Election 2022: policy implications in the Indigenous policy domain.

 

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends

1 Henry IV, Act 3, scene 2.

 

This post is designed to explore a number of the most salient policy implications for Indigenous policy arising from the results of the 2022 election.

 

In his victory speech last night, Anthony Albanese made two significant points. He emphasised the incoming Government’s commitment to implementing the Uluru Statement, and explicitly mentioned Labor’s intention to entrench it in the Constitution. Second he identified Linda Burney as the incoming Indigenous Affairs Minister. Prior to the election, Burney was Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services, as well as Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians. We can assume she will likely be given both posts, which is an extraordinarily heavy workload. If so, it seems likely (but not certain) that Senator Patrick Dodson would take on his former shadow roles as Assistant Minister for Reconciliation and Assistant Minister for Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians.

 

The former Minister Ken Wyatt lost his seat of Hasluck with a swing against him of over 10 percent; a swing consistent with the overall swing against the former Government in WA. This will mean that the Opposition will need to choose a new Shadow Minister who is unlikely to be Indigenous and will not have the benefit of the networks and knowledge of the issues that Wyatt built over his career and as Minister. Somewhat paradoxically, in my view this increases the likelihood that the Opposition will adopt a much more antagonistic and aggressive approach to the Labor Government’s policies in this area since it is always easier to find flaws and seek to knock down a policy rather than find constructive ways to make it work. One of the dynamics that has been in play in recent years has been the propensity for Indigenous MPs on all sides to effectively pull their punches in relation to their opposite numbers.

 

As for Wyatt’s legacy, I struggle to identify major reforms or achievements. The National Agreement on Closing the Gap is potentially an extraordinary vehicle for addressing structural inequity between Indigenous and mainstream Australia, but the Commonwealth Implementation Plan and associated financial commitments have been entirely underwhelming. So too have been the Implementation Plans of the states and territories; yet the Commonwealth seems oblivious to their shortcomings. He continued the push on Indigenous procurement. This is perhaps the former Government’s most tangible success, although I worry that the levels of so-called ‘black cladding’ (link here) are much more significant than is generally realised. He dropped the ball on issues his predecessor prioritised (albeit more rhetorically than substantively) such as school attendance and high sugar drinks in remote stores; did virtually nothing to address the longstanding and worsening housing crisis in remote Australia; made no progress in making native title a more effective instrument for Indigenous economic and social development; and actively continued the Commonwealth retreat from Indigenous social policy across the board in favour of the states and territories. This record is a 180 degree turn from the expectations of the Australian people when they voted overwhelmingly to give the Commonwealth concurrent responsibilities with the states in relation to Aboriginal affairs in the 1967 Referendum.

 

On the Voice and constitutional recognition, Wyatt procrastinated and prevaricated, clearly lacking influence and backing within the Government at the most senior levels. It was only during the recent election campaign that the Prime Minister finally came clean, five long years after the Uluru Statement was delivered, and explicitly ruled out any intention of entrenching the Voice in the Constitution (link here).

 

For Labor, while the commitment to action on the Uluru Statement is welcome, there is an enormous amount of work to be done to build broad based momentum across the community and to design and sequence the detailed proposals. My view is that Labor would be wise to ‘ride the wave’ that brought it to government and push forward towards a referendum within six months. For an alternative view, see this article in The Conversation (link here). Designing the legislation for a Voice and establishing the proposed Makarrata Commission will not be straightforward, and will require detailed consultation and engagement with both First Nations and the wider community. While these processes do not need to be finalised before a referendum, the Government would be wise to have developed and published a clear outline of how it sees the Voice and the Makarrata Commission operating before the referendum takes place.

 

There will never be  a perfect or risk free time to take this issue forward to a referendum. Currently, there is a sense of hope and optimism in the community on these issues, and the fact that six of the states and territories have Labor Governments will mean that any state based opposition campaigns will have less legitimacy and more limited access to resources. Delay adds risk, both because the new Government’s policy agenda becomes more crowded and complex, and as it allows further time for opponents to organise.

 

Notwithstanding the strategic importance of a constitutionally recognised Voice to Parliament, the administration of the Indigenous Australians portfolio is about more than one issue.

 

Last week, on 18 May 2022, Mike Keating posted a short article on the Pearls and Irritations web site  (link here) pointing out the implications across the policy spectrum of the inevitable ongoing constraints on policy reform arising from the current mismatch between the Government’s underlying revenue base and the expenditure needs and expectations of the community. In particular, he laid out in the starkest terms the extraordinary magnitude and regressive nature of the most recent tax reforms proposed by the former Government and legislated with Labor support. His analysis is in my view absolutely correct. His proposed solution is for the Government to initiate a number of independent reviews to lay out the problem and develop a reform agenda acceptable to the community. He notes that this will take time and will delay the initiation of essential reforms (or worse still require the incremental unwinding of previous reforms such as the NDIS). This issue will impact every policy sector, but given the extent of Indigenous disadvantage and need, particularly in remote Australia, the consequences in the Indigenous policy space are likely to be dire. Mike Keatings rational logic is persuasive, but ignores the decades of policy exclusion meted out to Indigenous citizens. A determined Government would find a way through.

 

Nevertheless, having won a first term, the ‘hard heads’ within the new Labor Government will be focussed above all else on setting up the political strategy and narrative for the next election in around three years. This will involve a forensic focus on delivering their commitments, but also a strong push for fiscal discipline that will enable Labor to point to progress in clawing back the substantial deficit they have inherited. In this context, proposals for additional public investment will be rigorously scrutinised and those without a strong political rationale will likely be deferred or sidelined. Given the comparatively weak political influence of Indigenous interests, there is a strong likelihood that the new Government will focus primarily on delivering the Uluru Statement to the exclusion of other priorities across the Indigenous policy domain. Such an outcome would in my view be both a policy and political mistake. It would make the job of the yet to be established Voice to Parliament harder, decrease First Nations citizens already low  trust in governments, and exacerbate the negative economic, social and health outcomes that have enduring impacts on the life opportunities of so many First Nations citizens.

 

One lesson to be drawn from the experience of Minister Wyatt in the former Government is that an Indigenous Minister can be sidelined or ignored if he is unable to point to significant and sustained political pressure being applied. Ministers in every portfolio are always under incredible pressure to hold fast to the Government’s narrative, and Indigenous ministers are no exception. Indeed, there is an incentive for Prime Ministers and Governments to use Indigenous ministers as a protective heat shield against pressure from the Indigenous community, rather than as a portal to better engagement with First Nations. The fact that a Government has appointed an experienced and competent Indigenous leader as a Minister does not preclude the necessity for Indigenous interests to implement robust lobbying and advocacy on key issues.

 

In these circumstances, it is in my view incumbent on the national Indigenous leadership to work together to develop a five or ten year set of policy priorities that focus on multiple objectives simultaneously. Their chosen priorities should refine, prioritise and sequence core policy aspirations; extend beyond Indigenous specific policy and program measures to include mainstream measures that will benefit First Nations citizens; and identify structural changes that do not require substantial fiscal investments. Importantly, they should invest in strengthening Indigenous interests’ capability to exert coordinated political pressure in sustained and targeted ways across all jurisdictions of the federation.

