Torres Strait governance structures and the Centenary of Australian Federation: A missed opportunity?

In his 1993 Boyer lecture, Getano Lui (Jnr) called for a change in the status of Torres Strait governance structures within the Australian federation, nominating the Centenary of Federation on January 1, 2001 as a possible time for change. In 1996, the Commonwealth Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs initiated a Parliamentary Committee inquiry into greater autonomy for the people of Torres Strait, which reported favourably in 1997. This report was not, however, greeted all that favourably by Torres Strait Islanders and it now seems unlikely that any significantly new governance structures for Torres Strait will be in place by the Centenary of Federation. This paper attempts to explain why. The paper begins with a review of existing Torres Strait governance structures and the processes of political change taking place within them during the 1990s. It then considers the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee’s report and reactions to those recommendations. It argues that the Parliamentary Committee made some ill-conceived and inappropriate recommendations because it did not understand processes of political change occurring in Torres Strait during the 1990s and did not come to grips with the strength and depth of Islander feelings of distinctiveness from Aboriginal Australians. It examines government responses to the Parliamentary Committee inquiry and further Islander reactions in the light of these. In its final section, the paper argues that while there have been missed opportunities along the way, the Centenary of Federation was, in fact, always an ambitious timetable for the reform of Torres Strait governance structures. There are significant unresolved issues still to be addressed among Islanders and there have, in recent years, been other more pressing issues to attend to, such as native title. The Centenary of Federation has proven to be not so much a missed opportunity for Torres Strait governance structures as just bad timing

Being a good senior manager in Indigenous community governance: working with public purpose and private benefit

This paper seeks to understand the role of being a senior manager in Indigenous community governance, particularly though not exclusively in remote Aboriginal communities. It argues against the tendency of analysts and would-be reformers of Indigenous community governance to focus on the competence and ethical qualities of those who, from time to time occupy these roles, and asks instead how can isolated managerialism in Indigenous community governance be overcome? The paper begins with Ralph Folds’ analysis of relations between Pintupi settlements and the larger Australian polity. While taking much from Folds’ analysis, the paper argues that he relies on too idealist a view of the Australian state and on a problematic distinction between the official and private uses of publicly allocated resources. The paper argues that the state’s allocation of resources also inevitably involves a flow of private benefits and that public purposes and private benefits are not different phenomena, but rather different perspectives on state action. In light of this, the paper outlines a more thoroughly realist analysis of what it is to be a good senior manager in Indigenous community governance and then, in its concluding section, makes some suggestions for overcoming isolated managerialism

Torres Strait elections, 2000 and 2004: changes in political leadership and style?

Torres Strait has 18 local governments, elections for which were held in March of both 2000 and 2004 in conjunction with other local government elections in Queensland. Elections were also held at these times for additional positions on two regional representative bodies for Torres Strait, the Island Co-ordinating Council and the Torres Strait Regional Authority. This paper examines all these elections, focusing on changes in political leadership and also a possible emerging change in political style in Torres Strait

Housing tenure and Indigenous Australians in remote and settled areas

This paper adopts a socioeconomic and policy systems approach to housing tenure patterns. It argues that the housing tenure system in more densely settled Australia, dominated by home ownership, does not fully penetrate to remote areas for either Indigenous or other households. It uses data from the 2001 Census organised by remoteness geography to demonstrate this lack of penetration, and attempts to describe the housing tenure system in remote Australia in its own terms. The paper begins and ends by specifically looking at ideas about promoting home ownership in remote Aboriginal communities. It argues that this is a largely unrealistic policy goal, given the underlying income and employment status of Indigenous people in these communities. The paper also argues that there are better measures of Indigenous housing disadvantage in Australia than low home ownership rates and it identifies two: private rental rates in settled areas and household size in remote areas

Journey without end: Reconciliation between Australia's Indigenous and settler peoples

This paper examines the history of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) in Australia from 1991 to 2001 and argues that reconciliation between Australia's Indigenous and settler peoples was never likely to be achieved in that time frame. Reconciliation, it argues, will be a matter of many decades or even hundreds of years, rather than just one decade of directed policy effort. The second half of the paper revisits an analysis of the reconciliation process written by Richard Mulgan in early 1996. Following Mulgan, the paper argues for a theoretical basis for reconciliation which moves beyond guilt and blame. However, also following Mulgan, it recognises the political and social difficulties of achieving this. The mission of CAR was, from the outset, overambitious and unrealistic. Though the paper pays considerable attention to the role of the Howard government in the inconclusive fading away of CAR, ultimately it argues that a somewhat similar demise was likely for the Council whatever government was in power in 2001. Reconciliation between Australia's Indigenous and settler peoples will be a long time coming; to all intents and purposes it will be a journey without en

