The ongoing remote housing debacle

 

They say this town is full of cozenage:
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin.

The Comedy of Errors, Act 1, Scene 2.

 

On 28 February, the front page of The Australian published a story and graphic photograph (link here behind paywall and Sky News link here) of a family from Utopia who had been living on a concrete slab fifteen minutes’ walk from the Alice Springs CBD for two years (‘Invisible, yet they live in plain sight’). The Australian also published an editorial (‘It’s time to change the picture’) arguing that what it termed ‘housing failure’ is yet another wake-up call from remote Australia.

 

The news stories quote South Australian Senator Kerryn Liddle raising the plight of the family, mentioning nine children, and asking why no-one has done anything over the past two years. The family had come to Alice Springs to access dialysis treatment for a family member. Graphic proof of the human cost housing crisis not just in Alice Springs, not just in the NT, but across remote Australia.

 

This blog has given the housing crisis in remote Australia significant attention over the past five years (link here and link here and link here and link here and link here and link here and link here and link here and link here) but the issue continues to bedevil the nation. In those posts I have documented how the Rudd Government allocated $5.5bn to the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Housing (NPARIH) in 2008, how the end of program review orchestrated by then Minister Scullion was deeply flawed, and characterised by an inability to come clean about the real agenda, how then Minister Scullion oversaw cuts of a couple of hundred million for Repairs and Maintenance (as it would not adversely impact statistics on new house builds), and eventually allowed NPARIH to lapse across all jurisdictions except the NT where the Commonwealth is the landlord for 5230 housing dwellings across 72 town camps and remote communities (PC 2022:429 link here).

 

I also documented reports by Infrastructure Australia that initially excluded housing as social infrastructure, then included it, and how it was then directed by the former Government to exclude it from their analysis (link here and link here and link here and link here). Those posts also demonstrated that NPARIH had a tangible and positive impact on reducing overcrowding, but that there remained an outstanding need (see below). In a more academic context (link here), I have documented how these changes were part of a deliberate and more comprehensive effort to reduce Commonwealth expenditures on Closing the Gap, and to shift funding and policy responsibility for outcomes to the states and territories. To repeat, my research documented how these strategies were intentional, and have in large measure been successful in shifting funding responsibility (and thus political responsibility) away from the Commonwealth, and to the states and territories.  

 

The effective removal of virtually all funding for remote housing, relying on the fig leaf that mainstream programs will somehow fill the void, will have already ensured declines in the quality and number of housing assets across remote Australia, and concomitant increases in overcrowding. These entirely predictable consequences (and their less predictable ramifications) will continue to play out for at least five years and probably a decade even were governments to initiate a major investment effort today. The likelihood of such a policy reversal occurring seems highly unlikely anytime soon.

 

So what is the current state of play?

 

In this post, I can only address the most salient developments and point to the relevant reports and processes that are influencing current policy developments.

 

In August 2022, the Productivity Commission published its Study Report on the mainstream National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA) (link here). Its headline finding was

The National Housing and Homelessness Agreement — intended to improve access to affordable, safe and sustainable housing — is ineffective. It does not foster collaboration between governments or hold governments to account. It is a funding contract, not a blueprint for reform…

The focus of the next Agreement should be on improving the affordability of the private rental market and the targeting of housing assistance. Improving the capacity of low-income renters to pay for housing and removing constraints on new housing supply are key to making housing more affordable… … State and Territory Governments should commit to firm targets for new housing supply, facilitated by planning reforms and better co-ordination of infrastructure…. The $16 billion governments spend each year on direct housing assistance could achieve more if it was better targeted to people in greatest need...

 

The Study Report includes a chapter which provides a comprehensive overview of the state of Indigenous housing policy nationally, sets out a persuasive case for reform and makes a series of largely sensible recommendations. To highlight just one data point amongst many, the report notes (page 33) that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, compared with other Australians are 16 times more likely to live in severely overcrowded dwellings. One of the crucial issues with adopting a mainstream approach in remote Australia is that the interplay of Aboriginal tenures and the housing system means that there is very little affordable and private housing provision. Social housing is the predominant mode of housing provision. A further point noted in the Study Report, but perhaps not given adequate emphasis is that housing (and essential services) are crucial social determinants of health, including mental health, and thus play into a much wider policy domain than the mere supply of accommodation (important as that is).

 

The next National Housing Agreement is currently being negotiated between the Commonwealth and the States and territories. Accompanying this are major changes to the mainstream policy architecture including a legislated $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) designed to assist in financing 30,000 new housing units nationally over five years, a new statutory Housing Supply and Affordability Council, and a new National Housing and Homelessness Plan. When first announced, the Greens criticised the 30, 000 new houses commitment as inadequate (link here). In her media release announcing passage of the HAFF legislation through the lower house, Minister Collins announced that $200m of the investment returns from the Fund would be allocated to repair and maintenance of housing in remote communities (link here). While welcome, it is not clear what the national quantum of necessary maintenance investment is in existing and projected remote community housing stock. It is thus impossible to determine whether this is in fact a significant investment or mere tokenism. In particular, were the Government to provide greater national context this would indicate whether this investment can or will be used to leverage increased investment from the states and territories.

