Ways of Working: The Government’s latest approach to Indigenous policy

 

This earthly world, where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good, sometime

Accounted dangerous folly.

Macbeth, Act 4, scene 2

 

 

On 15 September 2020, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, delivered a speech that professed to outline the Governments new approach to Indigenous affairs. Its title: Indigenous Australia: A New Way of Working (link here).

 

The speech should be welcomed both for its preparedness to lay out the Government’s vision and approach in the Indigenous policy domain, and because it is one of the few set piece speeches doing so in the seven years since the Coalition came to office in Canberra.

 

Previous speeches by the Minister include an address to the National Press Club in July 2019 titled Walking in Partnership to Effect Change (link here) and the August 2019 Lingiari Lecture (link here).

 

In the Press Club address, less than three months into his tenure as Minister, he stated:

The concept of the voice in the Uluru Statement from the Heart is not just a singular voice, and what I perceive it is - it is a cry to all tiers of Government to stop and listen to the voices of Indigenous Australians at all levels.

 

In relation to Closing the Gap, he stated:

I will work in partnership with state and territory ministers of Indigenous affairs to progress work on the Closing the Gap targets. And identify good practice and to share and celebrate successful programs and jurisdictional achievements.

As ministers, collectively, we have an incredible opportunity to make a difference as leaders of the nation if we work together on targeted priorities such as the high incarceration rates. As I've said, the most important thing that I and the agency will do is to listen - with our ears and our eyes.

 

He went on to make the rhetorically powerful, but somewhat bizarre, statement of his approach going forward:

It's not my intention to develop policy out of my office. But to implement a co-designed process with my ministerial and parliamentary colleagues, relevant departments and with Indigenous communities, organisations and leaders.

 

In the Lingiari Lecture, the Minister argued for truth telling, for Constitutional recognition, and foreshadowed work to establish an Indigenous Voice:

…let me assure you that the Morrison Government is committed to a co-design process so we ensure we have the best possible framework in place to hear those voices at the local, regional and national level.

More will be said in the months to come, and much like Constitutional Recognition, it’s too important to rush, or to get wrong.

 

He also made the case for everyone, not just government, to ‘shift the pendulum’,

There are things that we can be doing, as individuals, as parts of organisations and as members of communities to positively shift the pendulum … We can all shift the pendulum … We owe it to our children, and to future generations to come to create an environment and culture of opportunity and of positivity…

 

The most recent speech, A New Way of Working, starts from the present moment and looks forward. There are few backward glances, let alone considered assessments of the Government’s policy initiatives over its seven years in office.

 

There is no mention of Minister Scullion’s maladministered Indigenous Advancement Strategy (link here). No mention of his revamped and excessively punitive Community Development Program (link here), nor of his failed efforts to improve school attendance in remote regions (link here). Nor of the reasons for, and progress of, the allocation of extra resources to program evaluation along with the ongoing Productivity Commission Inquiry into Indigenous evaluation (link here). No mention of the cuts and subsequent abolition of the Commonwealth’s remote Indigenous housing program (link here). No mention of the ongoing extraordinary incarceration rates impacting Indigenous Australians (link here), nor of the continuing disaster of out of home care for Indigenous children (link here). No mention of the Productivity Commission’s unimplemented recommendations on funding of children’s services in the NT (link here). No mention of the failure of the Government to initiate meaningful reform in the area of native title (link here). No mention of the Government’s failure to meaningfully fund the entities established by the Native Title Act, Prescribed Bodies Corporate or PBCs, to ensure that land management functions formerly undertaken by the Crown can be undertaken by native title holders over vast swathes of the Australian landmass (link here). No mention of the failure of the Commonwealth to utilise its Heritage Protection legislation to protect the Jukaan Cave from destruction (link here). No mention of the failure of the Commonwealth to publish let alone implement the still confidential recommendations of the Indigenous Reference Group established to advance the Indigenous policy agenda of the Government’s 2015 White Paper on Northern Development (link here).

 

Nor is there mention of perhaps the most successful program in remote Australia, the Indigenous Ranger Program that funds (as of 2018) 123 ranger groups and 839 (full time equivalent) locally engaged Indigenous rangers to work on country (link here). The Government announced earlier this year that it was committing $102m per annum to extend this program through to 2028 (link here). Perhaps the silence is because this is a program that deserves to be expanded by a factor of ten.

 

But success is noted, indeed, celebrated. The passage of a technical amendment to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 to fine-tune the arrangements made in 2013 for the return of the Jabiru township to Aboriginal ownership is ‘real progress’ empowering the Mirarr people to transform Jabiru from a mining town to a tourism destination.

 

I have focussed on the absence of retrospective appraisal to make the point that the impetus for the ‘new way of working’ does not appear to be due to a fundamental reassessment of the Government’s underlying policy and program approaches over the past seven years.

