Cataclysm and crisis: the two sides of the policy tragedy engulfing remote northern Australia

 

This bodes some strange eruption to our state

Hamlet Act 1, scene 1.

 

Over the past two years, it has been increasingly apparent that remote communities across the north have been struggling. There has been an ongoing surge in youth crime across East Kimberley communities, particularly in Halls Creek , Fitzroy Crossing, Derby, Kununurra and elsewhere. A recent article in WA Today (link here) states:

A surge in crime across the Kimberley has been partly attributed to social media, with youths filming themselves stealing cars and challenging others. More than 300 children have been charged with offences in the region during 2022, according to figures tabled in parliament.

 

According to a January 2022 ABC news story (link here):

A surge in alcohol-fuelled crime across the Kimberley during the New Year's Eve long weekend has pushed frontline workers to the brink and angered residents who woke up to violence outside their homes. A steady stream of injuries and arrests from a night of relentless brawling in Kununurra overwhelmed paramedics, hospital staff and police officers for hours on New Year's Eve.

 

The same article reported:

In Derby, police attended more than 50 alcohol-fuelled family violence and assault incidents on New Year's Eve alone. Senior Sergeant Dave Whitnell took to Facebook the following day to announce temporary alcohol restrictions, barring the sale of spirits and full-strength beer. He told ABC Radio the restrictions had an immediate impact, giving frontline workers some respite for the rest of the long weekend.

 

In May 2022, the WA Government sent and extra 24 police to the region in Operation Regional Shield ‘to address soaring youth crime rates and criminal violence in the region’. The Operation identified over 600 ‘at risk’ children (link here). Just last week, a crisis meeting in Halls Creek of senior WA Government officials and the Halls Creek Shire met to discuss option to address the ongoing crime wave (link here). The headline says it all: ‘Kimberley crime wave prompts more police and youth 'social hub' to be built’.

 

Yet these issues are not limited just to the Kimberley nor to Western Australia.

 

In late April 2022, ABC news reported (link here) that in Wadeye in The NT:

dozens of homes have been destroyed in recent weeks, amid widespread unrest. Police said 37 homes have been extensively damaged in the past three weeks, with efforts underway to "support and relocate some of the vulnerable". About 400 people, who were living in the overcrowded homes, are seeking refuge in the bush on the fringes of the community,

 

In July, the ABC reported (link here) that the NT Government had established a Task Force to assist the 545 people who had been displaced and  oversight repairs to the 125 houses that had been damaged since March (including at least 35 destroyed). Yesterday (9 December 2022), ABC news reported (link here) that the NT Police Commissioner stated that:

around five per cent of the community of just under 2000 people is currently in jail, following police operations both in Wadeye and Darwin.

The article also commented on the role of alcohol in contributing to the ongoing unrest:

As part of a four-week operation beginning in October, police roadblocks were set up to crack down on alcohol being smuggled into the dry community….Since the police roadblocks were removed, Thamarurr Development Corporation chief executive, Scott McIntyre, said he believed alcohol-fuelled violence had increased again. "[The operation] had a big impact on reducing the amount of alcohol coming into the community," he said.

 

According to the ABC, in November, for the second time in a month, access to the Alice Springs CBD was closed off by police due to an uncontrolled surge in vehicle thefts and misuse within the CBD (link here). The NT Police Commissioner sent in 40 additional police to manage the situation.

 

Last week the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs held public hearings in Darwin and Alice Springs as part of its Inquiry into Community Safety, Support Services and Job Opportunities in the Northern Territory. The Hansard transcript is not yet available. An ABC news article (link here) reported that the Committee heard evidence of an upsurge in alcohol related domestic violence, an increase in hospital presentations involving alcohol and violence, and calls for the reinstatement of alcohol bans that were lifted earlier this year.

 

A written submission to the Committee from the Alice Springs community advocacy group, the People's Alcohol Action Coalition presents persuasive data backing up the evidence provided to the Committee (link here).Amongst other things, this submission demolishes comprehensively the disingenuous rationale provided previously by a number of NT Ministers that the continuation of the previous alcohol restrictions would breach the Racial Discrimination Act.

 

Clearly, the crisis engulfing northern Australian remote communities and towns is widespread, long lasting, and ongoing. Its causes are undoubtedly complex and the consequences for the victims of violence and social chaos far reaching and serious.

