Maintaining our gaze: the ongoing Indigenous child protection crisis

 

Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze…

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, scene 1

 

This week the AIHW released the report Child Protection Australia 2019-20 (link here).  Attached are a series of selective quotes from the report reporting extraordinary rates of over-representation of Indigenous children within the system. I have omitted the relevant graphs which accompany these quotes.

 

The number of children in out-of-home care rose by 7% between 30 June 2017 and 30 June 2020 (from 43,100 to 46,000). During this time the rate of children in out-of-home was relatively steady at 8 per 1,000 children.

Indigenous children continue to be over-represented among children receiving child protection services, including for substantiated child abuse and neglect, children on care and protection orders and children in out-of-home care.

…14,300 Indigenous children were the subject of a substantiation in 2019–20. The most common type of substantiated abuse for Indigenous children was emotional abuse (47%) followed by neglect (32%)…

1 in 18 Indigenous children (around 18,900) were in out-of-home care at 30 June 2020, almost two-thirds (63%) of whom were living with relatives, kin or other Indigenous caregivers. [page vi].

 

Of the children in long-term out-of-home care, 2 in 5 (42%) were Indigenous [page vi].

 

In 2019–20, 55,300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children received child protection services, a rate of 166 per 1,000 Indigenous children. This was almost 8 times the rate for non-Indigenous children (21 per 1,000 non-Indigenous children) [page 14].

 

The number of Indigenous children receiving child protection services rose between 2016–17 and 2019–20, from 49,200 to 55,300. This was reflected in the rate, which rose from 151 to 166 per 1,000 Indigenous children in the same period. For non-Indigenous children the rates declined slightly from 22 to 21 per 1,000 children, with minor fluctuations during the period [page 16].

 

Children from geographically remote areas had the highest rates of substantiations—children from Very remote areas (24 per 1,000 children) were more than 3 times as likely as those from Major cities (7 per 1,000) to be the subject of a substantiation... Of the children who were the subject of a substantiation from Remote and Very Remote areas, 88% were Indigenous. In Major cities 20% of children subject to substantiations were Indigenous [page 26].

 

In 2019–20, 14,300 Indigenous children were the subject of a substantiation. This is a rate of 43 per 1,000— almost 7 times the rate of non-Indigenous children (6 per 1,000)... This is consistent with findings for previous years... The reasons for the over-representation of Indigenous children in child protection substantiations are complex. Underlying causes include:

• the legacy of past policies of forced removal; • intergenerational effects of previous separations from family and culture; • a higher likelihood of living in the lowest socioeconomic areas; • perceptions arising from cultural differences in child-rearing practices.

Indigenous children are also over-represented in other areas related to child safety, including:

• hospital admissions for injuries and assault; • experiences of homelessness; • involvement in the youth justice system [page 27].

 

At 30 June 2020, about 18,900 Indigenous children were in out-of-home care—a rate of 56 per 1,000 Indigenous children, which was 11 times the rate for non-Indigenous children ... This difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children was evident across all age groups...

Rates for Indigenous children in out-of-home care varied by age groups. Indigenous children aged 10–14 had the highest rate of out-of-home care (63 per 1,000 Indigenous children), while those aged under 1 had the lowest rate (28 per 1,000) [page 54].

 

For Indigenous children in out-of-home care, rates rose between 2017 and 2020, from 51 per 1,000 children to 56 per 1,000 Indigenous children [page 58].

 

There is a risk of over-simplification selectively quoting from a report such as this. I recommend readers take some time to have a look at the report itself. Nevertheless, it is astounding to comprehend that 42 percent of the 46,000 children in out of home care across the nation are Indigenous. In 2019, Neil Westbury and I assessed the state of out of home care in NSW in our Policy Insights paper Overcoming Indigenous Exclusion (link here), and we noted then that there were 31,000 children in out of home care and 11,900 or 38 percent were Indigenous. While the AIHW notes that data adjustments mean that prior comparisons are not appropriate (see page vi), it is clear that the national situation is much worse than national policymakers realised just two years ago. Moreover, these data points are not point in time issues, but are indicators of ongoing reductions in children’s life opportunities, with ongoing human costs to the families concerned and social and financial costs to the broader community.

Moreover, what is not addressed in a report focussed on measuring children’s engagement with the child protection system are the multiple upstream issues for parents and families that have led to children being placed into care. Issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, incarceration, and so on. These too have huge personal, family and wider social impacts which are both ongoing and negatively synergistic.

