Labyrinth: the Productivity Commission Draft Report on Closing the Gap

 

…. that our stars,

Unreconciliable, should divide,

Our equalness to this.

Antony & Cleopatra Act V, scene 1

The Productivity Commission (PC) has released a draft report on its review of progress on closing the gap (link here). The draft report package comprises a nine page plain English executive summary (which I found extremely useful); a 15 page Executive Summary which includes six draft recommendations and a series of requests for information/feedback; a 101 page Draft Report, and a series of seven information papers totalling around 280 pages.

 

The review arises from the terms of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here), in particular, clauses 121 to 124. In particular, clause 121 states:

The Productivity Commission will undertake a comprehensive review of progress every three years … It will provide an analysis of progress on Closing the Gap against the priority reforms, targets, indicators and trajectories, and examine the factors contributing to progress, including by drawing on evaluation and other evidence. 

 

The political and media reaction to the Draft Review has been predictable with a large focus on the report’s implications for the Voice (which to my mind prioritises means over ends). The Australian ran a series of articles on 26 July 2023 (behind its paywall) with headlines such as ‘Closing the Gap failures “show why the vote must succeed”’ (a view espoused by Minister Burney); ‘Indigenous watchdog “with bite” called for regardless of voice vote to deal with Closing The Gap’; ‘Closing the Gap scheme flounders within states of cynical disregard’ (arguing the states have dropped the ball); and an editorial headed ‘Bureaucracy firmly in the sights’. The Chair of the PC, Michael Brennan published an article in the AFR on 30 July (link here $) titled ‘The gap won’t change without fundamental change’. The money quote was his assessment of progress on closing the gap as ‘in large part, a hotted up version of business as usual’. Crikey published an analysis (link here) with the headline ‘Why the Productivity Commission thinks a Voice is needed to Close the Gap’. This is arguably a misinterpretation of what the PC intends. In a perceptive comment on that article, Jon Altman wrote, inter alia, that the PC

continues to produce detailed and expensive report after report carefully documenting the nation’s failure to properly address Indigenous disadvantage. But it does not address the first order issue: is the National Agreement on Closing the Gap framework a sound basis for policy formation? And will valorising equality for Indigenous populations as state-defined statistical subjects generate positive wellbeing outcomes for First Nations people in all their diversity?

 

Like Jon, I wish to focus on the policy issues rather than the quotidian political debate about the Voice (important as that is).

 

The nature of the PC review

There are a number of seriously problematic issues with the draft review (which I will seek to identify below); but these can be traced in large measure to a more fundamental issue: the PC appears to have veered away from the comprehensive review envisaged in the Agreement. The terms of reference for the review provided by former Treasurer Frydenberg in April 2022 state, inter alia:

Scope of the review: In undertaking the review, the Productivity Commission should:

1. analyse progress on Closing the Gap against the four Priority Reform outcome areas in the Agreement;  2. analyse progress against all of the socioeconomic outcome areas in the Agreement; and  3. examine the factors affecting progress. 

 

These tasks can be interpreted in one of two ways. They might be pursued broadly and holistically, in effect asking the strategic question: is the current Closing the Gap process meeting the objective of the agreement laid out in clause 15 of the National Agreement? Or they might be addressed narrowly and less consequentially, in effect asking the question, are the terms of each element of the agreement being met whether or not they are impacting the overall outcome being sought. Unfortunately, on my reading of the report, the PC has adopted the latter approach. I made this argument more expansively in my submission to the review (link here submission #5) based on my reading of an early issues paper.

The result is that despite nearly 400 pages of investigative narration, we don’t really obtain an effective readout on the required new policy roadmap for closing the gap. Instead we get what seems at times an interminable litany of proposals for improved ways to hold governments accountable for particular cogs in the complex machine that comprises closing the gap. I am all for holding governments accountable, but there is an implicit assumption embedded in calls for improved accountability that governments are in fact focussed on implementing actions designed to achieve the overarching objective of the National Agreement. If that assumption is wrong, then all that will be achieved will be more complexity, more engagement/involvement, more process, more bureaucratic kludge, and no change.

