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June 18, 2007
Brian Head, Professor of Governance at Griffith University, gave a seminar to The Centre for Research in Public Sector Management (CRPSM) at the University of Canberra, as part of its Seminar series. The abstract for Head's seminar, which was held early in 2007, says:
Public policy in OECD countries is increasingly supposed to be based on ‘evidence’ about the effectiveness of program design and implementation.The main catch-cries seem to be:
• what works?;
• are we getting the desired outcomes?’; and
• ‘what is affordable and effective or offers best value?’
This potentially provides a wider role for excellent social science research, both inside and outside government agencies, in filling gaps, analysing options and providing inputs to the forward agenda. Some reasons are given for why this enhanced role is distinctly limited.
This is certainly the rhetoric of how policy works within a neo-liberal mode of governance. Is there a gap between rhetoric and reality? Say in public policy around Indigenous issues?
Head's abstract goes on to say that some examples are provided, illustrating different contexts and outcomes for the impact of ‘evidence’ on policy settings. It is clear that some issues are ‘data-proof’ owing to established commitments and mandates.
Sadly, much of what happens in Indigenous Australia is quietly forgotten despite the exposure of the terrible conditions of violence, drunkenness, sexual abuse, educational failures, unemployment in indigenous communities. and loss of cultural meaning as spelled out in the Little Children Are Sacred report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sex Abuse. Aborigines are 3% of the population, most living far from the leafy affluent spaces of white/Asian Australian suburbia. For the latter, anything happening north and west of Broken Hill is another country, and nothing that happens there to people white or black is of much concern, to politicians.
Head suggests that there are three lenses through which important stakeholders and decision-makers consider the challenges of policy change and maintenance. These correspond to three types of knowledge, with their own operating assumptions:
• Political knowledge
• Scientific expert knowledge
• Practical knowledge of managers/professionals
The question of what is relevant and ‘what works’ will look different through each of these lenses. Putting them together is a difficult but necessary part of the policy process. Collaborative approaches may attempt to do this.
This is right. As the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sex Abuse says we know that terrible conditions exists in Indigenous communities:
...and we know the problems, we know how to fix many of them and the likely monetary cost.(And we pause here to interpose the question: What is the likely future cost of NOT now attempting to deal with the issues?). We have an enormous amount of knowledge in this country (at various times we have been described as the clever country and the lucky country -by our own people, of course) and in the Territory. The money is available. The Australian Government budget surplus last year was billions and billions of dollars. What has been acking is the political will. We have to stop marching on the spot and work with some real commitment to success to save Australia from an impending disaster.
It's politics that rules.
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