“Don’t you worry about that”: a further Groote issues update

                        Cassius: Did Cicero say any thing? Casca: Ay, he spoke Greek. 

Cassius: To what effect? Casca: Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again; but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.

Julius Ceasar, Act one, Scene two.

Estimates: On 7 June 2024, the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee convened to examine the financial estimates in relation to Cross-Portfolio Indigenous matters (link here). Senator David Pocock directed some sustained questions to both the NIAA officials and to the Anindilyakwa Land Council (ALC) and its CEO Mark Hewitt. Both the NIAA and ALC appeared quite uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

On these issues, the key takeouts from my perspective were as follows:

The core issues pursued by Senator Pocock were (a) the conflict of interest that the ALC CEO, Mark Hewitt has by virtue of holding simultaneous positions as CEO of the ALC, as an unpaid Executive Director of Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (which funds infrastructure associated with the proposed mine) and as the co-CEO of Winchelsea Mining; and (b) the degree of disclosure made in relation to the October 2023 proposal from Mr Hewitt to the Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC) which owns 70 percent of Winchelsea Mining for him to be gifted ten percent equity in Winchelsea Mining.

NIAA confirmed that following the media revelations in early 2024, the Integrity Group has commissioned an ‘independent’ review of the implementation of the May 2023 ANAO audit recommendations by an accounting firm based in Canberra, Bellchambers Barrett. What they haven’t done is commission a forensic audit of the tangled web of influence and money flows between the ALC, and several local corporations providing funding to Winchelsea Mining and towards logistics infrastructure for the proposed mine. It is unclear how independent the reviewer can be given its business model is focussed on providing consulting services to government, it provided a ‘draft report’ to the NIAA before Estimates, and the terms of reference are extremely narrow.

NIAA failed to answer Senator Pocock’s question on whether the Minister had been briefed on Mr Hewitt’s conflicts of interest dating back to his involvement on both sides of the negotiation of a mining lease to Winchelsea in 2020. While formal recusal arrangements were put in place, it is unclear how they could work in practice, and whether the recusal arrangements also applied to the then ALC Chair and to his wife who I understand is also an ALC Board member.

When asked about why the CEO had not stepped aside, the NIAA responded that this is a matter for the ALC Board. However, as I have documented on this blog previously, there is a risk that individuals associated with the ALC exercise significant control over ALC Directors by virtue of the existence of a discretionary mechanism to provide former Directors with generous financial benefits (see the discussion of the Anindilyakwa Leaders Future Fund Aboriginal Corporation (ALFFAC) in an earlier post (link here). This is a matter that should be of concern to the Minister and the NIAA given their regulatory oversight responsibilities for portfolio bodies such as the ALC.

When the ALC appeared before the committee, the new Chair, Ms  Cherelle Wurrawilya stated unequivocally that the ALC Board was aware of the recent media allegations and stated that ‘the ALC board completely supports the work of our CEO, Mr Mark Hewitt. He has been our CEO for 13 years and is working hard to deliver the future that we, the Anindilyakwa people, want for our community.’ There was no reference to the 235 signatories to the Petition tabled before the previous Estimates Hearing.

Senator Pocock then asked the ALC CEO to outline how he dealt with conflicts of interest. The answers revolved around leaving the ALC Board discussion while Winchelsea matters were discussed; and leaving the Directors meeting of Winchelsea while ALC matters were discussed. Apart from the fact that this ignores the possibility of matters being discussed beforehand with key Directors in both settings, he did not make clear how the other two key management personnel within Winchelsea resident on Groote, the ALC Chair and Mr  Hewitt’s wife who is also a part time ALC employee dealt with conflicts. If all three recused themselves in matters affecting AAC or the ALC or Groote interests generally, that would only leave the two Directors from AUS China International Mining Pty Ltd (who  only own 30 percent of the joint venture) making the decisions. That this would be the actual situation defies belief.

Nor did Mr Hewitt discuss the fact that while AAAC owns 70 percent of Winchelsea Mining, no AAAC Directors sit on the Winchelsea board. Instead, AAAC is ostensibly represented within Winchelsea by the (former) ALC Chair and two ALC staff (namely Mr Wurramarrba, Mr Hewitt, and Mr Hewitt’s spouse). A more likely alternative interpretation however is that it is the ALC that effectively controls AAAC and the ownership of the equity stake in Winchelsea (see the discussion of the Corporations Act definition of effective control in my previous posts: link here and link here).

Senator Pocock then pursued details in relation to the proposal put to the AAAC and Winchelsea by Mr Hewitt for Mr Hewitt and his spouse to obtain an equity position in Winchelsea (which would have diluted the AAAC holding). In particular he sought details of whether the Minister was informed. It appears that she was not, despite the fact that in the ALC response to the ANAO Audit makes clear that Mr Hewitt and/or the ALC declared potential conflicts to both Minister Scullion and Minister Wyatt at earlier decision points.  Senator Pocock also sought clarification on whether the ALC had been informed and approved the proposal (the answer here was that it had been discussed, but it appeared that there was no formal decision). Further information was to be provided on notice in relation to these matters.

At an earlier stage in the Hearing, ALP Senator Ghosh asked the NIAA a couple of (clearly pre-planned) questions regarding the functions of the Integrity Unit. The answer provided by the head of the NIAA Integrity Unit – see page 19 of the transcript -  outlined the Integrity Unit’s program of proactive intervention to ensure ubiquitous probity across he portfolio. The response was clearly designed to conjure the impression that all is under control:

we have been taking and building a far more proactive approach to the detection and management of noncompliance and fraud. As you would appreciate, it's a continually moving environment within which we're working, so we have been working to put more systems in place so that we can identify and address potential issues of noncompliance and fraud earlier in the piece. Certainly, indications from the matters that we're now dealing with are that is being more successful. We are getting involved earlier in circumstances and intervening before things do become an issue.

I was reminded of the famous quote of Jo Bjelke-Peterson: ‘don’t you worry about that’! Senator Ghosh then asked about the ALC and was advised that: 

The minister referred the media reports and concerns that were publicised earlier this year to my group for review, the objective being that we would review the information and then determine if referrals to other authorities were required. As a part of the process, I have commissioned an independent review of the land council's responses to the issues and recommendations that were raised in the ANAO report on governance. You might recall that a number of the issues raised in that ANAO report were the core of the media reports and concerns being raised. That independent review is currently underway. We expect to have a report for it finalised by the end of next month, July. It is well underway. As part of the review, I accompanied the independent reviewer to Groote Eylandt last week. I was there for three days. We met with management and the board members of ALC to gather more information as part of the review's work. It is ongoing. Once we have the report, we will see what it says.