 

The Indigenous Australians Minister has recently released the Commonwealth Closing the Gap Implementation Plan 2023 (link here). It lays out the Commonwealth strategy in relation to Outcome 9a and 9b which relate to reducing overcrowded housing and the provision of essential services in discrete communities. The Implementation Plan lists Minister Julie Collins (whose portfolio is situated within the Treasury portfolio) as responsible for target 9a and Ministers Catherine King (Infrastructure) and Assistant Minister Anthony Chisolm (Regional Development) as responsible for target 9b.

 

Target 9a is specified in the following terms: By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in appropriately sized (not overcrowded) housing to 88 percent. This is a national target that, in theory, can be fully met without necessarily addressing the deep housing needs across remote Australia. There is thus an imperative for explicit policy focus on allocating resources based on levels of need.

 

The ABS estimates that in 2031, there will be 1.1 million Indigenous Australians. If the target is met but not exceeded, that will leave 12 percent (or 132, 000 people) in overcrowded housing. The highest levels of Indigenous overcrowding are in remote Australia including the NT, the Kimberley and north Queensland.

 

The new target 9b is specified as follows: By 2031, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households: # within discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities receive essential services that meet or exceed the relevant jurisdictional standard; # in or near to a town receive essential services that meet or exceed the same standard as applies generally within the town (including if the household might be classified for other purposes as a part of a discrete settlement such as a “town camp” or “town based reserve”.) There is considerable devil in the detail of this target, for example, just what are the ‘relevant jurisdictional standards’. I don’t have space to explore these issues here.

 

The Implementation Plan for targets 9a and 9b might best be described as establishing a holding pattern rather than a clear plan for achieving the target. The Plan highlights a small number of funding packages ($200 million from the HAFF; $100 million to the NT Government for homelands housing possibly from the ABA; and $150 million from the National Water Grid Fund for regional and remote water infrastructure projects). The major risk to meeting these two targets is that the sum total of resources from all sources will not be adequate. The Implementation Plan makes no effort to cross-reference or identify the levels of housing and essential services related investment in the remote state and territory jurisdictions, so there is no way that readers of the Plan can make their own assessment of risk related to targets 9a and 9b. Should any readers be inclined to go seeking this information in the state and territory Implementation Plans, they would find that they are for one year only, and comprise a bewildering array of process issues and minor funding commitments, but no accessible information assisting in understanding how the implementation process is progressing.

 

For example, the first (undated) NT Closing the Gap Implementation Plan finalised in August 2021 (link here) focusses only on the Priority Reforms, and provides no information on how the NT proposes to meet specific targets. It does mention (p.4) that 61.6% of NT Aboriginal people live in overcrowded housing. The 2021/2022 Closing the Gap Implementation Plan Annual Report (link here) provides more data on households (not individuals) (p.16) which indicates a reduction of 2.3% in remote community public household overcrowding between 2019 and 2022 — from 57% to 54.6%. This data is accompanied by a footnote warning of potential undercounting of occupancy figures. Again, there is no information on how the NT is seeking to reduce overcrowding.

 

The Commonwealth Implementation plan appears to have been developed independently of any hard headed assessment of the adequacy and projected funding from the states and territories, and perhaps more importantly, of the adequacy of the strategies adopted by the states and territories. This reflects and continues the former Government’s approach under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap of positioning the Commonwealth as (a lesser) one among equals, rather than a first among equals, or more appropriately, as the ringmaster oversighting the performance of the state and territory circus. A similar issue applies across the Commonwealth: the Implementation Plan gives primary responsibility to relevant Ministers (often multiple) yet nowhere does it state that the Minister for Indigenous Australians has an overarching remit and the authority to pull together, coordinate and in the ultimate resort to ensure compliance with the various cross agency responsibilities. Without such an explicit and formal remit, the coordination task across the Commonwealth will inevitably slide into a miasma of process.

 

Finally, the Commonwealth Implementation Plan mentions the National Housing and Homelessness Plan, but fails to commit to adopting the Productivity Commission Study Report recommendations (it will merely take them into account), in particular regarding needs based funding allocations. In my view, this is a major gap in the Implementation Plan.

 

So Where to from Here?

 

In 2018, in an article for Inside Story (‘Tactics versus Strategy in Indigenous Housing’) (link here), I identified a remote housing funding shortfall of $9 billion over the decade to 2028 if the then levels of overcrowding were to be effectively addressed. In the event, the Commonwealth walked away from the national remote housing program reducing its outlays to approximately $110 million pa focussed solely on the NT where the Commonwealth has direct landlord responsibilities for 5230 dwellings in town camps and remote communities.

 

Notwithstanding the demonstrable levels of need, the current Commonwealth Government shows no signs of reversing the previous Governments cuts. Not only will this ensure that current levels of deep disadvantage across remote Australia continue for at least a decade, it will constrain improvements in health and social well-being and likely exacerbate existing demographic shifts towards urban centres. While adequate and maintained housing is not the entire solution to the appalling conditions in many remote communities, and needs to be complemented by other infrastructure such as clean water, sewerage, power, it is a prerequisite for sustained improvements in health, employment, education, and for reductions in alcohol and drug abuse and family violence. Unfortunately, our political system is finely attuned to meeting the needs of the best organised interests and the broader electorate, within a zero-sum budgetary envelope. In these circumstances, it is worth considering what options there might be with a more constrained budgetary impact.

 

The following suggestions are high level and thus involve a degree of devil in the detail. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on advocates for improved housing, and indeed the current Government to think more laterally about such options if the option of increased investment is not feasible.

