Assessing Aboriginal wellbeing in the Pilbara: national policy implications

Are these things then necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities.

2 Henry IV, Act 3, scene 1.

This post focusses on a recent report on Aboriginal wellbeing in the Pilbara (full report link here; key findings link here). John Taylor, a distinguished demographer of Indigenous Australia, authored the report.

The report was commissioned by a body known as the (Pilbara) Regional Implementation Committee, established as part of Ro Tinto’s engagement with Aboriginal interests following a series of native title agreements over the past few decades (link here and link here).

The report’s full title is ‘Change in wellbeing indicators of Pilbara Aboriginal people: 2001-2016’. It was designed to assess changes in wellbeing since 2001 amongst Aboriginal residents of the Pilbara based on a baseline study authored by Taylor and Scambary in 2005 (link here).

The approach adopted in this post is not aimed at a providing a comprehensive summary of the report. Instead, I aim to do two things: first, to select and highlight a number of the more salient points from the report (often via direct quotation), and mainly drawn from chapter nine which focusses on key findings. Second, to use those points to draw out a number of policy implications. My use of selective quotation may mean that important caveats and nuance is omitted, so I recommend readers consult the full report. It will be apparent to close readers of the report that I am standing on the shoulders of a giant, and in most respects, am wholly indebted to John Taylor’s work. Nevertheless, there seems to be value in seeking to give the report a higher profile, not least because it raises issues that extend well beyond the Pilbara.

In the Executive summary, Taylor identifies what he considers to be the core messages:

The basic message from the baseline study was that little had been achieved up to 2001 in terms of enhancing Aboriginal socioeconomic status over decades of mining activity in the Pilbara. This can no longer be claimed, at least not at a whole-of-population level. What we see instead, is a very mixed set of outcomes whereby some individuals, families and communities have clearly benefited while for others little has changed, indeed, relatively-speaking, they are now invariably worse off. If pressed to allocate an approximate ratio to this observation, the general impression would be that a third of people are now economically better off and two-thirds are not. The difference between the two is determined largely by employment, especially in mining…

… More importantly, gaps have widened within the Aboriginal population, especially in regard to income and opportunity.(p.2).

On population change, Taylor notes:

…it appears that Aboriginal people more than shared equally in the demographic wave that swept over the Pilbara in recent years such that their proportion of the regional population has risen from 16% to 19% in 2016. This growth in resident numbers reflects a decade of net migration into the region…(pp.140-41)

He then focusses on the issue of structural ageing, and concludes:

the fastest rate of population growth is actually among those at advanced ages. Given the prevalence of out-migration at retirement ages among the Pilbara population more generally, the idea of a growing resident group in need of aged care is perhaps novel for the Pilbara but it is emerging in the Aboriginal population. (p.141).

On the labour force, Taylor points to the potential risk of over-dependence on the resources industry for employment:

By 2016, fully one-third of the Aboriginal workforce was from elsewhere, mostly from Perth but also from other parts of WA as well as from across Australia…

…In 2001, barely 20% of Aboriginal males in employment were working in the mining industry and less than 5% of females. Today, mining accounts for almost two-thirds of all Aboriginal male employment and one-third of all female employment – levels that far exceed those of other resident workers. This represents a major structural shift in the composition of Aboriginal employment…(p.142).

In relation to income, Taylor points to significant absolute and relative increases over the past 15 years in Aboriginal incomes, but notes an associated downside:

…an even greater share is also now found at the lower end. In short, there is increasing income disparity within the Aboriginal population with the key difference being whether one is employed (especially in mining) or on income support…

…One reason for growing income disparity is a rise in the proportion of Aboriginal people with no income. We can see from census data that more than half of these are neither employed nor in education or training. What is less clear is whether individuals have dropped out of the income support system as well. The likelihood that substantial compliance breaching off the Community Development Program (CDP) involving no pay penalties cannot be discounted, although regional data on this are difficult to access…(p.143).

In relation to education and training, Taylor notes:

While 44% of young adults aged 15-34 years are fully engaged in employment, education or training and a further 15% are partially engaged, this means that as much as 41% of this age group are disengaged…

…A key contributor to this disengagement, at least in terms of employment participation, also includes persistently low levels of school attendance….Even average attendance rates are low at 70% in primary schools and 60% at secondary. More to the point these rates have remained fairly constant since 2008. Of more concern, however, are the very low attendance levels that indicate the proportion of students attending for more than 90% of available school days. These have also remained constant but at the much lower levels of 30% in primary schools and 20% in secondary (p.144).

On housing, Taylor concludes that the most salient observation is the lack of substantive change over the past fifteen years in the levels of disadvantage and overcrowding:

As for overcrowding, the percentage of dwellings deemed to be overcrowded has reduced but the absolute number has increased (p.145).

In relation to health status, Taylor reports:

there are signs that Aboriginal health status has improved, although across many measures this remains way behind that of the general population and all too often it detracts from the capacity of people to participate economically (p.146).

Across virtually every health indicator, while there has been improvement, Indigenous health status lags nonIndigenous rates. To take just one of the areas analysed, disability rates, Taylor reports:

Aboriginal people have consistently accounted for almost half of those in the Pilbara with a disability despite comprising only 16% of the population. This refers only to those with profound or severe core activity limitation and so should be considered a conservative metric (p.146).