 

The fracturing of the major parties primary votes, the emergence of a third force in the electorate comprised of green and teal voters, and the resultant changes to the composition of Parliament reinforces the importance of distinguishing between a Voice to Parliament and the need for Indigenous interests to also build a capability to lobby and influence governments at both national and state/territory levels. More succinctly: Governments are not Parliaments; yet both are crucial in policy advocacy. Neither a Voice to Parliament nor a Peak Body focussed on Governments will be entirely effective on its own, and ideally Indigenous advocacy in each forum will work off similar and broadly coordinated policy agendas.

 

The new Labor Government appears set on delivering the major and long overdue structural reforms laid out in the Uluru Statement for the Heart. These reforms will simultaneously deliver on the aspirations of First Nations and accrue significant benefits for the wider Australian community derived from more inclusive treatment of First Nations. However, in the Indigenous policy domain, the new Government faces numerous significant challenges ahead including addressing structural exclusion, income and wealth inequalities; disparities in health and housing opportunities; over-representation in the criminal justice system; extraordinary levels of out of home care for indigenous children; and extraordinarily low levels of educational outcomes (to name just some of the more pressing issues). The failure to effectively resource and implement the pathbreaking National Agreement on Closing the Gap and to make substantive progress to close the enormous social, economic and health disparities between Indigenous and mainstream citizens remains a weeping sore on our nation’s body politic.

 

Notwithstanding the commitments made to date by the new Government, it will need to find a way to widen its policy agenda and focus policy attention on the structural constraints impacting the most disadvantaged segments of the Australian community. The new Government will do a better job of delivering on First Nations aspirations if it is honest with the Indigenous and mainstream communities about the policy trade-offs it makes, focusses attention on implementation as well as policy rhetoric, and is pushed hard and held to account by Indigenous interests and their allies.

Addendum 23 May 2022

A reader has pointed to the possibility that incoming Senator Jacinta Price (link here) might be appointed Shadow Minister. On reflection, this seems a strong possibility. I also commend Jon Altman's comment on this post to readers.

The ongoing social and governance catastrophe in remote Australia.

                                                                        Our country sinks beneath the yoke;

It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash

Macbeth, Act 4, scene 3.

 

In October 2009, Nicolas Rothwell, writing in The Australian, published a scathing analysis under the title ’The failed state’. The parallels with the more recent analyses are striking. Importantly, Rothwell’s analysis was directed at a Territory Labor Government.

 

Rothwell’s opening sentence sums up his argument: ‘The Northern Territory is a lost cause’. He goes on:

There is, though, a failed state in our midst. That state is not Aboriginal north Australia, where the social fabric is in shreds and tatters. No: it is the jurisdiction largely responsible for entrenching this degree of Indigenous disadvantage: the modern-seeming, self-governing Northern Territory.

I quoted these observations in an earlier post in August 2016 (link here). It is worth reading or re-reading that post in full. I would add however that the responsibility for entrenching Indigenous disadvantage is shared with the Commonwealth.

 

Six years on, the fundamental structural issues identified by Rothwell persist, and are arguably both worsening and present across much of northern Australia, albeit attenuated in the Kimberley, North Queensland and the APY Lands by the demographic shape and larger financial capacity of the respective state governments.

 

How do we know this? Well it is in plain view, laid out in media reports that fail to gain much attention in an election campaign focussed on middle Australia and issues of national security and the cost of mortgages.

 

So for example, media reports indicate that an acute social crisis has been underway in the remote community of Wadeye for months. Wadeye is one of the largest remote communities in northern Australia with a population approaching 3000 people.

 

In November 2020, ABC News reported on an outbreak of community violence involving the burning of a house and cars, and community concern regarding the perceived lack of a police response (link here).  

 

More recently, on 27 April 2022, ABC journalist Roxanne Fitzgerald reported on an escalating eruption of intra-communal violence involving the torching of 37 houses, the displacement of 400 residents of affected housing, and the closure of the community’s only food shop (link here). 

 

On 2 May 2022, the ABC was reporting that a ‘massive aid effort’ was underway for the Wadeye residents displaced by violence (link here). The news article refers to health service and teaching staff shortages, and plummeting school attendance rates. According to the ABC, the response from government included the provision of 100 food packs by the West Daly Regional Council (local government), an announcement of an assessment of the extent of housing repairs required by the Department of Chief Minister, as well as liaison with the Commonwealth regarding relaxation of Centrelink reporting requirements. The NT Remote Housing Minister Chansey Paech indicated (somewhat defensively) that the NT Government was looking at options ‘around the urgent provision of infrastructure to make it possible for residents who wish to move onto their homelands (outstations) as soon as possible’, and pointed to Federal Labor’s pledge to invest $100m in homelands if elected.

 

The CEO of the local Thamarrurr Development Corporation was quoted as citing the situation as a crisis, and pointed to a 2005 socio-economic report into Wadeye by ANU researchers John Taylor and Owen Stanley (link here) which identified a structural imbalance in government funding involving under-investment in ‘positive’ policies such as education, employment creation and housing, and over-investment in expenditures on welfare and policing. It seems that little has changed over the past two decades.

 

The recent issues in Wadeye are not new. In her book Teaching ‘Proper’ Drinking (link here), Maggie Brady has a chapter describing a 1988 riot directed against the club that dispensed alcohol in the town. In May 2006, The Age ran an article (link here) which began: ‘Gang violence has turned the remote indigenous community of Wadeye into a war zone.’

 

The existence of longstanding and persistent problems at Wadeye of this scale and import are on their own a serious indictment of governments’ credibility, capability, and ultimately legitimacy. And the repercussions in terms of mental health, disrupted schooling, and physical violence have an incalculable but clearly negative impact on the life opportunities of generations of Aboriginal people.

 

Yet Wadeye is not unique.

 

The Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia have over the last three or four decades faced similar issues in different communities, including problems with alcohol and FASD (successfully managed in Fitzroy Crossing via the imposition of controls on full strength beer), spates of youth suicide leading to a number of high profile coronial inquiries and the closure and ultimately to the bulldozing of the Oombulgurri community in the East Kimberley (link here). That the region continues to confront challenges can be gauged by recent WA Government funding announcements seeking to address persistent waves of youth crime. Just this week, it announced over $40m in further funding in the Pilbara (link here) and the Kimberley (link here).

 

The APY lands in northern South Australia have a similar history of social dysfunction and underinvestment in core services.

 

Perhaps the most traumatic insight into remote community challenges has been the experience of Yuendumu in recent times.

 

In the most recent edition of The Monthly (link here), Anna Krien, in her must read essay A shooting in Yuendumu, lays out an excoriating account of the lead up to, and fallout from, the police shooting of 19 year old Warlpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker in November 2019 in the course of an attempted arrest on the day of a large funeral. Walker’s tragic and blighted life provides a lens through which to view the reality, impact and consequences of the community chaos that engulfs many remote communities and townships.

