Confusion now hath made his
masterpiece!
Macbeth, Act two, Scene three
I sat down to write a post that considered the recent media
stories regarding the ongoing crime wave in the NT, NAPLAN, Closing the Gap, the
extraordinary Indigenous unemployment levels in remote Australia and the
ongoing and worsening incarceration crisis in the NT including the hyper-punitive
response of the current NT Government. Then I realised that in doing so without
the necessary contextualisation, I would be entering the perpetual motion
machine that controls and shapes our media cycle and ensures that we never stop
and ask how did we get here? I haven’t done the detailed research to write such
a post, but my intuition told me that it was more important just now to remind
readers of the underlying dynamics and forces which are shaping the outcomes
that feed into daily life in remote communities, major towns like Katherine and
Tennant Creek, and our daily media diet in south eastern Australia.
One way to do this is to list and link to the previous
posts I have written on the theme of remote crisis. Below I list most (but perhaps
not all) of the posts I have written on this topic since January 2022. I could
have gone back further, but there is already more than enough material to
digest. For each post, I have selected a short excerpt which illustrates some
of the issues in play. The excerpts do not necessarily encompass the major
argument of each post, and are not always the key point, but they do make in my
view a contribution to providing the context that assists interested readers in
forming a judgment of the underlying issues and causes in play when we read
about the latest outrage or tragedy. I have left text bolded where I bolded it
in the original post. I do recommend readers dip into at least some of these
posts.
1.
Energy insecurity in remote Australia 13
January 2022 (link
here)
The abstract of a recent academic article states:
Indigenous communities in
remote Australia face dangerous temperature extremes. These extremes are
associated with increased risk of mortality and ill health. For many
households, temperature extremes increase both their reliance on those services
that energy provides, and the risk of those services being disconnected. 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. … A broad suite of interrelated policy
responses is required to reduce the frequency, duration and negative effects of
disconnection from electricity for remote-living Indigenous residents.
2.
See How We Roll 24 January 2022 (link
here):
It strikes me that this is, more than any other I have come
across recently, an important book for policymakers engaged in shaping policy
in the Indigenous domain. It shatters preconceptions regarding the distinction
between remote and urban contexts, and makes clear the parallels between
disadvantaged Indigenous people and other disadvantaged citizens. Most
importantly, it should make policymakers question their assumptions and
preconceptions regarding Indigenous life choices, and the potential for policy instruments
and measures of various kinds to articulate or engage with the altogether
different world views and approaches to living of many Indigenous people.
3.
The ongoing social and governance
catastrophe in remote Australia 8 May 2022 (link
here):
In October 2009, Nicolas Rothwell, writing in The
Australian, published a scathing analysis under the title ’The failed
state’… Rothwell’s opening sentence sums up his argument: ‘The Northern
Territory is a lost cause’. He goes on:
There is, though, a failed
state in our midst. That state is not Aboriginal north Australia, where the
social fabric is in shreds and tatters. No: it is the jurisdiction largely
responsible for entrenching this degree of Indigenous disadvantage: the modern-seeming,
self-governing Northern Territory.
I quoted these observations in an earlier post in August
2016 (link
here)… I would add however that the responsibility for entrenching
Indigenous disadvantage is shared with the Commonwealth.
4.
Systemic myopia: Public investment
challenges in remote Australia.19 December 2022 (link
here):
To sum up, over the past two
decades at least, public funding in core capital investments related to
essential services, social housing, and community infrastructure has been
severely deficient. This has undoubtedly reduced the levels of
recurrent funding by governments in remote settings, and also limited the
opportunities for local employment, and stronger economic development and
progress. It is undoubtedly one of the key contributors to limiting the
opportunities available to the rapidly growing youth cohort within communities.
While reversing the sustained under-investment is not sufficient to address all
the challenges facing residents of remote communities, it is a necessary element
in any viable transition to a more stable future for remote communities. The
onset of climate change is making addressing these challenges even more urgent.
5. Cataclysm
and Crisis 10 December 2022 (link
here):
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.
6.
Alice Springs crisis: observations on
remote policy. 25 January 2023 (link
here):
The Alice Springs hospital has 16 beds in its Intensive
Care Unit. Minister Burney mentioned that she was shocked to learn that
last night, 14 of those beds were taken by women who had been the victims of
violent assaults. This window into the lived experience of too many remote
women and their families is more than a warning of the seriousness of the
rolling crisis across remote Australia. It is more than a prompt for
governments to take action. It is more than an indictment on the quality and
legitimacy of our systems of governance across northern Australia. It is
damning evidence of the complicity and responsibility for these outcomes of
those Australians (myself included) who take an interest in public
policy.
7.
The ongoing remote housing debacle 5 March
2023
(link
here).