On the positive side of the ledger, the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here) provides for new child protection target (link here) aimed at reducing the rate of over-representation by 45 percent over the decade to 2031.

Yet as the report notes, the rate of Indigenous over-representation has increased in the last four years. Further, this is not a new problem; in our Policy Insights paper referred to above, we considered the experience of NSW, and in particular, the reviews conducted by the NSW Ombudsman in 2011, 2014, and the excellent review by David Tune. Megan Davis conducted a subsequent review focussed on Indigenous child protection issues in 2019 (link here). What is common to all of these NSW reports is that the previous responses by the NSW Governments have been inadequate and that the calls for structural reforms have been dismissed (either implicitly or explicitly). The NSW experience has been largely replicated in the other jurisdictions.

While child protection is a state and territory responsibility, the broad uniformity of the challenges particularly for Indigenous children and families across the nation, and the inability of state and territory governments so far to successfully address those challenges, suggests that there are deeper structural issues at play. These are issues that span both Commonwealth and state / territory responsibilities, and demand a combined approach led by the Commonwealth.

To date, however, there is very little evidence that the Commonwealth recognises that it has a responsibility to lead in this policy space, nor that without its leadership, the prospects of success are limited. There has been no response from the Minister for Indigenous Australians to the release of the AIHW report.

We await the publication in July of the first implementation plans arising from the new National Agreement, and the associated Commonwealth investment. My prediction however is that in relation to this particular target, the Commonwealth will stay with its longstanding script, and seek to place the entirety of the responsibility on the states and territories. For their part the states and territories will either put their heads in the sand and ignore the issue, or implicitly deny that a problem exists. They have form on this… On 16 September 2020, the nation’s Community Services Ministers met and were briefed by Minister Wyatt on the new Closing the Gap targets for children in out of home care. The communique of the meeting (link here) has a self-congratulatory tone overall, and mentions that child protection reforms were paused across the nation in March 2020 because of the pandemic, and had not then been resumed. Extraordinarily, the Communique stated (inter alia):

Minister Wyatt acknowledged the importance of governments working together to keep children safe and healthy by identifying and replicating best practice, in partnership with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations. Ministers noted that a number of states and territories had developed very strong practice in this area which was seeing clear gains in reducing the intake of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children into out of home care and increases in family restoration (emphasis added).

Given the data outlined in the AIHW report, the impression left by the statement in bold is clearly just wrong, and it is extraordinary that neither Ministers Ruston nor Wyatt, who were both present at the meeting, sought to correct the record.

When rhetoric trumps reality, policy development becomes an exercise in doing the minimum required to avoid sustained criticism. When the life opportunities of children are involved, this is plainly not good enough.

What is required is a comprehensive and well-resourced plan to address the structural underpinnings of child safety in the broadest sense. This would require the development of a structural reform agenda plus targeted program initiatives; robust but simple coordination arrangements across jurisdictions; long term financial commitments; engagement with the relevant community controlled agencies; and the creation of a sophisticated and policy specific research and evaluation capability aimed at identifying the key leverage points to turn current trends around and monitoring progress in live time. See my previous March 2020 post on an earlier AIHW report (link here) for other similar policy reform suggestions.

Such an agenda appears ambitious, because it is ambitious. It also happens to accord with the principles laid out in the new National Partnership.  Anything less is unlikely to have the necessary policy heft and firepower to make a difference. It is time the nation got serious about addressing Indigenous disadvantage. This will require Commonwealth leadership and commitment.

A core proof of the existence of structural exclusion is the inability of those who are not excluded to recognise and actually ‘see’ an issue. As a nation, we are conscious that there is an issue with Indigenous child protection; we know it is there somewhere, we allow statisticians to write reports, and prepare graphs, yet we are incapable of keeping it in focus, of identifying with the real and tangible impacts on children and their families. In short, we are incapable of maintaining our gaze. To maintain our gaze is too difficult because it would reveal a truth about Australian society, and ourselves, that we cannot bear to acknowledge.

 

Child protection: the invisible pandemic

A wretched soul bruised with adversity,

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,

As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.

Comedy of Errors, Act 2, scene 1

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare recently released their report Child protection Australia 2018–19 (link here). I have not had a chance to make a close examination, but even a cursory scan makes for devastating reading.