 

I don’t propose to go over the ground covered by Krien, but instead focus on reading between the lines of her essay to highlight the elisions in her account and some of the background factors that played a part in creating the conditions for what transpired. It strikes me that Krien’s focus on laying out the sequences of events within the concise format of an essay inevitably meant that the underlying structural forces that were indirectly in play, and arguably crucial to shaping the ultimate outcome, were glossed over. Moreover, her framing is not policy related, but more akin to surfacing and connecting an underlying narrative with political and ethical implications for the way society operates.

 

As I read Krien’s essay, I was simultaneously reading between the lines for the systemic connections that played into her narrative. Krien alerts us to Walker’s likely neurological and intellectual disability, the probable effect of FASD, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, the result of excessive alcohol consumption by his mother during her pregnancy. Krien notes Walker’s mother had sniffed petrol and drank heavily while pregnant, and died of heart failure at age thirty. At the age of six months, Walker had been diagnosed with ‘failure to thrive’. Prevalence data for FASD is patchy, but data for remote Indigenous communities in WA suggests 194 cases per 1000 live births (2002-2003 data), and an extraordinary 466 per 1000 Indigenous children aged 10 to 17 in WA detention (2015-16 data) (link here). Effective policies to limit alcohol consumption by pregnant women are the key to addressing these issues. The destructive and long term impact on individuals and communities has been known for decades, yet alcohol management policy continues to be driven more by commercial interests than community welfare (link here and link here).

 

Krien mentions the staffing constraints on key services, a function of the budget priorities of governments. The nurses in the Yuendumu clinic were evacuated on the day of the funeral over concerns for their safety arising from prior break ins to their living quarters. Nurse safety has been an ongoing issue in remote communities for many years (link here and link here). Police staffing was extraordinarily stretched, with Krien noting that the four police and one community policeman resident in Yuendumu were responsible for an area of 125, 000 sq kms, three remote settlements and a goldmine. There have been longstanding issues with under-provision of both police stations and adequate police numbers in remote communities.

 

One of the key elements of the Commonwealth Government’s post-intervention Stronger Futures in the NT funding agreements was the provision of extra police stations and 60 additional police (link here). That funding was for ten years ending in June 2022. It was recently extended for a further two years. See my critique of that decision (link here). Notwithstanding the additional Commonwealth assistance, it is clear that the NT Government has not been prepared to ensure adequate police services are provided in remote communities . See this 2016 post (link here) exploring the underinvestment in police services on Groote Eylandt, and the moral hazard raised where Commonwealth funding allows increased scope of the NT Government to underfund key services. The recent announcement (link here) that the coming NT Budget will increase funding for remote policing is clearly a response to an unwinding social situation in Wadeye in particular, and the bush in general, and raises the question: is it too little too late?

 

Krien also points to the differing approaches within the NT police force. The ‘community policing’ role of police resident in communities built around building relationships and gaining trust and a more aggressive ‘para-military style’ that divides the community into those who deserve protection and those seen as a threat. The use and tactics of the NT Police Immediate Response Team (IRT) in Yuendumu set aside the community policing approach, and ultimately led not just to the death of a teenager, but in the eyes  of many Aboriginal people, to a much wider loss of trust in the fairness and objectivity of the rule of law in the NT (link here). It is clear that there is an unresolved wider issue within state police units operating in remote contexts that revolves around the governance and accountability principles that are applied in practice. The political influence of police unions and the increasing militarisation of police capabilities, and hence mindsets, should be an issue of much more salient concern to Australians generally. And of course, as Krien implicitly notes in citing texts between police referring to a police posting to Alice Springs as ‘being like the Wild West and fuck all the rules in the job really…’, remote communities are the sharp end of potential misuse of that hyper-militarised policing capability.

 

Krien mentions the education system only in passing, mentioning that while living in Katherine, ‘Walker did a little bit of school. Could write his name.’ She recounts the young boy’s extensive list of medical treatment, which would also have affected his education. Krien also mentions Walker’s experience in the Don Dale detention centre school. She notes a teacher’s comment that Walker was unpredictable and that school kids from desert communities inside Don Dale struggle. She then segues to the issues uncovered by the Royal Commission into Youth Detention, whose recommendations are yet to be fully implemented by the NT or Commonwealth Governments (link here).

 

Intuitively, basic education is the key to maximising life opportunities. It may take different forms, and emphasise different cultural values and perspectives, but its complete absence for a significant portion of today’s remote youth is clearly a fundamental problem both for the present and the future. Yet governments persist in spouting misleading rhetoric that seeks to ignore a harsh reality, namely, that having stepped in to replace culturally based learning (that served Indigenous people well for sixty thousand years), the settler state’s current remote education systems are failing badly. They are leaving remote youth without access to culturally based education, yet unable to ensure engagement with mainstream education (link here and link here). It is no wonder many young people are confused and lost.

 

Krien mentions Walker’s significant criminal record, including theft, break in, property damage and aggravated assault, the latter directed against his partner. He had spent time in both the Alice Springs and Don Dale juvenile detention centres. Krien points out in passing that in the NT, the Indigenous population comprises 30 percent of the population, but 84 percent of the prison population. The over-representation of First Nations citizens is both longstanding and impossible to deny, with the Australian Law Reform Commission having investigated the issue in recent years. Yet Governments prevaricate (link here). Recent research by Shepherd et al (link here; citation below) points to the existence of an incarceration gap within the Indigenous community affecting the 20 percent of Indigenous males who have experienced incarceration. For this cohort, there were very strong correlations between past and present incarceration and lack of educational attainment, labour force participation and drug and alcohol problems. For the 80 percent of Indigenous males who had no experience of incarceration, social indicators were much closer to the mainstream norm. The researchers also pointed to the significantly worse outcomes across these social indicators in remote regions. Clearly there are complex systemic issues at work.

 

Admittedly, solutions to the incarceration crisis in Indigenous Australia are not easy, and undoubtedly require a mix of prevention, legislative adjustment, and time. Yet ‘head in the sand’ approaches by governments merely allow the situation to worsen, and fuel the inevitable backlash from mainstream businesses and citizens who are dealing with the very real impacts of criminal behaviour on their lives and livelihoods. Governments focussed on the public interest would seek to address both the short term issues and the underlying systemic issues. Indeed, the tension over appropriate approaches to policing mentioned above are likely exacerbated by the ubiquitous reliance on overstated rhetoric and framing short term responses, thus effectively kicking the problem of finding a sustainable solution down the road.

