Infrastructure shortfalls in Alices Springs town camps

Comparisons are odorous

Much Ado About Nothing, Act three, Scene five

 

According to a 2019 NT Government policy document (link here), there are 43 town camps across the NT, of which 18 are within Alice Springs.  ABS census data from 2021 (link here), identifies 1055 residents of 18 town camps in Alice Springs. The population comprised 275 families and 256 families. The median age was 30. The median weekly household income was $756. There is much more demographic information available from the ABS web page linked to above. Anecdotally (and reflected in many NT government publications) there is a large but variable cohort of temporary visitors resident in Alice’s town camps. This cohort reflects the ongoing high mobility of families between surrounding communities and Alice Springs. At peak visitation periods, the population of the town camps may reach around 2000 residents.

I recently came across an extraordinary new book on the infrastructure and essential services needs of Alice Springs town camps (h/t Brad Riley). Authored by five researchers associated with the University of Newcastle and Tangentyere Council,  Chris Tucker, Michael Klerck, Anna Flouris, Vanessa Napaltjarri Davis and Denise Foster, and published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, it is prosaically titled Guide to Housing and Infrastructure Standards in Town Camps (link here). The Guide’s design and presentation is excellent, and its photographs, maps and illustrations ensure it is both extremely accessible and intellectually persuasive. Yet counter-intuitively, it eschews an explicit narrative, leaving readers the task of imagining the underlying narrative. Instead, the Guide is simultaneously a practical and straightforward account categorising the myriad shortfalls in essential services provision within Alice Springs’ town camps, but also a window into the wider systemic challenges facing all town camp and remote community residents across the NT and beyond. I will say a little about both these contributions.

The Guide’s Alice Spring contribution

The Guide has three parts: Part One deals with the mainstream Regulation and Design Standards applicable in Alice Springs. It also includes a short and succinct history of the town camps, and their support organisation Tangentyere Council. Included is a fascinating account from 1993 of Tangentyere’s history and prospects by Geoff Shaw, its then General Manager and one of the key Indigenous leaders responsible for making Tangentyere one of the most respected and longstanding Aboriginal community-controlled organisations in Australia.

Part Two summarises issues raised in Local Decision Making meetings within town camps, identifying a list of essential infrastructure, and describing for each issue in a single page the problem, the relevant regulations, and a specific solution.  Each of these issues is complemented by maps and most powerfully, by dual sets of photographs which illustrate examples of the issue in the town camps and for comparison, photographs illustrating the provision of the same essential service in mainstream Alice Springs. The combined effect of these comparisons spanning thirty separate essential service issues (including kerbs and gutters, stormwater drains, safe play areas, street lighting, road signage and rooftop solar energy provision to name just six) is a devastatingly effective exemplification of unequal service provision. The Guide is arguably more persuasive for its matter-of-fact tone, and while it doesn’t avoid criticism, there is no ideological rhetoric, no blaming and no gratuitous emotion.

Part Three provides both high level aerial and more detailed colour coded maps of the Local Decision Making processes for each town camp. In doing so, the Guide has created in a tangible form one template amongst many potential templates, for a regional atlas.  The innovation of overlaying existing infrastructure based on aerial photographs with colour coded potential additions provides a tangible record of community aspirations at a point in time, and I suspect represents one of the first comprehensive, detailed and technically documented records of Indigenous advocacy for improved essential services provision in the country. While I am not an expert in this area, I feel confident in asserting that this Guide, and the detailed action-research that underpins it, is a pathbreaking initiative that deserves wide distribution, and more importantly, a public and thorough response from the Commonwealth Government as well as the Northen Territory Government and the Alice Springs Town Council.

There is a wealth of detailed technical and regulatory information embedded in this Guide, all referenced to academic standards, and clearly written and presented. I won’t try to summarise it. I will however pick out a couple of policy relevant issues that struck me as significant and which reinforce the implicit message that the challenges facing the residents of these town camps are both considerable and ongoing.

The first general point to be made is that the Guide explodes the commonplace misapprehension that essential services are limited to power, water and sewerage. Essential services include safe playgrounds, community shade provision, and appropriate traffic constraints, controls and crossings. It also demonstrates that housing and essential services (broadly defined) are together part of a single policy system and must be dealt with by policymakers as such.

On page 10, the Guide references almost in passing Tangentyere’s response to a 2016 Government Inquiry into housing repairs and maintenance on town camps which noted that “the Alice Springs Town Council is unprepared to deliver Municipal and Essential Services on any town camp.”

On page 12, the Guide references target 9b under the national Closing the Gap framework which identifies that Aboriginal people who live in town camps must ‘receive essential services that meet or exceed the relevant jurisdictional standard … and meet or exceed the same standard that applies generally within the town’ — in this case Alice Springs. The Guide goes on to make a point that this Blog made two years ago (link here), namely that the Productivity Commission Closing the Gap data dashboard reports that the data does not exist to enable it to monitor progress in meeting target 9b.

On page 14, the Guide refers to the Tripartite Agreement between the individual Alice Springs town camp associations, the Commonwealth and the NT government, and the requirement in that agreement for three yearly independent reviews to assess the essential services needs and the costs of meeting them for the Alice Town camps. The Guide notes that since 2009, there should have been five such reviews, but in fact there has only been one which only partially filled the obligation in the Agreement.

These four points comprise elements of a deeper policy issue which encompasses complex issues related to land tenure, local government funding, and Commonwealth/Territory financial and policy relations. While the challenges are longstanding and undoubtedly complex, they are not insurmountable. The Commonwealth in particular which is a major funder of local government, and of the NTG both through the Grants Commission and through Specific Purpose Funding, clearly has the legislative and political authority to broker or force a solution, but clearly lacks the vision or the political will to do so.

The Guide’s wider policy contribution

Over the past decade, this Blog has spilt much metaphorical ink on the systemic or structural challenges facing remote Australia (link here). They extend beyond essential services and infrastructure, and include issues such as education, economic opportunities, unemployment, policing and justice, food security and digital access to name perhaps the most obvious. Nevertheless, while the data is invariably persuasive it is also abstract, and the comparative evidence relates to remote regions (which by definition have few voters and low political influence) and non-remote regions which are more politically influential and largely oblivious to the realities of remote communities and remote regions. The bottom line is that quantitative analysis, while powerful and revealing to those prepared to devote time and energy to understanding it, is of limited value in building a political constituency for policy reform. Quantitative analysis will continue to be relevant to policy discussions within government and between jurisdictions over the design and specification of policy reforms, but what has been lacking has been the development of a political constituency. It strikes me that this Guide is important not just for what it tells us about the exclusionary treatment of town camp residents in Alice Springs, but for the innovative and pathbreaking approach that it has adopting to making the case for wider essential services reform. The template it has adopted should in my view be used more widely (and perhaps in a more simplified and targeted way) to make the case for increased policy support for remote essential services provision more generally.