Nothing to see here! It will be interesting to see if the Bellchambers Review finds a way to address the October 2023 proposal by Mr Hewitt for an equity share in the mine, a proposal which of course post-dates the ANAO recommendations, and thus falls outside the remit of the review.

These issues were brought into sharp relief in the following exchange (on page 39):

Senator DAVID POCOCK: But in a period of what you describe as instability, you sought to gain a shareholding and you didn't think that—it seems pretty significant—warranted disclosing. You mentioned that you disclosed conflicts of interest to Minister Scullion. You didn't think that required disclosure?

Mr Hewitt: It was an internal discussion. I simply asked the question to the board. If I were to step down as the land council CEO and focus on these large projects and optimise their success, what would be the normal standard for any other Australian in that situation?

Senator DAVID POCOCK: But you're not any other Australian. You're employed as the CEO. So I find this quite extraordinary. In hindsight, now that the legal advice was 'This is highly irregular; don't do it', do you accept that it should have been disclosed?

Mr Hewitt: I'm talking as the CEO of Winchelsea. So there are two sides to the discussion here—

Senator DAVID POCOCK: And you're on both sides.

Mr Hewitt: I manage that conflict.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: It sounds like you managed it by trying to get a shareholding, to which the legal advice was 'No, you can't do that.' But you didn't even feel the need to disclose that you were doing that.

 

Commentary

For the third consecutive Estimates hearing, the issues around the involvement of the ALC CEO (and implicitly the former ACL Chair) in the Winchelsea mine proposal have been the subject of close attention. While the issues raised most recently revolved around conflicts of interest, it is important to bear in mind what lies behind the existence of such conflicts: there are certainly risks of fraud, or of breaches of legislative provisions; there are risks of poor management and decision making, and of inequitable or unethical allocations to individuals. However, of most significance from my perspective, there are risks of poor strategic decisions built upon sub-optimal  strategic decisions arising from the existence of conflicts of interest. For example, as I have pointed out in previous posts, the ALC allocates around $60m per annum in accordance with section 64(3) of ALRA to traditional owner corporations. Taking into account the negotiated payments to the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust ( a separate entity unrelated to the ALC, but with some overlapping members) there is about a billion dollars a decade in mining related payments flowing to the Groote population. To the extent that the ALC is not exercising independent judgment on the best use of these allocations because key decisionmakers are conflicted, there is a risk of significant commercial losses and a failure to preserve a long term capital base.  This is why eliminating (and not merely managing) conflicts of interest is so important.

I wrote to the Minister on 1 March 2024 recommending to her that she take early action to address these types of risk. In particular, I recommended a forensic audit that went beyond the narrow remit of the ANAO audit, and encompassed the network of interlinked corporations funded by the ALC. I recommended a number of other actions which I considered essential while such an audit was underway. Last week (over three months later), I received a response from the NIAA CEO which acknowledged that the scope of the current review does not address all the concerns I raised, but assures me that it will provide ‘information on the progress made by the ALC to better manage governance arrangements…’ The NIAA’s CEO’s response also specifically noted that it is standard practice for the NIAA to refer matters to the appropriate Commonwealth or state and territory entities for assessment and action. Needless to say, the response does not engender much confidence that the NIAA and the Minister (who are responsible for regulatory oversight of the ALC and its role in distribution of substantial mining related payments) are adopting a proactive approach to getting on top of the issues that are clearly in play. It is now over a year since the ANAO review was published, and the NIAA would have had earlier access to the ANAO’s draft report.

It is also worth noting that the Estimates Committee appears to be failing in its overarching responsibility as a key accountability mechanism for public policy in the Indigenous portfolio domain. In contrast to Senator Pocock, neither the ALP nor the Opposition Senators on the Committee evinced much interest in understanding what is occurring on Groote nor in finding ways to address the substantial policy risks I have identified previously on this blog and summarised in this post.

It is beyond the time when the Senate should undertake a rigorous review of the operations of Estimates Committees, and consider serious reforms to ensure that discussions are much more focussed and targeted than at present. Sitting through hours of hearings reminds me more of an extended primary school ‘show and tell’ session than a serious attempt to ensure funded agencies are up to the mark. In my view, Senators should be obliged to identify issues in advance, even table core questions, and Committee’s should utilise something akin to a counsel assisting to raises the questions that require attention. Why is it that our parliamentary representatives feel no sense of obligation to seriously focus on the job they are elected to perform?

 

21 June 2024

The drivers of systemic exclusion

                                    Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out.

King Lear, Act five, Scene three.

 

Two recent posts have elicited some commentary which I think deserves to be shared more widely, not least because the comments raise important issues in relation to policy development that are rarely discussed or considered.

My 25 May post, The drivers of stratospheric rates of Indigenous incarceration (link here), discussing an important Australian Institute of Criminology research report by Don Weatherburn, Michael Doyle, Tegan Weatherall and Joanna Wang elicited the following comment from Tim Rowse (emphasis added):

 

It is important that you write: 'a substantial "underclass" of excluded citizens, many of whom are Indigenous'. In his largely ignored 2022 Boyer Lectures Noel Pearson referred to the 'bottom one million'. Like you, he did not specify them as 'Indigenous', though he would probably agree that many of them are. What is at stake here is our theory of social exclusion: it is too much coloured by an assumption that the Non-Indigenous/Indigenous difference is the primary determinant of social exclusion, as if a person's relationship to colonisation (as coloniser or as colonised) is the primary determinant of their life chances. Don Weatherburn continues to assault this paradigm.

 In my most recent post, A legacy of plunder (link here) I argued inter alia that:

… the gradual and incremental deterioration of what were once reforming and pathbreaking institutional frameworks can, in worst case scenarios, facilitate the continuation (often in new guises and incremental steps) of economic and social dispossession.