 

Finally, I wish to point to the issue of housing and overcrowding. Krien doesn’t mention it except in passing as she describes the attempted arrest of Walker inside house 511. Her article includes on its title page a photograph of the bleak and almost windowless front of the rust coloured house (it resembles a garage shed), the numerals 511 painted on the eave, surrounded by red sand, a lone sneaker, desultory rubbish, a mattress and sheet iron windbreaks on one side of the front yard, a set of mattress inner springs on a frame on the other. A solar water heater on the roof along with a somewhat incongruous satellite dish. In the foreground, a lone pink plastic pyramid marks the position of some element of the police investigation. Beside the front door are a bunch of flowers and a small white cross. The image exudes deep-seated despair.

 

Yet almost all housing in Yuendumu and similar remote communities across northern Australia are public housing, owned and maintained by relevant governments. I have written many articles on the issues of remote housing in this blog and elsewhere, and don’t propose to regurgitate my concerns at the cuts to remote housing funding by the current Commonwealth Government and the shortcomings of the NT system of tenancy management and timely repairs and maintenance (link here). Media reports regularly inform us of the poor state of housing and high levels of overcrowding (link here and link here). It is inconceivable to me that the desultory investment by governments in social housing in these communities is not a core contributor to the health, education and employment outcomes that lead to the sorts of life experienced by Kumanjayi Walker.

 

Each of the systemic issues identified above, and I can safely say numerous other issues such as the impact of climate change and flawed policy on energy provision to remote households (link here), are devastating in their own right. But they operate together, each reinforcing the other, to create a dystopian maze of incoherent policies, and punitive suppression of individual and community opportunity. The problems are systemic and structural, and it follows that the solutions too must be systemic and structural.

 

Last year, I reviewed Melinda Hinkson’s book See How We Roll (link here), an incisive account and insight into the ways that Warlpiri people (who live in Yuendumu and the surrounding region) see their world, and how they deal with the ubiquitous uncertainty, pain and chaos that permeates their lives. Hinkson’s underlying assumption, one shared in the 1970s by Nugget Coombs and Bill Stanner (link here), is that Warlpiri people have a right to choose the way they live their lives, and by implication she provides a critique of longstanding policy frameworks which seek — and consistently fail — to shape, incentivise and ultimately coerce Indigenous people into western ways of living. It is not that one way is better than another, but that people deserve to have a choice. While easy to write or say, it has proven to be an enduring challenge for policymakers to frame policies that are facilitative rather than coercive or manipulative.

 

Nicolas Rothwell was right in 2009, and his description then remains applicable today. The experiences over decades of people in Fitzroy Crossing, Oombulgurri, Fregon, Wadeye, Aurukun, Yuendumu, and many other remote communities, and the concomitant and tragic devastation surrounding the lives of so many individuals and families, merely serves to confirm that there is a systemic and longstanding failure by governments in the remote Indigenous policy space. Putting this right must be a national priority. All Australians have some measure of responsibility for the failure of our governments.

 

Remote Australia requires a ‘new deal’. It requires significantly increased government investment. Most importantly, it requires greater and more effective engagement with remote residents based on acknowledging their prior ownership, their violent dispossession, and an acknowledgment that mainstream Australia is the source of the fundamental disruption that is creating ongoing chaos. The ubiquitous assumption amongst mainstream Australia’s institutions dealing with remote Australia has been that the past is irrelevant and that we should all just look forward. This assumption has not worked and mainstream Australians need to be smart enough to rethink our fundamental approaches to the interaction of the nation state with remote communities. Failure to do so will continue the systemic exclusion that lies at the heart of the problems we are seeing in communities like Yuendumu and Wadeye, and which continues to destroy the lives of thousands of people such as Kumanjayi Walker, his partner, his mother, and indeed his wider family and community.

 

Continued policy failure in remote Australia is an abscess on our nation's body politic and the ensuing infection, if untreated, will ultimately expand. To maintain legitimacy and trust in the core institutions of our national governance over the long term, governments must govern for all citizens, and not just for privileged interests. At present, it is patently clear that across remote Australia, they do not meet this basic prerequisite for legitimacy.

 

References:

Shepherd, S.M., Spivak, B., Ashford, L.J. et al. Closing the (incarceration) gap: assessing the socio-economic and clinical indicators of indigenous males by lifetime incarceration status. BMC Public Health 20, 710 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08794-3

 

Wright LK, Jatrana S, Lindsay D Workforce safety in the remote health sector of Australia: a scoping review BMJ Open 2021;11:e051345. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-051345

[This post has been amended to correct some typographical errors and to slightly improve clarity in the final paragraph. Thankyou to JCA.]

 

Ministerial appointments in the Indigenous Australians portfolio: time for reform

 

There is a law in each well-order'd nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.

Troilus and Cressida Act 2, scene 2

 

This post is assesses the recent Ministerial appointments in the Indigenous affairs portfolio, and makes a series of reform recommendations.

 

Appointments to Board positions in the Indigenous Australians portfolio generally fly under the radar. Yet, they involve the management and oversight of billions of dollars in Indigenous-directed assets, and bestow considerable power and influence, not least the power to appoint Individuals to the Boards of myriad subsidiaries of statutory corporations, which themselves control substantial financial resources. These appointments, and the actions of Boards, receive far less media attention than Ministers and senior bureaucrats. Accordingly, the appointments of Directors to government owned corporations, and the actions of those corporations, deserve far more attention than they normally receive both by the media and (dare I say) academia.

 

Perhaps the most consequential recent appointment was that of Ms Jodi Broun as CEO of the NIAA. She has a term of five years, which took effect on 14 February. The Minister’s 12 January 2022 media release provides some biographical background (link here). Broun is an experienced public servant and I expect her to make a positive and well informed contribution to the administration of NIAA and the Indigenous Australians portfolio.

 

In relation to the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC), the Minister has made a number of new appointments (link here, link here). Following the expiry of the term of the former Chair, Mr Eddie Fry, Mr Ian Hamm has been appointed. A Yorta Yorta man and experienced public servant, Mr Hamm’s three year term began on 1 December 2021. Also appointed were Ms Gail Reynolds-Adamson, Ms Kate Healy and Mr Nigel Browne. On 15 February, the Minister announced that Ms Kristy Masella would join the ILSC board for a three year term beginning 16 March 2022. On 7 April 2022, the Minister announced the reappointment of Mr Roy Ah-See, but did not mention the term.

 

In relation to Indigenous Business Australia (IBA), the Minister announced on 21 December 2021 the appointment of Mr Richard Callaghan from South Australia, and the reappointment of three Directors, Mr Eddie Fry (chair), Mr Rick Allert, and Ms Shirley Macpherson. The Ministers media release made no mention of the terms of appointment (link here).

 

Shortly after the Minister’s December announcement, on 21 December 2021, I published a post regarding these reappointments (link here) based on the absence of any information regarding the terms of the reappointments. Information in the Government Business Directory at the time indicated that the reappointments would expire in February 2022. In that post I focussed on a number of unanswered questions regarding serious governance issues within the ILSC Board and the Minister’s own acknowledgement of his loss of confidence in Mr Fry as Chair. It now transpires that the Government Directory entry for the IBA Board has been updated to show that the terms of appointment for the reappointed IBA Directors are not three months, but three years, ending on 17 December 2024 (link here). With regard to that eventuality, my previous post made this comment:

A more worrying possibility is that the Ministers recent announcement applies to the post February terms of the three Directors. If so, this would lock in a serious failure of good governance principles.