Furthermore, the issues raised in the Guide are in large measure replicated not just across the other 25 town camps in the NT, but (to a greater or lesser extent) across all the significant remote communities across the north. While the NT Government, and its local governments and town councils are and have been seriously complacent about the plight of remote community residents, they are not alone. To varying degrees, the state governments of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland are similarly complacent. So too is the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth used the 2020 revision of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap to effectively step back, leaving the policy responsibility for addressing Indigenous disadvantage and the myriad service delivery shortfalls to the states and territories. The current Government has done nothing to reverse that step.

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.

What is absent from the Guide (this is not in any way a criticism) is a strategy to ensure the pathway forward that it lays out for essential services policy reform, both in Alice Springs and more broadly will be adopted and implemented. There is no established mechanism, either in Alice Springs, or more broadly, to take these issues forward. Which politician or bureaucrat is likely to read the Guide and commit to pursuing the solutions identified therein, or even just discuss the identified problems, across the thirty issues identified? This is an institutional gap or absence.

In economic theory there is a concept of market failure, where markets do not operate effectively to meet societal demands. In the present case, the conditions appear to exist for an analogous concept, political failure, where our democratic polity is not meeting basic societal needs and expectations. We have been here before in the Indigenous policy domain. For example, on land rights: the political system gridlocked and efforts to address dispossession were stymied. Eventually, this led the High Court to step in and recognise the existence of native title. In the case of essential services reform, the mechanism to break the gridlock remains unclear; one possibility is that the worsening climate crisis might lead to the development of a universal policy response as temperatures rise across the north (see page 34 in the Guide).

While a fully determined strategic pathway to drive action on reform is not able to be mapped out, I see at least three preliminary steps which Indigenous interests might pursue to lay the groundwork for an effective policy reform process:

First, Indigenous interests across remote Australia might ramp up their advocacy for fair and equal essential service provision, including through more robust public advocacy, pushing for parliamentary and other inquiries at both national and jurisdictional levels, and utilising the presentation methods utilised in the Guide more widely.

Second, Indigenous interests might invest more in making the National Agreement on Closing the Gap work for them in relation to essential services provision. The ABS, the AIHW and the Productivity Commission should be pushed to step up and ensure that the data required to assess progress on the target 9b (and others not yet being measured) is both collected, analysed and published.

Third, Indigenous interests could move beyond the failure of the Voice and invest more in keeping the Commonwealth engaged consistent with the constitutional reform agreed in 1967 which gave the power to the Commonwealth to legislate in relation to Indigenous citizens. This is especially important in relation to essential services in remote Australia as in contrast to urban and regional Australia, remote Indigenous communities cannot rely on mainstream interests to ensure essential services are delivered. In remote Australia, where local interests divert scarce financial resources away from Indigenous essential services (as is irrefutably happening in Alice Springs), Indigenous interests must rely on the Commonwealth to step in, or in the event that the Commonwealth continues to remain recalcitrant and complacent, use the legal system to force change.

None of these steps will be easy, but governments respond to pressure. Indigenous interests in remote Australia must devise ways to better advocate for reform if they wish to see progress and not political and social regression.

Of course, it should not fall solely to Indigenous interests to advocate for equality in service provision. All Australians have an interest in this as a principle, and Indigenous interests deserve wider support in advocating for such equality. This must go beyond bland statements of support for reconciliation, or for Closing the Gap; the devil is in the detail and governments will only respond when there is a groundswell of support for detailed change from constituents across the nation.

Conclusion

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.

 

Looking ahead: the architecture of Indigenous policy in 2050

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Hamlet Act 3, scene 4.

 

This post seeks to unravel the factors and trends that will shape the life opportunities of Indigenous Australians in 2050. It is not an attempt at prediction, but rather an attempt to identify in a hardheaded way the factors that will shape the Indigenous policy domain going forward.

 

We live in a world of constant and rapid change, yet the key drivers of where we are today, and where we will be in 25 years are nevertheless amenable to analytic examination. Yet there is very little analysis available discussing these issues.

 

Of course, the wider world is undergoing a range of potentially catastrophic changes, linked to climate change, the ongoing transformation of the current global order linked to the rise of nations such as India, China, Indonesia and others, the stalling of unfettered globalisation, and the inexorable increase in the salience of national security and the related worldwide shift towards authoritarian systems of governance. These changes will shape Australia in ways which no-one can predict and may well overshadow or make irrelevant the factors laid out here which are expected to shape the 2050 Indigenous policy domain.

 

Nevertheless, if we look back 25 years, the Indigenous policy domain is both recognisable and, in many respects, familiar, albeit also substantially changed. In other words, there are systemic continuities, and seeking to identify the impact of those going forward may well highlight issues and potential changes to current policy settings.

 

A recent book on the sources of economic growth, How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth (link here) by economic historians Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin identified and assessed each of the most commonly suggested determinants of national wealth and wellbeing: geography, institutions, culture, fertility, and colonisation. While not necessarily endorsing the appropriateness of a narrow economic growth metric, these factors provide a useful template for considering the determinants of the shape of the Indigenous policy domain and the place of Indigenous people in Australia in 2050.

 

In my view, each of these factors will play a role in shaping the 2050 state of affairs and are also potentially arenas of policy focus and political debate. Moreover, as Koyama and Rubin argue, these factors often operate synergistically and reinforce each other.

 

The demography of Indigenous Australia is undergoing a significant counter-intuitive change. A combination of the definition of Indigeneity, fertility levels, high levels of inter-marriage between non-Indigenous and Indigenous partners and increasing rates of self-identification have led to a significant growth in the Indigenous population of Australia over the past 25 years. This growth is well in excess of natural increase. There is no reason to think that these dynamics are about to change. In 1991, the Indigenous population was recorded as 265,500, or 1.6 percent of the Australian population. As of 30 June 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) estimates an Indigenous population of 984,000 people representing 3.8% of the total Australian population.

 

In thirty years, the population has almost quadrupled, and its comparative size has more than doubled. The vast bulk of these changes have occurred in urban and regional Australia. By 2050, on current trends, we could easily see an Indigenous population of around two to three million people, comprising in excess of 6 percent of the national population. What is less clear is the likely socio-economic status of this larger population. However, as the growth effectively involves the re-categorisation of individuals shifting from the mainstream to the Indigenous population, its primary impact is likely to involve an expansion of the Indigenous ‘middle class’.

