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June 22, 2007
A century ago, humanitarian arguments created remote reserves as a sanctuary for Aboriginal people not significantly affected by colonisation. But for successive modern governments, their remoteness has made it impossible to create an economy that allows people to work and participate in a functional society. The project of sustaining Aboriginal people in their own country in remote Australia, which is an experiment that really began with the Whitlam government and which has continued into the Howard era.
This has shifted under the Howard Government. Tony Abbott put a label on a shift in policy and thinking about Aboriginal issues. He called it, for want of a better term, "the new paternalism". Historian Dr Tim Rowse describes this policy thus:
The essence of it is to regard Aboriginal self-determination as a project that has failed because indigenous elites have proved to be not up to the job. It argues that the discourse of indigenous rights, which is what has empowered indigenous elites, has not provided a fix for the poverty and problems afflicting remote Aboriginal communities. That those far-flung communities are hugely expensive to service and maintain. That the social pathology within some communities has become poisonous. That they carry the remnants of a culture which is self-destructive and badly adapted to modern times — I think that is the view that the Government has acquired. It follows from that, then, that Aboriginal people's voices are not very important in the making of policy.
Rowse says that Mal Brough, the current Minister of Indigenous Affairs, is:
encouraged by a kind of command view of social policy, built on his own military experience, which says that if people are behaving in a problematic way, you create a more rigorous framework of rules and enforce that. That will guide you to better behaviour. I think that is his model, and no doubt it works in a military setting.
Will their plan work in indigenous communities?
Noel Pearson says that while Howard's plan is a necessary development, there are risks associated with the bold line of attack announced by Brough and Howard. He says that his assessment is:
* The focus on grog and policing is correct, but as well as policing there must be a strategy for building indigenous social and cultural ownership.
* Making welfare payments conditional is correct, but the Howard-Brough plan needs to be amended so responsible behaviour is encouraged. Responsible people shouldn’t just be lumped in with irresponsible people.
* The land-related measures are clumsy and ideological, but they are not an attempt at a land grab, and the problems with the land measures are nowhere near as high a priority as action for the welfare of children.
* There is a huge implementation challenge. Based on the performance of the federal and provincial bureaucracies up to now, I am not confident they are up to it. The Council of Australian Governments trials in the past five years have not delivered meaningful results.
Does this kind of intervention spell the end of decades of optimism about the capacity of local communities to run their own affairs? There is definitely a reversal of the tide of autonomy and decentralisation in northern Australia.
The intervention is not premised on a careful mix of customary indigenous arrangements norms with Canberra 's governance, whilst the possibilities of a collaborative approach with the Northern Territory Government and Indigenous community leaders is pownplayed.
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