 In response to that post, an un-named friend emailed me in the following terms:

 

Rather than expressing surprise at how recently people have been behaving very badly towards indigenous people, I think you should turn the question around.  Why did they stop?  For 10,000 years, since the advent of agriculture, people have been taking land from indigenous people, and nobody much cared, except the indigenous people.  This really only became an issue post WW2 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  But even then we here were still discriminating against Aboriginal people in many ways, cancelling the reservation of lands set aside of the use and benefit of Aboriginal people and employing them on low wages up until the 1960s, as you well know. I think this perspective is very important to getting the present into perspective.

 Both these comments direct attention to the importance of how the analysis of issues and events are framed in order to (a) understand their internal dynamics and (b) identify appropriate policy responses. Implicit in Tim Rowse’s comment is the notion that social exclusion (which I would argue is defined by having a systemic element or basis embedded institutionally) has historically facilitated violence against those excluded; that it is an endemic feature of human society; and that it can encompass, but is broader than, racial or ethnic discrimination, and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

Implicit in the second comment is the notion that the long and enduring historical propensity for powerful nations or societies to dispossess Indigenous peoples reflects the willingness of, and structural necessity for powerful interests to take whatever action is required to strengthen their own economic, social and ideological position vis a vis potential competitors and/or to make use of the human capital of less powerful interests to strengthen more powerful interest groups’ position. In such a dynamic (which I would argue is almost universal among human societies and particularly prevalent in more technologically complex modern societies), Indigenous societies are likely to be vulnerable to dispossession and exclusion. But so too are comparatively less powerful interests built around or associated with various economic or religious or social characteristics.

 In other words, in terms of understanding the reasons for colonisation and dispossession, I would argue that the best analytic frame is built around assessing the comparative power of key interest groups within or beyond national boundaries. Given the focus of this blog is on policy, I don’t propose to explore this issue further here.

Instead, I am seeking to focus more on the challenge of identifying appropriate policy responses in post-colonial contexts. The framework I see as being of most use relates to the nature of the power relations that apply within particular nations or societies. I acknowledge the potential importance of symbolic and in some contexts the real consequences of normative values such as are reflected in human rights declarations, but have formed the view that while these frameworks are essential in assessing policy outcomes, they are rarely decisive in shaping policy outcomes. In other words, policy outcomes are overwhelmingly shaped by the balance of power between competing economic and social interests which reach an equilibrium that establishes in effect a dominant coalition of (competing) interests.  

If I am right, the prospects for decolonisation (defined as the reversal of dispossession and exclusionary political structures) in Australia are extremely limited. The normative case for decolonisation may be extremely strong or even incontrovertible, but it will not persuade policymakers structurally beholden to maintaining an equilibrium between the most powerful competing interests in society.

Moreover, the equilibrium between key mainstream interests in any society is inherently dynamic and unstable, and those core interests are in perpetual tension vying for access to scarce public rents and resources. In these circumstances policymakers are loathe to unilaterally upset the equilibrium. Instead, they use a range of tactics to ensure the existing equilibrium within the dominant coalition is not threatened. In relation to conflicts between more powerful interests within the dominant coalition, policymakers explore compromise and trade-offs of various kinds. In relation to comparatively weak interests (such as the unemployed, or remote Indigenous communities) policymakers’ tactics include delay, protracted ‘consultation’, promising but not delivering, engaging in insincere ‘codesign’, co-option of individual leaders, over-engineering policy implementation, using funding to silence calls for substantive reform, and of course, from time to time, just plain dissembling and obfuscation.

In my view the only viable strategy for substantively advancing Indigenous interests  (and indeed the interests of other groups subjected to systemic exclusion) is to progressively build the alliances and coalitions necessary to exercise real power within society. There is a place for normative argument and ideology in prosecuting a real politik policy agenda, but to be effective normative arguments must contribute to building a power base, and thus they must be strategically targeted. Much more important than normative arguments are investing in building cohesion and unity, and building the capacity to engage on policy detail in ways that are sustained over time and which utilise policy language relevant to and understood by mainstream dominant interests and policymakers. In particular, the very process of building and sustaining policy relevant capabilities contributes to the accretion of greater power.

In such a world, from time to time, windows of opportunity open for talented individuals with influence to drive and implement reform. For example, Gough Whitlam and the NT Land Rights Act; or Paul Keating and the Native Title Act; or Gerry Hand and ATSIC. There are probably many other examples at a smaller scale. Yet all such reforms are vulnerable to being wound back as the dominant interests in society exert pressure on policymakers to reverse the gains and return to something approximating the status quo ante.

In these circumstances, as I suggested in my recent post on the Legacy of Plunder, it is crucial that Indigenous interests allocate advocacy and policy resources to protecting past gains as well as investing in further reforms. Of course this is never easy, but the first step in building the capacity to influence policy in modern Australia is to be clear headed and clear sighted about what will be necessary to drive sustained policy reform. In my view, one element of the necessary strategy is to look forward, not backward. The normative arguments against colonisation are irrefutable, but the past cannot be undone. A second element is to build the policy expertise and capability to apply sustained pressure on policymakers on strategically important key policy issues (ie not just on the political issue of the day). A third requirement would be to develop a strategic framework which identifies the crucial issues worth allocating significant time and attention.

The import of Tim Rowse’s comment quoted above is that structural exclusion is broader than past or ongoing colonisation (or racism) and that this points to a cohort of potential allies for Indigenous interests seeking to build the political power necessary to overcome systemic exclusion, and join the key interests in society who are included in the dominant coalition that shapes the institutions that in turn allocates the distribution of society’s available resources. The import of the second comment by my un-named friend is to point to the longstanding propensity of the members of the dominant coalition in any society to determine/define what are ‘core state imperatives’ (to use a phrase coined by the political philosopher John Dryzek). These determinations operate to maximise or even monopolise the societal dividend going to members of the dominant coalition, and to justify the exercise raw power to achieve that objective where feasible, including by shaping institutions to systemically exclude less powerful groups where they can.

In other words, reversing exclusion requires excluded interests to lift themselves by the bootstraps and progressively accumulate the political power to force entry into the dominant coalition of interests. In the absence of a successful revolution, the only viable pathway for excluded interests to reverse their exclusionary status is the gradual accumulation of policy influence using sustained and strategically informed advocacy, and the accumulation of organisational and political skills. Normative arguments can assist in such a process, but on their own are not sufficient to drive change.

 

Note: the ideas in this post draw on political settlement theory. For those interested, a good place to start is with Kelsall et. al. (2022) Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence, Implications, Oxford University Press, https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/58143

 

18 June 2024

A legacy of plunder

 

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey, and let it keep one shape till custom make it their perch and not their terror.