 

While nationally comparative Indigenous disadvantage will fall (a function of ongoing intermarriage and self-identification), a significant proportion of the Indigenous population will remain severely disadvantaged, thus driving a socio-economic wedge into the Indigenous demographic profile. A strongly bifurcated demographic profile will have significant policy implications, and if disadvantage is to be addressed, will likely require a shift towards greater ‘needs based’ policies to address the most disadvantaged segment of the Indigenous population. Whether such a shift occurs will likely become a highly politicised issue.

 

Geographical issues will not be the primary driver of policy in relation to the majority of the Indigenous population. They are resident in urban and regional Australia and have access to mainstream provision of infrastructure and essential services, and have access to private sector markets. It will however be a crucial issue in relation to remote Australia, where infrastructure investment is low or absent, and where markets have weak penetration. It is in these regions that economic and social disadvantage is currently deepest, and on present trends (e.g. climate risks) are likely to worsen.

 

There is currently no coherent remote Indigenous policy framework in place nationally, nor in the various remote jurisdictions. Across almost every indicator, remote Indigenous citizens are amongst the most disadvantaged in the country. While the remote population of some 150,000 citizens currently comprise only 15.4 percent of the Indigenous population (the urban population is 40.8 percent; regional population is 43.8 percent), if present trends continue, remote population increases through to 2050 may be very limited as fertility drops and out migration increases. Overall the remote Indigenous population in 2050 may remain well below 200, 000, and comprise only around 8 percent of the total Indigenous population.

 

The long-standing absence of a coherent policy framework suggests that the likelihood of governments devising one by 2050 is low and suggests that the present socio-economic crisis combined with endemic community dysfunction driven in large measure by governance and public investment shortfalls (a responsibility of mainstream governments) will continue. The likely exponential rise in climate induced environmental challenges across northern and remote Australia will merely serve to exacerbate these crisis level challenges. One very real possibility is that the current steady population shift from remote communities to regional towns will strengthen and even transform into a significant surge.

 

While Indigenous disadvantage is not limited to remote Australia, the challenges of remote Australia will certainly complicate the challenge of addressing Indigenous disadvantage nationally. It will deepen the demographic bifurcation, place serious pressure on the ideological rhetoric of pan-Indigeneity amongst First Nations interests, and in the absence of a coherent policy framework increasingly require governments to devise short-term crisis policy responses (with all the concomitant risks and costs).

 

The other geographical factor in play in the substantial growth in Indigenous land ownership across the continent over the past 50 years, and particularly the last twenty-five years following on from the 1992 Mabo Decision of the High Court and the Native Title Act of 1993. First Nations currently own interests in land (not all exclusive possession) covering some 55 percent of the Australian land mass. The quantum of land ownership will increase but seems likely to slow over the next 25 years. However, even the present extent of Indigenous landholding provides both opportunities and creates risks for both landowners and the nation.

 

Policy momentum in this area appears to have stalled for a range of reasons too complex to explore here. In essence, governments have shied away from important task of bedding down and shoring up what has been a revolutionary change in Australian land law. The 2015 Review of the Native Title Act by the Australian Law Reform Commission has been comprehensively ignored by governments. Key structural flaws and omission in the legislative framework persist. The policy challenge here for Indigenous interests is to progressively build coalitions of interest to ensure that the seismic changes embedded in the Native Title Act are finetuned and progressively improved. Public sector support for ongoing land management should be a national priority for both environmental and social justice reasons. Moreover, such support would counter the current trends for Indigenous people to shift off country and into towns. The alternative will be the gradual emergence of lost opportunities and regressive outcomes for both Indigenous landowners and the nation.

 

The role of culture in shaping policy outcomes is huge. Mainstream culture is a pervasive presence in shaping policy generally, albeit largely unacknowledged, though from time to time it rises in salience. For example, when former Treasurer Joe Hockey categorised Australians as either ‘leaners or lifters’, or when Scott Morrison talked of ‘giving a go to those who have ago’, these were both ideological but at a deeper level cultural statements designed to justify particular policies. Core Australian cultural values include a version of the protestant work ethic, mateship, distrust of authority, and dislike of tall poppies, to name a few.

 

Indigenous cultural beliefs and values are clearly different and unique (I am not going to try to summarise them) and are likely undergoing a process of progressive adjustment since colonisation. The key point to make in a policy setting however is that the implicit mainstream values and norms that underpin much mainstream policy development may not apply in relation to the interaction of mainstream policies and Indigenous citizens. Obvious examples include assumptions that threats to cut income support for breaches of mainstream norms will induce Indigenous citizens to comply. The reality is that such incentives don’t work in remote communities, probably because income support recipients can rely on cultural norms such as reciprocal kin obligations to offset the consequences of income loss. The existence of different cultural norms is one of the reasons that Indigenous interests have advocated so strongly for greater involvement in shaping policies that affect them. Governments are yet to fully comprehend the importance of doing this, and to date have tended to promise more than they deliver.

 

My sense is that the need for a bicultural approach to setting policy will persist well beyond 2050, as one of the consequences of ongoing policy exclusion of Indigenous interests from full participation in the mainstream will be to strengthen the importance for First Nations of maintaining their unique cultural perspectives.

 

In relation to the role of colonisation in shaping policy outcomes, in economic terms the argument boils down to two factors: the initial transfer (theft) or loss of capital assets, most notably land, but also of the opportunity to fully use the intellectual capital that allowed Indigenous societies to successfully continue over many thousands of years across the wide spectrum of ecological environments. Second, the ongoing exclusion of Indigenous people from sharing in any of the benefits that accrued from the economic use and development of the assets that were transferred. This exclusion was not anodyne, but was often violent and explicitly racist, and has led to the development of widespread intergenerational trauma. Both these factors have contributed significantly to the challenges Governments face in devising appropriate policy framework for First Nations.

 

Looking forward to 2050, there seems little likelihood that the Australian nation will take any substantive systemic action to reverse the ongoing impact of colonisation. Clearly, the granting of land rights and recognition of native title were seen as one mechanism to attempt to reverse the adverse impacts of colonisation, but while the cultural benefits have been significant, the economic benefits are limited (albeit in some specific locations such as the Pilbara, they have been very substantial). Moreover, the rapid and ongoing onset of disruptive technological change has in many respects outweighed the benefits of reclaimed land ownership. The more insidious issues of intergenerational trauma are arguably evident in the extremely high rates of incarceration, mental illness, substance abuse and intimate partner violence amongst First Nations population. There is no practical retrospectively framed policy framework that will undo these issues, notwithstanding the injustice involved in the colonial project. Moreover, to date governments have lacked the political will to effectively address these consequences of colonisation using a prospective framing built around closing the gap. There is thus no extant evidence available to suggest that there will be any sustained policy initiative with the potential to effectively address the ongoing consequences of colonisation by 2050. [See the discussion of treaties below.]