 

First, in my Inside Story article, I canvassed the idea of a Government owned corporation being established (which might joint venture with Indigenous corporations) with access to an effective Commonwealth guarantee and the capacity to borrow funds from private sector sources to build, own and rent out housing in remote communities. Such an initiative would tackle the shortage of housing, and of staff housing, in remote communities (which acts as a disincentive to attract and retain both locally engaged and external staff) and would open up new sources of private-sector capital for investment in remote locations.

 

Second, in a new environment where the majority of housing investment must be sourced from either mainstream Commonwealth programs, and / or state and territory programs, it is incumbent on the Commonwealth to adopt a much more focussed and robust approach to ensuring that these sources of investment are responding to the needs of remote communities. So for example, this would suggest that the Commonwealth Indigenous Affairs portfolio should step up and take a much more active role in encouraging states and territories to maximise their investments in remote housing, and take a much more robust  ‘coordination’ role vis a vis relevant Commonwealth agencies and programs such as the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, and the operations of the Housing Australia Future Fund. Similarly with the operations of the Infrastructure portfolio. There is a case for looking much more closely at the operations of the North Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), and whether there are any operational changes that might be made to increase investment in one of the major infrastructure assets across northern Australia, the totality of the remote housing and community infrastructure asset base.

 

Third, it is time the Commonwealth established a truly independent and forward looking review of the remote housing challenge the nation faces. The 2017 NPARIH Review (link here unfortunately without a link to the actual report) was fundamentally flawed (link here), and even so was then ignored. It was backward looking, whereas what is now required is a review that sets out the extent and parameters of the challenge, assesses the likely demographic changes and implications of various scenarios, identifies emerging risks arising from climate change and other societal trends, and examines in detail options for the most effective architecture of the remote housing sector (social housing, community housing, or both?) as well as innovative financing of remote housing. In proposing such a review, I am seeking to focus on the systemic and structural drivers of housing exclusion and disadvantage rather than the lived experience that flows from those systemic constraints. While there is an argument that such an independent review should be given a broader remit, the risk of a deeper crisis in the narrow housing sector emerging in the coming decade are such that I would suggest a narrow focus would be best at this point. That is not to downplay the broader challenges facing remote Australia, though I would argue that they are in most respects amenable to clear sighted policy development by policymakers.

 

Fourth, the poorly conceptualised and drafted Closing the Gap housing and essential services targets 9a and 9b need to be revised to ensure that government focus on closing the full gap, not part of the gap. The Implementation plans that have been adopted to date are next to useless and require a major overhaul. They need to be strategically focussed on the targets identified and list proposed actions. Not data, not miniscule funding grants, not good intentions, not more process. Housing and essential services are tangible and susceptible to clear measurement. Five yearly updates in the census will not cut it. Nor will national data sets that are not broken down at least into urban, regional and remote.

 

In conclusion, the policy choices made over the past five years in relation to remote housing are retrograde and will have very real consequences: for taxpayers, for the population of remote Australia, both Indigenous  and non-Indigenous, and most importantly for the residents of these overcrowded and under-maintained houses across remote Australia. Over fifty percent of those individuals are under 25 and the overcrowding will have lifelong consequences for the opportunities that are within their reach. These issues are just one part of the wider cataclysm (link here) impacting remote Australia. I am certain that within a very few decades, Australians across the political spectrum will pass an extremely negative judgment on these decisions, and the decisionmakers that shaped them.

 

Financialisaton of nature repair: visionary innovation or short-sighted chimera?

 

See, sons, what things you are

How quickly nature falls into revolt

When gold becomes her object.

2 Henry IV, Act 4, scene 5

 

The Commonwealth Government is pushing ahead with its proposal to establish a market for what it terms ‘nature repair’. The Environment Department website has a page devoted to the Nature Repair Market Exposure Draft of proposed legislation (link here). The Department invited comment and submissions, but this process will close within a week on 24 February. It is not clear if they will publish the submissions they receive. I hope they will so as to transparently air the breadth of issues raised.

 

The Department states:

We are developing a nature repair market to encourage investment in biodiversity and drive environmental improvements across Australia.

Companies are looking at ways to achieve positive outcomes for nature through their investments but a national framework to facilitate that investment is not yet in place.

The market will be underpinned by legislation – the Nature Repair Market Bill (the Bill). This will enable landholders who protect, manage or restore local habitat and to receive biodiversity certificates which can then be sold to other parties. It will ensure the integrity of biodiversity certificates so the market can invest with confidence.

 

The Department’s web page includes links to the draft legislation, and to a series of fact sheets, including a Fact Sheet providing an overview of the proposal (link here) and a Fact Sheet titled Supporting the participation of First Nations people (link here). Key issues addressed (very briefly) include how Indigenous landowners can participate in the market, how they can be involved in market design, and how their rights and interests will be protected.

 

The Guardian recently reported on a number of concerns regarding the proposals from academics and others involved in conservation policy (link here).

 

Like any ambitious policy proposal, there are persuasive arguments in favour and against. This post does not attempt to lay out comprehensively the arguments for and against, and at this point in time, I do not feel qualified to express a definitive view on the merits of the proposal nor the draft legislation. Rather, what I am seeking to do here is provide a provisional introduction to the issue, aimed primarily at persuading readers that this is an issue that requires more attention than it has received to date.