For the full context of this comment, I recommend readers consult my earlier post (link here) and the links included there.

 

More recently, the Minister announced the appointment of Mr Joshua Gilbert to the IBA Board (link here). While the media release makes no mention of the term, the Government Directory indicates it is a three year term.

 

The Minister has also made a number of other recent statutory appointments. Ms Vonda Malone has been appointed as CEO of the Torres Strait Regional Authority (link here), Ms Tricia Stroud has been appointed as Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (link here), perhaps the key regulatory appointment in the Indigenous Australians portfolio. The Minister also announced the appointment of Mrs Suzanne Hullick and Mr Justin Ryan to the Interim Board of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation on 6 April 2022 (link here). For a discussion of some of the risks facing this new corporations, see my earlier November 2021 post (link here).

 

Other recent non-statutory appointments made include Ms Fiona Cornforth and Ms Catherine Liddle as co-chairs of the Indigenous Expert Group guiding the implementation of Supporting Healing for Families (link here) and the reappointment of Mr Daniel Bourchier to the Board of Outback Stores (link here).  The Government also announced the appointments of Ms Gina Castelaine and Ms Cara Peek, two new members of the revamped Indigenous Reference Group on Northern Australia, on 24 December 2021 (link here). This body has recently been renewed by Minister Littleproud after it was effectively sidelined by Minister Pitt. To date, there has been no critical assessment of the success or otherwise of the IRG in advancing the interests of Indigenous Australians within the Government’s Northern Australia policies. The processes for the appointment of members of the IRG are particularly opaque, it not even being clear which Minister makes the appointments, and which portfolio is responsible for taking any policy recommendations forward.

 

Discussion

 

Given the number of Ministerial appointments, the significance of the bodies they are charged with managing, and the powers bestowed on Boards to appoint Directors to subsidiaries of Commonwealth corporations, the information provided by governments should be much more extensive and accessible than it is.

 

There is no requirement for a Minister to announce appointments, and as is apparent from a close reading of Minister Wyatt’s announcements, there is no requirement for the Minister to identify the term of the appointments, nor the basis of appointments (merit based selection process or ministerial selection). Nor is there any requirement for the Minister (or appointees) to publicly identify potential conflicts of interest nor to explain how they are to be managed. The quality of transparency in relation to the management of portfolio bodies is underwhelming, and contributes to the creation of an environment where the public interest can be set aside in favour of political agendas and machinations.

 

Issues that I would point to as potential or actual issues of concern in the Indigenous Australians portfolio include:

·         attempts to co-opt Boards to ensure that they will give favourable consideration to Ministers’ views and wishes;

·         attempts to stymie future governments’ capacity to bring new expertise or skills onto Boards; or to build in a level of internal conflict beyond a Ministers term of office to ensure a continuity of policy;

·         the use of appointments as rewards; and

·         making appointments that assist in moderating the capacity of key intermediary organisations to exercise truly independent judgment on issues that may come before the intermediary in the future. 

 

I have necessarily articulated these issues at an abstract level, and note that they often involve what might be termed preparatory moves by a minister akin to a general positioning troops on high ground in advance of a possible battle. In other words, they involve strategic political management and do not necessarily involve inappropriate action. Nonetheless, to the extent that they occur, they are highly likely to be inconsistent with the public interest.

 

A particular issue of more serious concern is the reappointment of Mr Fry to the IBA without any explanation from the Minister in regard to his previous loss of confidence in him at the ILSC, and without any formal response being published to the recommendations of the Thom report. This report commissioned by the Minister only came to light as a result of an FOI request. The previous ILSC Board had also lost confidence in Mr Fry (expressing a formal lack of confidence in his leadership on a number of occasions). Adding to the aberrant sense of distorted reality around the Minister’s decisions regarding the ILSC and Mr Fry was the Minister’s decision to reappoint Mr Ah See, — one of those ILSC Board members who had expressed deep concern with Mr Fry’s governance approach — to the ILSC Board. Mr Ah-See is widely respected in Government circles and was a former co-chair of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council under the current Government (link here). Rather than setting a benchmark for standards of governance in the portfolio, the Minister seems to be having a bet each way. The real issue here is this: is the Minister focussing on the wider public interest, or has he cobbled together a shabby compromise due to pressure from deeper political forces in play protecting Mr Fry? My money is on the latter. 

 

Other issues raised by these appointments include the overlap between government activities in general and the appointments of some individuals. For example, Mr Bourchier is an ABC journalist, and Ms Kate Healy is a partner in PwC’s Indigenous consulting arm. Both of these organisations can be expected to have dealings of one sort or another with the Minister and his portfolio. While both individuals appear eminently qualified for their appointed roles and it seems unlikely that either individual would place themselves in a position of actual or potential conflict of interest, there is a risk that the Government is attempting to exercise a more nuanced form of influence directed to subtly encouraging a pro-government attitude in matters of a general nature within both the ABC and PwC Indigenous Consulting.

 

At a more systemic level, the lack of diversity in appointments suggests the risk of governance failures is built into the present selection processes.  The current Government appears to have made many appointment decisions that suggest a process of churn has been underway from within a small group of appointees, By 2025, Mr Fry and Mr Allert will each have had in excess of ten years as remunerated appointees on the IBA, ILSC, and various Commonwealth subsidiaries such as Voyages Pty Ltd. Ms Reynolds-Adamson was previously a Director of IBA for eight years from 2006 to 2014. Mr Joseph Elu who (understandably in my view) resigned from the ILSC in the middle of its governance issues (clear evidence of the cost of the dysfunction) had previously been Chair of the IBA for 11 years. Mr Ah-See had been a Director on the IBA before being appointed to the ILSC. Ms Shirley Macpherson was previously a longstanding Chair of the Aboriginal Development Commission (forerunner of IBA), a longstanding Chair of the ILC (forerunner of the ILSC), and is now a member of the IBA Board. By 2025, she will likely have accumulated around thirty years on key Boards in the Indigenous portfolio. Taken together, this accumulation of repeated appointments suggests an extremely serious level of insularity and resistance to bringing in fresh talent. It is no wonder that the ILSC experienced the internal crisis of governance discussed above.

 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the individuals appointed are necessarily unqualified, nor that this is an issue limited to the present Government. Lax selection processes have an inbuilt tendency to encourage Ministers to re-appoint from within a small select group of potential appointees. I am suggesting, however, that this is a real issue, and that it is unacknowledged and under-recognised. To the extent that poor governance is the result, Indigenous Australians are the losers.

 

So what are the solutions?

 

Listed below are some high level ideas that would in my view improve the systemic quality of corporate governance within the portfolio bodies across the Indigenous Australians portfolio. While I am under no illusions that governments of any stripe will be attracted to reforms of this kind, I do consider that these are issues that the Coalition of Peaks, and the yet to be established Indigenous Voice might take up and prosecute.