 

Finally, the role of institutions in shaping the architecture of the Indigenous policy domain is crucial. By institutions, I mean the ‘rules of the game’ set out in societal norms, laws, the modus operandi of key decision-making organisations such as the reserve bank, the courts, the parliament, and the like, along with informal operational modes adopted by state agencies. The reason institutions are crucial is that they both determine the overall revenue of the state, and the distribution of those revenues to state priorities. Most public policy development can be framed as disputes between peak interest groups vying for a greater share of the net benefits flowing through existing institutions. The primary role of the bureaucracy can be conceptualised as ensuring the continued efficient operation of the nation’s institutional framework.

 

Over the past fifty years, Indigenous interests have succeeded in persuading the nation to establish a suite of Indigenous specific institutions, and to modify at the margin mainstream institutions in various ways to benefit Indigenous interests. These successes have been the result of sustained and determined advocacy involving both Indigenous interests and their mainstream allies. However, the economic impact of these changes as a proportion of total economic activity (GDP) has been miniscule. All the factors outlined above have played a part in shaping these institutional reforms. They have largely been the result of decisions taken by the Commonwealth rather than the states. A listing of institutions (past and present) relevant to the Indigenous policy domain would include land rights legislation in the states and territory, and the Native Title Act, the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, Indigenous Business Austrlaia, Aboriginal Hostels, the CDEP scheme, the Aboriginal Benefit Account in the NT, heritage legislation in the states and the Commonwealth, the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and some of the major Commonwealth-state programs such as the National Partnership on Remote Indigenous Housing.

 

Arguably the zenith of institutional development in relation to the indigenous policy domain was the 1990s with the establishment of ATSIC and the passage of the Native Title Act. The last 25 years has seen the progressive wind-back of Commonwealth engagement (with the NT Intervention being an outlier) and a concomitant loss of policy reform momentum. The abolition of ATSIC, the failure of the National Congress of First Peoples to survive beyond its initial funding injection, the inattention to the unimplemented recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the stasis in relation to the fine-tuning of the Native Title Act, and notwithstanding its potential, the shift of policy responsibility to the states and territories under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap have all been retrograde steps. The failure of the Voice Referendum and the tangible reluctance of the Government to enthusiastically implement the outstanding elements of the Uluru Statement are merely the latest developments in a long litany of retrograde steps to weaken or not pursue institutional reform. In other words the policy reform tide in Indigenous Affairs has been receding for at least a quarter fo a century.

 

What does this mean for 2050? Based on the factors above, the likelihood that the tide will turn anytime soon appears slim. The demographic bifurcation seems set to continue. Remote policy challenges are split between four jurisdictions, with minimal Commonwealth interest or involvement except for a receding legacy in the NT. A culture of neo-assimilationism appears to be taking hold in significant sectors of mainstream culture and politics. Despite the talk of treaties and the like on the progressive side of mainstream politics, the lack of an explicit and tangible agenda from Indigenous interests, and the increasing reluctance of conservative parties in the states and the NT to commit to taking these treaty development processes forward suggests that the requisite bipartisanship for sustained institutional policy reforms to deal with the impacts of colonisation are absent. Any attempt to move forward with a tangible policy agenda for a treaty or related reform appears likely to attract a heated and politically lethal campaign for reversal from conservative political forces.

 

My own assessment, for what it is worth, is that we are unlikely to see significant Indigenous specific institutional reforms over the next two and a half decades, and there are significant risks of further institutional regression across the Indigenous policy domain.

 

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.

 

In the absence of such a strategy, it seems to me that by 2050, the nascent neo-assimilationist surge will become bipartisan, and will force most disadvantaged Indigenous citizens into mainstream support programs, while the remote Indigenous populations will remain deeply disadvantaged and reliant on social security, inadequate social housing, and a continuing diet of rhetoric, promises and social control. The lack of employment opportunities and the complete failure of the education system across remote Australia will ensure that social crises, endemic violence, and severely constrained life opportunities, will endure well beyond 2050. This is the legacy our policies today will likely bequeath to Australians generally, and particularly First Nations in 2050.

 

1 March 2024

Meta-promises: the new shape of Indigenous policy failure

                                                 

His promises fly so beyond his state

That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes

For every word...

Timon of Athens, Act one, Scene two

 

Following my previous post on ‘Unattainable expectations’ (link here), I received a number of comments from readers that raised issues that I had overlooked, or under-emphasised (though in my defence, I would state that I try to keep this blog focused on policy rather than politics (noting that the distinction is arguably artificial at best).

 

I thought it might be useful to share the comments from two anonymous readers, lightly edited to remove gratuitous comments which might colloquially be described as ‘pissing in my pocket’ along with my response to reader #1. Among the takeouts from these comments are the intensity of the intertwining of politics and policy (something which I tend to under-emphasise) and secondly the explicit and implicit trade-offs and opportunity costs involved in policy development.  I urge readers to read the commentaries both literally, but also through an interpretive lens that points to the complexities inherent in both designing, implementing and (especially from an Indigenous perspective), influencing policy.

 

Reader #1:

Mike is always an incisive commentator, and this blog is no exception - and yet I confess to having some dissatisfaction with elements of it.  In trying to sift my own responses I've had to face the fact that my own strong opinions have to some extent hindered a ready embrace of all Mike's observations.  Strong opinions can often be the enemy of good judgment, but they are also inevitable when one has been so long engaged with these issues.

 

One of the great benefits of my recent overseas sojourn was the opportunity it afforded to escape the exhausting and dispiriting barrage of argument and conjecture that had become almost unbearable when the referendum reached its miserable crescendo.  But now that I am back I must again face up to the issues Mike raises.

 

The complicating opinions of mine that I refer to can be seen as twofold:

Firstly, I harbour a deep anger towards the Prime Minister for the way he conducted the referendum discussions and I hold him primarily responsible for its failure.  His messages were weak and disingenuous and his leadership was an abject failure.  He tried to be Whitlamesque in his election night commitment, but then seemed to think that if he hugged enough people at Garma and whined enough about it being 'a gracious offer from Indigenous people' (what rubbish!) we'd all follow.  It was a shambles and I find it hard to forgive him.