 

How might we determine if that assumption if in fact correct? The answer is by examining the tangible plans that exist to achieve the objective. Take this analogy. If I have an objective to build a new home, I develop a plan (let’s call it an implementation plan). I buy some land. I consider what I need to make the home useful to me. I engage an architect, and develop detailed designs and have the design specifications costed. I allocate financial resources both for the capital costs (construction) and for the ongoing maintenance. If there is a mismatch between design and available financial resources, I either adjust the design or allocate more financial resources. This is not rocket science. If I don’t have a plan; if I don’t develop designs that provide tangible links between my aspiration/vision and the ultimate outcome; if my designs are not able to be constructed at present because the materials required are not available; or if I don’t allocate resources and have some idea about how much it will cost; then an objective observer would conclude that I am not serious…

 

In relation to closing the gap, the National Agreement sets out the aspirational plan and steps to achieve the ultimate objective (clause 15 says it is reduced inequality between indigenous and other citizens). But Governments have failed to take it further. The implementation plans produced so far (required under the agreement) are not in fact implementation plans, but lists of what governments are already doing with some marginal new monies added. The PC identified that jurisdictional implementation plans were not fulfilling their intended purpose. See Box 4 on pages 27-8. I don’t agree with the detail of the PC analysis; for example, the Joint Council has agreed that the implementation plans be produced annually, a matter which strikes me as ridiculous, yet not commented upon by the PC.

 

To return to the house construction analogy, you don’t develop an implementation plan iteratively for each month or quarter of construction, but for the complete project. Instead the PC argues for codesign of these plans which is superficially attractive to Indigenous interests, but will inevitably produce delay and a bureaucratic morass (already a problem with this whole process). The time for Indigenous codesign is in developing the targets. Governments then must deliver against them, consulting and codesigning with relevant Indigenous interests as they go. The fact that jurisdictions do not have adequate and effective implementation plans is a fundamental flaw that requires rectification.

 

In relation to identifying the cost of closing the gap, including perhaps its constitutive elements, Governments have made no commitments. Instead, they merely publicise the financial commitments they make, often with little transparency of what the expenditures are achieving. Worse still, in contrast to the original Closing the Gap architecture under COAG (known as the National Indigenous Reform Agreement or NIRA), governments do not in general utilise decade long financial allocations. The problem with this general approach is that there is no way of knowing whether the financial commitments of governments are adequate or not. It is a truism that money is not everything, but in this case, it is an essential component of strategies to reduce inequitable access to services and basic infrastructure (like housing). Adequate funding may not be sufficient, but it certainly essential.

 

In my submission to the review, I argued that the PC should seek to estimate the likely total cost of closing the gap. To return to our analogy, we don’t start building a house without knowing what it will cost. Unfortunately, the PC has ignored this element of my submission. It is bad enough that governments do not estimate these costs, but it is an egregious dereliction of responsibility for the ‘independent’ reviewer to ignore this issue. No other area of public policy is seriously analysed without a focus on cost. In areas of high ideological salience like defence, the debate over cost is assessed not just in terms of real growth rates, but the proportion of GDP allocated to the task (link here). In Indigenous affairs, all we get is an incessant flurry of media releases announcing this grant and that, often directed at squeaky wheels.

 

One of the consequences of this seemingly deliberate blindness by the PC is to promulgate and maintain the myth that closing the gap is solely of concern to Indigenous interests. If adequate resources are to be allocated to addressing Indigenous disadvantage, then mainstream attitudes need to change. This requires understanding which is best obtained by encouraging wider community involvement in the processes associated with closing the gap. [As an aside, the forthcoming vote on the Voice is another example of the importance of building wider community understanding in relation to the issues of core concern to Indigenous citizens.]

