Indigenous turnout in the NT election: wider implications

 

Counting is still underway in the NT following last weekend’s election. It is clear that Labor retained Government albeit with a diminished majority, but a number of seats remain in doubt with extremely close two party counts yet to be finalised.

 

At least five of the 25 seats in the Legislative Assembly appear to have been won by Indigenous candidates: Lawrence Costa (ALP) in Arafura; Selena Uibo (ALP) in Arnhem, Chancey Paech (ALP) in Gwoja, Ngaree Ah Kit (ALP) in Karama, and Yingiya Mark Guyula (Independent) in Mulka. This compares with six Indigenous members in the Assembly elected in 2016.

 

One of the concerning issues relating to the NT election is the poor turnout of Aboriginal voters in the bush.

 

The following discussion is not framed as a conclusive analysis, but rather as a provisional assessment. Its intention is to stimulate a more rigorous and demographically sophisticated assessment either by the NT Electoral Commission itself, by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), by independent researchers who specialise in these issues, and perhaps most importantly, buy the respective parliaments in Canberra and Darwin.

 

The NT Electoral Commission website includes a table summarising first preference votes by division (electorates) which lists total enrolment and voting figures (link here). It identifies the total enrolment across all 25 divisions as 135,506, and total votes lodged as 100, 304; a turnout of 74 percent across the NT.

 

The seven bush electorates (Arafura, Arnhem, Barkly, Daly, Gwoja, Mulka, Namatjira) with high concentrations of Indigenous citizens of voting age had a total enrolment of 39, 091, with only 22, 624 votes cast; a turnout of 58 percent. A similar calculation for the 2016 election revealed a turnout in the bush electorates of 60 percent (noting that there have been changes to the names, and perhaps boundaries, of the relevant divisions in the intervening period).

 

These figures raise uncomfortable questions regarding the efficacy of our democratic institutions in representing the populace at large, and particularly the remote bush population in the NT.

 

One threshold issue relates to the issue of potential under-enrolment of Indigenous citizens. The enrolment figures cited above include Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens. If we were to assume that 20 percent of enrolments in the bush electorate are non-Indigenous, this would suggest an Indigenous enrolment of around 31,000. Based on an analysis of the 2016 census by CAEPR researchers Francis Markham and Nick Biddle, (link here), there would appear to be around 53,000 remote Indigenous residents in the NT (see Table 6). If we were to assume that around 20 percent were below voting age (see Table 3) then we have a potential Indigenous enrolment of 43,000 across the NT bush electorates. In other words, these calculations suggest an unenrolled population of around 12,000 remote Indigenous citizens in the NT. Clearly these figures are rough and ready, but they do suggest that there is both an enrolment gap and a voting gap in the NT.

 

So what are the potential causes of these gaps?

 

I don’t propose to delve too deeply, but instead, aim to identify and unravel some of the potential causes, and explore the implications. Finally, I want to suggest a potential path for taking the issue forward.

 

In relation to Indigenous electoral education, the NT Electoral Commission appears to have a modest program of optional activities focussed on schools and community groups (link here).  The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has a program, the Indigenous Electoral Participation Program (link here) which works through community partnerships.  The AEC website states that the program was established in 2010 ‘to close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage in electoral participation’. In a document available on the AEC website titled IEPP Program Overviews 2018-2021 (link here), the AEC repeatedly references its ‘limited resources’ and limited capability. The document notes (p.4):

 

Working through community organisations, Commonwealth, State and Local Government entities, and other service providers to promote and distribute information on recruitment opportunities and electoral education, the AEC will be able to reach deep into communities where current resources cannot extend. [emphasis added]

To deliver this strategy the AEC will require a mix of capabilities. Direct engagement with Indigenous communities to understand and educate people about the electoral process will still be a requisite capability however this activity will be limited under the new model. [emphasis in the original].

 

Clearly the limited quantum of resources are an issue. ANU political scientist Will Sanders, writing in Marian Sawer’s edited collection Elections Full Free and Fair (Federation Press) in 2001, noted that by 1974, around one in two Aboriginal citizens in the NT were enrolled, and outlined the short history of the Aboriginal and Islander Electoral Information Service (AIEIS) which emerged following an infamous election in the Kimberley in 1977. Upon the election of the Howard Government in 1996, the AIEIS was abolished without consultation with the AEC and AEC funding for Indigenous education cut. Sanders noted (p. 166):

 

The program, which had been gradually developing and building up since 1979 and had had four positive review by 1995, was simply terminated.

 

The AEC has struggled ever since to revive an effective Indigenous enrolment and election education capability.

 

In relation to the potential reasons for extremely low enrolment levels and voter turnout, a number of hypotheses spring to mind.

 

People in remote communities have tuned out.

 

In an episode of The Drum on ABC TV in the week before the NT election (link here), NLC CEO (and former Deputy Chief Minister of the NT), Marion Scrymgour mentioned the likelihood of very low turnouts in the bush and suggested that people in the bush were effectively voting with their feet. In particular, she mentioned overcrowded housing, poor access to services, and high food prices as ongoing issues that successive governments talked about but failed to fix.

