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

The drivers of stratospheric rates of Indigenous incarceration

                                                            I have been studying how I may compare

This prison where I live unto the world.

Richard II, Act five, Scene one.

 

The Australian Institute of Criminology has just published a research report authored by academics Don Weatherburn, Michael Doyle, Tegan Weatherall and Joanna Wang titled Towards a theory of Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system (link here). In my view, this report represents the most important policy relevant research paper published in relation to Indigenous Australia in recent memory.

 

Over one third of the nation’s prisoners at any point in time are Indigenous. The ABS reports that at any one time, there are around 42, 000 people in prison in Australia, a rate of just over 200 per hundred thousand. Of these, some 14,400 prisoners are Indigenous, a rate of 2,549 per hundred thousand (link here). These data lead inexorably to a conclusion that Indigenous incarceration rates are a national disgrace.

 

Extremely high levels of Indigenous incarceration are directly and indirectly expensive for taxpayers, and impose extraordinary personal costs on those who are imprisoned and their families and on communities. These costs include diminished and constrained life opportunities; the economic and social ramifications of imprisonment; ongoing mental and physical health impairments to prisoners and their families; and ongoing intergenerational trauma. In addition, the opportunity costs (which we might conceptualise as the lost opportunities of high levels of incarceration) on both the Indigenous and mainstream Australian communities, while largely unmeasured and intangible, are bound to be substantial. In these circumstances, addressing over-incarceration of First Nations people should be a major policy priority for governments at all levels. 

 

Of course, under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, the parties have determined that there is a target to reduce Indigenous incarceration rates. Using a baseline of incarceration levels in 2019, Target 10 aims to reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults held in incarceration by at least 15% by 2031. This is a pathetically unambitious target, as (on my calculation) it merely aims to reduce the incarceration rate from 2549 per 100k down to 2167 per 100k. This extreme lack of ambition raises serious questions regarding whether the Commonwealth (and its state and territory government partners) were ever serious about addressing the underlying disadvantages arising from this target that the Closing the Gap framework claims to be focussed on.

 

Even so, according to the Productivity Commission (PC) dashboard (link here), incarceration rates nationally have worsened since 2019, albeit there has been improvement in some jurisdictions. Of greater concern, incarceration rates nationally are projected by the PC to continue to rise through to 2031. Given the lack of progress, it is unsurprising to observe that governments have singularly failed to outline a comprehensive methodological model (or hypothesis) underpinning their actions directed at decreasing incarceration rates for Indigenous people.

 

These concerning trends, and the concomitant social and economic pain that they impose on First Nation communities, provide an unassailable rationale for further policy reform and action by governments at all levels. The key question then is what should those policy changes focus on?

 

The AIC Research Paper is framed quite narrowly as a statistical exercise aimed at testing a particular hypothesis. The Abstract to the research paper describes it in the following terms:

The Australian Indigenous imprisonment rate is currently 16.7 times the non-Indigenous imprisonment rate. The leading proximate cause of this over-representation is a high rate of Indigenous arrest. In this report we develop and test a model of Indigenous arrest in which the primary drivers of risk are substance use, stress and trauma, adverse social environment, exposure to arrest, human/economic/social capital, and state/territory of residence. We test the model using data from the 2014–15 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (emphasis added).

 

The following paragraphs are extracts from the Research Paper designed to elucidate its major findings. I strongly recommend that interested readers look at the Research Paper as there is much nuance and detail (including a detailed account of the statistical analyses undertaken) that I have passed over.