 

It is clear however that this is a policy initiative with significant potential implications for Indigenous interests, and for the management of the Indigenous estate that encompasses around half the continental landmass, and will likely grow to above 60 percent as outstanding native title applications are determined. Whatever the merits of the scheme overall, its impact on Indigenous interests and lands will need close attention both by Indigenous advocates and government policymakers. Of course, the two issues are closely related. If the scheme is flawed or ineffective, and particularly if the regulatory arrangements are not robust enough to ensure that the market operates effectively, then the likelihood is that it will adversely and significantly impact Indigenous interests and landowners given the size of the Indigenous estate.

 

Underpinning the Government’s policy approach is an explicit assumption, laid out in a speech by Environment Minister Plibersek in July 2022 (link here) that the task of preventing landscape degradation (a subset of environmental repair and protection) is beyond the financial capacity of governments. The Minister stated there that ‘The scale of this challenge means that governments can’t do the job alone’.

 

This assumption is problematic on two grounds: the financial challenge is one of priorities, not quantum; and over time the quantum is shaped and determined by policies. I am sure that this is an issue that will be the focus of further research and debate as the proposed legislation progresses. The fundamental rationale for seeking to establish a market that essentially seeks to financialise the natural estate and the task of nature repair is in my view not yet beyond question.

 

There seem to me to be two high level general risks that will need careful management and proactive mitigation. Both of these risks could have a range of sui generis implications for Indigenous landowners.

 

The first risk is the issue raised in the Guardian article mentioned above, namely that the scheme might become a disguised offset scheme which facilitates biodiversity destruction by in effect paying landowners elsewhere to undertake projects aimed at biodiversity maintenance or repair. Without robust regulation, such an outcome might quickly lead to net reductions in biodiversity repair (particularly in sensitive contexts with competing commercial and biodiversity values).  

 

The second general risk is that the transactions costs (both tangible and intangible) associated with the proposed market effectively outweigh the substantive values of the biodiversity certificates at the core of the market. To take just one example, the administrative burdens of compliance for landowners, and of regulatory oversight for governments could be huge. Yet robust regulation is crucial to the schemes success. Excessive transactions costs will lead to market failure of various kinds and thus to counterproductive outcomes.

 

There are also (at least) two risks that particularly relate to the Indigenous policy sector.

 

The first risk is the potential for governments to effectively hide behind the existence of this market to justify limiting both expected future and existing government funding for biodiversity repair. Indigenous landowners are much more reliant on government funding than mainstream landowners as they are less engaged in commercial activities on their lands, so this risk, if it emerges, will impact them more seriously than mainstream interests.

 

Second, I note that in the almost thirty years since the passage of the Native Title Act, no Federal Government has been prepared to establish a comprehensive and adequate funding scheme to support the operations of Prescribed Bodies Corporate (PBCs), the corporate bodies that are mandated by the Native Title Act to hold native title on behalf of native titleholders. These are the organisations, mandated by legislation, that will be key decisionmakers in the proposed biodiversity market. The second risk is that financially constrained Indigenous landowners will not have access to the requisite professional skills and advice to ensure that they obtain a commercial return on the biodiversity certificates they sell.

 

I have published posts raising the issue of inadequate PBC funding previously, including the two most recent at the following links (link here and link here).  The second of these links involved litigation where the Judge was critical of the lack of funding allocated to supporting native title holders. It is a longstanding issue, yet governments are stubbornly intransigent when it comes to addressing it.

 

There are around 250 PBCs in existence (link here). There is limited funding available for PBCs for ‘Basic Support’ which averages around $50k to $80k per PBC. If you do the math, this sums to less than $20m per annum nationally. There is also a capacity building program that totals around $12m per annum. See the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) webpage (link here) for more details. The bottom line is that Government funding for PBCs that are involved in land management for almost half the nation’s land mass totals $32m per annum. Given the present inadequate funding levels, there must be serious doubts regarding the financial and administrative capability of PBCs to undertake the administrative and policy decision-making workloads associated with the proposed new ‘nature repair’ market arrangements.

 

Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the Commonwealth’s ongoing support and commitment to funding a highly successful network of ranger groups across the Indigenous estate. The NIAA website (link here) indicates that current funding amounts to $746m over seven years to 2028, that is just under $110m per annum nationally to fund between 80 and 100 ranger groups. The NIAA also reports that there are 2100 full time, part time and casual jobs created by the ranger funding program. There is also a very useful map (link here) indicating the location of Indigenous Protected Areas and funded ranger activities nationally. In her speech last year delivering the 2021 State of the Environment Report (link here), Minister Plibersek committed to doubling the number of Indigenous rangers to 3800 by the end of the decade, and to increasing funding to Indigenous Protected Areas. Clearly, the existence of this funded network will facilitate the implementation of biodiversity projects into the future on Indigenous land.

 

What is not clear, at least to me, is whether this expanding national Indigenous Ranger workforce has the depth of experience and expertise to undertake new biodiversity projects funded by the market without being diverted away for existing projects. The concept of a new nature repair market builds upon an established and well entrenched institutional infrastructure of commercial businesses with access to professional advice, finance and technology. It is not clear that this level of institutional depth and intellectual capital exists yet across the 80 plus Indigenous ranger groups. As part of any implementation strategy for the proposed new nature repair scheme, there may well be a case for governments to fund a ten year institutional strengthening project across the existing (and future) ranger network aimed at reducing the risk that capability shortfalls will inhibit take-up or successful implementation of market funded additional biodiversity repair projects on the Indigenous estate.