 

Yet the media reports listed above (and many I have not cited) rarely reach national attention, and if they do, they do not lead to more than a transitory response by governments aimed at downplaying their significance and more often than not framing them as isolated instances of aberrant behaviour. Rarely is there any detailed Government commentary or policy analysis seeking to explain the deeper causes, and to deepen community understanding of the conditions facing most remote Indigenous communities. This reluctance reinforces the apparent incapacity or unwillingness of governments to pursue policies directed to ameliorating underlying and systemic issues and to adequately fund the sort of services required. Instead, governments appear determined to sequestrate the social and economic chaos and insulate mainstream communities from any detailed understanding of what is transpiring effectively out of sight and out of mind.

 

Stepping into the grandstand, it is apparent that this ongoing crisis has multiple facets. It has been developing for at least two decades, and the gross levels of under-investment in basic services by governments within communities (along with active policy antipathy to supporting remote communities) has seen an inexorable shift in population towards towns and away from the bush.  While the crisis is geographically dynamic, waxing and waning in particular locations, it is also functionally dynamic, exhibiting different characteristics (symptoms if you like) and concomitantly having multiple repercussions and ramifications. To give readers just a sense of this, I thought I would list the various posts I’ve written on different aspects of the remote crisis over the past two years. I don’t claim that this is any where near a comprehensive account, reflecting as it does my own interests and limited expertise.

 

Over the past two years, I have written numerous posts on this blog on the following topics (in bold) related to remote Australia. I have included underneath the title of each post (without context or attribution) key points made in that post:

 

Deflection and inaction: the Australian Government’s formal response to the Productivity Commission Review on Expenditure on Children in the Northern Territory 27 May 2021 (link here).

… What is crystal clear — even from a cursory reading of the report — is that the system for funding and delivering children’s services in the NT is not fit for purpose….the Government’s response is deflection rather than action. It reflects the deep-seated inability of governments to come to terms with the deep structural issues confronting disadvantaged Australians in remote regions.

 

Regulating Alcohol in the Northern Territory: in whose interest? 9 June 2021 (link here).

My recommendation to the NT Government is that they should take the opportunity of the publication of this report to undertake a fundamental reconsideration of their policy approach to alcohol regulation. To do otherwise will be to deepen their complicity in an entirely preventable scourge that is taking a terrible toll on many Territorians, including a substantial proportion of Indigenous Territorians.

[In relation to the Australian Government] Silence and sitting on the fence is not an adequate response to the ongoing health crisis linked to alcohol abuse across the NT and beyond.

 

A strong start for every Indigenous child: early childhood policy and deep disadvantage 9 August 2021 (link here).

Nonetheless, almost all trends pertaining to child health and well-being in Australia are worse for Indigenous Australian children (Wise, 2013[38]). In addition, a clear gradient is evident of increasing disadvantage the further children live from major cities (Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre, 2017[39]). …  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in remote Australia are more likely to experience a lack of access to appropriate services, known to mediate the impact of adversity in early childhood (SNAICC, 2020[40]).

 

Energy insecurity in remote Australia 13 January 2022 (link here).

Indigenous communities in remote Australia face dangerous temperature extremes. These extremes are associated with increased risk of mortality and ill health …. Poor quality housing, low incomes, poor health and energy insecurity associated with prepayment all exacerbate the risk of temperature-related harm … We find that nearly all households (91%) experienced a disconnection from electricity during the 2018–2019 financial year. Almost three quarters of households (74%) were disconnected more than ten times. …

 

See How We Roll [book review] 24 January 2022 (link here).

In the perilous movement of people through time and space, both places and kin are made and remade. A primary driver of movement is the opportunistic pursuit of resources: a meal, an adventurous ride, the numbing release of alcohol or ganja, the conviviality of assembled kin … All of these forms of Warlpiri movement, no matter their diversity, never seem to be in search of a destination per se.

 

Indigenous land and economic development in northern Australia 14 February 2022 (link here).

The bottom line arising from a closer reading of the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia’s report, …. is to reinforce how little the government has done since coming to office in 2013 to encourage the inclusion of Indigenous landowners and communities in economic activity.

 

The Commonwealth is taking us headlong into a remote policy chasm: but who cares? 18 February 2022 (link here).