This national snapshot comes in the wake of multiple reports and reviews over many years. To take just one of the many, in October 2019, Professor Megan Davis finalised a comprehensive report (link here) for the NSW Government. Family is Culture: Independent review of Aboriginal children and young people in out of home care is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive report on Indigenous child protection issues in Australia for at least a decade. It is full of detailed analysis and statistics, along with suggestions for reform. Professor Davis makes 125 recommendations. A particular focus of Davis’ analysis is the need to address the structural issues underpinning what is widely acknowledged to be a dysfunctional child protection system seeking to address widespread issues of neglect, abuse and violence within many Indigenous families. I have not had a chance to review implementation progress, however it seems unlikely that there has been adequate time for a considered NSW response to date. The risk that the NSW Government will do nothing, or very little, appears very high, as along with so many of these reports, the Davis report gained very little media coverage and has had very little public impact. Moreover, it has been overtaken by emergencies such as the bush fires and now the Covid 19 pandemic that inevitably consume all the available political oxygen.

The Davis report came hard on the heels of a report by former Commonwealth public servant David Tune into the mainstream child protection system in NSW. Neil Westbury and I made a detailed study of the Tune Report in our Policy Insights Paper published by CAEPR in March 2019, Overcoming Indigenous exclusion: very hard, plenty humbug; see pages 55-57 (link here).

I don’t wish to attempt to make a detailed assessment of the core issues arising from these reports here; interested readers should go to the publications themselves. I do however wish to make an important policy point: the extraordinary levels of out of home care in NSW (and other urban and regional jurisdictions) is demonstrable proof that structural exclusion is an issue for Indigenous citizens across the whole nation, and not just in remote regions.

Rather than seek to re-analyse and regurgitate insights proposed by others over time, I thought I would merely reproduce some selected quotations from the AIHW Report before drawing some very high level conclusions. I make no claim to comprehensiveness in doing this, my purpose is merely to bring home to readers just how dire is the situation of First Nations children in this country.

Selected extracts of the AIHW report

From the Summary:

• 1 in 6 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children received child protection services. 12,600 Indigenous children were the subject of a substantiation in 2018–19. The most common type of substantiated abuse was emotional abuse (47%) followed by neglect (31%).

• 1 in 18 Indigenous children (around 18,000) were in out-of-home care at 30 June 2019, two-thirds (64%) of whom were living with relatives, kin or other Indigenous caregivers.

Page 15: In 2018–19, 51,500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children received child protection services, a rate of 156 per 1,000 Indigenous children. This was almost 8 times the rate for non-Indigenous children (21 per 1,000 non-Indigenous children).

Page 17: The number of Indigenous children receiving child protection services rose between 2014–15 and 2018–19, from 42,900 to 51,500. This was reflected in the rate, which rose from 134 to 156 per 1,000 Indigenous children in the same period. For non-Indigenous children the rates have remained relatively steady at 21 per 1,000 non-Indigenous children between 2014–15 and 2018–19, with minor fluctuations during the period.

Page 25: Children from geographically remote areas had the highest rates of substantiations—children from Very remote areas (20 per 1,000 children) were almost 3 times as likely as those from Major cities (7 per 1,000) to be the subject of a substantiation (Figure 3.6). Of the children who were the subject of a substantiation from Remote and Very Remote areas, 88% were Indigenous. In Major cities only 16% of children subject to substantiations were Indigenous.

Page 27: In 2018–19, 12,600 Indigenous children were the subject of a substantiation. This is a rate of 38 per 1,000—6 times the rate of non-Indigenous children (6 per 1,000). This is consistent with findings for previous years.

Page 41: At 30 June 2019, 37% (21,900) of children on care and protection orders were Indigenous. Of these children, 70% (15,300) were on guardianship or custody orders. The rate of Indigenous children on orders was 66 per 1,000 Indigenous children, 9 times the rate for non-Indigenous children (7 per 1,000). The rate of Indigenous children on orders was higher than that for non-Indigenous children across all jurisdictions, with rate ratios varying across jurisdictions.

Page 43: From 30 June 2015 to 30 June 2019, the rate of children aged 0–17 on care and protection orders rose from 9 to 11 per 1,000 children. Over the 5-year period, the number of Indigenous children on care and protection orders rose steadily, from 16,900 on 30 June 2015 to 21,900 on 30 June 2019, with rates rising from 53 to 66 per 1,000 Indigenous children.