 

A further issue identified by the PC relates to the status of the targets in the Agreement. This is addressed at length in Information Paper 6, but it is too convoluted to dissect here. Instead I suggest interested readers look at the plain English Executive Summary (link here). Alternatively, see the discussion on page 5 of the draft review. Here are some choice extracts from the Summary (pp. 6-7) regarding targets and data (emphasis added):

For clear progress on the socio-economic outcomes and Priority Reforms, the Agreement says there must be: • performance tracking • public reporting. But doing this has been a big challenge.  The Priority Reforms are the basis of the Agreement. Even so, governments report no data on: • the agreed targets  • indicators that support the Priority Reforms.  These are critical gaps in data. 

Also, progress on socio-economic outcomes is measured against national targets. It is not clear how to hold governments accountable for what happens at the regional level.  There are no data developed for: • any of the targets under the Priority Reforms • 4 of the 19 socio-economic targets • roughly 140 supporting indicators  • more than 120 data development items. 

We probably will not see these data developed within 10 years from the start of the Agreement (that is, by 2030).  More effort is needed to: • improve governance  • prioritise data development.

 

In other words, we have the policy architecture, but not the means to implement it. The PC recommendation is for a dedicated government agency to drive data development. I beg to disagree. To return to the house construction analogy, we have constructed the frame, but the walls and roof are missing as the relevant materials are not yet available or developed. Do we appoint another builder to supervise the current builder, or go back to the drawing board?

 

I suggest the Commonwealth should step in and initiate an immediate process of radical simplification to take this process back to its core purpose. There is a need to consider once again what the targets are actually for: instead of providing a policy roadmap indicating that we are heading in the right direction, they have been transformed into an attempt (that is bound to fail) which seeks to guide us each and every step along the way. Nineteen targets times eight jurisdictions plus hundreds of supporting indicators and data development items again across eight jurisdictions, all under constant change and refinement, and we have a data labyrinth which is guaranteed to ensure that any one foolish enough to enter is swiftly lost in the bowels of the machine.

 

There are a range of other issues embedded in this draft review that require detailed consideration by those interested in seeing Indigenous inequality and exclusion removed from Australian society. I will address a few below in no particular order.

 

Conceptual issues

 The philosophical and ethical issues that are embedded within the notion of closing the gap receive too little attention by policymakers. The tension between the state’s rhetorical focus on removing inequality and the right of citizens, particularly Indigenous citizens, to choose fundamentally alternative ways of living (implicit in the rhetoric of self-determination), which Jon Altman alluded to in his comment to Crikey quoted above, is of enduring relevance in the policy quest to close the gap. It is an issue that is generally avoided as ‘too hard’ by policymakers, yet lies at the heart of much Indigenous distrust of governments and their bureaucratic processes. Altman explores this issue at length in this submission to the PC inquiry into an Indigenous evaluation strategy (link here sub.#23). The PC has entirely ignored these issues in its draft report; a reflection in my view of its lack of analytic interest in exploring what it is that the Closing the Gap process is seeking to achieve.

 

Deficit discourse and remote disadvantage

One of the key polemical drivers of the Closing the Gap refresh process initiated by the former LNP Government which led eventually to the National Agreement was an ostensible reaction to the notion of deficit discourse which advocates argue is designed to blame Indigenous citizens for their own disadvantage. This is clearly an important policy insight, one that has recently been highlighted in relation to mainstream disadvantage by the Robodebt Royal commission (link here page iii). Yet when this concept is taken to extremes, it undercuts the whole point of closing the gap.