Taylor’s summing up on health states:

Clearly, the collective social and economic impacts of diminished health status have been little altered by the mining boom and they present an ongoing and substantial challenge for the RIC in its quest to improve Aboriginal wellbeing (p.147).

Finally, on crime and justice, Taylor reports that:

Almost all criminal cases brought to the Children’s Court in the Pilbara refer to Aboriginal defendants and while the Aboriginal share of Magistrates Court cases is lower, this has steadily risen over recent years and is now at almost 80%. Feeding into this are rates of arrest that, while lower than they have been, still account for 19% of the Aboriginal population aged 10 years and over and reach up to 33% among males aged between 18 and 29 years. Given empirical evidence of a negative association between arrest and employability these levels are a cause for concern…

… Clearly, any notion that an economic dividend might emerge from the demographic shifts underway in the Pilbara, would have to address the scale of social and economic disengagement implied by these figures (pp.147-8).

Policy Implications

Clearly, even a cursory reading of this summary points to extremely deep-seated levels of disadvantage amongst Pilbara communities. There are glimmers of light, but also swathes of deep shade.

In terms of the impact on individual lives, it will be apparent that the levels of disadvantage identified by Taylor are such that virtually no Indigenous family in the Pilbara will be insulated from the direct impact of disadvantage of one form or another. From time to time Taylor also hints at the indirect impacts of this disadvantage on individuals and families. So for example he notes that while there are some 460 disabled Aboriginal people in the Pilbara identified in the 2016 Census, there are some 1100 carers identified (p.147).  If one were to reflect on the consequences and implications for life opportunities on those beyond the individuals directly affected by these statistics, the true levels of family and community harm begin to become apparent. Imagine the impact for families of illnesses such as renal failure, or of high levels of engagement with the justice system, or of poor educational outcomes, and so on. The consequences of deep-seated disadvantage have real life consequences which extend well beyond those included in the bare statistics.

A consistent theme throughout Taylor’s report are issues related to Government commitment to effective data collection. He points to the extraordinary levels of undercount of Indigenous citizens in the Pilbara:

Remarkably, the undercount of the Pilbara Aboriginal population at the 2016 census has been estimated by the ABS to have been as much as 41% - a rate that has increased at each census since 2001. Unfortunately, estimates of the population that are constructed to compensate for this undercount are provided without any accompanying measures of confidence…

 (p.140).

He points out the cessation of the data surveys which measured housing need, noting:

Perhaps no other area of public policy epitomises the decline in public access data on the circumstances of Aboriginal people in the Pilbara (and generally in remote areas of Australia) more than that of housing and infrastructure. From the early 1990s ATSIC lobbied for and financially supported the Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Survey (CHINS) up to the last of four surveys in 2006. The Western Australian Government also conducted three rounds of an Environmental Health Needs Survey (EHNS) up to 2008. Since that time, the very detailed data on Aboriginal housing and infrastructure available from those sources has evaporated under the influence of the post-ATSIC new public management regime (p.144).

These issues, while relevant to the Pilbara, are national in scope and thus in consequence. It is almost as if governments have decided they would prefer not to know (and thus not understand) what is transpiring on the ground in Indigenous Australia.

One response to the lack of commitment by government to data collection and analysis has been the emergence of a movement amongst Indigenous communities for Indigenous data sovereignty. John Taylor has been a significant advocate in this area (link here). While the aspirations of Indigenous communities to take control of their data deserve support, especially by governments, there will always be a need for national level data collection and analysis, and it is a very poor reflection on governments and policymakers over the past decade that more attention has not been devoted to increasing the quality of national datasets and associated survey instruments that impact on Indigenous Australia. Similarly, it needs to be remembered that Indigenous peoples, whether in remote regions such as the Pilbara, or elsewhere, are not defined by the disadvantages they endure.

A further policy implication of this report is national in its scope and emerges from the implicit reliance of policymakers on the rising tide of private sector driven economic development to lift Indigenous people out of poverty and disadvantage. The Pilbara has been the locus of intense economic and commercial activity. It has led to many Indigenous people gaining employment (much of it going to Indigenous Fly In Fly Out workers from elsewhere). Yet what emerges from John Taylor’s report is that the levels of deep seated disadvantage are such as to undercut and constrain the potential benefits of employment and commercial activity. A second issue that appears to require further consideration (by academics, policymakers and indeed Indigenous interests) is the contribution of the significant compensatory native title payments to native title holders to broader Indigenous wellbeing.

On current policy settings, positive change, if it occurs, will take time, even generations. To my mind, this is an untenable situation. There is an ongoing need for sustained long term engagement by governments with Indigenous Australia. This also suggests that we need to reverse the failure by policymakers to focus on the underlying structural drivers of disadvantage. For example, policymakers must close the circle in terms of identifying needs, potential policy responses, and the allocation of sufficient resources to have an impact. The must also acknowledge and address the long term consequences of dispossession and discrimination in their policy approaches, if they wish to facilitate and encourage positive change to Indigenous social and economic wellbeing. This will necessarily include allowing Indigenous people a greater voice in policy development, both at regional and national levels.