 

To sum up, the Government’s proposed Nature Repair Market legislation has immense potential implications for Indigenous interests and landowners. These include undoubted financial benefits, but also the potential for serious risks and disadvantage to emerge affecting both the environment and the financial viability of Indigenous organisations. It is just one of the numerous issues currently competing for attention across the Indigenous policy domain. In my view, the policy implications and in particular the potential risks for Indigenous interests deserve greater attention than they appear to have received to date from policymakers.

 

I thank Professor Jon Altman for drawing my attention to the Government’s proposals.

Existential risk to Indigenous languages, transparency and closing the gap

 

If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now;

if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

Hamlet Act 5, scene 2.

 

The excellent online journal Inside Story has just published my review of the recently published Gija Dictionary (link here).  I won’t summarise the review here, but will leave it to readers to read for yourselves.

 

The review points to larger policy issues for our nation: do we wish to incrementally slide into a mono-cultural and mono-lingual future, and if not, what will be required to ensure that we don’t. The languages of First Nations are in this respect a special case, as they are in most cases highly vulnerable to falling into disuse.

 

This raises the question: just what is the Commonwealth doing to support Indigenous languages? The answer is not easy to ascertain. The NIAA website contains virtually no reference to the support of languages, not any cross reference to the primary finding agency, the Office of the Arts in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. The Office of the Arts funds the ILA, the Indigenous Languages and Arts Program with around $25m per annum (link here). A fact sheet dated July 2022 on the Department’s website (link here) outlines the following objectives for the ILA:

The ILA program provides grant funding to support the following objectives: · Capture, revitalise and sustain Indigenous languages · Develop, produce, present, exhibit or perform a diverse range of traditional and contemporary Indigenous art forms · Support new and innovative forms of Indigenous cultural expression through arts · Contribute to the Australian Government’s priorities and outcomes for Aboriginal languages, including those under Target 16 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022–2032.

 

The Fact Sheet also tells us that the ILA funds ‘around 117 projects that support a wide variety of community-based Indigenous languages and arts activities, including a network of 23 Indigenous Language Centres throughout the country.’ What is not clear is how much of the $27m is directed to language support.

 

In relation to Closing the Gap, the Fact sheet states:

The National Agreement on Closing the Gap now includes a dedicated outcome and a target for Indigenous languages in Australia over the next ten years: · Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and languages are strong, supported and flourishing (Outcome 16) · By 2031, there is a sustained increase in number and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages being spoken (Target 16).

 

Here is not the place for an extended critique of Closing the Gap targets, but I cant resist observing that this target is next to useless, and appears designed as mere rhetorical virtue signalling. Why not measure the comparative rates of fluency in multiple languages amongst First Nations and mainstream citizens? Or the numbers of Indigenous speakers of Indigenous languages? Hopefully the current review of Closing the Gap by the Productivity Commission (link here) will address this issue amongst others.

 

For those interested in what A Walking Shadow believes the Productivity Commission Review of Closing the Gap should focus on in its review, I recommend you consult my detailed submission to the review available on the review website (link here). It is submission number five. It argues for a much more robust approach to Priority Reform Three (see below) and for a focussed process of identifying the actual implementation strategies of the states and territories to implementing the National Agreement on Closing the Gap Agreement.

 

While it would be theoretically feasible to obtain funding allocations for Indigenous language Centres by accessing individual language centre annual reports to the various corporate regulators and/or via the Government’s GrantConnect website, this would be time consuming and frustrating. Whatever the amount (my speculative guess is around $10m per annum), or the price of say eight houses in one of our capital cities, it seems quite inadequate given the implications of cumulative language loss in the past, and it seems, into the future. Deliberate opacity by government was the hallmark of the previous Government, but seems to have been automatically carried over by the current Government.

 

A proactive Government and proactive Ministers concerned to promulgate their social justice credentials would ensure that their agency websites are clear, accessible and that program transparency is maximised. In particular, the NIAA website is in urgent need of a major overhaul aimed at improving accessibility, transparency and in particular, aimed at enhancing linkages to Indigenous funding programs in mainstream agencies (such as ILA) which require sustained attention and monitoring by virtue of the fact that under Priority Reform Three of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here), the Government parties committed to, inter alia:

Increase accountability through transparent funding allocations – Improve transparency of resource allocation to, and distribution by, mainstream institutions in relation to dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service‑delivery. 

 

To sum up, the future of the nation’s unique linguistic heritage is at risk. This issue deserves significant and sustained support from Governments in terms of funding, but also in terms of placing it at the centre of public discourse. The Commonwealth is making a modest contribution (though we can’t determine just how modest), but provides virtually no quality information on what it is doing, how effective its programs are, what are the real risks to individual languages, and what others such as philanthropies and corporates could be doing to strengthen and sustain that living heritage. Closing the Gap is one of the means Governments utilise to assuage community concerns about the quality of Indigenous policy. But this process too has its shortcomings and implementation challenges. And Governments are deeply addicted to the provision of minimal transparency. Three separate, but intricately linked issues.