 

From the Executive Summary:

Though the point is often overlooked, most Indigenous Australians are never arrested or imprisoned. It is impossible to understand Indigenous over-representation in prison without coming to grips with the factors that differentiate those who are arrested and, in many cases, imprisoned, and the majority who are not. In this report we outline and evaluate a preliminary theory of Indigenous arrest. The explanation we give treats Indigenous arrest as the interplay of two sets of factors, one of which increases the risk of arrest and the other of which reduces that risk. The first set includes factors such as age, gender, psychological distress, membership of the stolen generation, illicit drug use, alcohol use and state and territory laws and policies. The second (protective) set includes social embeddedness, income, school completion, marital status and living conditions that reduce contact with police. We evaluate the theory using the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS), a large nationally representative survey of Indigenous Australians. The results are largely consistent with the explanation we put forward. The risk of arrest is higher for males than females, rises to a peak around 21–30 years, and declines rapidly thereafter. Illicit drug and alcohol use increases the risk of arrest, as does a high level of psychological distress, being a member of the stolen generation, living in a problem-affected neighbourhood and having a higher level of exposure to police. The risk of arrest is lower among Indigenous Australians who are married, who have never been homeless, who have people they feel they can confide in, who have completed school, and who have an income in the top four deciles.

The strongest risk factor is having used illicit drugs and alcohol over the preceding 12 months, which increases the marginal risk of arrest by 14 percentage points…The strongest protective factor is school completion, which reduces the risk of arrest by 7.9 percentage points….Measures to reduce illicit drug and alcohol use, improve school retention and improve economic outcomes for Indigenous Australians are essential if Australia is to achieve any longterm reduction in the scale of Indigenous over-representation in prison(emphasis added).

 

I omit any summary of the model description and the detailed statistical results, though I recommend readers examine Figures 1 through to 4. I have taken the following text from the concluding ‘Discussion’ section of the paper.

Discussion. We set out in this report to test a theory that linked the risk of Indigenous arrest to age and gender, illicit drug and alcohol use, stress and trauma, environmental factors associated with a person’s neighbourhood, state laws and regulations, exposure to police, and human, economic and social capital. Broadly speaking, our findings are consistent with that hypothesis…

As in past studies, illicit drug and alcohol use emerged as having the strongest relationship with the risk of arrest…More than one in 10 of those who do not use illicit drugs or alcohol had been arrested at least once in the past five years, compared with almost a third of those who use illicit drugs and alcohol. The fact that this difference in risk persists over such a long period (35 years), even after controlling for a wide range of other factors, underscores just how large a contribution illicit drug and alcohol use makes to the volume of Indigenous arrests and, therewith, to Indigenous imprisonment (emphasis added) ….

The two strongest protective factors are completing school, which was associated with a 7.9 percentage point (or 35%) reduction in the risk of arrest, and having an income in the top four deciles, which was associated with a 7.4 percentage point (or 33%) reduction in risk…Reducing the risk of arrest by improving Indigenous school completion and income clearly requires a concerted effort to address the sources of Indigenous disadvantage in the home, school and labour market (emphasis added)….

The benefits associated with living in a remote area and having a permanent home are interesting, given that these variables have received little research attention in the literature on Indigenous arrest. Both are strong protective factors. If, as we assume, they measure reduced exposure to police, they suggest that simply being visible to police increases the risk of Indigenous arrest, even if no serious offence is committed. This conclusion is consistent with evidence that police make less use of diversionary alternatives when dealing with minor offences (eg offensive language, offensive behaviour) committed by Indigenous Australians than when dealing with similar offences by non-Indigenous Australians (emphasis added).

 

The authors of the AIC Research report conclude by arguing for better data to enable more rigorous testing of new or alternative hypotheses; for policy to be based more closely upon theoretical analyses of the correlates of Indigenous arrest rates; and finally for the immediate development of policies where their research finding are consistent with rigorous studies of factors that increase the risk of involvement in crime. In relation to these factors, they state:

 Research on illicit drug and alcohol use, school completion, employment and income are just four examples [references removed]. There is no need to wait for further research before developing policies to improve outcomes on these dimensions. Progress on them is essential if we are to achieve any long-term reduction in the scale of Indigenous over-representation in prison (emphasis added).