 

Unfortunately throughout the draft report, the PC appears to have adopted and endorsed such an extreme interpretation uncritically, thus setting up a polemical dichotomy where governments can do no right and must be held accountable for every shortfall and (paradoxically) where Indigenous interests are ongoing victims without agency. So for example, in Information Paper 6 (Link here pp. 14-5), the PC writes:

Review participants indicated a role for performance monitoring in supporting a paradigm shift in policy narratives about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This shift moves policy discourse away from framing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as a disadvantaged minority towards rights-bearing peoples with strong connections to diverse cultures, Countries, and communities that have withstood current and historical institutional racism …  In its submission, the Lowitja Institute explained: Data is a powerful tool. Data can be used to hold governments and the community-controlled sector to account on actions under the National Agreement, however there is a risk that this can be decontextualised and misused if data sovereignty and data governance mechanisms are not in place. The oversupply of deficit-based data has created a discourse that sees Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples presented as a problem, or as wholly responsible for inequities…. (sub. 15, p. 7). (emphasis added)

 

One consequence of this aversion to anything that even hints at deficit discourse is that important issues at the core of ongoing Indigenous exclusion and disadvantage are being deliberately written out of the policy relevant narrative and thus the policy agenda. It may not be a coincidence that given the current demography of Indigenous Australia (link here), it would be theoretically possible to conjure a positive narrative on progress in closing the gap while ignoring the needs of remote Australia. The losers from this process are the most disadvantaged Indigenous citizens, particularly those in remote regions. So for example, in the 101 pages of the draft report on the status of closing the gap, there are only seven mentions of the word ‘remote’, most just passing references, and there are no specific statement by the PC referencing the fact that Indigenous disadvantage is deepest and most severe in remote regions. The closest is a reference in a case study on the Torres Strait on p.62 where the Torres Strait Council refers to its very remote location as an issue.

 

Yet the PC itself, in its July 2023 Annual Data Compilation Report identifies (albeit in cautious bureaucratese) the dire state of disadvantage in remote regions (link here page 30):

People living in a more remote area may experience additional barriers to better outcomes; for example, not having access to key government services or infrastructure at the same level as people living in other areas. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people typically experienced poorer target outcomes as remoteness increased, which was mostly not the case for non-Indigenous people … Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in more remote areas also saw less progress toward target outcomes. Target outcomes typically only improved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in major cities and regional areas where there may be fewer barriers, including better access to key infrastructure. There was little or no improvement in remote and very remote areas. The exception was for target 9A ‘appropriately sized housing’ where outcomes improved the most in very remote areas, though they remain well below the outcomes in less remote areas…

 

Or more starkly, in the same report the PC states (emphasis added):

One jurisdiction where the worsening outcomes are particularly concerning is the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory’s outcomes worsened across eight target indicators and in most of these they were already performing relatively poorly at baseline compared to other jurisdictions. For example, the adult imprisonment rate in the Northern Territory increased at the highest rate despite already being above the national average at baseline.

 

It is worth noting that the NT has the most geographically concentrated remote population, and has the weakest financial base in the federation.

 

Priority Reforms

The PC’s approach to assessing progress on the Priority Reforms, particularly Priority Reform 3, is in my view deeply flawed. I dealt with this in my submission to the review, so won’t duplicate it at length here. The key point is that increasingly, mainstream policies and programs are gaining greater salience across the indigenous policy domain. Ensuing mainstream agencies are focussed on addressing Indigenous disadvantage in their core activities is crucial to ensuring that there is a whole of government focus on these issues. Yet treating the priority reforms as akin to mechanically constructed targets, and measuring important but incidental issues such as levels of racism within agencies as the metric of success is a recipe for failure and non-performance. Unfortunately, the PC does not see this as they ignore this issue in its entirety.

 

Concluding comments

The problem with this draft review is that it is fundamentally misconceived, and fails to step back and look at the nation’s approach to closing the gap holistically. This was a crucial opportunity only three years into the revised process, and unfortunately, the PC has failed to grasp it. There is a lack of real policy analysis throughout this report, and the attached information papers.

 

As a consequence, the review fails to ask the hard questions and ignores many aspects that should have been front and centre. For example, there is no substantive assessment of the operations of the Joint Council. There is no assessment of the capability requirements on the Coalition of Peaks and whether the current levels of support are adequate. There are mentions of states failing to deliver on their commitments, but no real solutions offered in response. There is no recognition of the primacy of the Commonwealth in the federation, and the implications of the deliberate strategy embedded within the architecture of the agreement for the Commonwealth to outsource its overarching responsibilities to the Joint Council and the states. There is no analysis of the nature of the refreshed targets which are increasingly not focussed on comparative economic and social status, but are framed in terms of absolutes (ie improvements on current levels).