 

I happen to take the view that it would be a tragedy if bureaucratic obfuscation, or political short-sightedness and game-playing were to contribute to the irrevocable further loss of the first languages spoken in Australia. Policy proactivity is essential. Transparency assists policy effectiveness. Readiness is all.

 

 

 

Alice Springs crisis: observations on remote policy

 

Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands,

But more when envy breeds unkind division:

There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.

Henry VI, Part 1, Act 4, scene 1

 

Yesterday, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, and three Indigenous Labor MPs (Patrick Dodson, Marion Scrymgour, and Malarndirri McCarthy) visited Alice Springs to meet with the NT Government, and local community interests.

 

I am loathe to write too much about the unfolding situation in Alice Springs given the amount to material being published in mainstream media. I don’t propose to set out a comprehensive account or summary, and instead would refer readers to the front page reports in the Australian, the ABC and the Guardian over recent days. Below is a quick snapshot of my posts in relation to alcohol policy in remote Australia over the past year or so. I include them to both provide some deeper background, and more importantly to make the point that for close observers of this policy realm (are there any in Government?) it has been very apparent for a considerable time that business as usual was not sufficient and would eventually lead to disaster. Bad as things are, it is not clear that they will not get worse before they improve.

 

In February 2022, I posted a blog reporting on what amounted to a clear decision by the previous Government not to extend the Stronger Futures legislation related to alcohol (and some other issues such as remote stores licencing which has implications for food security in remote communities). That post was titled The Commonwealth is taking us headlong into a remote policy chasm: but who cares? (Link here).

 

In May 2022, I published a post outlining the ongoing social and governance catastrophe in remote Australia (link here). That post dealt with alcohol issues only tangentially, but reinforced the deep structural and systemic underpinnings of the current crisis.

 

In early June 2022, the NT Government announced its approach to loosening the controls on alcohol regulation across remote communities and town camps. I published a post linking to criticism of this approach, and explored the likely rationale for the NTG decision (link here). I argued that the NTG decision was a cynical exercise in encouraging drinkers to remain in remote communities and out of Darwin and major towns. In the case of Central Australia, the systemic incentives to leave underfunded communities are much greater than mere access to alcohol; hence the current issues in Alice Springs.

 

In August, I published a post titled Alcohol policy reform in remote Australia: a potential roadmap. This post dealt with remote Western Australia (link here), and made the case for the Commonwealth to inject itself into the remote alcohol policy arena.

 

In December 2022, I published a post titled Cataclysm and crisis: the two sides of the policy tragedy engulfing remote northern Australia (link here). That post was headed with a quotation from Hamlet: ‘This bodes some strange eruption to our state’. The post concluded as follows:

The inability of governments to envisage, understand and put in place effective strategies to address the multiple facets of the economic and social cataclysm facing remote communities amounts to a massive and fundamental failure. This failure is in and of itself a crisis; a crisis of governance capability, a crisis of will power, and ultimately a crisis of government legitimacy.

The implication that inevitably follows is that the solutions (for they will inevitably be multiple) must go beyond focussing on a single issue (housing, or health or food security or alcohol, or crime, or education, or incarceration, or unemployment or economic development, or land tenure, or dispossession or the impact of colonisation). 

 

I recommend reading those previous posts to obtain an inkling of the systemic underpinnings of the current situation in Alice Springs.

 

Below, I lay out a series of observations that are not getting much critical attention in the current media tumult. They are not intended as a comprehensive analysis of the current situation nor are they in any particular order.

 

First, there have been statements by both Government, the Opposition, and the NT Government seeking to blame their political opponents for the flow on from the decision to allow the Stronger Futures legislation that curtailed access to alcohol across many remote NT Aboriginal communities. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called on the Government to reinstate the alcohol bans that expired in July last year (link here and link here). Yesterday, the Prime Minister argued (link here) that the Stronger Futures legislation had expired before the first parliamentary session under the new Government (elected in May 2022). While technically correct, the new Labor Government always had the option of moving to reinstate the legislation, or proactively engaging with the NT Government to ensure alcohol controls were not loosened. In the final analysis, the new Government could have announced an intention to reinstate the Stronger Futures legislation in the event that the NT Government failed to legislate in similar terms. The NT Government spent months mischaracterising the Stronger Futures legislation as racially based and thus discriminatory (link here and link here) while ignoring the fact that it was designed as a special measure under the Racial Discrimination Act which allows ostensible discrimination that is designed to benefit the people of a particular race. The Albanese Government, the former Morrison Government, and the Labor NT Government all had the opportunity to ensure that the Stronger Futures legislation continued with a zero or miniscule interregnum. Rewriting history to blame political opponents while seeking to avoid responsibility merely serves to signal that politics continues to play a major role in managing the response of our political elites to the situation in Alice Springs.

 

Second, as my previous posts made clear, the current issues in Alice Springs are (i) symptomatic of underlying structural and systemic policy challenges; and (ii) are constituent elements in a much more geographically expansive crisis that has been ebbing and flowing across remote Australia for decades, and had become significantly worse in the past three to five years. Alcohol abuse is a significant element in this crisis, but it is far from the only factor in play.