In relation to alcohol, such an outcome would remove the alcohol regulation framework currently in place, and implicitly shift regulatory responsibility to the NTG. The SFNT policy framework was primarily focussed on harm minimisation. Any shift of responsibility to the NTG will introduce a number of levels of uncertainty.

 

The ANAO performance audit of the NIAA NT Remote Housing program 2 March 2022 (link here).

Of course, the more fundamental issue here is that the Commonwealth is the underlying owner of the assets, that are scheduled to revert to direct Commonwealth control in 2023. Yet it is deliberately underinvesting in the PTM, which means that the assets degrade faster than they should, will need to be replaced earlier than should, and the tenants (real families with real needs) will continue to live in sub-optimal conditions longer than they should. These are the nuts and bolts of structural racism, laid out in plain view by the ANAO, but not reflected in its findings or recommendations.

 

The ongoing social and governance catastrophe in remote Australia. 8 May 2022 (link here).

Remote Australia requires a ‘new deal’. It requires significantly increased government investment. Most importantly, it requires greater and more effective engagement with remote residents based on acknowledging their prior ownership, their violent dispossession, and an acknowledgment that mainstream Australia is the source of the fundamental disruption that is creating ongoing chaos. The ubiquitous assumption amongst mainstream Australia’s institutions dealing with remote Australia has been that the past is irrelevant and that we should all just look forward. This assumption has not worked and mainstream Australians need to be smart enough to rethink our fundamental approaches to the interaction of the nation state with remote communities.

 

Neil Westbury article on regressive changes to remote alcohol laws in the NT 3 June 2022 (link here).

In these circumstances, the current NT Government appears to have decided that rather than maintaining a system — based on their own reluctance to effectively regulate alcohol in towns — where remote residents who wish to drink have an incentive to come into town, they have decided to shift the problems back to remote communities.

 

Paying the rent: policy or politics? 26 July 2022 (link here).

…the structural issues that pervade the remote housing sector. These include gross and longstanding underinvestment by governments in addressing overcrowding, and in ensuring that existing remote housing assets are adequately managed and maintained…. In my view, the responsibility for addressing these issues falls primarily to the Commonwealth for three reasons. First, housing is central to much of the structural dysfunction that exists in remote Australia, and involves complex interaction between functional responsibilities of all three levels of government. In particular, the social security system is central to the administration of social housing in remote Australia…

 

Alcohol policy reform in remote Australia: a potential roadmap 14 August 2022 (link here).

…corporate alcohol interests have a stranglehold or veto over policy initiatives designed to address or mitigate the consequences of alcohol misuse. Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s reluctance to engage with these issues, the Commonwealth does have a policy responsibility. It is clear that the issues involved are structural and extend beyond any one state or territory. On its own this suggests that Commonwealth action may be necessary.

 

Conclusion

 

The succession of media reports over the past two years (and in fact the previous twenty years) makes it clear that there is an ongoing cataclysm across remote northern Australia. I hope my posts over the past two years commenting on a succession of more detailed policy reports, documents and events makes out a persuasive case that from a normative policy perspective, governments are failing to coherently and comprehensively address this ongoing cataclysm. The inability of governments to envisage, understand and put in place effective strategies to address the multiple facets of the economic and social cataclysm facing remote communities amounts to a massive and fundamental failure. This failure is in and of itself a crisis; a crisis of governance capability, a crisis of will power, and ultimately a crisis of government legitimacy.

 

The implication that inevitably follows is that the solutions (for they will inevitably be multiple) must go beyond focussing on a single issue (housing, or health or food security or alcohol, or crime, or education, or incarceration, or unemployment or economic development, or land tenure, or dispossession or the impact of colonisation). The solutions if they are to be effective must simultaneously and comprehensive make significant inroads into all of these issues. This is an enormous and extraordinary challenge confronting the nation. It is a challenge that appears to be either incomprehensible or inconceivable to governments and policymakers, yet it is extraordinarily real nevertheless not least to the lives of thousands of Australian citizens it adversely impacts.

 

Addressing it will require a national effort that starts from a premise of constructive engagement with Indigenous citizens and their representative and advocacy organisations, that renounces the use of simplistic and punitive policies, and that emanates from a consensus that transcends the limited imagination of governments and included civil society more generally.