 

There is no recognition that the current design architecture for the agreement, while incomplete and thus subject to ongoing remedial work, is simultaneously over designed and in need of radical simplification. As presently configured, it guarantees that the Coalition of Peaks (representing Indigenous interests) will be wading through bureaucratic sludge for the next ten years, and thus effectively distracted from the main policy game. It also ensures that the probability of the national agreement imploding under the weight of its accumulated complexity is high and bound to grow. Proactive reform is preferable to stasis followed by abolition.

 

The bottom line however is that the six recommendations of the draft review (see pages 10-15), if implemented, would in my view not make any substantive difference to the nation’s progress on closing the gap within five or even ten years. They are an amalgam of doubling down on the current hyper-complexity of the policy architecture along with a hefty dose of blind faith in the bureaucratic leadership of the nation. Did the robodebt royal commission not make any impression at all on the PC? Notwithstanding the PC Chair’s view in his recent AFR article that governments are engaged in ‘a hotted up version of business as usual’, the draft recommendations in this report might be characterised in similar terms.

 

I have a recommendation for the Commonwealth Government. Issue the PC with revised terms of reference, and perhaps an extension of time. Request them to (a) develop an estimate of the cost of addressing the entrenched inequality facing Indigenous Australians; (b) map out a realistic timeframe and strategy for achieving that objective; (c) make a more fundamental analysis of the current status of the Closing the Gap architecture; and (d) provide options for radically simplifying the structure and design of the current architecture while retaining the four priority reforms. And for good measure, keep it to fifty pages. Such a report would then allow the Commonwealth Government to meaningfully and honestly engage with Indigenous interests and the states and territories.

 

3 August 2023

Note this post was amended on 4 August to correct a number of typographical and grammatical errors

Indigenous income inequality: wider ramifications

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,

And say there is no sin but to be rich;

And being rich, my virtue then shall be

To say there is no vice but beggary

King John Act 2, scene 1, 593-6

I recently came across (h/t Marginal Revolution) an interesting article on a World Bank Blog by World Bank researchers Francisco Ferreira and Marta Schoch (link here). Their short post repays reading, including for the enlightening graphs.

Their article, which is focused on the relationship between inequality and social unrest in Latin America, raises interesting implications that Australian policymakers dealing with Indigenous public policy should consider.

As the authors point out, widespread social unrest has increased across the globe in recent years, but has been particularly intense in Latin America.

The core of their argument is that the recent outbreak of mass social unrest in Latin America is not correlated with increasing income inequality, as in fact income inequality has been declining for the last two decades and the middle class cohort measured by income has been increasing. They also point out that notwithstanding the declines in inequality, levels of income inequality remain at ‘obscene’ levels and across Latin America are the highest in the world.

Instead, they hypothesise that it is ongoing inequality of opportunity that is fuelling social unrest. They point to data that suggests that Latin America (along with many African nations) has the highest levels of inequality of opportunity globally. They conclude that the protesters cross Latin America are in fact demanding

a break with the old Latin American social contract through which elites pay lower taxes (except in Argentina and Brazil) and opt out of low-quality public services, hoarding opportunity through private schools and kindergartens, private health insurance schemes and clinics, and better pension systems than those available to most.  In that sense, the 2019 protests in Chile and Colombia are related to inequality after all: inequality of opportunity preserved by an oligarchic social contract. 

Another way to frame this hypothesis, it seems to me, is that it reflects the failure of governments and national economies to meet the economic expectations of rising middle classes.