Measure for Measure, Act two, Scene one.

 

The current edition of The New York Review of Books includes a short and incisive book review titled A Legacy of Plunder by Francisco Cantú (link here):  

The institutional lineage of indigenous dispossession is at the centre   of Michael John Witgen’s ‘Seeing Red’, which was a finalist for last year’s Pulitzer Prize in history. It is neither a popular history nor a polemic, offering instead a deeply researched look at the ideological and legal foundations of the systems that have despoiled Native nations. Witgen’s subtitle, ‘Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America,’ reveals the scope of his history, which examines the ways, both sweeping and quotidian, that early American settlers, traders, diplomats, and politicians stole and expropriated land.

What struck me however were the very first two sentences of Cantú’s review article:

Growing up in the southwestern United States, I often heard stories from my stepfather about people who enriched themselves by stealing from Natives. These were not tales from the past, but ongoing stories taking place on the reservation lands where he was employed and later lived (emphasis added).

It is not a new story, and while situated within a different context than that which applies in Australia, the resonances if not the parallels are clear.

While I am generally inclined to frame policy opportunities from the standpoint of the extant institutional frameworks, Cantú reminds us that the past is of continuing and current relevance and the shortcomings of past policies, and indeed, changes in our broader political system can facilitate ongoing dispossession into the present, albeit utilising new forms of political economy.

I have long held the view that institutional frameworks are crucial determinants in the allocation of societal benefits, resources and financial flows, including to First Nations people though mechanisms such as legislation, and embedded social processes such as our systems of justice, welfare, and taxation. For First Nations citizens, these institutions include land rights legislation, the Native Title Act, national agreements such as the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and numerous organisations and structures such as the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation and Indigenous Business Australia. Yet none of these mechanisms and frameworks operate perfectly, and moreover, over time their efficacy and effectiveness can degrade and diminish. Yet progressive mainstream and First Nations advocates too often assume them to be in effect permanent and uncontested givens.

Yet the reality is that powerful mainstream interests are continuously looking to extract leverage and benefits from across the institutional domain. Existing institutional frameworks which allocate benefits to First Nations interests are not immune from this attention, and over the past five decades most have experienced gradual and incremental degradation or the absence of reform momentum. One need only look at the failure of governments to replicate the structure of the NT Land Rights Act in subsequent state legislation, or the failure to address the quotidian shortcomings that have emerged over time with the Native Title Act. The 2015 ALRC review of the Native Title Act has been effectively ignored; yet now we have another review to report in December 2025 (link here and link here). In relation to the NT Land Rights Act, over the past decade or so, the quality of regulatory oversight appears to have fallen off a cliff (link here).

My point is that the gradual and incremental deterioration of what were once reforming and pathbreaking institutional frameworks can, in worst case scenarios, facilitate the continuation (often in new guises and incremental steps) of economic and social dispossession.

Effective and visionary policy development is not just about creating new institutional frameworks. It is also about ensuring existing institutional frameworks continue to deliver social and economic benefits and remain fit for purpose.

 

13 June 2024

 

 

Correction: remote employment and mutual obligations

                                                My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel:

I know not where I am , nor what I do.

1 Henry VI, Act one, Scene five.

 

In my previous post on the ANAO report on remote employment (link here), I wrote about mutual obligations in the following terms:

 

On 1 June, The Australian reported (link here) that the Government was planning to reintroduce ‘mutual obligation’ into the scheme by requiring participants to ‘work for the dole’. These requirements fell by the wayside during Covid lockdowns and are not being strictly enforced.

 

On re-reading the ANAO report, I realized that I had made an error in attributing the shift in policy on mutual obligations to Covid. In particular, paragraphs 2.27 to 2.32 of the ANAO report make clear that the shift in policy can be attributed to a deliberate shift in policy related to the risk that the program might be held by the courts to be either directly or indirectly racially discriminatory.  I recommend interested readers take a close look at those paragraphs for a fuller account than I can spell out here. The following paragraphs have been edited to remove footnotes and to emphasise key points with bold font:

 

2.28 The legal risks associated with the CDP were first advised to government in 2015. The advice stated that the risk of the program being inconsistent with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Racial Discrimination Act) was medium. From 2015, legal risk was identified by multiple external stakeholders. In December 2016, a complaint about the CDP was brought to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) by the Shire of Ngaanyajarraku, alleging a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. A mediation process was initiated but failed, and in July 2019 Dawson and Ors v Commonwealth of Australia (Dawson v Cth) commenced. In December 2021, Dawson v Cth was settled by the Commonwealth for a grant of $2 million (plus GST) to the Shire and Council; the design, implementation and evaluation of the Remote Engagement Program Trial in the Shire of Ngaanyajarraku (see Table 3.1); and legal costs of $278,897.

 

2.29 A commitment to reform the CDP was a component of the NIAA’s negotiations and eventual settlement of Dawson v Cth. The complainants required that the CDP’s (or future programs’) mutual obligation requirements be ‘on par’ with requirements in non-remote areas. In January 2021, the government was presented with a single recommended option to meet settlement requirements and reduce the risk of future legal action: to make most CDP mutual obligation requirements voluntary (referred to as a compliance pause). In May 2021, the government announced that the CDP would be replaced by a new remote jobs program and that, with immediate effect, participation in the work-for-the-dole component of the mutual obligation requirements would be voluntary. After the removal of the requirement to attend activities in May 2021, CDP participation declined by approximately 50 per cent on average. In July 2021, Jobs Australia wrote to the NIAA advising of concerns raised by its members, including that the ‘predictable’ outcomes of the changes to mutual obligation requirement had occurred, including increased domestic violence, lower school attendance, substance abuse and aggression toward frontline CDP staff.

 

To sum up:

 

First, the shift away from voluntary mutual obligations (in relation to community work or other meaningful activities), but not necessarily job search and other requirements such as monthly meetings with the provider) was not due to the Covid epidemic and lockdowns, but was a deliberate policy decision arising from the need to insulate the program and the Commonwealth from the risk of successful litigation based on alleged breaches of the Racial Discrimination Act.

 

Second there is evidence that the policy shift has contributed at least in part to the ongoing and arguably worsening levels of social dysfunction amongst younger members of remote communities.