 

Social media

 

There is a considerable literature emerging related to the use of social media in remote Indigenous communities. However, I have been unable to find research which examines the potential impact of intense engagement with social media in many remote locations on levels of interest and engagement with broader political and policy issues within national and state/territory jurisdictions. My hypothesis is that intense social media use effectively crowds out use of alternative and mainstream media, and leads to significant reductions in interest in political developments in the metropolitan capital, and perhaps much greater focus on personality politics (admittedly, something difficult to ignore in the NT given the small size of all electorates). In the 2018 report by Bronwen Carlson and Ryan Frazer Social Media Mob: Being Indigenous Online (link here), there is a description (p.8) of intense social media use in a remote South Australian community which describes ways in which social media tools have been re-oriented to culturally relevant tasks and concerns.

 

Cultural concerns and local politics dominate

 

A third hypothesis (that may be reinforced by the social media factor above) is that the strength of local cultural and political concerns within small scale and closely networked societies with limited and comparatively weaker external connections to larger centres may operate to reduce the relevance of and interest in voting, electoral participation, and political engagement more generally.

 

Conclusions

 

The low levels of electoral participation in the recent NT election signal a deep and deepening disengagement between mainstream Australia and remote Indigenous communities.

 

This disengagement is paralleled by the low levels of Indigenous engagement in education; by the high levels of unemployment and under-employment; by the fraught and punitive operations of the income support program across remote Australia; and by the extraordinarily high levels of incarceration of remote community members (particularly young adult males). This deep disengagement signals extremely low levels of alignment between mainstream and remote community norms, and threatens social cohesion both now and into the future.

 

Each of these areas of disengagement has serious repercussions for Indigenous citizens and their families, but also for mainstream Australia’s ability to operate as an inclusive society.

 

The strengthening disengagement of remote communities from the mainstream electoral system is of particular concern. It threatens the process of reconciliation within the nation. It both undermines the legitimacy of our systems of governance to elect governments that represent and speak for all citizens, and it reinforces the voicelessness of a significant segment of the remote population in the decision-making processes that ultimately affect their livelihoods and opportunities.

 

There is clearly a case for a much more rigorous examination of the issue of electoral participation nationally by remote Indigenous citizens. The obvious option would be a comprehensive Parliamentary Inquiry. While it may seem like an issue for the NT Legislative Assembly, I would suggest that these issues are likely to exist in jurisdictions beyond the NT, and will be present (albeit in diluted form) in Federal elections. They may also be an issue in Local Government elections. Accordingly, there would appear to be a case for the Australian Parliament to initiate a comprehensive inquiry. Any such inquiry would be greatly assisted by commissioning a comprehensive program of independent research and analysis.

 

Finally, the Australian Government has established a process to examine options for an Indigenous Voice (link here). While we are not privy to the status of those discussions, one of the likely options the various advisory groups will consider will be elected models. In this context, it will be important to understand the underlying drivers of electoral disengagement in remote communities, as there will be a risk that disengagement with mainstream politics in those communities will spill over into the processes involved with any proposal for an elected Voice. Of course, whether an elected Voice should be comprised of elected members is a complex issue, and I am presently far from persuaded that it is the best approach. This is an issue for another day.

Vale John Ah Kit

I woke this morning to the very sad news that John Ah Kit had died over the weekend in Darwin. My relationship with Jack was primarily professional, as I served as his department CEO from 2002 to 2005. We had crossed paths many times previously going back to the early 1980s when he worked as the CEO of the Northern Land Council and I was working for the Central Land Council.

Both the ABC (link here) and the Guardian (link here) have stories celebrating his life, his many admirable personal qualities and noting his pathbreaking achievements across four decades. I concur with their assessments.

As usual, I went for a walk this morning. In soft rain, I found my rhythm, and my mind turned to Jack and what his life meant and continues to mean. I remembered the times we had spent together, both relaxed and enjoyable, and stressful and pressured, as we grappled with the multiple issues that inevitably confront a cabinet minister in the NT. Others knew him better, spent more time with him, and are undoubtedly better qualified than me to comment on his life.

Nevertheless, I think there are some insights that I observed over the years working with him that are worth sharing.

He had an insatiable capacity to put his ear to the ground. He always knew what was happening from a community perspective, and he brought that knowledge to bear in his policy decisions. He understood intuitively that top down policymaking was inadequate in addressing Indigenous aspirations and policy challenges. 

He also understood the value of organised action in exerting influence. He had been a key player in the 1980s in developing the Federation of Land Councils, a loose alliance of Indigenous land councils that spent a lot of time lobbying the Federal Government on national land rights issues, and created the momentum that ultimately led to the High Court recognising the existence of native title in the Mabo Case.

These qualities and perspectives made him a formidable political operator (in the best sense of the word), someone who could find solutions to tricky issues, who was prepared to drive for substantive reform and tangible policies, and who understood that compromise with progress was preferable to ideology with stasis.

The sadness I feel for his passing relates to his personal qualities: his innate decency and lively good humour, and so much more. However, his enduring contribution to Territory and indeed Australian public policy is to be found in the institutional frameworks he was instrumental in improving as a key member of a reformist Labor Government out of power for over 20 years. And perhaps most importantly, in the track he carved that has created a much more inclusive environment in Territory politics than existed before he arrived. 

The full and considered history of those times is yet to be written. When it is, John Ah Kit will be recognised as a pathbreaking reformer and contributor to shifting the Territory into the 21st century.