Of course, Latin America is not Australia. We have much greater equality of opportunity than Latin American nations (see figure 3 in the Ferreira and Schoch blog post). And our levels of income inequality are much less than in Latin America. The World Inequality Database (link here) suggests that while Brasil’s top one percent earn around 25 percent of national income, in Australia the top one percent earn around 9 percent. Interestingly however, while income inequality (measured by the share of income earned by the top one percent) has been falling across Latin America over the past two decades, in Australia it has doubled. See for example this article in the Treasury Economic Roundup from 2013 (link here), particularly fig. 8.

The issue of income inequality amongst Indigenous citizens is complex for a range of reasons, including increased rates of self-identification in urban and regional areas, and supplementary access to non-monetary forms of income in remote and very remote areas. Nevertheless, it is worth outlining the basics. The best and most recent account is to be found in Biddle and Markham’s 2018 CAEPR Census paper ‘Income, Poverty and Income Inequality’ (link here), particularly from page 20 on. Again, interested readers will benefit from reading the article in full.

Their paper analysed data from three censuses, in 2006, 2011 and 2016.

As outlined in the Abstract to their paper, key findings include:

a growing divergence between the incomes of Indigenous people in urban areas and remote areas. Although Indigenous incomes are growing steadily in urban areas, …median disposable equivalised household income in very remote areas fell …Indigenous cash poverty rates in very remote areas rose from 46.9% in 2011 to 53.4% in 2016. During this period, poverty rates in urban areas continued to fall, reaching 24.4% in 2016. Finally, changes in the difference in the incomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians followed a similar pattern, with income gaps shrinking in urban areas while growing rapidly in very remote areas. Although the increased incomes in urban and regional areas – where the majority of the Indigenous population lives – should be welcomed, this paper highlights a great divergence in the material circumstances of the Indigenous population across Australia. Urgent policy action is required to ameliorate the growing prevalence of poverty among Indigenous people in very remote Australia.

While their paper is rich in data and insights, I wish to emphasise three of the most policy relevant insights their analysis reveals:

1.    Compared to non-Indigenous citizens, Indigenous citizens are over-represented in lower income deciles (see fig. 17 and page 23);

2.    There is a significant divergence between income levels of remote and very remote Indigenous citizens versus the income levels of regional and urban Indigenous citizens (see fig. 17 and page 23), and

3.    While the income gap between Indigenous and mainstream citizens is very slowly reducing, it continues to worsen in the bottom half of the Indigenous population. This divergence largely maps on to the urban / remote divide.

Or to quote Biddle and Markham directly (refer page 33):

For the first time that we are aware of, more than half of the Indigenous population in very remote Australia was in income poverty, with rates in most very remote regions well above 50% in 2016. Indigenous incomes in very remote areas fell further behind non-Indigenous incomes, with the median Indigenous income in these areas averaging just 44% of the median non-Indigenous income. The structural causes of this increase in poverty require urgent action (emphasis added).

Their final paragraph is also worth quoting (refer page 34):

One final finding of note relates to income inequality within the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. This paper is the first of which the authors are aware to observe that incomes are distributed less equally among the Indigenous population than among the non-Indigenous population… this finding underscores the diversity of outcomes within the Indigenous population. This Census Paper has reported both a cash impoverishment of Indigenous people in remote regions and at the bottom end of the income distribution, and the continued growth of Indigenous incomes in urban areas. There is an urgent, clear policy imperative to ameliorate the former while promoting the latter.

Social unrest is not unknown in Indigenous Australia, but widespread social unrest amongst Indigenous citizens directed against governments is quite rare. Over the past four decades, unrest, demonstrations and riots have occurred in both larger urban centres and remote regions. In the years before 2000, they were often political in nature, related to activism in favour of land rights, or responses to particular acts of police violence. Over the past two decades, most instances of social unrest have occurred in remote Australia, but they have generally been localised in particular communities. Examples include violent conflict between youth gangs in Wadeye in the period 2007 to recent times, a major split and some associated violence between family/clan groups in Yuendumu in 2010, and more recent unrest, and regular outbreaks of rioting and violence in Aurukun over the past decade, including this year.