 

Third, the ANAO documents serious deficiencies in NIAA risk management practices, in the context of widespread acknowledgement in NIAA and in advice to Ministers that CDP was ‘a failed program’. In para 2.27, the ANAO reports:

 

The August 2020 stocktake had noted that ‘[s]ince the implementation

of CDP, the program has received criticism that it is discriminatory, failing remote communities, racist and contributing to hunger and poverty in remote communities and contributing to an increase in crime, violence and suicide rates’. The NIAA advised the Minister for Indigenous Australians that the CDP had not been successful in achieving its objectives.

 

Yet it took until 2024 for the Government to announce (some) details of the replacement program due to be implemented in the second half of this year.

 

 

06 June 2024

Groote Eylandt recent developments

 

                                                      Before the times of change, still is it so:

By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust

Ensuing dangers…

Richard III, Act two, Scene three

 

There have been a number of developments since my last post dealing with Groote issues.

 

The first development relates to the impact of Cyclone Megan in March 2024. The headline of an ABC news report, South32 rules out Groote Eylandt manganese exports for rest of 2024 after cyclone damage, says it all (link here). One consequence of the halt in mining and sales will be to negatively affect royalty payments by South32 to the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust which totalled just under $20m in 2022-23 (link here) and royalties to the NT Government, which in turn will negatively impact the royalty equivalent payments into the ABA by the Commonwealth.

 

The ABA is the mechanism used to fund all four land councils (the ALC received just under $8m in 2022-23, plus another $1.5m in various non-ABA government grants); to distribute section 64(3) payments for distribution to local corporations in accordance with section 35 of the NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act (ALRA) (in 2022-23 the ALC allocated approximately $60m. for this purpose), and for more general distribution to Aboriginal people across the NT via the recently established NT Aboriginal Investment Corporation.

 

The loss of production and sales over the majority of 2024 will have a substantial impact on all these funding allocations across the NT as South32’s mine is the largest mine on Aboriginal land by value of production by far. In 2022-23, the NIAA made payments associated with the four land councils of over 214m (link here:p.141) comprising some $109m. for land council administration and $113m. for distribution to corporations whose members are affected by mining.  While the amounts required for land council administration can be drawn down from the existing ABA balance, the amounts available for distribution to traditional owners (TOs) affected my mining will be directly and negatively affected in 2023-4 and possibly 2024-25.

 

For the ALC and Groote Eylandt more generally, the bottom line is that in 2023-23 around $90m was allocated to the ALC region under the ALRA and the mining agreement with South32. This amount is likely to fall over the coming year arising from the damage to the wharf. This temporary setback demonstrates the vulnerability of these allocations to external decisions and events, and reinforces the wisdom of seeking to build a self-sustaining development fund on Groote.

 

The second major development was the announcement last week that the longstanding Chair of the ALC, Mr Tony Wurramarrba was stepping down as Chair and as a member of the Board. His replacement is Ms Cherelle Wurrawilya (link here). Mr Wurramarrba has played a significant role on Groote Eylandt and on the ALC Board for over three decades. In recent years however, he appears to have become increasingly entwined in potential conflicts given the ALC’s crucial role in distributing ABA payments to local corporations affected by mining, and his dual roles on the ALC Board and as a Director of Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd., and the ongoing statutory role of the ALC in representing traditional owners in negotiations with miners. This latter conflict is also shared by the ALC CEO.

 

The extent of Mr Wurramarrba’s involvement beyond the ALC is listed in the ALC’s financial statements published in the annual report:

Mr Tony Wurramarrba is Chair of the Anindilyakwa Land Council and also a Director of Anindilyakwa Royalties Aboriginal Corporation (ARAC), Anindilyakwa Mining Trust (AMT), Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation (MHAC), Aboriginal Sea Company Pty Ltd, Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd, and Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC). ARAC, AMT, MHAC and GHAC receive Section 64(3) royalty distributions under Section 35 determinations by the Anindilyakwa Land Council as outlined in Note 10….

The spouse of the Chair of the Anindilyakwa Land Council is an elected

member of the Anindilyakwa Land Council and receives sitting fees, and is

also a director of Groote Eylandt Bickerton Island Primary College Aboriginal College (GEBIPCAC), which receives section 64(3) royalty distributions from the ALC.

 

It is unclear whether Mr Wurramarrba will be stepping down from any or all of his other Directorships. Only when this becomes clearer will we know the extent to which the systemic potential conflicts referred to above have been mitigated.

 

In a previous post (link here) I made the argument that many of the corporations in receipt of section 35 payments appeared to meet the criterion for control laid down in the Corporations Act:

 

Section 910B of the Corporations Act 2001 provides inter alia in relation to the meaning of control that ‘control’ includes: having the capacity to determine the outcome of decisions about the body corporate's financial and operating policies, taking into account: (i) the practical influence that can be exerted (rather than the rights that can be enforced); and (ii) any practice or pattern of behaviour affecting the body corporate's financial or operating policies…  

 

The checks and balances built into the payment distribution mechanisms to affected communities in ALRA implicitly assume that the recipient corporations are not controlled by the Land Council. This systemic independence no longer applies on Groote Eylandt. The May 2023 ANAO Report commented on this indirectly when it pointed to the apparent influence of the CEO in allocating funds to corporations where he was directly involved.

 

One of the corporations I had in mind when I raised my concern about ALC control of related entities was the Anindilyakwa Leaders Future Fund Aboriginal Corporation (ALFFAC). Registered in 2020 by a person employed by the high profile legal firm Arnold Bloch Liebler, presumably acting for the ALC. In the most recent General Report (as of June 2023) the Directors are listed as Ms Serena Bara, Ms Ida Mamarika, Ms Cherelle Wurrawilya, and Mr Wayne Wurrawilya. All four Directors comprise the only living members of the Corporation. All four ALFFAC Directors are also Directors of the ALC.

 

According to the June 2023 financial report for ALFFAC (link here), the Corporation was established ‘to be a charity for the relief of poverty, by providing senior longstanding ALC employees, Members, Chairpersons and Deputy Chairpersons access to voluntary recognition and protection packages.’ In each of the last two years, the ALC directed payments of $200k to the Corporation in accordance with section 35 of the ALRA. In the year ending 2023, the Corporation paid out $155k in payments to TOs, and $17k in ‘consult payments.’ The report states that no remuneration of staff was paid during the year, suggesting that the Royalties Unit in the ALC manages the corporation’s financial affairs (this is supposition on my part). Schedule Four of the Corporation’s Rule Book (link here) spells out the benefits available to eligible beneficiaries, which are capped in some unspecified way. They include rent free housing for the rest of the beneficiary’s life; access to a vehicle and up to $10k in annual maintenance for the rest of their life; a living allowance calculated as a percentage of the beneficiary’s salary based on years of service. For over ten years’ service, it is 70% of salary. And finally assistance in preparing a will. I can think of no other Commonwealth statutory entity that provides these benefits to its Directors.