In conclusion, the policy choices made over the past five
years in relation to remote housing are retrograde and will have very real
consequences: for taxpayers, for the population of remote Australia, both Indigenous
and non-Indigenous, and most importantly for the residents of these overcrowded
and under-maintained houses across remote Australia. Over fifty percent of
those individuals are under 25 and the overcrowding will have lifelong
consequences for the opportunities that are within their reach.
8.
The structural underpinnings of the
tragedy in Yuendumu 10 March 2023 (link
here):
Yes, at the micro level, individuals on both sides of the
cultural divide, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, have and had agency. But they
were and are operating within an overarching set of institutional structures
which have been in place for decades and were either explicitly designed to
constrain and control Aboriginal people’s lives, or reflect longstanding and
entrenched structures of underfunding that were oblivious to, and independent
of the level of need. If we wish to prevent further micro level tragedies, we
as a nation must move beyond allocating blame or responsibility at the micro
level and also address the macro level issues. Micro and macro are both part of
a single social system, one that is responsible for both extensive social and
cultural harm, and ongoing mainstream governance failure.
9.
Dodge dip and dive: eight ‘data points’ on
remote policy 1 May 2023 (link
here):
What is clear however is that given the synergistic
interactions of multiple policy domains, the current model of policy design and
implementation has not worked. This raises the potentially unsettling prospect
that, at a fundamental systemic level, governments and policymakers are not
incentivised to take the policy decisions that are required to make a
substantive difference to the policy challenges that exist. Instead they are
incentivised to manage difficult issues, oil squeaky wheels, and engage in a performative
ritual designed merely to persuade an electorally significant non-Indigenous
constituency (and a less electorally significant, but more animated, Indigenous
constituency) that they are doing what is required to address the policy
challenges that surface periodically in the public consciousness.
A recent review of a book on Boris Johnson (link
here) described his motto for governing as ‘dodge, duck, dip, dive and
dodge’. As it turns out, this is an extraordinarily apt description of the
systemic approach of Australian governments to remote policy challenges.
10. The
remote community education scandal in the NT 24 September 2023 (link
here):
It is time that the Commonwealth accepted that the NT
Government is incapable of delivering remote education in a manner consistent
with the public and national interest, and in such a way that it actually
delivers outcomes. These poor outcomes are feeding directly into the social
dysfunction that is endemic in parts of remote Australia, and which I have
previously argued is a slow burn catastrophe (link
here).
11. Looking
ahead: the architecture of Indigenous policy in 2050 1 March 2024 (link
here)
My advice to First Nations and progressive mainstream
interests, and in particular their peak advocacy groups, would be to invest as
much as possible in building their capabilities to advocate for Indigenous
interests, to focus squarely on the absolute deficits in remote policy
outcomes, including education, employment, housing and essential
infrastructure, and to pursue a strategy of simultaneously protecting the
institutional frameworks that presently exist, while pursing incremental change
across the breadth of the public sector. In particular, Indigenous advocacy
interests should explore avenues to gain much greater independence from
Government funding as it comes with a hidden cost; the silence it implicitly
requires reduces the necessary pressure on governments to fix the extraordinary
policy problems that exist across the board, and the social and economic
catastrophe that exists in remote Australia.
12. The
ongoing attendance crisis in remote schools 10 September 2024 (link
here):
In relation to remote attendance, there is a need for the
Commonwealth to step up and acknowledge it for the national crisis it is…. The
Commonwealth should work with the states cooperatively on these issues, but
devise incentive-based payments to the states and territories rather than
indulging in the politically driven negotiation that currently predominate.
Robust support to Indigenous community leaders aimed at encouraging and
assisting them to raise expectations of parental involvement within their
communities are essential. But so too are getting financial resource
allocations for schools better targeted, and if necessary increased. Rewarding
effective teachers much better and ensuring that the curriculum is focussed on
the needs of the least capable cohort of students are both — to use a
colloquial expression — ‘no brainers’. This suggests that the adoption of
curriculum methodologies (such as Direct Learning) that do not allow any
student to fall behind must be a priority.
13. Infrastructure
shortfalls in Alices Springs town camps 24 December 2024 (link
here).
What is particularly clear from the Guide is how
exclusionary institutional complacency emerges in myriad instances of quite
prosaic neglect: the absence of footpaths, of surveyed lots, of safe play
grounds for children, of street signs, of shade and community shelters; in
short, this neglect reflects the longstanding and widespread refusal of
mainstream institutions such a local governments to see their roles as
universal rather than sectional. The details vary from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction, but the impacts are longstanding and have a certain consistency….