 

First, there is a need for the establishment of a legislated multi-partisan/independent selection committees that proposes a merit based short list to the minister for each vacancy on the Board of a portfolio body. The process used for the ABC (link here), and largely ignored by recent Prime Ministers, is one potential model.

 

Second, I would go further and propose that any legislation should provide that where Ministers ignore an independent selection committee shortlist in making an appointment, the nominee should be required to stand down with a change of government.

 

Third, there should be a legislated requirement in the First Nations portfolio for the NIAA to maintain a current, comprehensive and publicly available register in one location on its web site of all Ministerial appointments and re-appointments to portfolio bodies over the previous twenty years. Further, when Directors are listed, a footnote should list all prior appointments within the portfolio (and in related portfolios e.g. Indigenous health). A separate register of short Director biographies should be linked to the main register.

 

Fourth, there is an urgent need for much greater transparency over the appointments of Directors to subsidiaries of Commonwealth statutory corporations, their terms and remuneration, and any identified potential conflicts of interest. Indeed, these appointees should be included within the register recommended above. Further, there is a need for much greater financial transparency over these entities. To mention just one example, they are Commonwealth owned bodies, yet access to their accounts is only available from ASIC upon the payment of a fee. Indigenous Australians in particular deserve to have full access to this information without a fee. This could be achieved by a requirement that all documents with ASIC should also be made available on the relevant websites.

 

Fifth, an independent body such as the Law Reform Commission should be tasked to undertake a short and sharp inquiry with public submissions to draw out any other reforms that might be required to appointments processes for portfolio bodies in the Indigenous Australians portfolio.

 

Finally, I would note that one of the reasons for improving the quality of governance in key portfolio bodies such as the ILSC and IBA in particular is that it is clear to me that their shelf life as statutory corporations within the Australian government system is within one or two decades of coming to an end. In a chapter in a recent book on Self Determination (link here), I argued the case for transitioning these bodies into a form of First Nations ownership and control. Amongst the key preconditions for such a process is to ensure that they have been governed effectively in the periods leading up to such a transition, and that their Boards are truly governing these corporations in the interests of First Nations rather than facilitating the political machinations of Governments. Any such transition will be complex and will require careful planning from within the existing corporations. In turn, this will require Boards that are prepared to think long term, and undertake the hard work of persuading governments of the potential benefits of giving up control of these key institutions.

 

Unfortunately, I have very little confidence that Australian governments, present and future, or the current Boards in the Indigenous Australians portfolio would bring the level of vision required to even start this process, let alone bring it to a constructive conclusion. This is why Board selection processes are strategically important for First Nations interests, and why the Coalition of Peaks and the future Voice should work together to persuade the Australian Government to change these processes for the better.

 

Remote Indigenous Housing Challenges

 

We are not the first

Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.

King Lear, Act Five, Scene Three.

 

The community of Yarrabah is less than an hour’s drive from Cairns, but displays many of the characteristics of hundreds of other remote communities across remote Australia. A number of recent media stories on the impact of the COVID pandemic within the community have pointed directly to the risks and implications for individuals linked to the extent of overcrowding in the community. An ABC news article dated 23 January was titled: ‘Indigenous mayors sound alarm over crowded housing amid COVID outbreaks’ (link here). An SBS article dated 16 February 2022 was titled: ‘We were afraid: North Qld families struggle with Covid in overcrowded housing’ (link here). Both articles emphasise the human cost, both real and potential of overcrowding.

 

I recently provided a submission to the current Productivity Commission review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (link here) which focussed on remote housing needs. Given the importance of the issues raised, I have republished the submission slightly amended as a CAEPR Topical Issues Paper (link here). The paper is titled: Remote Indigenous housing requires ongoing policy focus: submission to the review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. The NHHA is a national agreement that provides for mainstream Commonwealth funding contributions to the states and territories for social housing and homelessness.

 

The abstract reads as follows:

This Topical Issues paper identifies remote Indigenous housing as a structural gap in the nation’s overarching housing policies. The paper reproduces a submission to the current Productivity Commission review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA) which argues for a much stronger focus to be placed upon remote Indigenous housing in the renewal of the NHHA scheduled for 2023. The submission outlines the extent and systemic underpinnings of the substantial Indigenous housing shortfall in remote Australia, and assesses the adequacy of current policy frameworks to meet that need and thus mitigate ongoing adverse social, health and economic consequences. In particular, the submission argues that the national housing target in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap is, in its current form, an inadequate mechanism to address remote housing need. The submission makes a number of specific recommendations designed to ensure that remote Indigenous housing needs are effectively addressed going forward.

 

When thinking about remote housing programs, the key point to remember is the human consequences of poor housing which extend beyond the obvious adverse health implications and affect virtually every aspect of life for families and wider communities. Deep disadvantage is systemic and structural, and is concentrated in remote Australia. Fixing housing is just one element, but it is a necessary element,  for a solution. And fixing housing requires governments to invest, because of the existence of complex market failure that inhibits housing provision by the private sector. This is why the next iteration of the NHHA is so important.

 

Submissions to the review close on 18 March.

 

 

The ANAO performance audit of the NIAA NT Remote Housing program

 

I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it and deliver a plain message bluntly.

King Lear Act One, Scene Four

 

The ANAO and its performance audit function is an extraordinarily valuable resource in providing the community with a level of assurance that government programs and policies are being managed effectively in the public interest. These reports also provide a welcome level of transparency that is in practice unavailable anywhere else, providing a window into the quality of bureaucratic advice and strategic planning that underpins the delivery of government services and programs.   

 

The ANAO’s recent report titled Remote housing the Northern Territory is a case in point (link here). It reports on the five year National Partnership for Remote Housing Northern Territory that provides for $550m in Commonwealth finance for the five years from 2018-19 to 2022-23. Program delivery is by the NT Government (NTG).

 

The performance audit is limited to the NT, because following the expiry of the ten year National Partnership on Remote Indigenous housing in 2018, the Commonwealth withdrew from funding remote housing in all other jurisdictions. The ANAO give a detailed and valuable account of the history of Commonwealth funding of remote housing.

 

The ANAO audit team on this report have done an excellent job in synthesising and compiling an enormous amount of information and data which will be enormously helpful to those interested in understanding what has transpired in relation to remote housing programs over the past 15 years. Unfortunately, in this area of Commonwealth activity, the past decade has been a story of progressive decline and poor management, a narrative that a detailed reading of the report confirms. Yet for reasons I can speculate on, but cannot confirm, a high level reading of the report, focussed on its key findings and recommendations, gives little hint that this is the case.

 

For example, the report states (para. 8):

Improving Indigenous housing in the NT has been a policy priority for successive Australian and NT Governments. By 2022–23 the Australian Government will have invested $2.65 billion over 15 years in remote housing in the NT through successive national partnership agreements.