 

And yet I am less inclined than Mike to condemn him for not now rushing to articulate a bold Indigenous policy agenda.  Mike fears that it signifies "a deep-seated lack of  ambition", but I think it is not inappropriate to reflect for a while after the referendum disaster, and that having already significantly raised Indigenous expectations only to have them turn to ashes, he would do well to avoid doing so again without significant pause. As Shakespeare’s words would suggest, this is not a time for more promises. And, as Aunty Pat has said, perhaps the post-referendum wasteland affords opportunity for Indigenous agency to emerge and to flourish.

 

I was really surprised that Mike seemed to make no connection with the Voice in his comments about the problems inherent in suggestions that a particular section of the community might have excessive influence over the development of national policy that directly affects them.  That was precisely a key reason the referendum went down; a lack of clarity as to whether the Parliament would indeed have ultimate control of and responsibility for the policy settings in Indigenous affairs.  The PM did not help with his lame comments about "it would be a brave government that ignored the advice of  the Voice", which raised the obvious question about whether Albo's government would in fact have the bravery Mike and the nation would have wanted it to have.

 

Secondly, I have never been at all comfortable with "closing the gap" rhetoric, which Mike appears to accept without question - (along with Pat, although she, as head of "the Peaks", is structurally locked into accepting that rhetoric).  I find myself wishing that Nugget Coombs were still with us, as I have no doubt he would be calling all this stuff out as being essentially assimilationist.  As one who has had a long and ongoing involvement with remote communities, I find the whole closing the gap agenda to be objectionable - assimilationist, and continuously viewing Aboriginal people and their communities through a negative lens.  Will they never be acceptable until they live like us and think like us?  Perish the thought!

 

My experience of remote community life at its best is that it has a vitality, a joy, an intensity of relationship, and a general exuberance that our own atomised, disconnected, self-obsessed society can never know.  When I first went to [a remote community in the NT] at age 22 I was stunned and amazed that people could live with such laughter and intense connection; it was a revelation.

 

At the risk of appearing foolish, let me put it like this: Perhaps the gap that needs to be closed is that between a society in which loneliness, unhappiness and alienation is an increasing problem and societies in which vitality and connection are a daily reality (yes, along with poverty, boredom and outbursts of violence).  My point is that there is no real gap; it all depends on what we are measuring - and the measurements we currently use are ethnocentric and assimilationist.

 

I like the way Mike finishes his piece by suggesting what Albo might have said, and his penultimate paragraph, articulating a vision for what the referendum could have achieved.  His final paragraph, however, might have said a little more - might have suggested how we actually get beyond the dismal "bipartisan mediocrity' of the last decade.  I'm not sure myself, but I think it might start with a celebration of everything that sets Aboriginal society apart from ours - not its negatives, but its joyous and exuberant connection.

 

Reader #2 provided the following commentary in response to Reader #1: 

Thanks [Reader#1] for copying me into such a thoughtful and considered response. Herewith a few comments on the post and your response from my perspective.

 

Regarding the Prime Minister-in a broader context I believe the whole referendum  campaign was misconceived from the outset. It’s death knell rang from the moment the PM was reduced to tears at its initial launch-political campaigns are only won when strategies are hard headed and identify and manage the risks - neither occurred in this context and wishful thinking abounded. Albanese needs to wear a fair proportion of the blame but when the true story ultimately emerges  there are a number of others who refused to accept,  let alone countenance considered advice.

 

One the key problems is that Labor came into office with only one discernible policy in Indigenous affairs that being the Voice as a miraculous instant cure all for all Indigenous and the nation’s ills. This was partly a product of their poor record in Opposition keeping the Coalition accountable over the past 10 years plus a chronic failure to develop any detailed in depth policies of their own.  As a result they assumed Office and merely maintained a business as usual approach consistent with the policies and structures adopted by the coalition via its 10 year program rather than pursue the necessary systemic reforms required. As Mike highlights this means Indigenous interests are still stuck with Coalition policies and its  government agency structures and the associated short term policy / reactive thinking - most of which continue to have proven disastrous for remote communities in particular.

 

I too have issues with the closing the gap assimilationist rhetoric but as it stands it remains the only remaining show in town- for remote communities it at least opens the door to press  governments to adopt an approach that commits priority resources to those areas of greatest need which are disproportionately in remote Australia -- as it stands the results of the virtual dismembering of programs by previous governments  such as CDEP, remote housing , outstation support and education have been a disaster for remote communities and are all currently on show by way of their virtual abandonment by government and the results and human suffering on display both in towns like Alice and so many remote communities. Other factors such as the negative impacts of social media, modernity and loss of agency in general are all adding other dimensions to this equation. When combined they act together effectively undermine and disrupt / displace traditional culture.

 

I responded to Reader #1 as follows (edited to remove less important points):

Thanks for your considered response!... One of the purposes of my blog is not so much to persuade people to my view, as to persuade them to think harder about the complexity of the policy issues involved, especially related to remote Australia.

 

I have set out some responses below. I do however feel that too much of the public discussion on Indigenous policy is undertaken within rather narrow and informal parameters, and often it is narrow cast to specific cohorts of recipients who do not speak to one another...hence my gratitude for receiving your own well informed and insightful views.

 

I don’t disagree with your assessment of Albanese, however I was pointing to this notion - that I consider to be deeply embedded in the way we think about these issues -  that the world can be split into two separate and cleanly divided parts, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and hinting or suggesting that it is a key reason why mainstream Australians essentially decided that it was not their business, and they didn’t need to support it...

 

I agree that there shouldn’t be more promises that won’t be kept. And I see the logic in now taking stock following the defeat of a referendum without a plan B...When you are in a hole stop digging...My perspective however is that the whole policy edifice of the government should have been more than just one proposal, and secondly, they might have openly and actively engaged with the community (black and white) about what their policy approach beyond the Voice should be from the date of their election...in short, a smart government avoids the holes in the first place...

 

Your views about closing the gap are extraordinarily relevant, particularly for remote communities, and particularly in relation to the threat of imposed assimilation...moreover, the original closing the gap architecture was not well designed, and the Morrison refresh and current version (done supposedly in partnership with the Peaks) even less well designed...I agree that Nugget would likely be a vehement critic...and it seems that even on its own terms, the closing the gap process is unlikely to work...I do take a different view from you on the utility of a negative lens ... I agree wholeheartedly that Aboriginal communities can exude remarkable positives that are easily overlooked by outsiders and policymakers....unfortunately, a complex and insidious web of grog, drugs, anomie, the onset of modernity, coercive and at times racist policy assumptions, plus a deep-seated lack of inclusion and investment by mainstream institutions has taken a huge toll....many of my blog posts on remote Australia emphasise these negatives not because I see Indigenous society as innately negative or deficient but because a child suffering violent abuse or neglect or FASD or who cannot read and write will not have the opportunities she deserves (many of which include the positive experiences you refer to)...I see policymakers as responsible for these shortcomings, not Indigenous people...