My intuitive sense is that in regional and urban Australia the quantity and intensity of social unrest has gradually declined over the past two decades. This may accord with Biddle and Markham’s observation that the levels of income growth amongst Indigenous citizens at the top of the income distribution adds weight to discussion regarding the possible emergence of a middle class amongst urban Indigenous citizens (see page 9). However, in remote Australia, regular outbreaks of unrest appear to have persisted through the past two decades, although the absence of a readily available data set makes any assessment inherently unreliable.

My point is not to collate or outline a comprehensive listing of such occurrences, nor to promote a particular narrative regarding the causes of community violence. I am aware of an extensive anthropological literature on political conflict and violence within traditional Indigenous communities. Rather, my aim is to look to the future, and in particular assess (in a provisional way) the likelihood of ongoing social unrest within Indigenous Australia arising from the hypotheses of the World Bank research.

As noted above, there appears to be a dearth of analysis of the overall levels of social unrest in Indigenous Australia. Raw data in the form of media and police reports of particular community conflicts or riots exist, but these are of variable quality and coverage, not easily accessible, and are likely to provide little insight into the immediate drivers of the unrest. In parallel, there is an increasing reluctance among academic analysts to seek to measure and explain the overall levels of community unrest, perhaps because such analysis is seen to contribute to a ‘deficit narrative’. My own view, however, is that whether or not the causes of community unrest are endogenous or exogenous to Indigenous societies, the existence of such unrest ought to be an issue of policy concern and attention. Indeed, the ongoing existence of overt and in particular violent unrest ought to be seen primarily as a policy failure of government, not as a failure of Indigenous societies, communities or leadership.

Taking the World Bank hypotheses as our starting point, it is immediately obvious that they do not translate to Australia, and in particular not to Indigenous Australia. We have a more robust democratic culture. Moreover, the comparative position of Australia vis a vis most Latin American nations on income inequality and inequality of opportunity is much more egalitarian (see figure 3 in their post). Australia does not have a robust tradition of sustained mass demonstrations against government initiatives, and we might hypothesise that this is a result of our comparative wealth, our comparative economic egalitarianism, and perhaps the long term erosion of union power.

In relation to the position of Indigenous Australians, they benefit from the comparative robustness globally of our national institutions, reflected in lower levels of income inequality and inequality of opportunity. Nevertheless, it is fair to assume that the bulk of these benefits accrue to urban and regional Indigenous citizens.

As Indigenous incomes at the top of the income distribution, and thus the Indigenous ‘middle class’, have grown, the instances of social unrest appear to have dissipated in urban and regional areas. There appears to be little evidence that expectations around greater equality of opportunity are creating greater unrest. In remote areas, income inequality is growing, and we can assume expectations of greater equality of opportunity are either non-existent or also falling. Social unrest continues (albeit most obviously in larger groups of residents), but it is rarely directed at government, and more often might be characterised as either lateral violence or a form of communal anomie.

If anything, the remote Indigenous experience of unrest fits more neatly into a simple hypothesis (at variance from that proposed for Latin America by the World Bank authors cited above). Namely, that there is a correlation between continuing or worsening inequality of income (probably accompanied by absent or falling expectations of equality of opportunity) and continuing and sporadic lateral unrest and violence. We might also hypothesise that the existence of lateral violence is also correlated with higher rates of disengagement (eg poor school attendance), and higher levels of individual violence, domestic violence and suicide. The extraordinary rates of Indigenous incarceration, out of home care for children and youth suicide in remote Australia support such an hypothesis. Of course, the fact that these are also serious issues in regional and urban Indigenous contexts (albeit not at remote levels) correlates with the continuing existence of income inequality in those contexts.

Indeed, the starting point of this post, namely a focus on the comparative experience of social unrest directed against governments, may well be a distraction from the pandemic levels of internally directed unrest and violence within remote Indigenous communities.

So what is the appropriate policy response going forward?