 

This statement is factually correct, particularly if you give the term ‘policy priority’ a generous and flexible interpretation. Yet if we apply a more penetrating analysis, we can note that the total is in nominal dollars and the real expenditure in the earlier years is somewhat greater. Setting that aside, that ‘priority’ has averaged $177m per annum over the 15 years, whereas the current five year National Partnership provides for $110m per annum from the Commonwealth. The most recent National Partnership involves a nominal reduction in Commonwealth financial commitment of $67m per annum; hardly a reflection of an ongoing policy priority. For a discussion of whether the National Partnership Agreement incentivised a matched commitment from the NTG, see below.

 

The ANAO frames its findings as follows: [emphasis added]:

• The National Indigenous Australians Agency’s (NIAA) administration of funding for remote housing in the NT has been partly effective.
• The development of the National Partnership was partly effective.
• NIAA has been partly effective in assessing the delivery of the program of works under the National Partnership.
• NIAA has been partly effective in ensuring that the National Partnership’s outcomes are being achieved.

 

The ANAO’s formal recommendations align with these findings, albeit with a focus on the development of ‘risk based assurance processes’ in four of the five recommendations (para. 30).

 

The ANAO’s ‘glass half full’ approach is facilitated by two inter-related high level techniques or dispositions, though to be clear, I am not at all sure whether the ANAO sets out to do this deliberately, or whether it is merely a function of an inherently cautious culture.

 

The first is that the report uses excessively neutral language and a passive tone to communicate its findings, particularly in the executive summary sections. The best example is perhaps the way each of the four major findings and some of the supporting findings are framed, utilising the equivocal and indeterminate formulation that NIAA actions were ‘ partly effective’ (see paras. 14 to 17 and paras. 22, 23, 234 and 28). More substantively, in the reports recommendations, there is a subtle choice to focus on non-threatening technical issues such as risk management (important as they are) rather than highlighting management failures or lack of substantive progress.

 

The ANAO approach on communication and presentation in relation to what is a complex program is akin to assessing the operation of a sailing ship, and finding that notwithstanding the disintegrating caulking, the hull was partly effective, the broken compass which was only five degrees out was partly effective, and the damaged rudder is partly effective because it continues to steer the ship, albeit in circles.

 

The second high level reason for the ANAO’s high level anodyne framing is that its analysis is flawed in two respects: it doesn’t adopt a comprehensive or systemic approach to understanding what is occurring with the program, instead satisfying itself with segmented and compartmentalised assessments of different elements, without taking the next step and ‘joining the dots’. It also ignores or fails to grasp a couple of crucial issues that in turn would lead to a much more critical set of conclusions (I address these below). To use the sailing ship metaphor again, the ANAO short-sightedness is akin to failing to recognise that with key elements compromised, the operation of the ship is no longer fit for purpose, even if it continues to stay afloat.

 

To over-emphasise the critique of the ANAO would be a distraction. So I now turn to laying out a number of the ‘submerged’ key points which focus more on the performance of the NIAA based entirely on the information contained in the ANAO report. I won’t begin with a summary of the key information regarding the program as it is laid out in the summary section (paras. 1 to 33) which I recommend readers at least scan. The Commonwealth program is based on NTG implementation of the core elements (capital works, property and tenancy management (PTM) and Indigenous employment, and involves payments to the NTG based on delivery against agreed milestones.

 

The delivery of capital works is not on track

As at 30 September 2021, 39 months (65%) into the 60 month program which ends in June 2023, the Commonwealth program had delivered only 363 out of a projected 1950 bedrooms, or 19% (see para 1.11 and table 1.2). Only 26% of the program funding had been paid to the NTG, including 11% of the capital works funding. The ANAO determines that the NIAA assessment of the NTG’s delivery of the capital works is ‘partly effective’ (para 3.3), but the bottom line is that the NIAA has not delivered adequate progress and is now presumably in panic mode seeking to make up lost ground.

 

Slow delivery of outcomes has an adverse impact on Aboriginal tenants in overcrowded housing. The ANAO states that the ‘NIAA has not managed risks to the delivery of the National Partnership effectively’ (box above para 4.55). The statement is correct, but it evades the more fundamental point: the NIAA has not ensured that the outcomes required are delivered in a timely way. The ANAO Recommendation Five (para 4.68) is framed around risk management when in fact it should be framed around program delivery failure. The ANAO notes that NIAA were aware as early as November 2019 of delays in program roll out (para 4.8) and had expressed concern to the minister in April 2020 that the construction program may not be completed over the duration of the National Partnership (para 4.72). The recommendation that the ANAO should have made, but didn’t, was for the NIAA to urgently implement a strategy to bring the program back on course by June 2023.

 

In this context, the ANAO correctly raises the very real concern that NTG commitments to ensure the targets in the Commonwealth program are delivered will come at the cost of the NTG’s own committed targets (para 4.9). This raises a second key issue: why are there two sets of program targets being delivered simultaneously by the two Governments.

 

The Commonwealth decision to maintain separate program targets

It is not clear why the Commonwealth insisted on a separate program targets to be delivered by the NTG in parallel with its own program targets in its pre-existing program known as Our Community. Our Future. Our Homes (OCOFOH). It is problematic in a number of ways, yet the ANAO makes no adverse comment regarding this decision. Obvious disadvantages include added management complexity, reduced overall transparency, and increased risks of ‘target shifting’ and financial mismanagement. The ANAO uncovered, and notes without adverse comment, that PMC (before NIAA’s establishment) provided what appears to be incorrect and misleading advice to the Minister (see paras 2.10 to 2.12).

 

Part of the reason for two sets of targets may relate to a misleading narrative promulgated by PMC / NIAA in the drafting of the National Partnership and apparently accepted by the ANAO (see para. 1.5) that the NTG was matching the Commonwealth commitments. In fact, the NTG had committed $1.1bn over ten years from 2017-18 before the Commonwealth made its decision to continue funding in the NT (see para 2.33). In turn, this presentational sleight of hand relates to the underlying raison d’etre for the Commonwealth involvement in the NT in a context where it had taken a decision to withdraw from funding remote housing in every other jurisdiction.

 

What was the Commonwealth motivation for continuing a remote housing program in the NT?

The ANAO, somewhat credulously, notes that ‘the objective of the National Partnership is to improve housing conditions and reduce overcrowding in 73 remote communities and 17 town camps’ (para 2). The NIAA response to the performance audit goes further and states that ‘the sole objective of the National Partnership’ is to improve housing conditions and reduce overcrowding’ (Appendix One). The ANAO explains that the Commonwealth’s rationale for continuing the program in the NT while discontinuing its assistance in all other jurisdictions was that it ‘considered that the housing need was significantly higher’ in the NT (para. 1.14).

 

The 2017 Review of NPARIH (the national forerunner of the NT National Partnership) had determined that about half of the outstanding remote housing need to 2028 would be in the NT, but this does not explain why a Government would preference one half of the need over the other half, or one unhoused family in the Northern Territory over an unhoused family in Western Australia.