 

[In relation to the suggestion that the gap does not exist] I disagree with you at the margin....there is a gap, but in remote communities it is qualitatively different than in non-remote, and requires different solutions, ideally which involve codesign and partnership with communities themselves....

[In relation to saying more about the policy solutions]...My intuition is that Indigenous interests have to develop an independent advocacy capability and capacity beyond the reach of government co-option.

  

Conclusion

It strikes me that the perspectives of the two readers, each of which have considerable merit, along with my response to reader #1, together demonstrate just how complicated it is to first reach a consensus on what are policy priorities, and second to determine appropriate policy responses across the breadth of the Indigenous policy domain. Yet our public discourse on Indigenous affairs generally, and Indigenous policy in particular, seems quite limited and narrow.

 

There is a deficit in the quality of public discourse on these issues, especially in relation to remote communities. This deficit is not without real world implications: it leads to deep-seated reluctance to address policy complexity in public discourse, and allows simplistic ideas and approaches to gain traction without serious public analysis and critique. This is the ecosystem in which promises are made, expectations raised, and re-raised , and re-raised again, without any government official ever taking responsibility for the absence of tangible action and the concomitant outcomes of legitimate expectations being left unaddressed, and promises breached.

 

While we all have a responsibility (at least in my view) to seek to improve the quality of public discourse on these issues, Ministers in particular have a responsibility to engage with the community at a level of sophistication that is almost entirely absent from public discussion. When was the last time we have seen a minister identify in a spirit of dialogue with the community, potential policy options, rather than making specific promises? We need more of the former and less of the latter. In turn, engaged advocates must increase the demand for greater policy sophistication (particularly in an age of codesign and partnership) if they expect the supply to increase. We have now reached a meta-state in which governments of all shades promise to have a policy, and then fail to deliver.

 

 9 January 2024

Compulsory voting and remote Indigenous electoral disengagement

… this new governor

Awakes me all of the enrolled penalties

Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall

So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round

And none of them been worn; …

Measure for Measure, Act one, Scene two.

 

I previously wrote about remote electoral engagement in an August 2020 post on voting turnout in the NT election (link here). In that post, I suggested that there appeared to be strong and increasing levels of Indigenous disengagement with the electoral system and government more generally.

 

On 26 July 2023, Deputy Australian Electoral Commissioner, Jeff Pope, gave a very useful seminar at the ANU on the topic of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's participation in Australian elections and referendums. According to the pre-seminar blurb

Since 2017, there has been year-on-year growth in the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate. Despite these steady increases, in 2023 the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate remains lower than Australia’s national enrolment rate. Mr Pope will outline the broad history of Indigenous voting rights since Federation and consider some of the challenges that Indigenous people may face with fully participating in elections and referendums. Mr Pope will discuss how the AEC is using an evidence-based approach and working with Indigenous communities and service providers to deliver a range of initiatives to support Indigenous electoral participation. 

 

The seminar delivered on this plan, and provided a very useful overview of the AEC’s strong efforts to lift enrolment rates for Indigenous citizens in particular. He referred extensively to recently updated data on the AEC website. Key data points included that nationally, mainstream enrolment rates are now 97.5%; there are just over 18 million Australians eligible to vote and just over 450,000 of those citizens are not enrolled.  Nationally, Indigenous enrolment rates have been increasing, and are now 94.1%. The estimated Indigenous voting age population is 567,528, and of which an estimated 33,319 citizens are not enrolled. Mr Pope described the Indigenous enrolment rate as the ‘highest ever’ (link here). Mr Pope noted that enrolment rates in remote regions were much lower. The AEC data (link here) indicates that in the WA and the NT, Indigenous enrolment rates are 86.9% and 87% respectively, while in SA, the rate is 92.7%. All other jurisdictions exceed 95%.

 

Close assessment of this data indicates that there have been extraordinary shifts in enrolment. For example, over the past two years, the estimated number of Indigenous unenrolled nationally has fallen from 112,000 in June 2021 to 33,000 in June 2023. In the NT, the unenrolled level has dropped from 16,000 to just over 7,000 over the same period. These are quite extraordinary shifts, and suggest that the AEC has in recent years begun to put real effort into addressing these issues.

 

Notwithstanding these efforts, voter turnout has been dropping substantially over recent decades (link here).  In fact, according to AEC data, the turnout for the House of Representatives in 2022 was 89.8%, the lowest turnout rate in 101 years (link here).  This suggests that around ten percent of at least 17 million enrolled voters, or 1.7m enrolled voters and after taking into account unenrolled voters, over 2 million potentially eligible voters did not vote. Over the period 2001 to 2016, mainstream turnout dropped around 2% in each of the top ten electoral divisions by turnout (link here table 4, p. 25). Clearly there are national trends in play.

 

However, electoral divisions in remote Australia with high proportions of Indigenous potential voters are at the very bottom of the voting turnout hierarchy. The two electoral divisions with the lowest voter turnout in the country are Durack in WA and Lingiari in the NT. In 2001, turnout was 86.81 and 80.55 respectively. In 2016, turnout in Durack was 82.03% and in Lingiari it was 73.7% (link here table 4, p. 25). There are strong grounds for thinking that remote communities in Queensland and South Australia display similar characteristics, albeit the evidence is not immediately available given the larger non-Indigenous populations in the relevant remote electoral divisions.

 

It was clear from the ANU seminar presentation that the AEC is acutely aware of the current trends, and is devoting significant efforts, backed by senior level support and commitment, to addressing these challenges. The broad strategy at this point appears to be twofold: to maximise enrolment by removing blocks to enrolment; and to expanding electoral education.

 

Notwithstanding the AEC efforts (which to be clear I am not criticising, and indeed support wholeheartedly), there are a couple of broader points worth making.

 

First, it seems likely that the extraordinary jump in the Indigenous population between 2016 and 2021 due in large measure to increased identification has probably flowed into the improvements nationally in Indigenous enrolment (link here). These changes in identification are overwhelmingly focussed on urban and regional Australia.