Page 49: In 2018–19, about 4,300 Indigenous children were admitted to out-of-home care at a rate of 13 per 1,000 Indigenous children, nearly 9 times the rate for non-Indigenous children (1.5 per 1,000 non‑Indigenous children). Similar differences in rates of admission to out-of-home care for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children were evident across all age groups.

Page 52: At 30 June 2019, more than half (54%) of the children in out-of-home care lived in Major cities, and 42% lived in Inner regional and Outer regional areas (based on postcode of living arrangement).

The rates for children in Remote and Very remote areas were twice that of those in Major cities for children living in out-of-home care at 30 June 2019. The rates of Indigenous children in out-of-home care were much higher across all remoteness areas than the rates for non-Indigenous children.

Indigenous children living in Major cities were 14 times as likely as non-Indigenous children in Major cities to be in out-of-home care at 30 June—62 per 1,000 Indigenous children compared with 4 per 1,000 non-Indigenous children.

Indigenous children living in Remote and Very remote areas were 10 times as likely as non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home care.

Page 53: At 30 June 2019, about 18,000 Indigenous children were in out-of-home care—a rate of 54 per 1,000 Indigenous children, which was nearly 11 times the rate for non-Indigenous children. This difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children was evident across all age groups.

Policy Implications

There are a range of potential responses to this information by policymakers. The first approach, perhaps the most likely, and the easiest in the short term, is to just ignore this situation and hope a political scandal or media revelation does not emerge in the near future.

A second possible approach would be to seek to ascertain the underlying causes of the extraordinary rates of out of home care and then adopt policies and programs designed to mitigate and ameliorate those causes. Such an approach is not as straightforward as might be imagined, since the potential causes are multiple, are potentially legacies of previous policies , and are potentially subject to debate and  argument (even within the policymaking community). Moreover, the potential political support of the measures required to address those causes is often non-existent (either out of ignorance or self-interest), and even were it to exist, the implementation capacity of governments in these complex cross-cultural domains is weak and problematic.

A third approach, that I find intuitively attractive, but is likely to be the least likely approach of policymakers, is to ramp up considerable the policy focus and attention on the issue, allocate substantially more resources including to supporting foster families and, and give the issue more profile in policy contexts. This would require political leadership and commitment, and would necessarily be guided by the broad thrust of the Indigenous community’s insights and concerns, for which Professor Davis’ analysis and recommendations including her calls for greater Indigenous involvement in the child protection system might be considered a proxy. Of course, she correctly articulated the case for broader contextual reforms in the Indigenous policy space, and this too will be essential. My point is that there is a case for a crisis response to the child protection pandemic that will be contingent on wider reforms, but should be pursued on its own terms nevertheless.

I have made a very direct link to the need for a pandemic response not merely as a rhetorical device. It is worth thinking about the child protection statistics, and then making the imaginative leap to try to understand what they mean for real children and families. Their worlds are in turmoil before the child protection system is engaged, but that turmoil continues both during and afterwards. Moreover, the levels of need for child protection services are extraordinary, suggesting that the reverberations of poor policy will spread far and wide. Like the operation of the health system in a pandemic, the effectiveness of the operation of the child protection system in mitigating family violence, rebalancing lives, and creating a foundation upon which children can build a future life will have life and death consequences. Future rates of drug use, domestic violence, incarceration, psychological health, and employment are all impacted by individuals’ experience in their childhood years. Let me repeat: the child protection policy domain has life and death consequences for First Nations peoples.

Of course, it is instructive that when a health crisis such as Covid 19 hits the wider community, creating an associated economic crisis, governments are prepared to adopt the third approach above, focussed on moving quickly to acknowledge the crisis and throw untold resources (‘whatever it takes’) at mitigating it including across the health, finance, immigration and social security sectors. As I write this, the media is reporting that the Government is preparing a massive second stage economic stimulus package in excess of $50bn. Yet Governments have been unwilling to adopt an equivalent approach to the long standing, and ongoing child protection crisis engulfing Indigenous Australia. The answer to the question: ‘why this continues to be so?’ would provide the most persuasive insight into the underlying structural causes of the longstanding child protection crisis in Indigenous Australia.

The 2019 Federal election and Indigenous affairs: rough seas ahead

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds…

Julius Caesar, Act One scene three.

Policy is never made in a vacuum, and Indigenous policy is no exception. While policy is normally driven by incremental developments, and the concerns and advocacy of interest groups, it is also heavily influenced by political issues and developments. Indeed, given the propensity of Indigenous issues to demarcate ideological divides in the community, we would be safe in concluding that Indigenous policy is even more political than most areas of policy concern.

