Indigenous self-determination didn't fail. It wasn't
tried, writes Mick Dodson.
IT'S NOT easy to separate some reasonable messages Tony Abbott
was trying to deliver yesterday without getting caught up in the
"put-down" language adopted in his speech to the Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare.
Nobody disputes that addressing the 17-year gap in life
expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous children is a
national priority. And if Abbott is suggesting that governments
should assume full responsibility for delivering essential services
to Aboriginal Australians, just like other Australians, I fully
agree with that too.
But why does he wrap that up in language about paternalism
rather than describing it as a basic responsibility of government
to the citizens of Maningrida, just as it is to the citizens of
Manly?
The Health Minister's comments perpetuate a number of dangerous
myths about indigenous Australia that are being promoted in
slightly different ways by governments at all levels.
The first myth is that self-determination has failed.
An approach that has never been tested cannot be deemed a
failure. What we've had, at best, in Australia is a kind of
self-administration, where Aboriginal communities have been
responsible for delivering the basic services Abbott refers to,
like garbage collection.
There is a lot of misinformation perpetuated about what
self-determination means. At its core, it involves people making
decisions about policies and programs that directly affect their
lives, and having those decisions respected and supported.
The administrative responsibilities in the hands of indigenous
communities have not been self-determined, but imposed, by
organisations including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Commission. ATSIC was not an indigenous creation, nor did it have
genuine decision-making power.
Allocation of the vast majority of the indigenous affairs budget
has always been determined by senior bureaucrats and ministers.
The second myth is that lack of government spending to improve
the lives of indigenous Australians is not a fundamental problem.
Abbott boasts that spending on an Aboriginal person is 18 per cent
higher than on non-indigenous Australians, while elsewhere in the
speech he notes that health and safety outcomes for our people are
several hundred per cent worse.
Associated with this myth is another one that has it that while
indigenous people are without capacity, government capacity to
deliver better outcomes is limitless and universal. Abbott refers
in his speech to serious difficulties stemming from the present
whole-of-government trials in which government dysfunction is
aggravating Aboriginal suffering.
It's an important development that governments will finally
admit to failure,
but when it comes to talking about what happens next, they can't
seem to move beyond generalisations of Aboriginal incompetence.
Abbott looks to paternalism for the answers to violence and
other problems as though we have ever moved beyond this horribly
discredited approach.
Decades of research involving indigenous peoples in the United
States and Canada makes it plain that communities facing serious,
long-term disadvantage can and will take responsibility for sorting
out problems if they are in a position to make decisions that will
be respected and supported. Preliminary results from Reconciliation
Australia's own indigenous community governance project in
Australia are uncovering evidence about the ingredients of
success.
Instead of continually promoting the view that Aboriginal people
are hopeless and incapable, it's time we shaped solutions around
indigenous success. There is plenty of it. This week, I am
travelling around Australia judging the finalists in this year's
Indigenous Governance Awards, a scheme run in partnership between
Reconciliation Australia and BHP Billiton.
Located in cities, regional centres and remote communities,
these organisations are an inspiration and I have to ask myself why
I haven't read about every one of them instead of the constant
barrage of bad news presented as the total picture of indigenous
Australia.
Indigenous organisations that do get into trouble don't need a
non-indigenous accountant from East Melbourne to be sent in as
administrator. Organisations are closely regulated and, if
necessary, administrators are appointed by the government-funded
Office of the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations.
In saying that, "Australians' sense of guilt about the past and
naive idealisation of communal life may now be the biggest single
obstacle to the betterment of Aboriginal people," the minister is
using the language of ideology, not of evidence.
Surely, we have moved beyond the old standby of blaming the
victim and can finally start being honest about our shared
responsibility for failure and our joint capacity for success.
Everyone agrees we need a radical shift but what the Health
Minister proposes is far from that.
We won't get that shift without building trust and respect
between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians that can deliver
improvements and gradually move us closer towards
reconciliation.
Professor Mick Dodson is director of the National Centre for
Indigenous Studies at the ANU and a director of Reconciliation
Australia.