Indigenous people in the Alice Springs town camps: the 2001 census data

This paper analyses 2001 Census data relating to Indigenous people living in the Alice Springs town camps as compared to three other population groups: Indigenous people in the rest of Alice Springs, non-Indigenous people in Alice Springs and Indigenous people living in the outlying communities of the region around Alice Springs. The paper builds on earlier work which observed and reported on the collection of the 2001 Census in the Alice Springs town camps. The paper finds expected similarities between Indigenous town camp residents and Indigenous people in outlying communities. It also finds expected socio-economic differences between town camp residents and Indigenous people living in the rest of Alice Springs, and even greater differences in comparison with the non-Indigenous residents of Alice Springs. The paper identifies a number of shortcomings and inadequacies in the 2001 Census data used, but argues that these do not nullify the usefulness of the larger exercise. Rather they point the way to improvements in census collection procedures which may hopefully be implemented in 2006

Experimental Governance in Australian Indigenous Affairs: From Coombs to Pearson via Rowse and the Competing Principles

The competing principles framework for analysing Australian Indigenous affairs is revisited, starting with Rowse on 'the Coombs experiment'. Rowse rehabilitates this term from pejorative critics, arguing that all government policy in Indigenous affairs is experimental. The task becomes one of characterising changing patterns of government experiment since the Commonwealth became involved in Indigenous affairs on a national scale after the 1967 constitutional alteration referendum. This paper develops a two-phase characterisation, changing from the milennium. The first phase is discussed under the heading 'Indigenous-Specific Structures and Programs', the second under the heading 'Welfare reform, Contractualism and Normalisation'. The name Pearson is as synonymous with the second phase as Coombs is with the first. Rowse has much to offer on both these prominent personalities and phases, as well as a complementary schema to the competing principles focused on peoples and populations

Indigenous Australians and the rules of the social security system: universalism, apppropriateness, and justice

Noel Pearson has recently argued that inclusion in a 'passive' welfare system, over the last thirty years, has been to the detriment of Aboriginal society. This paper approaches the inclusion of Aboriginal people in the social security system from a slightly different perspective, while taking seriously Pearson's concerns. It argues that, despite norms and aspirations of universalism, rules within the social security system are social constructs derived from and intended for the particular social and economic circumstances of the dominant society. When those rules are applied to the very different social and economic circumstances of minority groups, such as Indigenous Australians, major issues of adaptation and interpretation arise. This paper draws on research experience spanning 20 years on relations between Indigenous Australians and the social security system to illustrate the degree to which adaptation has occurred, in the pursuit of realism. However it also argues current relations between the social security system and Indigenous Australians are not just and fair because the rules of the system do not equally reflect Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples' social and economic circumstances

A regional CDEP for four remote communities? Papunya, Ikuntji, Watiyawanu and Walungurru

The four remote Aboriginal communities involved in this study have not been among those with a Community Development Employment Project (CDEP) over the last ten or twenty years. Some interest in these communities having CDEP was expressed in early 2000, and as a result this study was commissioned by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). Papunya was given a CDEP with 50 participant places in October 2000, so by the time this study was conducted in June and July 2001 one of the four communities already had a CDEP. Interviews based on a structured questionnaire were conducted in each of the communities with 20 Indigenous adults. Less structured interviews were also conducted with Council Clerks and with some other employees of organisations which might potentially take on CDEP participants as employees. ATSIC officers involved in CDEP administration in regional and central offices were also interviewed

Thinking about Indigenous community governance

This document brings together four papers on Indigenous community governance which were written as verbal presentations for conferences, seminars and workshops between 2000 and 2003. They argue, from different starting points in response to conference and workshop themes, that Indigenous community governance is as much about process as about structures and that dispersed governance has benefits as well as costs. In doing so they challenge some common assumptions of would-be reformers of Indigenous community governance. The papers have been brought together for convenience and as a point of departure for debate, as part of an ARC Linkage project between CAEPR and Reconciliation Australia on Indigenous Community Governance