 

Indeed, many of the themes in the Minister’s latest speech replicate themes included in his earlier speeches summarised above. The Minister emphasises the overarching importance of hearing Indigenous voices at all levels. He talks again about codesign of policies and programs. He reasserts his intention not to make policy unilaterally (although the fact that he hasn’t shared publicly the Cabinet submissions he considers each week as a Cabinet Minister in the Government suggest we shouldn’t take the assertion too literally):

I said when I took on this portfolio that policy would not be made in my office. But it would be made with Indigenous Australians right across the country. And we are staying true to this commitment … we are partnering with Indigenous Australians and giving them an opportunity to inform and shape their own future.

 

But he isn’t prepared to rush reform, and emphasises twice the need for Indigenous citizens to be patient:

Genuine co-design takes time, trust and respect.

And

If we want to empower through shared decision making, if we want to ensure joint accountability and equal responsibility for outcomes we need to challenge the structures and institutions that have prevailed in our way of thinking for so long. This is a fundamental shift that will take time and require courage.

 

This policy of hastening slowly mirrors the arguments in his Press Club speech that constitutional recognition would take time and should not be rushed, and in his Lingiari Address that both constitutional recognition and the Indigenous Voice are too important to be rushed.

 

The core message in A New Way of Working is laid out early in the speech:

For decades we have strived to close the gap – to banish Indigenous disadvantage to the history books. We have made modest gains in some areas, but for far too many Indigenous Australians we have fallen behind.

This isn’t through lack of good will and intention. This isn’t through lack of funding and programmes. I would argue that many of the resources are there – but what we have always struggled with is the failure to realise sustained and improved change.

Therefore, what is the most pressing issue before us when we look at how to approach Indigenous affairs? For me, it’s ensuring that the next generation of Indigenous Australians aren’t framed by disadvantage – but by opportunity.

Social opportunity. Economic opportunity. Corporate Opportunity.

This is why we need a new way of working with Indigenous Australians.

 

This focus on pursuing and grasping opportunity is framed as an objective that is the responsibility of individuals and that governments can only facilitate.

 

The sleight of hand here is to create a false binary between government policy and programs and individual responsibility. The Minister is making the case for less government, less policy, and less funding. The mechanism that he is constructing to mediate individual aspirations and responsibility is a notional, all-encompassing, heterogeneous, and innately diffuse Indigenous Voice:

If we are failing to ensure adequate living conditions for some of our most vulnerable Australians then simply put – we are failing to hear their voices. That’s why we are developing an Indigenous voice.

It’s more than a voice to Parliament, and more than a voice to government. [emphasis added]

It is an acknowledgment that at a local level right through to our nation’s capital - the views of Indigenous Australians matter. It will be a voice for the youngest Indigenous Australian through to our Elders, Traditional Owners and Leaders. It is empowerment.

 

Two pillars support this framing. First is an impassioned plea for Indigenous economic development:

We need to continue to unlock the economic potential right across this nation ….This is key to ensuring lasting prosperity, and key to transforming communities and ensuring that they are able to take advantage of emerging opportunities in industry to create meaningful long-term jobs …. Empowering them to realise their economic potential.

 

The second pillar is an argument that conceptualises the role of government — in this new world of ‘shared responsibility’ that extends beyond governments to all Indigenous citizens — as not being to increase current efforts to directly engage in improving economic status, or reducing disadvantage, or addressing the social determinants of poor health. After all, as the Minister asserts, lack of progress ‘isn’t through lack of funding and programmes’. Rather, the role of government is to create opportunity:

…it’s our task to create the environment to realise their dreams and ambitions. That is the role of government – one that empowers, allows self-determination and supports enterprise. This is government saying we trust Indigenous Australians to make decisions that will lead to improved outcomes.

 

Of course, there is a place for governments to facilitate opportunity, but not to the exclusion of the core tasks of government: funding and delivering basic services; responding to the legitimate aspirations of citizens, and working to create a society built on institutions and social structures that are in the public interest.

 

If my reading of the Ministers speech is correct, this is indeed a far-reaching policy agenda. It is not new, but is arguably a sharper and more overt justification and rationale for what has effectively been the Coalition Government Indigenous policy settings since it came to office. It implicitly seeks to justify policy inaction, shifting policy and funding responsibilities to the states and territories wherever possible, the substantial budget reductions and policy reversals since 2013, and the failure to step up and substantively address the investment implications of sustained disadvantage. Most importantly, it appears to implicitly seek to justify ongoing social and political structural exclusion through the use of rhetorical tropes designed to resonate with Indigenous citizens: self-determination, empowerment, and listening to as yet unheard voices.

 

Governments are elected to govern, and they should be prepared to provide open and transparent explanations of their policies.

