This article first appeared in The Australian, 28 April 2008

Great Aboriginal con

Wesley Aird

Indigenous affairs is a tough gig. The decisions are difficult technically, socially and politically. There are plenty of people doing a great job in the fight to overcome disadvantage. But the fight is made more difficult by a large con job that operates in the background.

The con is when Aboriginality is exploited for personal or organisational benefit and it is permitted by either weak, ineffective bureaucracy or an uncritical mainstream Australia. The con operates on a national scale and there are perpetrators and victims on both sides of the cultural divide.

The 2020 Summit saw a revival of the con artists. The same old personalities attempted to hijack the debate and put governance and recognition above overcoming the social scourges affecting Aboriginal people around the country. It is a warped set of priorities that would have symbolism more important than overcoming substance abuse and improving household safety, education and economic participation.

It is easy for well-known personalities to remain at the podium delivering tired old rhetoric. But indigenous Australia has heard that message a thousand times in the past two decades and it isn't improving anybody's life. Sadly, there is an industry built around indigenous affairs and many of the stakeholders will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.

We now need technically effective programs to overcome indigenous disadvantage. The time has come to call the real problems for what they are and to remove the false barriers.

The old style of administration in indigenous affairs has been marred by a game of dishonesty played by both sides of the cultural chasm. The game is played where there is a benefit to be obtained by one side so long as it is not questioned by the (usually all-too-compliant) non-indigenous accomplice. The perpetrator of this trick is hiding behind a "cultural curtain" and is telling non-indigenous Australians to have absolute trust in everything they are told by an Aboriginal person because, so the scam goes, anything less would be offensive or culturally inappropriate. It establishes a form of behaviour whereby a notion of culture, be it romanticised or perverse, is given greater importance than the lives of human beings.

Such behaviour is dangerous at a societal level. There are millions of mainstream Australians who want to believe in and support the indigenous cause. But offering support without questioning the real priorities is not helpful. Many have been tricked into directing energy into peripheral issues. Instead of being angry when they see shocking images of poverty, neglect and abuse, so many people have allowed themselves to be convinced by high-profile Aboriginal people that they should instead be focusing on representation and some sort of treaty. It is time for mainstream Australia to be critical of the old messages.

At the policy level, the effects are devastating as each year millions of dollars are wasted either on or by indigenous people who trade off their culture for personal or family benefit. Sadly, many non-indigenous bureaucrats either contribute to, or won't do anything about, this corruption. The defence is a misguided belief that such behaviour is a matter internal to the indigenous community or somehow is founded in Aboriginal culture.

Many policy solutions are wrongly personality-based rather than delivering measurable improvements. Instead of being sacked, the architects of these policy failures just do the rounds. There is a small sub-industry in indigenous affairs of bureaucrats who move from department to department or from one level of government to another. The result is that Aboriginal Australians suffer under soft social programs hopelessly incapable of solving complex technical problems. Politicians wanting to "do the right thing" make the easy or popular decisions rather than address the core problems, and year after year the scam continues.

There are many high-profile indigenous people who continue to benefit through this form of theatre in front of the uncritical masses. The past 20 years appear to have been a wasteland in terms of practical leadership and innovation. However, during this era, many so-called Aboriginal leaders have had the ear of the federal, state and territory governments, they have had access to big business and they have been well funded without having to produce an outcome. Opportunities, goodwill and billions of dollars have been squandered.

The common rule for sport and business is that you either perform or you are replaced. That is how teams and companies maintain a path of improvement. But for some bizarre reason this rule doesn't apply to indigenous affairs. Instead foisted upon us year after year is the same technical incompetence.

It's time for a new approach: eschew the personalities and tackle the problems.

As a nation our goal should be to overcome indigenous disadvantage within 10 years; to say it is going to take a generation to turn around is defeatist rubbish. I would suggest anyone advocating change over a generation or two is most likely trying to secure their own working future through into retirement (or maybe they are doing a post-doctoral longitudinal study of an indigenous community somewhere).

It is time to apply technical solutions to technical problems. Under the new approach we need people with the technical capacity to bring about substantial and sustainable improvements. The people with the necessary skills may not be Aboriginal and no doubt this will horrify the old guard. The important thing is to get the right skill set. Highly influential indigenous leaders will resist this at all costs, as it will undermine their profiles. But we must be able to recognise a con.

Change will not come any time soon unless we cast aside failed ideologies of the past and programs that cannot demonstrate measurable improvements. Community-level solutions are required to address substance abuse, improve education and enhance economic participation. It may well be that some form of representation is necessary if it is connected to community-level solutions, but let's not have the tail wag the dog; the last thing we need is a reinvention of Aborigines Talking Shit In Canberra (ATSIC).

I would suggest the real action doesn't even happen in Canberra. It is the states and territories that have carriage of responsibility for the important day-to-day services which have the greatest influence on the quality of life for indigenous people. Even though most self-respecting activists probably love to hate the federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, it is the states and territories that deliver (with varying degrees of success) services such as policing, health, education and housing. When these services are neglected, entire communities suffer and people live without hope.

This is another example of the misguided outcomes from the 2020 Summit. The summit's emphasis of federal bipartisan support for indigenous affairs is not all that relevant, considering it is the Labor Party heads of states and territories that are consistently under-performing through ill-conceived, ad-hoc programs designed to market action rather than actually solve problems. In each jurisdiction substantial changes are needed to their methods of operation.

There's not much the federal Opposition Leader can do about that. Under the new approach we need to hold accountable the states and territories.

The paralysing effect of consultation is yet another problem on the list of con jobs that must be managed. The trend in recent years has seen indigenous programs subject to debilitating consultation, as if for some reason Aboriginal communities must reach consensus on all matters. Granted, there are plenty of instances where consultation will improve the effectiveness of a project, however there needs to be a balance between the legal or business outcomes and the benefit of imposing additional time and costs. There isn't much time to build strong communities when people spend their time in an unending stream of meetings.

Under the new approach we need to hold accountable Aboriginal leaders of communities and organisations. Within their membership or geographic area there must be performance outcomes in the fight to overcome disadvantage. There should be no latitude when people attempt to hide behind or exploit culture while spending taxpayers' money.

If there is any bureaucrat that questions whether such accountability is appropriate in Aboriginal culture, then we will know the old confidence tricks are still alive and well.

Next time you are at an event and an indigenous person is expounding a course of action; ask yourself who is the real beneficiary and whether what they are proposing will help build safe, vibrant and economic communities.

Wesley Aird is a member of the Gold Coast Native Title Group and a board member of the Bennelong Society.