To take just one example, eleven years ago, in the lead up to an election, the then Howard Government decided to instigate the NT National Emergency Response, usually known as the NT Intervention. The Labor Opposition was successfully wedged, having to decide between opposing an electorally popular policy and supporting a policy which was anathema, including as it did provisions which sidelined the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act, and the use of the Australian Defence Force (albeit in an unarmed capacity).

We currently have a set of similar political circumstances to 2007: an unpopular government, a Prime Minister with a proven capacity to impose robust and punitive policy measures in sectors where the electoral consequences will not be negative (think refugee policy), and an Opposition determined to maximise its chances of winning the coming election. Added to this are the internal politics of the LNP Government, with a strong internal conservative dynamic, plus a range of smaller conservative parties to its right prepared to play the ‘race card’, and who are a real threat to its primary vote count especially in regional and non-urban electorates.

It is therefore worth looking at recent policy initiatives to ascertain if they are signalling a potential return to a more interventionist and ‘political’ policy framework in Indigenous affairs. In short, there appears to be a number of developments which suggest the Government is putting in place the building blocks to make Indigenous policy a key plank in its electoral strategy, albeit a tactic which makes the states and territories alleged failures the primary target thus disguising the underlying targeting of Indigenous citizens. The fact that WA, the NT, and Queensland all have Labor Governments make this a viable electoral tactic.

So what are these policy building blocks for a potential political attack on the states and territory? The core policy arena is shaping up to be child protection. This is an area where the states and NT right across the nation have yet to get on top of. The statistics on out of home care, particularly for Indigenous children, are a national disgrace. And there are regular reports of individual cases which involved the death and serious abuse of young children, most recently in Tennant Creek. A second policy area is school attendance, which is often seen (erroneously in my view) as a proxy for poor educational outcomes. While attendance is important, it is just one of a number of necessary elements in the successful delivery of education to Indigenous children, particularly in remote regions. A third building block (which I have posted on at length previously) is the area of remote housing where the Government has effectively cut $3bn from the forward estimates for the next decade, on the spurious argument that provision of social hosing is a responsibility of the states and the NT.

The evidence that the Government is putting in place the building blocks for such an electoral strategy is set out below.

First child protection. In a press conference on 23 April 2018 in Darwin (link here), the then Treasurer Scott Morrison noted in relation to a question regarding the Commonwealth’s decision to establish a Royal Commission into Youth detention in the NT:

…when you look over Royal Commissions in the past you will find they are called for different reasons on an array of issues but I think the one here in the Northern territory was quite pointed. You couldn’t have the government here inquire into itself. Could you? That would be a nonsense when it came to this issue. It did require a step back and one removed to get into those issues. (emphasis added).

I am not suggesting that the decision to call a Royal Commission was not warranted, but merely point to these comments to highlight the Prime Minister’s preparedness to apply a different standard to the NT than to other jurisdictions including the Commonwealth itself in relation to contention and politically sensitive issues.

On 4 September 2018, the Prime Minister was reported as commenting that the sexual assault of another Tennant Creek toddler makes his heart cry (Morrison denounces ‘sickening’ NT assault: link here).

On 18 September, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released a report on Children’s Headline Indicators (link here) which included data on child abuse nationally by jurisdiction. On 19 September 2018, The Australian ran an article which reported the AIHW findings headed ‘NT indigenous child abuse rate rises 30 pc’ which indicated that in the NT an average of 33.7 cases of sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect per 1000 children in 2016-17 compared with 27.3 percent a year earlier, a rate three times higher than the next highest jurisdiction.

In response, the Prime Minister suggested he might intervene in child protection in the NT (‘Morrison puts NT on notice over baby’s death’: link here paywall). In turn, this engendered a response from the NT Government (‘Feds need to pay, not intervene: NT Government’: link here and here). The Australian reported:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison's suggestion he might intervene in child protection following a baby's death near Darwin has been rejected by the NT government who said he should instead provide them with more funds.

The death of a six-month-old boy on Tuesday, which is being investigated by police, prompted the prime minister to say he would override Territory authorities if they did not meet their responsibilities as the former leader John Howard had done in the 2007 intervention.

NT Attorney General Natasha Fyles said the federal government should be contributing to the cost of fixing the youth justice and protection through the recommendations of last year's Royal Commission.