My first point, is that there is a desperate need for greater policy relevant research related to the levels and causes of internally and externally directed social and economic unrest (including lateral violence) within remote Australia. The data and analysis that is currently available is inadequately synthesised into policy relevant conclusions, is highly siloed between disciplines, and is mostly inaccessible to non-specialists. This sort of synthesis research is highly unlikely to occur and be promulgated without some sort of government support and initiative. Moreover, the risk flowing from the absence of such research is that it leaves the way clear for anecdote and social media driven narratives to drive policy initiatives.

Second, we can confidently assert that whatever governments are doing or have done in relation to remote Indigenous policy has not worked. Moreover, a number of existing government policy approaches are likely to make the situation worse. In particular, I would mention the ideological fixation by both major political parties on jobs and commercial development as some sort of panacea. This rhetoric, which is often not backed up by comprehensive or coherent policy nor programs, may be appropriate in relation to urban and regional Indigenous Australia, but hasn’t worked in remote Australia, and wont for the foreseeable future. See John Taylor’s recent demographic research in the Pilbara for evidence of this (link here).

Another disastrous policy is the Community Development Program (CDP) which operates only in remote Australia. CDP incorporates a work for the dole imperative, a minimum 50 % income management element across most of remote Australia, and highly punitive job search and reporting conditions which in turn lead to stratospheric rates of breaching adversely impacts thousands of remote citizens, and is largely invisible to mainstream Australia (link here).

Finally, the deliberate, short-sighted, and deliberately obscured decision by the current federal Government in 2018 to unilaterally discontinue the ten year National Partnership on Remote Indigenous Housing with the states upon its expiry will have seriously adverse long term consequences. The decision effectively cuts Commonwealth funding from $550m per annum to around $100m per annum (for the NT only). It will lead to a reduction in social housing investment for the most disadvantaged citizens in the nation. It will exacerbate existing overcrowding, shorten asset lifespans (leading to a need for further taxpayer investment down the track), and reduce economic opportunities within remote communities (links here and here). Given the likelihood of a national covid-19 pandemic, and its greater impact on the aged and medically vulnerable, the overcrowding crisis in remote Australia may, in a worst case scenario, turn into an avoidable death sentence for many remote citizens over the coming decade.

My third point is that remote Indigenous Australia is facing a largely invisible social and economic crisis. In comparative terms, for remote Indigenous citizens it is as bad as, or worse than, the impact of the Great Depression. There is no single policy initiative that will on its own, or quickly reverse this crisis. What is required is for governments to reverse their current policies of disinvestment and structural neglect, and to establish and sustain a ‘remote new deal’. This would involve working with local and regional Indigenous organisations, to gradually ramp up the levels of government investment and engagement in remote Australia. This would need to be led by the Commonwealth and include the relevant state and territory jurisdictions. It would require a radical reconceptualisation of both policies and programs.

I am under no illusions regarding the likelihood that governments of any persuasion will adopt the policy agenda outlined here in the near or proximate future. The reason is that, like the poor in Latin America, remote Indigenous citizens face an inequitable social contract, a ‘political settlement’ if you will, that does not include them. They do not have the demographic heft to undertake mass protests, or to challenge the existing social contract electorally. Instead, they express their powerlessness in fundamentally self-destructive ways. While not designed to challenge, these outcomes should challenge Australia’s self-perception as a fair and equitable nation, where everybody gets a fair go. There is thus both a moral and economic imperative for fixing these issues. Fixing them is in the national interest. They are not inherently intractable, it is just that we Australians lack the vision, consensus and commitment to address them. Instead we prefer to blame (and punish) the victim, and clothe ourselves in the cloak of fiscal and moral virtue.

Along with our punitive policies on treatment of refugees, and our wilful blindness on the risks of climate change, our treatment of Indigenous citizens, particularly in remote Australia, will stand out as one of the most short-sighted and irresponsible decisions we have taken as a nation in the 21^st century. Like the White Australia policy that shaped our nation for almost a century, that record will represent a permanent blight our history.