 

Third, the media reports on social dysfunction across remote Australia invariably focus on events in particular places and at particular times, but rarely do reporters step back and provide a holistic and coherent narrative that joins the dots both geographically, and in terms of the multiple sectors impacted. Media hype, however accurate, rarely provides the full picture, and is not adequate for policy formulation. Yet increasingly, Governments have abdicated on their responsibility to prepare and publish comprehensive, accurate and and coherent policy relevant analyses across the breadth of public policymaking. Analysis has given way to propaganda and public relations. This abdication of responsibility is particularly costly in relation to remote Australia given the thin levels of public discussion and knowledge of what goes on in remote places and communities.

 

Fourth, in the context of the present tumult around alcohol regulation, and the promulgation of a confusing amalgam of geographically constrained temporary and ongoing policy proposals by both the Federal and the NT Government, no media outlets have asked the PM, the Leader of the Opposition, or the NT Chief Minister, to reveal the level of political donations to their party organisations from interests associated with the alcohol industry. Given the crisis of legitimacy surrounding the quality of governance in relation to these current issues, it seems an obvious question to ask policymakers and politicians: how does the community know that you are not conflicted in proposing policy solutions that should be in the public interest. Political donations are theoretically made public, albeit after a considerable delay. However, there is nothing stopping any of the political players shaping policy in relation to the social crisis rolling out from compiling and publishing in a clear and transparent form the donations received from alcohol industry corporations over say the past three years. The absence of such a transparent statement from policymakers and their political opponents should provide cause for concern in relation to the policy solutions that are being proposed.

 

Fifth, there appears to be a correlation between the substantial pull back and withdrawal of the Commonwealth from the remote policy arena over the past decade and increasing levels of dysfunction. The NT Government does not appear to have the policy and financial capability to make a difference, and nor does it appear to have the political will power. The State Governments of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland are too focussed on managing the complex issues of urban development in their respective major cities to give the particular needs of remote regions the priority they require. The 1967 referendum gave the Commonwealth a legislative and policy remit for Indigenous affairs for a reason, yet the Commonwealth’s role is being incrementally dismantled without any public debate or consideration.

 

Sixth, this morning on ABC Radio National, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney recounted visiting the Alice Springs Hospital last night in the company of Marion Scrymgour, the member for the seat of Lingiari. The Alice Springs hospital has 16 beds in its Intensive Care Unit. Minister Burney mentioned that she was shocked to learn that last night, 14 of those beds were taken by women who had been the victims of violent assaults. This window into the lived experience of too many remote women and their families is more than a warning of the seriousness of the rolling crisis across remote Australia. It is more than a prompt for governments to take action. It is more than an indictment on the quality and legitimacy of our systems of governance across northern Australia. It is damning evidence of the complicity and responsibility for these outcomes of those Australians (myself included) who take an interest in public policy. 

We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to solve these issues. If we are don’t, future historians will write about us and the policies we implemented as no better than those of the perpetrators of colonial violence. Solving these structural and systemic issues, borne of sustained and ongoing exclusion and inequality, is in the public interest and the national interest.

[This post was revised on 29 January to correct a small number of typographical and grammatical errors]

 

Demographic dynamism demands targeted policy responses

 

Simply the thing I am

Shall make me live.

All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, iii.

 

I’ve written previously about the demographic trends shaping Australian Indigenous policy and drawn out a series of policy implications (link here). One of the points made by the ABS spokesperson quoted in that post related to the explanation for the substantial growth in the Indigenous population between 2016 and 2021 (185, 000 or 23 percent, compared to a 5 percent increase in the general population). The spokesperson noted that the Indigenous population changes were ‘partly explained by changing identification over time’. She gave no estimate of the relative significance of new identifiers in contributing to the ongoing population growth.

 

In their 2018 research paper Indigenous identification change between 2011 and 2016: evidence from the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, ANU researchers Nicholas Biddle and Francis Markham (link here) estimated that in 2016:

The net increase from identification change was therefore estimated to be 84 607, or 13.7% of the in-scope Indigenous population in 2011.

 

One of the points I made in my earlier blog post was that:

no Australian Government appears seriously focussed on exploring the linkages and implications for policy of the rapidly changing demography of Indigenous Australia. Over the past two censuses the ABS has provided a window into what amounts to an ongoing revolution in the demographic shape of Indigenous Australia, but the response from policymakers on what this means and how they intend to respond has been determined silence.

 

A recent academic discussion paper titled American Indian Casinos and Native American Self-Identification (link here) shines a light on the relationship between population dynamics and economic opportunity through an analysis of the relationship between the flow of benefits from casino ownership and the  incentives to self-identify as native American. This paper, by economists Francisca Antman and Brian Duncan of the University of Colorado reinforces the potential significance of institutional policy incentives in shaping demographic change, albeit in the US context.

 

The paper is of interest to Australians not for any direct analytic correlations (the institutional contexts in the US and here are significantly different), but for the deeper implications that are raised by the analysis. In particular, it examines the possible drivers of the significant shifts in self-identification amongst Native Americans over the past few decades. In turn, this raises the question, what is driving the parallel shifts in self-identification in Australia (noting that there are no casinos on Indigenous owned land in Australia).

 

The abstract of the paper states (inter alia)

This paper links Native American racial self-identification with the rise in tribal gaming across the United States. We find that state policy changes allowing tribes to open casinos are associated with an increase in the probability that individuals with American Indian ancestors will self-identify as Native American and a decrease in the probability that individuals with no [documented] American Indian ancestry will self-identify as Native American. … These results are consistent with a conceptual framework in which we tie racial identification to economic motivations as well as social stigma associated with affiliating with a racial group for those without documented ancestral ties. Our results underscore the importance of economic incentives and social factors underlying the individual choice of racial identity.