 

Second, it struck me that the notion that we have compulsory voting in Australia is under serious threat as potential voters disenchanted with the responsiveness of governments to their concerns voted with their feet (so to speak) and abstain from engagement with the electoral system. In such an environment, engaging potential Indigenous voters in remote regions is going to be doubly difficult. In addition, the fact that voting turnout in electoral divisions with high percentages of Indigenous potential voters in remote Australia is extraordinarily low suggests the possibility that there are additional drivers of low voting turnouts, or that at the very least, that the disengagement with the nation’s political system is qualitatively different in remote and non-remote Australia.  

 

These broader points suggest that there are deeper structural issues in play beyond the way in which our electoral systems are designed and administered.

 

Given this background, it seems to me that it is time that those Australians who support substantive democracy and/or compulsory voting should begin to think more seriously and more innovatively about how to make our political system more responsive to voter concerns. Moreover, there is likely to be a requirement to consider different approaches for supporting improved governance responsiveness in remote and non-remote regions. These are issues that extend way beyond the systems of voting we have and the valuable efforts of the AEC to increase enrolment and educate potential voters about voting systems and the like.

 

In the ANU seminar, I pressed the AEC Deputy Commissioner about the levels of enforcement in relation to both enrolment and voting through the lens of incentives. I asked whether the AEC has an in principle position on the use of incentives to encourage enrolment, and what their policy was in relation to non-voting in remote regions.

 

In relation to incentivising enrolment, I didn’t get a clear answer. At the back of my mind was the approach taken in relation to Research & Development in Australia, where the inability of firms to capture the entire benefits of innovation investment means that they limit investments, and as a result there are sub-optimal levels of innovation investment nationally. To address this market failure, the public sector provides tax incentives (worth billions of dollars each decade) to incentivise firms to undertake an optimal level of national R & D. If there are structural impediments to enrolment, and we value 100 percent electoral participation, perhaps governments should consider ways to incentivise electoral enrolment either nationally or in some more targeted manner? While it may seem that the significant improvements in enrolment make such a policy otiose, it is worth remembering that enrolment status is dynamic and vulnerable to degradation over time.

 

In relation to enforcement of compulsory voting in remote regions, the AEC indicated that Commonwealth fines are comparatively low, but that they use the option of prosecutions ‘judiciously’. I understand this response as I think the use of the legal system to enforce voting would be perceived negatively by many Indigenous citizens, and would likely be counter-productive and backfire. But education, while important, may not be an adequate strategy in the face of deep seated disengagement from a social system that is seen by many remote people as ineffective at best and racially exclusionary at worst. There is thus a need to think more broadly.

 

A large part of the problem is that parliaments (in Canberra and in states and territories) are in large measure controlled by the Executive arm of Government (whereas the normative theory is that the Executive is drawn from elected members and should implement the will of the parliament). Moreover, there are serious question marks over the extent to which the Executive arm of governments of all persuasions are themselves democratic (link here and link here). In this situation, and in the absence of reforms to strengthen parliamentary supremacy over the Executive (or even just greater Executive transparency), it is incumbent on policymakers and advocacy interests to explore innovative ways of ensuring that voters feel like their votes do count and influence outcomes. Off the top of my head, one option would be the greater use of deliberative democracy to work through contentious policy issues. Other options include greater transparency over political donations, and strengthening the operation of FOI laws. These sorts of ideas resonate closely with Indigenous calls for greater co-design of policies. There may well be other ideas that might make a positive contribution.

 

Of course, I am not holding my breath on these reforms. We already live in a nation where around 11 percent of eligible voters do not participate in federal elections (and probably state and territory elections) If voter turnout continues to fall across the board, then we should not be surprised to wake up one morning and realise that we no longer live in a society where the governments we elect have the authority that comes from being selected by the widest possible cross section of the community. Such a society is more prone to political dissension and conflict whether through anarchic chaos or direct action.

 

In particular, the longstanding challenges across remote Australia will be that much harder to solve if governments learn that they do not need to response to citizens needs because citizens’ votes are either diminished or non-existent; and if Indigenous citizens ‘learn’ that voting is not relevant and not compulsory and that governments do not listen even if they enrol, vote and participate in the political system. Indeed, there are strong grounds for the view that Indigenous citizens in remote Australia have already learnt this, and are voting with their feet. The nation’s growing challenge is to create the preconditions for Indigenous citizens in remote Australia to unlearn those conclusions.

 

28 July 2023

 

Political and media narratives on alcohol policy in Central Australia

 

Before him he carries noise,

and behind him he leaves tears…

Coriolanus Act 2, scene 1

 

Late last week the media reported the release of NT Police crime statistics which indicate a significant drop in alcohol related crime. According the Guardian (‘Incredibly noticeable’: alcohol bans have cut family violence and crime in Alice Springs, advocates say):

NT police statistics collated by the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress revealed a 37% decrease in domestic violence assaults from January to April. All other assaults dropped 35% while property offences were down 25% over the same time period.

 

It is clear that the reinstatement of the alcohol bans on town camps in Alice Springs and surrounding communities (subject to the potential for Alcohol Management Plans to be negotiated and approved by the NT Government) has had a significant and positive impact on crime in Alice Springs and surrounds.

 

According to a 23 June 2023 front page story in The Australian (Grog bans put brake on Alice Springs violence, (link here $): “…total recorded assaults dived from more than 260 in January to 170 in April…”. The Australian also published an editorial on the issue (A sober Alice Springs starts to get its life back on track’) (link here) which is worth reading both for what it gets right and for what it gets wrong or omits.

 

The editorial’s headline is clearly misleading: Alice Springs is not yet sober and alcohol abuse remains a significant and deadly problem. The Australian’s own article notes that police continue to be concerned about illegal sales of alcohol, and quotes the Police Association President as saying that police on the ground ‘have definitely seen an increase in secondary supply…’. The article goes on to quote NT Police Acting Deputy Commissioner as stating that ‘volumetric restrictions’ on how much alcohol individuals could buy would ‘go further in helping to reduce the alcohol-related harm across the community’.