In relation to school attendance, the Prime Minister appointed Tony Abbott as a special envoy on Indigenous affairs, and his focus will be on remote education issues. He was quoted by the Guardian on 30 August 2018 (‘Tony Abbot accepts job as special envoy on Indigenous affairs’: link here) as describing his role as follows:

What I expect to be asked to do is to make recommendations on how we can improve remote area education, in particular, how we can improve attendance rates and school performance because this is the absolute key to a better future for Indigenous kids and this is the key to reconciliation,”

Upon coming into office in 2013, the Government initiated a major push on school attendance (which is the responsibility of the states) including the establishment of a new Commonwealth program, the Remote School Attendance Strategy (link here). Progress has largely stalled, and the Minister’s public statements on the issue have dropped off considerably. See previous posts on the issue here and here. In my March 2016 post, I concluded:

The Commonwealth’s current policy on remote school attendance appears to be fundamentally flawed. It bears all the hallmarks of a policy initiative designed to be seen to be doing something, yet runs the risk that it will actually allow the states and territories off the hook . 

The appointment of Tony Abbott appears to be setting the stage for a belated reversal of the Commonwealth’s policy position, where they will revert to blaming the states for poor progress. It is a pity that the Government didn’t work with the states rather than attempting to go it alone in 2014.

Third, in relation to remote housing, I merely refer readers to the multiple previous posts on this blog relating to the issue. The Government has gone out of its way to frame this issue as a Commonwealth / state dispute rather than what it is, a calculated decision to cut services to the most disadvantaged citizens in the country. The fact that this strategy has been largely successful and has had no discernible adverse electoral consequences will merely serve to encourage the hard heads within the Government to resort to a similar strategy on other issues.

Finally, the appointment of retired Vice Admiral Ray Griggs to the most senior position in the Indigenous affairs group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is quite curious (link here). Griggs (who I don’t know) was before his recent ‘retirement’ one of three leading contenders for appointment to the position of Chief of the ADF, a position which went to Angus Campbell. He is clearly an effective and well regarded manager, albeit one with limited exposure to Indigenous policy. While there is likely to be some concern in relation to this latter point, the issue I wish to focus on is the potential for the Government to use Griggs’ defence background and experience as a cloak to avoid criticism for any interventionist policies and to signal to those more conservative voters that the Government is taking a tougher line with Indigenous issues.

While the likelihood of the Government resorting to the strategy outlined above seems high, and the portents are in plain view for those prepared to look, one change between 2007 and 2018 is the ubiquity of social media, thus creating the opportunity for highly targeted campaigning by political parties. This means that the Government will not necessarily adopt a high profile ‘intervention’ on a national basis, but has the option of pursuing a more low key approach, with selective messaging to its core constituency and key electorates. It does however suggest that the Government’s policy stance on Indigenous issues will harden up over the next half year, and if the opportunity presents itself it will do everything possible to wedge the Labor Opposition.

For its part, Labor is yet to lay out its policy platform on Indigenous affairs, and while this too involves electoral and political considerations, the delay in outlining its platform and commitments leaves open the possibility that Labor will be left flat footed, and subject to the threat of an electoral wedge in the lead up to the election.

Labor should seek to take the high ground on Indigenous policy, bearing in mind that it is a policy realm which impacts our national reputation, and which will face extremely high expectations form Indigenous interests, and will require significant focus and attention if they win office. Labor should confront the issue of child protection head on, and consider committing to establishing a royal commission or high level inquiry into the issue nationally. It should announce its plans for the Indigenous affairs portfolio, including whether it will establish a new agency or leave Indigenous affairs where it is. It should commit to establishing a Commonwealth / State taskforce to work with the states on reforming remote education, including investing the necessary resources to ensure the states and the NT can invest in raising the quality of teaching standards, and exploring the opportunities for strengthening non-school educational opportunities as is occurring in some parts of central Australia. And it should commit to reinstating the $3bn in cuts to remote housing over the coming decade.

While predicting the future is inherently fraught, particularly in relation to Indigenous policy, I am confident that the combined interactions of Minister Scullion, Minister Wyatt, special envoy Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, Shadow Minister Pat Dodson, Opposition leader Bill Shorten, and the nation’s diverse Indigenous leadership will mean that the next six months will not be plain sailing. Perhaps appointing a Vice Admiral to head up Indigenous affairs wasn’t such a bad idea!