger Futures National Partnership, and in general purpose funding to the
Northern Territory Government from GST revenues. Yet the current Commonwealth Government
appears intent on rolling these National Partnership Agreements into recurrent
grant programs where they are much more vulnerable to annual savings decisions,
and fail to lock in complementary state and territory policy and program contributions.
To their credit, the Groote traditional owners have over the
past decade sought to leverage their royalty income through a regional
partnership agreement with the NT and Commonwealth Governments which led to
a number of joint projects involving contributions of their own mining royalty
resources to a range of communal projects, including a contribution of $5m
towards the sealing of the road to Umbakumba. Unfortunately, in recent years, governments
appear to have backed away from this formal engagement and commitment of
resources, presumably because it injected a degree of inflexibility into their newly
centralised funding arrangements, and diminishes government capacity to find
savings.
So what are the policy issues raised by joint announcement
on policing?
The fundamental issue raised is why the Commonwealth must
fund facilities which are core responsibilities of the NT Government.
And of course, the decision involves a large dose of what
economists term ‘moral hazard’ for the Commonwealth: every time it funds these responsibilities,
it sends a signal that the NT Government is not expected to fund this function.
The suggestion in the release that there is a ‘joint investment’
by the two governments appears farfetched given the indication in the last
sentence that funding is from the Commonwealth’s Indigenous Advancement
Strategy program.
There is no indication of the assessment process adopted in
relation to the grant; presumably the federal minister has used his discretion to
approve the funding without a comparative assessment of alternative needs and
opportunities. The admission that the funding is from within existing
appropriations means that it comes at the expense of other Indigenous
priorities.
The release is deliberately vague on the breakdown of the
financial support, and the timeframe over which the recurrent elements (such as
the dog support unit or the employment of local community police) will be
offered.
Crucially, the announcement fails to provide any clarity on
whether police will be posted 24 hours a day to Angurugu, and by implication,
we can assume that they won’t be posted 24 hours a day to Umbakumba. This is
the single most important decision government could take to increase community
safety on Groote, but it appears that it has been squibbed.
While the announcement thanks the local community for their contribution,
it fails to indicate both the source and the quantum of this contribution.
While it is commendable that there has been a community contribution, it is
surely unprecedented for a local community to have to contribute to its own
policing investment. If governments are not prepared to fund adequate levels of
policing within their jurisdictions, then they fail a core test of legitimacy.
And of course, the announcement has been made within a week
of the federal election. Presumably Minister Scullion made his decision before
the caretaker period began and held it over.
Setting aside the politics which so clearly infuses this announcement,
it provides a clear cut example of the structural lack of transparency in government
decision making in remote communities, at both process and output levels.
And counter-intuitively, the very necessity of Commonwealth
and local community funding for what is a core NT Government responsibility provides
yet a further example of the chronic underinvestment by responsible governments
in their core responsibilities in remote Australia.
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