 

There are two perspectives on this arrangement. One is to take it at face value, and acknowledge that land councils are sui generis cross cultural entities where land council directors deserve special recognition and have dual sets of responsibilities, as statutory officeholders in Commonwealth statutory corporations and as traditional owners, and that there is nothing remiss in the Land Council establishing a scheme to provide benefits sourced from royalty equivalents for Land Council members and staff once they move on from their statutory roles. I have some sympathy for this perspective, but consider that it should be addressed transparently and in accordance with standard governance principles and statutory requirements.

 

The second perspective would emphasise the letter of the law (which after all is the source of the significant funding that flows to traditional owner corporations) and generally accepted governance principles. The NT Land Councils are subject to the PGPA Act administered by the Finance Minister and her Department. That legislation lays down principles that govern the operations of Commonwealth entities. So for example, the legislation provides inter alia, as follows:

 

26  Duty to act honestly, in good faith and for a proper purpose.

 An official of a Commonwealth entity must exercise his or her powers, perform his or her functions and discharge his or her duties honestly, in good faith and for a proper purpose.

 

27  Duty in relation to use of position

An official of a Commonwealth entity must not improperly use his or her position:  (a) to gain, or seek to gain, a benefit or an advantage for himself or herself or any other person; or  (b) to cause, or seek to cause, detriment to the entity, the Commonwealth or any other person. (emphasis added).

 

Whether or not the actions of the ALC in establishing and operating ALFFAC is in breach of these provisions as not being a ‘proper purpose’ (or perhaps in breach of other provisions in the PGPA Act which I have not considered) is not for me to determine. But I venture to say that notwithstanding the high level legal advice obtained by the ALC in establishing ALFFAC, the ALC may be walking close to the edge. There may be additional concerns related to the provisions of the Remuneration Tribunal Act and its relevant determinations for officeholder remuneration, which inter alia provide that remuneration determinations cannot be supplemented. The AFFLAC arrangement may or may not amount to such supplementation.

 

My concern however is in fact a different one, which may or may not be of legal concern, but is rather a governance issue which should certainly be of concern to the Minister. It is that the ALFFAC appears to meet the definition of control by the ALC in the Corporations Act, and also establishes a mechanism which if misused might be used to co-opt and coerce individual Directors of the ALC to make particular decisions which are not in the interests of the clans represented on the Board, or the general interest of the wider Groote population. In other words, the combination of the structure of AFFLAC with its membership comprised entirely of ALC Directors (and potentially future beneficiaries) who are themselves thus conflicted is a problem. Second, the threat of denial of beneficiary status is potentially a potent weapon to use against someone who is not ‘toeing the line’. Third, the fact that the ALC is making decisions, year in and year out, over the distribution of around $60m pursuant to section 35 of ALRA, and there is only a light touch (or perhaps zero touch) regulatory oversight by NIAA should be of deep concern to the Minister.

 

The ANAO in its May 2023 Performance Audit on the ALC identified a series of structural conflicts amongst Directors and senior staff of the ALC. My own research (based wholly on publicly available records) suggests that there have been historical decisions involving potential conflicts of interest which are claimed to have been disclosed to Ministers, but have not been made publicly transparent.

 

The most obvious of these is the mining agreement between the ALC and Winchelsea Mining which presumably involves a range of financial, environmental and social and cultural impact issues. The former ALC Chair and the current CEO presumably played key roles in persuading the ALC Board that the agreement with Winchelsea was an appropriate exercise of their responsibilities. I must note however that I do not know if they recused themselves from all decision making in relation to the Winchelsea project. It is difficult to imagine how such a recusal could be effectively implemented in an organisation as small as the ALC and involving dense networks of overlapping personal and social relations. Even had there been a recusal, the negotiation (if it can be called that) was effectively between themselves since Winchelsea Mining’s five Directors include the former ALC Chair, the ALC CEO, his wife, and two directors of AUS China International Mining Pty Ltd. It seems likely that a former Minister subsequently approved this agreement, despite the clear conflicts of interest, again without public announcement. As an aside, it should be noted that this arrangement demonstrates starkly the extent of ALC control being exercised by the ALC as Winchelsea Mining is majority (70%) owned by the traditional owners of Winchelsea Island via the Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC), yet no members or Directors of AAAC are on the Board of Winchelsea Mining.

 

There are many questions to be answered by the NIAA regarding what went on here. And of course, as the development of the Winchelsea mine progresses, or as Winchelsea seeks to expand operations elsewhere, there may well be decisions occurring that require independent oversight by the ALC. How can the Minister assure the Groote community that she is managing the potential conflicts that appear to be systemically embedded in the complex network of overlapping corporations, largely unregulated section 35 payments, and the apparent existence of ALC control over many of the corporations in existence. If all is above board, why the need for deep secrecy?

 

The key point I wish to emphasise is that conflicts of interest are not silos, isolated and stand alone. They are systemic and interact synergistically, with the potential taint  decision making beyond their institutional location. They can also be used to exercise influence in sophisticated ways beyond simplistic notions of personal benefit. The Minister responded to media revelations around the last Estimates Hearing by announcing (in a media interview, but not formally) that she had requested the NIAA Integrity Unit to undertake an examination of the implementation of the ANAO audit recommendations. She has never released the terms of reference for that investigation, and it is not clear why it should remain confidential if it has in fact been completed. She has never provided a public explanation regarding whether she is satisfied that all is well on Groote, or alternatively whether she has concerns, and what is the basis for whichever view she holds. Yet the conflicts embedded in the mining agreement between the ALC and Winchelsea Mining put in place some years ago were not part of the ANAO report, and nor are the implicit conflicts established and potentially amplified by the existence of AFFLAC . This is why it is important that the Minister (however belatedly) takes urgent action to establish a formal open and independent forensic investigation of the operations of the ALC and its related entities.