 

It is not clear what the Deputy Commissioner of Police had in mind when he referred to volumetric restrictions, but it has long been recognised by social scientists that volumetric taxation of alcohol is both more efficient and has considerable health benefits (link here). It is also widely recognised by health professionals that the harms due to alcohol consumption (and particularly over-consumption) are extremely serious. See the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare web report on Alcohol, tobacco & other drugs in Australia (link here) for a discussion of alcohol related harm. To take just two mainstream data points from that report:

(i)            AIHW analysis of the National Hospital Morbidity Database showed that alcohol accounted for nearly 3 in 5 drug-related hospitalisations in 2020–21 (57% or 86,400 hospitalisations); and

(ii)          In 2019–20 alcohol-related injuries resulted in 30,000 hospitalisations (118 per 100,000 population). The most common causes of alcohol-related injury hospitalisations were falls (39%), intentional self-harm (24%), assault (15%) and transport (7.2%)

 

The editorial goes on to allocate blame to the NT and federal governments, as well as to the NIAA and other paid advisers (it names KPMG) for being ‘too distant from the realities of life in the areas they claim to represent’. While the editorial doesn’t name former Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt, it does correctly acknowledge that the decision to allow the Stronger Futures alcohol controls to lapse was made under his watch. The editorial correctly notes that Senator Jacinta Price predicted that the removal of the alcohol bans in the NT would result in an upsurge of violence against women and children. Offsetting that, it might be observed that she was not prescient enough while the preselected candidate for the NT Senate seat to persuade Minister Wyatt to maintain the Commonwealth controls across her electorate.

 

The most egregious omission from this Editorial, and indeed from the whole political narrative related to alcohol consumption and harm (both to individual and to their families including children) is the effective capture of governments of all political persuasions in both Canberra and the NT by the alcohol production and retail industry, and those involved in the associated supply chains. There is a deep-seated and widespread pro-drinking culture across the whole NT population, and governments are terrified of antagonising industry interests because of the nascent potential for those interests to heighten and leverage political opposition in the electorate. Political donations also play a part in both Canberra and Darwin.

 

Meanwhile taxpayers nationally and in the NT are meeting the costs of the health services, the policing, the incarcerations, and the infrastructure damage associated with alcohol induced dysfunction. Aboriginal people and communities bear the direct social and psychological costs of endemic domestic and lateral violence which are exacerbated and in large measure caused by the easy availability of alcohol.

 

Australia provides almost $3bn per annum to businesses to incentivise Research and Development that would otherwise not occur because R&D is a positive externality (link here). The explicit rationale for R& D subsidies to business arhe the existence of positive externalities. That is, businesses do not accrue all the benefits of their R&D and are thus not adequately encouraged to invest in it. There is a public interest in maximising R & D. Yet alcohol harm has extensive negative externalities without government taxation linked to the harm to society generally. That is, the alcohol producers do not bear all the costs arising from the sale of their product, and are thus incentivised to over invest in producing it (and to also lobby against any regulation in the public interest).

 

While governments do tax alcohol, the taxation of alcohol is not driven by the need to internalise the costs, but rather by governments’ revenue raising strategies mediated by the counter-lobbying of particular segments of the alcohol industry. Higher rates of tax on alcohol — ideally related both to the volume of alcohol involved and the the levels of harm arising (link here) — would both reduce the demand and thus the levels of societal harm caused by alcohol consumption, and coincidentally strengthen the abilities of governments to invest in harm minimisation. The AIHW web report cited above notes that the levels of alcohol related harm are higher in remote regions than elsewhere.

 

The ABC too has a report on the new statistics (link here), based on evidence given to an ongoing coronial inquiry into the deaths of four women in NT communities arising from domestic violence by their intimate partners (link here). Two of the cases occurred in Central Australia. The Coroner will undoubtedly make finding in relation to the role, if any, alcohol abuse played in the extended cycles of domestic violence these women suffered, and which ultimately ended with their violent deaths.

 

One problem with the media coverage of many of the challenges facing remote communities is that the coverage inevitably focusses on events and not on underlying processes or causes. However, they also often go further, and actively frame the issues in ways which have the effect, or are designed, to avoid and mislead the consumers of media by focussing on trite but plausible narratives rather than acknowledging the existence of systemic and institutional forces that hold sway over virtually the entire span of public policy in Australia. Yet the government decisions in both Canberra and Darwin can be framed in different ways.

 

The decisions to allow the lapse of alcohol controls, to then resist reinstating those controls, and ultimately — in the face of irresistible political pressure from mainstream interests arising from social chaos engendered by the uncontrolled flood of alcohol into town camps and communities — to lead the Commonwealth Government to intervene and effectively coerce the NT Government to reinstate controls were both geographically and temporally complex.  The Australian editorial frames these decisions as the result of governments not listening to local (Aboriginal) voices.

 

In doing so, The Australian editorial effectively ignores an alternative framing, namely that governments do not listen to Aboriginal voices because they are beholden to the alcohol industry. The sorry history of the NT Labor Government’s approach to the proposal for a Dan Murphy superstore near Darwin airport is redolent with obsequious pandering to alcohol interests (link here). Both the NT and the Commonwealth Parliaments have strong Indigenous representation, including amongst the Ministers who were ostensibly responsible for taking these decisions. It strains credulity to conceive that these decisionmakers were somehow ‘removed from those whose interests they were supposed to protect’, or were not prepared to listen to local voices. These decisionmakers do not spend their entire lives in Canberra nor in Darwin. At their core, these decisions were political decisions, not policy decisions, and were taken because of the systemic power of the alcohol industry.

 

Subsidiary framings (also not explored by the recent media reports) include the possibility that the NT Government was committed to abolishing alcohol controls in order to reduce the flow of itinerants into Darwin and other major centres, and the federal Labor Government was unwilling to itself re-legislate in order to minimise friction with the NT Labor Government, and the concomitant perception of incompetence were it to do so directly. Hence the elaborate charade of a joint media conference to announce Commonwealth funding and the NT Government backflip (link here).

 

I do not absolve the decisionmakers in Canberra and Darwin, on both sides of politics, for their poor and socially destructive decision-making both on this issue and in relation to other shortcomings across the Indigenous policy domain. Decisions that have led to the continuation of extraordinary levels of social harm both for drinkers, but more importantly for their partners and children and local communities.  But nor should media outlets be absolved when they effectively run interference for commercial interests that are the direct cause of so much societal harm.

 

Alcohol abuse is clearly an important contributor to the challenges facing remote Indigenous communities across at least four jurisdictions. It does not however represent the totality of the challenge, and there are no panaceas. A first step however is to understand that the promulgation of misleading or tendentious policy narratives and framings will not lead to effective policy reform. A second step would be to actively consider policy options designed to limit the unrestricted supply of full strength alcoholic beverages across the whole community.

 

Addendum

For those interested, a selection of some previous posts related to alcohol issues in remote Australia are set out below:

 

Alice Springs crisis: observations on remote policy (link here)

Alcohol policy reform in remote Australia: a potential roadmap (link here)

Neil Westbury article on regressive changes to remote alcohol laws in the NT (link here)

Regulating Alcohol in the Northern Territory: in whose interest? (link here)

Alcohol policy reform: addressing the underlying economic incentives (link here)

Alcohol Regulation in Remote NT Communities (link here)