 

The AIC research paper is valuable precisely because it provides an evidence-based policy roadmap which if implemented would begin to address rising Indigenous incarceration rates. Of course, the policy reforms required will themselves take time to be designed and implemented, tasks which are themselves complex and not without risk of failure. Even when implemented, it will take time for them to gain traction and have an impact. The consequence is that even with the right policy response not only is it highly unlikely that the 2031 target will be achieved, but it is also likely that it will take at least another decade to turn around the current trends.

In these circumstances, what is required is for governments at all levels, and most importantly, for the Commonwealth to first step up and devise and implement the required reforms, and second, to stay the course. This would require the Commonwealth to come clean with the Australian community regarding the extended time frames required and the financial costs and implicit risks in the strategies being pursued.

 

The reason I consider this to be one of the most important policy relevant research papers in recent times for the Indigenous policy domain is that it substantially strengthens the policy case not just for incarceration reform, but for much more ambitious policy action on a range of other fronts, including housing, education, income support and employment policies. In other words, the AIC Research Paper is so much more than a criminological study on Indigenous  incarceration rates. With good policy design, and adequate investment of financial and human resources, each of these policy issues have the potential in their own right to substantially improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of the most disadvantaged Indigenous citizens. In turn, the longer term pay-off for the broader society in improved social cohesion and reduced health costs arising from widespread existence of social determinants driving sub-optimal health outcomes will be significant.

 

Yet notwithstanding the clear benefits of addressing these policy issues, our political elites and thus our political system has demonstrated a longstanding and deep-seated aversion to acting in the public interest on these issues. The likelihood that necessary action will now be taken to address incarceration is thus remote. In a very real sense, the nation’s incarcerated, its unemployed, its unhoused and its under-educated citizens continue to inhabit a realm of sustained exclusion. There is no shortage of simplistic and instant solutions: many of us have a predisposition to blame the victim, and notwithstanding the existence of systemic constraints, there is no exemption for anyone from taking responsibility for their own life. Nevertheless, the extraordinary imbalance between government rhetoric and action, and between the preparedness of democratically elected governments to play politics rather than act in the public interest, suggests that there is something very awry in the economic and social governance of the Australian nation.

 

I previously published posts dealing with incarceration issues in 2019 (link here) and 2020 (link here and link here). On re-reading them, what strikes me most is how over the past five years and notwithstanding a change of government in Canberra, nothing has changed. The underlying dynamic of apparent policy intractability and avoidance of responsibility by governments remains ubiquitous and deeply embedded.

 

While the AIC Research Paper is of much wider policy relevance than its title suggests, it does not offer a pre-fabricated policy solution to the policy issues it identifies as crucial. It merely provides a roadmap. Each of the policy areas identified requires innovative and determined policy work at both political and bureaucratic levels to transform the roadmap into real world policy. Yet I fear that without sustained advocacy from Indigenous interests, there will be no appetite within policy circles to begin the journey so persuasively mapped out by the AIC Report authors. Even with Indigenous advocacy, there is no guarantee that policymakers will listen.

 

In other words, for all our self-confidence regarding the seemingly unquestionable merit of our existing systems of democratic governance, it remains the case there exists a substantial ‘underclass’ of excluded citizens, many of whom are Indigenous. This should prompt serious reflection by thinking Australians. Might it not be the case that the deeper drivers of continuing stratospheric rates of Indigenous incarceration can be traced to the self-imposed captivity of mainstream Australians by beliefs and mindsets that refuse to recognise the continuing existence of systemic exclusion embedded in our political systems.

 

25 May 2024

The Remote Area Allowance: the case for wider reform

 

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4.

 

Francis Markham, one of the most insightful and competent data and policy analysts in the Indigenous policy domain has just published a short blog post on the case for reforming the remote area allowance (RAA). His post (link here) is titled: The Poor Pay More: Why the Remote Area Allowance Needs Urgent Reform, and is highly recommended.

The post links to a 2020 Productivity Commission (PC) study (link here). The Executive Summary of that report is also worth reading.

I don’t propose to summarise Markham’s arguments which are succinct, persuasive and data driven.