 

My suggestion is that she should request the ANAO to undertake a broader and wide-ranging forensic audit and table its results in Parliament. Without such action, she is placing the longer term interests of the wider Aboriginal community on Groote at serious risk. It needs to be remembered that original purpose of land councils under ALRA was to protect the interests of TOs. Unfortunately, systemic conflicts and the absence of focussed and rigorous oversight by NIAA under Ministers past and present have effectively undermined that core raison d’etre for the ALC, and perhaps other land councils, particularly in relation to oversighting third party agreements on TO’s land.

 

 

 

4 June 2024

 

 

 

Reforming remote employment: the ANAO performance audit

                                                                                     You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave

That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,

Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,

For naught but provender, and when he’s old,

cashiered.

Othello, Act one, Scene one.

 

The ANAO recently released a Performance Audit on remote employment programs (link here). In my view it presents a devastating account of bureaucratic and ministerial incompetence, albeit one that spans seven years, two ministers and a change of government. Before seeking to unpack the ANAO findings, it is worthwhile providing some context for what we are dealing with.

 

The existing program, known as the Community Development Program (CDP) operates only in remote Australia, and is simultaneously a program ostensibly aimed at assisting unemployed citizens to find employment (thus an employment program) and the mechanism by which income support payments are provided (a social security program). It has around 41,000 participants of whom around 86% or 35,000 identify as Indigenous. On 1 June, The Australian reported (link here) that the Government was planning to reintroduce ‘mutual obligation’ into the scheme by requiring participants to ‘work for the dole’. These requirements fell by the wayside during Covid lockdowns and are not being strictly enforced.

 

Arguably, the job search objective is substantially misguided given the structural absence of a market economy across remote Australia (with the exception of major towns and mine sites). Attempts to enforce job search requirements have been implemented punitively in the past and led to astronomical levels of breaches which involved suspension of income support payments. At the same time, The Australian article mentioned above cited statistics indicating that in 2022-23, only 603 participants were placed in jobs lasting 26 weeks or more, that is a job placement rate of only 1.4%. Moreover, the implicit assumption that suspension of payments will incentivise compliance are based on assumptions that do not necessarily operate in Indigenous cultural settings.

 

There is in my view a strong case for undertaking a rigorous and independent policy review or evaluation aimed at unravelling the implicit assumptions that underpin the existing CDP and perhaps the future Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program (RJEDP) announced in May this year by the Prime Minister (link here). In my view there is a case for splitting CDP/RJEDP into its constituent parts, an income support program and a job creation program. Such a shift would nevertheless require some deep policy consideration to consider the best way to implement each element. IT is already apparent that the current outsourced model for CDP is not fit for purpose (see below).  It seems likely that neither the Government nor the NIAA understand these dynamics given that they have been unable after six years notice to develop a clear program logic for the new program (see ANAO para. 4.39 to 4.56).

 

The Productivity Commission Dash Board on Closing the Gap lists two targets related to employment: target 7 (link here) and target 8 (link here):

 

Target 7: By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth (15-24 years) who are in employment, education or training to 67%. Nationally in 2021, 58.0% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15–24 years were fully engaged in employment, education or training (figure CtG7.1). This is an increase from 57.2% in 2016 (the baseline year).

 

However in remote and very remote regions, since 2016, there has been a regression, with the proportion dropping to 45.2% in remote regions and dropping 30.2% in very remote regions. Clearly in remote regions, for the 15 to 24 year cohort, government programs in relation to employment, education and training are failing to gain traction, and require adjustment and/or complete overhaul. For comparison the national statistic for non-Indigenous members of this cohort is 79.9%. The CtG target is 13% below current mainstream levels.

 

Target 8: By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25-64 who are employed to 62%. Nationally in 2021, 55.7% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25–64 years were employed (figure CtG8.1). This is an increase from 51.0% in 2016 (the baseline year).

Nationally in 2021, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25–64 years who were employed was highest in major cities (62.1%) (figure CtG8.4). The proportions declined as remoteness increased, [down to 45.5% in remote and] down to 35.0% for people living in very remote areas. Since the 2016 baseline year, the employment rate increased in all areas, except for people living in very remote areas where it decreased (less than one percentage point).

 

The national figure for non-Indigenous Australians was 77.7% in 2021, so the 2031 CtG target is itself only partial.

 

The bottom line is that under the national Agreement on Closing the Gap, Australian governments have set employment related targets well below mainstream levels for all age groups, and under current policy settings are making, at best, insignificant progress on achieving even those limited targets in remote Australia in particular. Of course it is worth remembering that the achievement of the national target is feasible without it being met in remote Australia where the deepest disadvantage occurs.

 

This background demonstrates why the effectiveness of the CDP and its replacement is crucial both to the life opportunities of tens of thousands of individuals, but also to the social capital of remote communities. The ANAO performance audit of remote employment programs is thus both timely and important as it shines a light on these issues notwithstanding that its focus is primarily on efficiency and not effectiveness.

 

The ANAO report

 

The background to the performance audit is spelt out in the Summary and Recommendations section of the ANAO report:

 

3. A 2017 Senate committee inquiry into the CDP concluded that the program should not continue in its current form due to negative impacts on participants and their communities. Since 2017, the Australian Government has signalled its intent to fundamentally reform or replace the CDP through various announcements and measures. On 13 February 2024, the Australian Government announced a new ‘Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program’, which would commence in the second half of 2024 and fund 3,000 jobs over three years.

 

Rationale for undertaking the audit

 

4. Remote employment programs aim to assist people in thin labour markets to secure employment. Since 2015 the CDP has been the primary Australian Government remote employment program. The CDP covers 75 per cent of Australia’s land mass in over 1,000 communities. In 2022–23, $384.6 million was expended on CDP payments. As at June 2023, there were approximately 41,000 people participating in the CDP, of whom approximately 86 per cent identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

 

5. Since 2017, successive Australian Governments have stated an intention to fundamentally reform or replace the CDP.

 

6. This audit provides the Australian Parliament with assurance on whether the NIAA has been effectively managing the transition from the CDP to a new remote employment program, including its processes to design a new program.

