Unattainable expectations

 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises

All’s Well that Ends Well, Act two, Scene one.

 

On 26 December 2023, The Australian ran a front page story headed ‘Voice “not my loss” Albanese declares’. 

 

In unscripted commentary made while serving lunch at a charity, the Prime Minister was apparently asked about his year and ‘some big losses’ such as the defeat of the Voice. According to The Australian, the Prime Minister replied:

Oh, no, no, no, no, very important to call that out. I am not Indigenous, so it wasn’t a loss for me. That stays exactly the same the way it is. I do think that it was disappointing for First Nations people but they’re used to you know, getting the, they’re used to hardship. It’s been the case for 200 years, and they are resilient and we will continue to do what we can to provide for closing the gap. But it’s one of the things about this debate, it was never about politicians, it was actually about the most disadvantaged people in our society.

 

On the Prime Minister’s media webpage (link here), there is an entry for the event, and a short transcript. However, it does not include these comments.

 

The Australian’s take on the comments was, in effect, to state the obvious: that the referendum defeat was a loss for him. Journalist Greg Brown commented that the PM’s claim ignored the enormous political capital he burned and ignored the fact that the referendum result ‘has left him without a policy agenda for Indigenous Australians more than halfway into a term of government’.

 

I raise the Prime Minister’s comments to focus not on the political jostling that is clearly occurring, but rather on some underlying implications for Indigenous policy. The first implication worth noting is his comment that ‘we will do what we can’ to close the gap. Embedded within this cautious phrasing is a deep-seated lack of ambition, and reluctance to ‘do what we must’ to close the gap. It may seem like semantic hair-splitting, but unfortunately the Prime Minister’s comments align exactly with the approach adopted by the Government.

 

If we take the view (as I do) that policy is what governments do, (not what they say they do), then clearly there is a government policy agenda. The problem is that they do not feel able to articulate it. They have no coherent narrative.

 

The core elements of the current Government’s Indigenous policy appear to be to keep their heads down, maintain a regular flow of small dollops of funding to a wide array of Indigenous groups (this was an underlying reason the previous government abolished multiple programs and merged them into the Indigenous Advancement Strategy), push financial responsibilities to the states and territories wherever they can (most notably under the rubric of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, a holdover from the previous government), and when in a tight spot, to buy time through resort to more consultation. When cornered by a crisis, they will allocate extra funding, the quantum carefully calibrated to ensure it is modest but can’t be criticised as too parsimonious. We saw this approach in the response to the crisis in Alice Springs last year. A brief summary is provided in the NIAA 2023-24 Corporate plan (link here), See also this previous post (link here) which predated the Government’s response package.

 

Apart from its support for a Voice, it is difficult to see any substantive difference between the policy approach adopted by the current Government and the previous LNP Government. The past decade of Indigenous policy has overwhelmingly been characterised by the prioritisation of rhetoric over substantive action. In terms of policy ambition, we have had what might be called bipartisan mediocrity.

 

The absence of a narrative describing a substantive policy framework that the Government feels able to talk about openly and without resorting to doublespeak is a double tragedy. A tragedy for Indigenous Australia, but also a tragedy for all Australians (whatever their background) who are required to live in a nation that is prepared to leave a significant proportion of its population in significant physical, social and economic distress.

 

The second implication embedded in the Prime Minister’s comments is more abstract, and yet to my mind enormously important. I particularly focus on his comment that he is not Indigenous and thus not impacted. Taking the Prime Minister literally, he is saying that the Voice (and by implication all Indigenous policy including closing the gap) are matters solely for Indigenous people. Unsurprisingly, this is a widely accepted view amongst Indigenous people. It is also extremely prevalent amongst many of their allies and supporters with politically progressive inclinations. I take a different, and more nuanced, view.

 

Just as Indigenous policy should not be a matter left exclusively to non-Indigenous policy makers, nor should it be left exclusively to Indigenous people. In fact, if one thinks about it, government policies even when framed as being directed to a specific group (e.g. pensioners, or home-owners) necessarily impacts all citizens: those policies have financial costs which fall on taxpayers; those costs also have opportunity costs (ie the dollars for one policy might be better spent elsewhere); and they may expand the freedom of action of the intended beneficiaries, but limit the freedom of action of other groups, both in the present, but also in the future. For these reasons, the development of policies is subject to multiple process gateways, both within the bureaucracy and then in the parliament, all designed to ensure that policy design meets the needs of all interests affected by a proposed policy. Policy implementation is also oversighted by institutions such as the Auditor General and parliamentary estimates committees.