What struck me as I read his post however is that it raises broader issues regarding remote employment, and in particular the need for radical reform of the Community Development Program (CDP).

In 2019, in response to the PC’s Issues Paper, I published a short post (link here) identifying a number of issues that would also come into play. Unfortunately, I failed to review the PC report when it was finally published in 2020….I must have been asleep at the wheel.

Below is an extract from that earlier post which in my view is still relevant, notwithstanding that the punitive tone of the CDP program appears to have moderated under the current Government:

A further potential issue relates to the impact of conditional welfare in remote Australia (ie the CDP program: link here) and the increasing evidence that as a result of punitive penalties, significant numbers of remote Indigenous residents are not accessing their welfare entitlements and thus not accessing RAA.

One of the challenges is assessing the utility of these policy measures, is that they were primarily devised to assist and benefit mainstream interests, particularly mainstream taxpayers and businesses. Consequently, it can be easy to overlook Indigenous perspectives in assessing the changes in underlying rationales over time. As the Commission notes:

A range of justifications have been advanced for special assistance for people living and/or working in remote areas (box 3), although many of these are contentious. For those justifications drawing on the isolation and arduousness of life in the outback, the changes in transport, communications and living conditions over the past seventy years mean that their strength has diminished (at least in many parts of the country). Such arguments have also been challenged on the basis that ‘individuals have a free choice whether or not to live or work in remote areas and to compensate them, if they so choose, would lead to resource misallocation and reduced growth for the country as a whole’ (see Cox et al. 1981, p. 15).

While there have been improvements in the circumstances of remote citizens, the circumstances of remote Indigenous citizens are still highly disadvantaged. Moreover, they may not have the same level of flexibility in their choice of residence as mainstream citizens. 

Markham’s arguments on reforming the RAA and the comments I made in 2019 together strengthen the argument for a radical reconsideration of the Community Development Program (CDP). In December last year, I published a post on employment issues where I endorsed what in effect amounted to a recommendation for a pilot employment creation program to be established (link here). Upon reflection however, the case for moving decisively to reform CDP is overwhelming: lives are not just at risk but will be drastically shortened unless action is taken.

It is time Governments looked seriously at shifting the totality of the 30,000 CDP participants across remote Australia into real Government funded jobs focussed on working on country, housing maintenance, NDIS support roles, construction, language and cultural advice within the education system, climate change readiness, disaster readiness, and community health. I mentioned some of these options when my views were sought for a recent article by Michelle Grattan in The Conversation (link here).

The rationale for such a radical reconceptualisation of the CDP is an amalgam of a number of factors: the existence of market failure in job creation in remote regions; the opportunity costs of not providing opportunities for real employment, the reduction in social security payments that would go some way to offsetting the costs of job creation; and the very real benefits to individuals, families and communities that would flow not just over the short term, but the long term.

I think of this as a macro-economic intervention across remote Australia in response to what is an ongoing economic, social and environmental disaster across remote Australia. It would be aimed at creating the foundations for a viable remote Australian economy. It would require vision, and sustained commitment from Government, as the present crisis (link here) is rooted in deep-seated market failure. In effect, it would be akin to an Australian version of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Of course, the meta-issue worth considering is how is it that Governments have done nothing following the PC’s 2020 report on RAA, and more concerningly, have been incapable over at least four decades in ensuring that real employment opportunities are available for remote residents.

My own view is that Indigenous interests just do not have a sustained and powerful advocacy capability that governments find it impossible to ignore. Moreover, the Indigenous advocacy capabilities that do exist are both overwhelmed by competing mainstream interests whose claims on government effectively limit the funds available for investment in indigenous priorities. This is the fundamental reason that Government do not listen to Indigenous interests; they are just too busy listening to other interests.   

Finding the solution to that challenge is the real constraint on closing the gap, even for just 30,000 unemployed citizens across remote Australia, a cohort that totals less than 0.3 percent of AUstralias employment base, and which Francis Markham describes as ‘the most economically disadvantaged groups within Australia’.

 

 

12 February 2024