 

I don’t propose to undertake a comprehensive analysis of this performance report. The overarching conclusion, spelt out in para 9, was that the NIAA’s processes to design and transition to a new remote employment program, as at January 2024, were partly effective. The report goes into considerable detail regarding the history, various internal  processes, the design and implementation of a series of trials, and the surprising and in my view extraordinary absence of management oversight brought to bear throughout the transition process from 2017 to 2024. I recommend interested readers take a closer look at the meticulous ANAO analysis. At virtually every point, they find that the NIAA’s performance in the assigned tasks involved in transitioning to a new program was ‘partly effective’.

 

A major theme of this post is that the ANAO in focussing on process (efficiency or performance) it has understated the extraordinary failure of the CDP to achieve positive outcomes. Just to reinforce the illogicality and inadequacy of some of the ANAO assessments, it is worth quoting some text from para 15 of the ANAO report:

 

In 2023, the NIAA extended 63 out of 64 existing CDP provider grant agreements, despite 41 per cent having an average performance rating of ‘below requirements’ and despite failure of some providers to ‘fully meet’ unclear selection criteria. Value for money associated with each grant agreement extension, particularly for those providers with a history of underperformance, was not clearly articulated. The NIAA did not take advantage of the opportunity presented by agreement extension negotiations to address provider performance issues in agreement terms and conditions.

 

Not only do these contract extensions involve over five hundred million dollars in Commonwealth expenditures, but they fundamentally breach an essential requirement for outsourced public policy: the crucial requirement for rigorous regulation of private sector providers. Without such regulatory oversight, the rationale for outsourcing these functions falls away. Partly effective indeed! For those interested in the excruciating detail, I point you to paras 2.49 to 2.72 in the ANAO report, including what I consider to be a pathetic recommendation for remediation into the future.

 

Unfortunately, what the ANAO does not do is take the final step and make an assessment of the policy outcomes to date, and the likely policy outcome once the program is finally in operation in the second half of this year. In a previous post (link here), I discussed how this is a function of the ANAO’s limited remit and its concern not to stray into political criticism. Nevertheless, what matters to both the 41,000 CDP participants at any point in time, and to the broader community, is whether the proposed changes will produce better outcomes, not whether the processes adopted were up to scratch. Of course, good processes are important, even necessary, but they are not a guarantee of good outcomes.

 

In terms of an outcome, after seven years of procrastination, the ANAO had this to say regarding the design of the new program announced by the Prime Minister this year:

 

21. The NIAA collaborated with other government agencies in the development of draft policy advice in 2023 and 2024, however timeframes were too short to allow for effective collaboration. Design issues requiring cross-government collaboration were not resolved. In February 2024, the government announced a ‘Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program’, which would commence in the second half of 2024 and fund 3,000 jobs over three years. Advice provided to government in January 2024 about high-level features of the new program drew on some findings from consultations and trials, however, the high-level features of the new program (including the number of jobs to be created) were not supported by modelling or other evidence. At the time of its announcement, there was no program logic or evaluation framework for the newly announced program. (See paragraphs 4.39 to 4.56)

 

It is crystal clear that the pre-budget announcement was conjured for its political effect rather than developed methodically. As I previously noted (link here), the Prime Minister’s announcement of the new program was built around the proposition that the CDP was a failed program, and that the government would move to fully fund up to 3000 jobs. Yet the current state of play leaves 37,000 participants on the CDP and the new scheme supposedly being implemented in the second half of 2024. There is an extremely strong case for governments to fund real jobs across remote Australia, but 3000 is pathetically unambitious, and appears designed to create the appearance of action and reform rather than actually deliver it. According to the ANAO report, while the Government stayed silent, the NIAA website revealed that the new jobs funding was for three years only, making the renewal of the program without an evaluation plan contingent on the next government

 

My take-out after reading the ANAO’s detailed analysis was that the NIAA was effectively asleep at the wheel for long periods since 2017, that its Executive Committee and senior management were not monitoring the performance of the CDP and nor were they driving the process of designing and implementing a new remote employment program, that its Audit and Risk committee was being drip fed rather than proactively asking the hard questions, and that the NIAA Evaluation Advisory Committee were missing in action. Moreover, the complex stream of ever-changing cross agency coordination committees documented in the report clearly failed to produce a timely outcome. Of course, one might reasonably ask: where were the responsible Ministers while this fiasco was unfolding?

 

The bottom line is that there is nothing in the announcements to date which will shift the dial on the extraordinary underperformance of both the former LNP and the current Labor Governments in relation to CtG targets 7 and 8 most particularly in remote Australia.

 

Unfortunately, there is a game being played here whereby governments when not under pressure from powerful interests resort to flim flam and a song and dance routine aimed at persuading interested parties (and the commentariat interpreting for the public at large) that they are doing something; the ANAO analyse performance and identify a range of process deficiencies (but not effectiveness); the agency being scrutinised welcomes the report and promises to do better (assisted by the fact that the ANAO recommendations relate to processes only), and the media decide the issues are too complicated to warrant close reading and effective reporting. Rinse and repeat.

 

Finally, I should point out the potential for the ANAO’s core language across the breadth of its performance reporting to mislead. By using an implicit rating system of effective, partially effective, or ineffective to assess agency compliance with the relevant rules governing performance (ie efficiency or process), it subliminally signals that it is assessing outcomes (ie effectiveness). As I pointed out in a previous post, the ANAO does not assess effectiveness, and leaves that to evaluations, which are overwhelmingly undertaken by agencies and are rarely truly independent, even when outsourced to reputable major consulting firms (did anyone mention PwC ?; or the recent revelation by Greens Senator Barbara Pocock of consulting firms providing work pro-bono to agencies? (link here $)). For anyone who doubts my assessment that the Commonwealth public sector evaluation framework is not fit for purpose, I suggest they ask themselves, why is it that neither the previous nor the current Government have provided a response to the Productivity Commission’s 2020 report: Indigenous Evaluation Strategy (link here). It has been allowed to sink without trace.  

 

For what its worth, my effectiveness ratings of the various actors’ involved in reforming the delivery of remote employment services are as follows: NIAA entirely ineffective; relevant Governments and ministers: regressively ineffective. The accuracy of my assessment will only be determined in around five to seven years in the event (far from guaranteed) that an independent evaluation of the Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program is undertaken, and it has become clear whether the current regressive trends in achieving targets seven and eight of the Closing the Gap process have been reversed and the modest targets achieved. I sincerely hope that I am wrong. It is however a very poor reflection on our systems of governance oversight and policy development that we do not have access to an independent evaluation of the CDP now.

 

 

3 June 2024