 

We can probably set aside the possibility that there was any link between the then Minister’s role as a Senator for the NT, and the decision, as he did not contest the 2019 election held two months after the National Partnership was established in March 2019.

 

However, the most substantial incentive for continued Commonwealth funding arose from the fact that the rollout of NPARIH from 2008 was predicated upon the granting of leases to Government to underpin improved tenancy management. In the NT, the Land Councils strongly pushed for the Commonwealth to hold those leases rather than the NTG, and the then Labor Minister agreed. The NT was the only jurisdiction where the Commonwealth holds housing leases directly.

 

The ANAO notes (see paras. 1.20 – 1.24) that the Commonwealth holds some 3500 underlying housing leases in the NT, and thus (in the absence of any subleases arrangements) is effectively the landlord and responsible for property and tenancy management (PTM) for around 59 percent of all remote housing. The LNP Government did not wish to take a direct role in delivering social housing in the NT, and thus needed to negotiate subleases and management responsibilities with the NTG (or some other entity). The objective of the National Partnership is more accurately characterised as the price of persuading the NTG to take on this responsibility. This conclusion is reinforced by the ANAO observation (para 1.24) that the current subleases over the Commonwealth housing leases are due to expire at the same time as the National Partnership, in June 2023.

 

Acknowledging that the Commonwealth had an ulterior motive for its decision to maintain a remote housing program in the NT is important because it explains in large measure the lack of attention to implementation that lies at the heart of the current failure to deliver on outcomes.

 

The Implementation Plan and PTM fiascos

The ANAO report makes clear that the Implementation Plan for the program, negotiated contemporaneously with the program design and negotiation, included numerous gaps and flaws such as reporting period inconsistencies, including in relation to PTM. They go so far as to count them, reporting over 30 inconsistencies, syntax and typographic mistakes,  (para 2.24, and footnote 44).  Recommendation One, which flows from this analysis, states:

2.28    National Indigenous Australians Agency revise the Implementation Plan to support public accountability by providing accurate information on how each party to the National Partnership for Remote Housing Northern Territory will achieve the outcomes and outputs.

 

This is fine and good, but the import of these multiple so-called ‘technical‘ errors (see para 2.29) is twofold: first, it made the key areas of the agreement such as payment schedules unworkable, and second, it demonstrates clearly that senior PMC/NIAA staff did not take the time to read the Implementation Plan. It is as if the roll out of the program wasn’t important; all that mattered was to shift responsibility for the Commonwealth landlord responsibilities to the NTG.

 

Even more surprisingly, PMC/NIAA set the funding amount for PTM in the Partnership Agreement at $35m, but failed to properly advise the Minister. The ANAO notes (para 2.40):

The advice to the minister did not provide a rationale for the decision to set the funding amount for PTM services at $35 million. A December 2018 ministerial brief stated that ‘independent financial modelling’ confirmed the proposed base annual rate to be paid to the NT Government to manage Australian Government leases. However, the ANAO examined the financial modelling and found that the cost of PTM services was estimated at between $53.3 and $76.6 million annually. Australian Government funding to the NT Government for PTM services under NPARIH and NPRH averaged $42 million annually between 2013–14 and 2017–18. [emphasis added]

 

An objective observer can only conclude that PMC/NIAA either misled the Minister, or were complicit in creating a document intended to create a false narrative. Either alternative deserves to be clearly and unequivocally criticised. Yet the ANAO says nothing, and merely reports without comment the PMC/NIAA advice in response (more accurately described as a non-sequitur) that ‘PTM funding for PTM services was constrained by the available total funding envelope of $110m a year’ (para 2.40). Unsurprisingly then, the performance of the NTG’s reported PTM performance has steadily declined between 2019 and 2021, with the NTG meeting all six performance measures in 2019, but only two of the six in 2021 (table 3.2). The ANAO outlines the NIAA assessment process (my two word summary: ‘process oriented’), and reports neutrally that NIAA requested ‘additional information’ where there was a shortfall between PTM results and targets (see table 3.3).

 

Of course, the more fundamental issue here is that the Commonwealth is the underlying owner of the assets, that are scheduled to revert to direct Commonwealth control in 2023. Yet it is deliberately underinvesting in the PTM, which means that the assets degrade faster than they should, will need to be replaced earlier than should, and the tenants (real families with real needs) will continue to live in sub-optimal conditions longer than they should. These are the nuts and bolts of structural racism, laid out in plain view by the ANAO, but not reflected in its findings or recommendations.

 

The ANAO report also documents the role for the land councils in the management of the program (paras. 4.11 to 4.16), albeit within a structure that may not always deliver them timely information (paras 3.8 and 4.16). The ANAO notes that in response to claims from NIAA that the land councils provide a ‘broad assurance’ of the ‘progress and quality of PTM services and capital works’ given their involvement in communities,  the land councils have expressed concerns that they do not have the capacity to collect feedback at a detailed level so as to provide more than a general level of assurance (paras. 3.28; 4.16). It is difficult not to interpret the NIAA claims regarding the land councils as an attempt to shift blame or responsibility.

 

The more fundamental issue for the land councils arising from accepting a role in oversighting the program is that they run the risk of being complicit in ongoing underperformance. The slow progress in delivering housing is one example. The PTM example above is another. Similarly, the lack of progress on the leasing and land servicing reviews included in the National Partnerships original design (see paras. 4.31 to 4.37), and still not completed despite numerous meetings between the two governments and the land councils is a further case in point.

 

The more general point here is that the land councils must invest in developing and sustaining the capability to proactively and substantively participate in the governance of what is an extremely complex program, recognising that they are not the ultimate policymakers (notwithstanding the inevitable government rhetoric on co-participation). They would be wise to always retain the right to advocate publicly on issues of concern. Similarly, they should resist the temptation to support government antipathy to greater program transparency. For Indigenous interests, transparency is a significant ally in ensuring governments operate in the public interest, particularly in contexts that do not always gain consistent attention in public debate. Finally, while the benefits of participation in program governance are huge and not to be ignored, the risks of co-option are also substantial, and require specific and ongoing attention within land councils and other Indigenous stakeholders.

 

Conclusion

The ANAO report on remote housing in the NT is an extraordinary resource for those interested in understanding the current state of remote housing provision. It is also a flawed document. It under-emphasises the levels of serious mismanagement of the program by NIAA; documents, yet downplays, instances where Ministers were misled or badly advised; documents poor program design, and most importantly identifies, but then under-emphasises the extraordinary delays and shortfalls in program delivery and the underinvestment in PTM which protects a Commonwealth asset base and ensures safe housing for tenants.

 

In the world of program delivery, a program delay is a program cut, and there is an in-built incentive for governments to make the initial announcement and then go slow and run the clock down. The losers in this game are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and in particular the tenants of severely overcrowded housing. The fact that this process can occur in a program providing housing services to one of the most disadvantaged segments within Australian society is extraordinary.

 

The ANAO should sharpen its analytical focus. I assess their report as ‘partly effective’. And NIAA should lift its game. I assess their performance as ‘entirely ineffective’.