 

The conclusion notes (inter alia):

By linking Native American self-identification rates with the rise of tribal gaming, this paper offers one explanation for the dramatic changes observed in the number of individuals identifying as Native American since 1990. We find that the signing of the first tribal-state gaming compact is associated with a significant increase in the probability of self-identifying as Native American for individuals with American Indian ancestry... At the same time, we find that the same policy change is associated with a decrease in the probability of self-identifying as Native American for individuals without [documented] American Indian ancestry…

… While the magnitudes of our estimates are large, so are the overall changes in racial identification of the Native American population which have been documented elsewhere (Liebler et al. 2014; 2016, 2017). This suggests that the economic factors explored here may play an important role in this important demographic shift…

… Nevertheless, these results break new ground in linking racial identity and economic incentives, and should raise concerns for policymakers and researchers alike given widespread interest in monitoring the persistence of racial gaps in socioeconomic outcomes and how they are impacted by changes in policy. Not only can racial self-reports change over time, but, as seen in this study, dramatic demographic responses to policies are possible over even a relatively short period of time. It is also important to note that while we have focused on casino openings that confer positive net economic benefits on populations with strong ties to minority groups and thus increase their likelihood of identifying with the group, we expect that the opposite result would hold if negative economic effects were predominant. Thus, in contexts where discrimination in employment, education, and mistreatment by society overall prevail, the affected populations of self-identified racial groups could actually fall.

 

The paper identifies limitations to the analysis and potential alternative explanations (social rather than economic factors) for the extraordinary growth in self-identification amongst Native Americans since 1990. Nevertheless, the data on the growth in casino compacts on native American land since 1990 is enormous, totalling 780 new approvals (see Figure 1, page 48), and the parallel shifts in self-identification over the same period are difficult to ignore. The authors quote research that suggests that around 40 percent of the self-identified native American population in 2000 had not identified in 1990 and that the native American population almost doubled between 2010 and 2020 (pages 2-3). These dynamics mirror the demographic shifts underway in Australia.

 

So what insights and conclusions should we take away from this comparative analysis of US demographic developments and the demographic shifts underway in Australia?

 

First, there is to my knowledge no recent detailed research exploring the underlying causes of the demographic shifts underway across Indigenous Australia. There is a strong case for policymakers in Australia to commission research that seeks to understand these dynamics better. The US research suggests that we should look for economic explanations as well as social and political explanations.

 

Second, the US research persuasively makes the case for native American demography being much more dynamic than is generally recognised (especially amongst policymakers). The same conclusion probably applies here in Australia.

 

Third, the US research argues that while the incentives for self-identification are currently positive, they are not fixed, and under different circumstances — where discrimination in employment, education, and mistreatment by society overall prevail —  might also operate in a negative manner. This conclusion has considerable intuitive appeal, but raises a paradox in the Australian context at least. The 2022 Reconciliation Barometer reports that the percentage of the First Nations sample in their survey who have not experienced at least one form of racial prejudice in the last six months has steadily dropped from 61 to 40 percent over the past eight years (link here: page 15). Yet if increasing discrimination drives non-identification, why is the trend in Australia towards greater identification?

 

Fourth, notwithstanding its appreciation of the innate dynamism of demography, the US research arguably under-emphasises (ignores) the likelihood that new identifiers are the descendants of individuals and families that previously hid or downplayed their native American ancestry. In other words, the recent spike in identification may be a delayed correction to an earlier fall. This may well be a factor in Australia as well.

 

Fifth, if economic factors are at play in driving greater identification in Australia, what institutional shifts might be at play? One possibility may be the adoption of Indigenous procurement policies by Australian Governments. While they appear to have had a significant impact, I am not aware of any independent research or evaluations that demonstrate this unequivocally. It is probably time for governments and policymakers to commission a truly independent assessment of these policy initiatives to ensure that the various schemes can move to the next stage. See this 2015 blog on the IPP (link here). Alternatively, if the causes are social in nature, it is not immediately obvious what might be driving this shift. Perhaps the most plausible candidate may be the increased role of identity in our multicultural society?

 

Sixth, the most important implication of the cross national evidence for significant demographic dynamism within Indigenous populations is to point to the importance of policymakers incorporating an appreciation of ‘denominator effects’ in assessing and analysing statistical indicators in policy frameworks such as closing the gap. In particular, there is a risk that the political imperative for policy action related to poor and disadvantaged Indigenous citizens will be attenuated by a growth in the number of middle class ‘new identifiers’. In turn this suggests that looking forward, there will be an imperative for both policymakers and Indigenous advocates to focus greater attention on cohorts within the Indigenous population who are vulnerable to extreme disadvantage, rather than focussing on data and indicators that are framed as averages or adopt overarching perspectives.

 

Indigenous Australia is heterogenous with substantial differences deriving from geographical location, income distribution structure, age structure, and family structures to name just a few of the sources of internal difference. Increasingly, good policy will be defined by its capability to simultaneously address heterogeneity as well as the overarching shared experience of indigeneity. This is an important policy agenda for the future. The most obvious area requiring greater focus by policymakers is the intersection of disadvantage in its various forms and remoteness as this is the area most at risk from the current shifts in the demographic characteristics of the Indigenous policy domain.