 

When governments claim everyone is responsible, or accountable, or to be heard, then no-one is responsible, accountable or heard. Governments are elected to make choices — that is what policy is all about — not to invent and promulgate rhetorical rationales for not making them.

 

Accordingly, rhetoric such as this:

From the Prime Minister, through to all of my Cabinet Colleagues, we all share the responsibility to realise a better future for Indigenous Australians – we are all Ministers for Indigenous Australians – and through our new approach we will realise improved employment, education and health outcomes.

And we share this responsibility with every Indigenous Australian – we welcome their input, ideas and visions...

should be seen for what it is: an abrogation of responsibility, and a cynical exercise in raising expectations that will inevitably be dashed.

 

Finally, the Minister’s recent speech descends into a vortex of seemingly politically inspired inconsistency, defending public debate, but criticising those who protest; criticising lateral violence (which I take to mean ad hominem criticism of Indigenous citizens by other indigenous citizens), but then criticising ‘the left’ :

To achieve real progress we also need honest debate. Debate that is unencumbered by partisan positions that show little respect for the matter at hand.

For far too long our people have been subject to lateral violence, which compounds systemic racism experienced by some in our community. Perpetrated from within. Perpetrated by those claiming to help our people. And most viciously by those on the Left.

 

It is not clear what the Minister is seeking to achieve with these comments, and by also citing (in text I have not included here) an associated list of epithets thrown at him by unnamed Indigenous critics. It reads as an attempt to pre-emptively take out insurance against potential critics. And seems to suggest an overly partisan perspective on the world.

 

There is a place for partisan politics, but in my (perhaps old fashioned) view, not in a major policy speech which normally seeks to make a persuasive case that the Government’s policy approach is directed to advancing the broader public interest.

 

The bottom line is that the Government is seven years into its tenure, and may well be on track to stay in office for another seven years.

 

My summary analysis is that under the previous Minister (Scullion), the policy framework in Indigenous affairs was essentially to reverse pre-existing policies that challenged the Government’s ideological perspectives, but resist or defer any proposals for institutional change, particularly if they involve new expenditure. But most importantly, the core tactic was to keep shifting position on the cynical but largely correct assumption that a moving target will avoid the day of reckoning. There is no better example of this than the myriad obfuscations and shifting stances by Minister Scullion on the question of renewing the national partnership on remote housing, documented extensively in previous posts on this Blog (link here).

 

The current Minister, 16 months into his tenure, appears to be adopting a similar policy approach. It will not work at a substantive level to improve the wellbeing of disadvantaged Indigenous citizens. And the longer the Government is in office, the ploy of presenting a moving target will become less effective.

 

Consider the two most salient examples: the recent National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here) and the proposed Indigenous Voice (link here).

 

The recent National Agreement on Closing the Gap reflects a determined and arguably successful push by the Commonwealth (link here) to reframe the narrative on Closing the Gap from one of Commonwealth failure to one where the states are primarily responsible for meeting renewed targets. The Commonwealth and the states have committed to an ambitious structural reform agenda built around ongoing policy engagement with the Coalition of Peaks, but the hard work both on targets and on structural reform has been pushed into the future, while the political narrative for the Government will change immediately. And so far at least, all without the necessary extra investment towards meeting those less than ambitious targets.

 

The proposed Indigenous Voice, since 2017 when the Uluru Statement for the Heart put forward an Indigenous initiated proposal for a Voice to Parliament to be entrenched in the Constitution, the Government’s public stance has meandered through three manifestations. First, it was a straight-out ‘no’ to a voice to parliament, and a ‘no’ to constitutional entrenchment. Then it shifted to acceptance of a voice to government (not parliament), but not to entrenchment. And finally to the latest formulation, a voice that ‘is more than a voice to parliament and a voice to government’, based on a process of ‘codesign’  involving three committees, government appointed members, an opaque process, limited terms of reference, and no apparent timeline for a final government decision.

 

There is something Orwellian about a new way of working that revolves around the assertion that the views of Indigenous citizens at all levels matter, but that refuses — under the guise of running a flawed and convoluted codesign process — to implement a proposal for an Indigenous Voice with extensive Indigenous input and wide support. A way of working that actively seeks to shift policy and funding responsibilities to the states and territories, as if the 1967 referendum allocating legislative powers to the Commonwealth is a dead letter. A way of working that seeks to persuade Indigenous Australians that the primary role of government is to create opportunity, with the unstated implication that continuing Indigenous disadvantage or exclusion is a failure by Indigenous citizens to grasp the opportunities provided. A way of working that purports to take responsibility (‘we are all Ministers for Indigenous Australians’) but in reality avoids the admittedly hard decisions required to address ongoing Indigenous exclusion.

 

 

 

 

Disclosure: Given the topic of this post, it is appropriate that I remind readers that while I have never been a member of a political party, I was a former adviser to Minister Jenny Macklin from 2008 to 2010.