 

The same principles and constraints hold for the development and implementation of Indigenous policy. The wider and deeper the remit of any policy initiative, the more important these processes are, and the less likely that governments will give up their power to make final decisions.

 

Of course, the primary intended beneficiaries of a policy should have a strong involvement in the development of the policy, but in a well working (inclusive) system of governance it is impossible for any single interest group to have a monopoly over all aspects of shaping and determining policy.

 

In contrast, and unfortunately from my perspective, embedded within the Prime Minister’s comments on the loss of the referendum is a view that Indigenous policy is something that only concerns Indigenous people. It is not how our system should work, and nor is it how our system works most of the time. I should quickly add that while I am focussing on the Prime Minister’s comments, they are salient not only because he is the Prime Minister (though that is an element) but precisely because they are widely shared across the political spectrum and have deep penetration both within First Nations circles and the wider non-Indigenous community.

 

One consequence of the Prime Minister’s perspective (which conservatives would describe as ‘woke’) is that it raises Indigenous expectations beyond the point that the system can or will deliver. This process of raising expectations rather than being honest with Indigenous people has been going on for decades. It is built into the DNA of our political system. The reality, however, is that the myriad interests and interest groups that inhabit our political and policy ecosystem will not willingly allow one interest group unfettered influence over policy, because that would have the consequence of opening the door to future adverse decisions against those interests acceding to the change. The Prime Minister knows this too, in his head, in his heart, and in his bootstraps.

 

The promulgation of a narrative that the Voice was solely for, or about, Indigenous Australians, or that Closing the Gap is solely about Indigenous Australians, is both incorrect, but also insidiously destructive as it involves a deliberate disjunction between rhetoric and underlying substantive intent. It is also destructive, because it gives non-Indigenous citizens permission to avert their gaze, to take no notice and to not give a fig about the state of Indigenous Australia. To have the Prime Minister effectively reinforce these propensities is immensely retrograde. It places a question mark over the extent of the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to closing the gap.

 

It is very easy (and unfortunately commonplace) for politicians to promise one thing and deliver less. However, it is in my view egregiously short-sighted and destructive of trust in our system of government for politicians to implicitly promise degrees of influence and engagement over policy development to any segment of the community that they know will not be met, not now, not in the future, never.

 

Unfortunately, from time to time, democratic governments do succumb to granting special interests extraordinary or near total influence over policy development. It happens because powerful interests find ways to insinuate themselves into the political system. When this occurs, it is termed ‘state capture’ and once uncovered (it invariably operates in secrecy) it is widely condemned. While he most extraordinary example of this in recent times is in South Africa (link here and link here), Australia is not immune (link here and link here). The reality is, however, that Indigenous interests do not posses the power and resources to even come close to capturing the state, notwithstanding the extravagant apoplexy which emanates from some quarters of the public sphere whenever there is talk of advancing the inclusion of Indigenous interests. Any greater inclusion of Indigenous interests will inevitably require the implicit agreement of a broad consensus of other interests within the Australian political settlement.

 

Conclusion

To sum up, I accept that I am making a somewhat nuanced argument. To make it more real, what would I have had the Prime Minister say?

 

First, given the political capital he invested in supporting the Voice, it does not ring true to say that he did not lose the political debate. But democracy is built on dialogue and debate, and ideally on reaching consensus. But when consensus doesn’t emerge, it is inevitable that there are people whose views are set aside. Losing is an essential element of a democratic system and is not any less honourable than winning. More importantly though, he should have stated that the Voice was an important initiative to improve our democratic system, that First Nations people were (and still are) structurally silenced in various ways and the Voice would have ensured that First Nations had the opportunity to formally express their views on major policy, and Parliament and the Executive would have had the opportunity to hear their views and concerns. Our democratic system, and thus all citizens, would have benefitted, not just First Nations. 

 

Of course, the significant policy implication embedded in this conclusion is that the structural silencing of Indigenous interests continues. This too should be a matter of concern for all Australians, not just First Nations. It is an outcome that is not assisted by adopting slick approaches based on rhetorical ambition and substantive policy mediocrity. Fixing that is an attainable expectation!

 

 

03 January 2024