If it be now, ’tis not to
come; if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will
come: the readiness is all.
Hamlet
Act 5, scene 2.
The excellent online journal Inside Story has just published my review of the recently published
Gija Dictionary (link here). I won’t summarise the review here, but will
leave it to readers to read for yourselves.
The review points to larger policy issues for our nation: do
we wish to incrementally slide into a mono-cultural and mono-lingual future, and
if not, what will be required to ensure that we don’t. The languages of First
Nations are in this respect a special case, as they are in most cases highly
vulnerable to falling into disuse.
This raises the question: just what is the Commonwealth
doing to support Indigenous languages? The answer is not easy to ascertain. The
NIAA website contains virtually no reference to the support of languages, not
any cross reference to the primary finding agency, the Office of the Arts in
the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,
Communications and the Arts. The Office of the Arts funds the ILA, the Indigenous
Languages and Arts Program with around $25m per annum (link
here). A fact sheet dated July 2022 on the Department’s website (link
here) outlines the following objectives for the ILA:
The
ILA program provides grant funding to support the following objectives: · Capture, revitalise and sustain
Indigenous languages ·
Develop, produce, present, exhibit or perform a diverse range of traditional
and contemporary Indigenous art forms · Support new and innovative forms of
Indigenous cultural expression through arts · Contribute to the Australian Government’s
priorities and outcomes for Aboriginal languages, including those under Target
16 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap and the International Decade of
Indigenous Languages 2022–2032.
The Fact Sheet also tells us that the ILA funds ‘around 117
projects that support a wide variety of community-based Indigenous languages
and arts activities, including a network of 23 Indigenous Language Centres
throughout the country.’ What is not clear is how much of the $27m is directed
to language support.
In relation to Closing the Gap, the Fact sheet states:
The
National Agreement on Closing the Gap now includes a dedicated outcome and a
target for Indigenous languages in Australia over the next ten years: · Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
cultures and languages are strong, supported and flourishing (Outcome 16) · By 2031, there is a sustained increase in
number and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages being
spoken (Target 16).
Here is not the place for an extended critique of Closing
the Gap targets, but I cant resist observing that this target is next to useless,
and appears designed as mere rhetorical virtue signalling. Why not measure the comparative
rates of fluency in multiple languages amongst First Nations and mainstream
citizens? Or the numbers of Indigenous speakers of Indigenous languages?
Hopefully the current review of Closing the Gap by the Productivity Commission (link
here) will address this issue amongst others.
For those interested in what A Walking Shadow believes the Productivity Commission Review of Closing
the Gap should focus on in its review, I recommend you consult my detailed submission
to the review available on the review website (link
here). It is submission number five. It argues for a much more robust
approach to Priority Reform Three (see below) and for a focussed process of
identifying the actual implementation strategies of the states and territories to
implementing the National Agreement on Closing the Gap Agreement.
While it would be theoretically feasible to obtain funding
allocations for Indigenous language Centres by accessing individual language
centre annual reports to the various corporate regulators and/or via the Government’s
GrantConnect website, this would be time consuming and frustrating. Whatever
the amount (my speculative guess is around $10m per annum), or the price of say
eight houses in one of our capital cities, it seems quite inadequate given the
implications of cumulative language loss in the past, and it seems, into the
future. Deliberate opacity by government was the hallmark of the previous Government,
but seems to have been automatically carried over by the current Government.
A proactive Government and proactive Ministers concerned to
promulgate their social justice credentials would ensure that their agency
websites are clear, accessible and that program transparency is maximised. In
particular, the NIAA website is in urgent need of a major overhaul aimed at
improving accessibility, transparency and in particular, aimed at enhancing linkages
to Indigenous funding programs in mainstream agencies (such as ILA) which
require sustained attention and monitoring by virtue of the fact that under Priority
Reform Three of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link
here), the Government parties committed to, inter alia:
Increase accountability
through transparent funding allocations – Improve transparency
of resource allocation to, and distribution by, mainstream institutions in
relation to dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service‑delivery.
To sum up, the future of the nation’s unique linguistic heritage
is at risk. This issue deserves significant and sustained support from Governments
in terms of funding, but also in terms of placing it at the centre of public
discourse. The Commonwealth is making a modest contribution (though we can’t
determine just how modest), but provides virtually no quality information on
what it is doing, how effective its programs are, what are the real risks to individual
languages, and what others such as philanthropies and corporates could be doing
to strengthen and sustain that living heritage. Closing the Gap is one of the
means Governments utilise to assuage community concerns about the quality of Indigenous
policy. But this process too has its shortcomings and implementation
challenges. And Governments are deeply addicted to the provision of minimal transparency.
Three separate, but intricately linked issues.
I happen to take the view that it would be a tragedy if bureaucratic
obfuscation, or political short-sightedness and game-playing were to contribute
to the irrevocable further loss of the first languages spoken in Australia.
Policy proactivity is essential. Transparency assists policy effectiveness. Readiness
is all.
Mike this is a very compelling post in large part because it is foregrounded by your detailed and evocative case study of what is at stake in relation to just one language, Gija in the East Kimberley. The Australian continent was populated by small groups and extraordinary linguistic diversity. This is anathema to modern state-making (as argued persuasively by political scientists like James Scott and linguists like Nicholas Evans) that most definitely favours monolingualism. I remember a linguistics conference at the ANU a few years back with the catch cry 'monolingualism is curable'. Is it curable in Australia? Well like truth-telling about frontier violence, we as a nation have a certain blindness and need to acknowledge both the richness and sophistication of Aboriginal languages and the destructive impact of colonisation in the past and present on their survival, especially in the monolingual school system everywhere including in regions like the East Kimberley. As First Nations peoples in Australia look both here and elsewhere, they see the cultural and political power and wellbeing spinoffs associated with language, so proper support has to be in the mix as a key element in an equitable policy framework. On concrete proposal: in annual closing the gap reporting that invariably focuses on deficits, also report areas where Indigenous Australians clearly outperform others: I remember once calculating relative outcomes in the NT using census data from 2006 and 2011 to illustrate some concerning decline in indicators reflecting Indigenous wellbeing after the supposedly cure all NTER: on one metric, ‘Indigenous language spoken at home’ Indigenous people stood out, by a relative ratio of about 400:1. Let's celebrate such positive outcomes indicating resilience and what matters from an Indigenous standpoint and see if we can build on them with realistic investments..
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