The authors and publishers of the Guide to Housing and
Infrastructure Standards in Town Camps have made an extraordinarily
significant contribution to laying the groundwork for better advocacy for
remote Indigenous communities on essential services reform both in Alice
Springs, but importantly across northern Australia. They deserve wider recognition
and indeed acclamation. What is also clear is that without the efforts of
Tangentyere and its community leadership over almost 50 years, the progress
made to date on the town camps would not have been possible. Their historically
significant work is not yet complete; I only hope that it will not be another
fifty years before Aboriginal people in town camps in Alice Springs and beyond
are included as fully entitled citizens in the provision of essential services.
14. Indigenous
hyper-incarceration: a remote problem? 24 January 2025 (link
here):
One data point quoted stood out:
As
of January, the Northern Territory hit a grim milestone. More than 1% of
the territory’s total population is now incarcerated in adult prison.
….
It is the case that the process of colonisation
turned the world upside down for Indigenous people across the nation,
and the people of remote Australia are generations closer to that social
cataclysm.
Mainstream Australia cannot undo those social processes,
and the world has moved on for all Australians. However, given the clear
evidence of deep dysfunction arising from those social processes that were
neither chosen nor desired by Indigenous people, and the impacts those changes
inevitably imposed and continues to impose, the nation and its policy
elites must be prepared to consider policy options that turn established modes
of policy formulation upside down. Not to do so would amount to an
extraordinary admission of national policy failure. Indigenous incarceration is
just one of the impacts that arise from widespread social and economic
dysfunction across remote Australia and woven through pockets of urban and
regional Australia.
15. Misdirected
focus: the case for institutional policy reforms to alcohol supply 18 March
2025
(link
here):
The subliminal message from the NIAA then is don’t look to
the Commonwealth to drive institutional policy reform, its someone else’s
responsibility. See this page on their website too (link
here). For what it’s worth, I just don’t buy that argument.
The appendix to the NIAA submission ( #140 at this
link) which I strongly recommend readers seek out and read very
usefully provides a comprehensive and powerful snapshot of the impacts of
alcohol on various sectors. Here are a few data points I have cherry picked
from the NIAA submission appendix:
… First Nations people were 4.2 times as likely
to die from alcohol-related causes as non-Indigenous Australians. They were
also 3.8 times as likely to die from alcoholic liver disease, and 4.7 times as
likely to die from mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol use….
AOD are involved in more than half of all
police-reported family and domestic violence incidents in Australia, and are
likely to be involved in a substantially greater proportion of all family and
domestic violence…. For homicides in the period from 1989–90 to 2016–17, 72% of
First Nations offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the
incident, as were 71% of First Nations victims…
If Australia was serious about reducing Indigenous
incarceration,… reducing family violence within
Indigenous contexts, … improving Indigenous health status, … [and] improving
socio-economic status within the Indigenous community, we would
implement significant policy reforms in relation to alcohol advertising,
taxation and retail availability.
If Australia was serious about closing the gap,
the Commonwealth would step up and lead, and one of its first steps would be to
implement significant policy reforms in relation to alcohol advertising,
taxation and retail availability.
Unfortunately, it is quite clear from a close reading of
this report that neither the Government nor the Opposition are serious about
any of these issues.
16. The
Domestic and Family Violence crisis in the NT: a symptom of wider chaos 29
April 2025 (link
here):
The Northern Territory is in a state of perpetual
governance crisis, where underfunded schools are no longer fit for purpose,
jobs are not within reach of young Aboriginal kids, alcohol and drug abuse is
rife, as is domestic and family violence, and where violence and mayhem are
increasingly spilling into the major towns and cities….
The problems in the NT have been decades in the making and
have their roots in the failures of governments at all levels to adequately
support the maintenance of a viable social and economic institutional
infrastructure in remote communities. Reversing this longstanding policy
neglect is not susceptible to some quick fix. In recent years however the
systemic dysfunction in remote communities that governments have been prepared
to tolerate for decades because they were metaphorically ‘out of sight’ has begun
to colonise mainstream Territory cities and towns….
One way or another, remote Australia requires more serious
policy attention (as opposed to political froth) from national policymakers. A
good first step would be to progressively and incrementally strengthen controls
across the board (ie mainstream and Indigenous) over the availability and price
of alcohol. But much more than this will be needed to reverse the progressive
decline in governance and its silent handmaiden, economic security, that is
currently underway and gathering momentum. The alternative to serious reform is
progressive decline into systemic chaos not just in remote communities, but
across the NT and potentially elsewhere in remote Australia. Unfortunately, it
seems things will have to get much worse before the political willpower to reform
will emerge either in Canberra or Darwin.
1 August 2025
This is heartbreaking reading Mike. It's a bit like Lindblom's ‘Still muddling, not yet through’.
ReplyDeleteWhen will we ever learn....