This article first appeared in The Australian, 9 August 2006

The way Brough can make his mark

Wesley Aird

There has been a recent flurry in calls for more funding to overcome indigenous disadvantage. First it was the ritzy lunch for Reconciliation Australia, then the submission made by Victoria and NSW last week as part of the Treasurer's discussion on distribution of GST funds. This week the Australian Medical Association joined the call. Increases in funding are good: but will the bureaucracies just spend good money after bad? But surely the issue here is how the money is spent.

Whether it is the reconciliation movement or the state treasurers, someone is always calling for more funds for indigenous affairs. But the indigenous budget has steadily increased every year under the Howard Government and even the Productivity Commission admits we aren't seeing significant improvements in the social indicators.

Back in the good ol' days, reconciliation was there to make people feel good while the Aborigine and Torres Strait Islander Commission was meant to fix the problems. Well, ATSIC didn't fix much and so it was abolished. In the void we were given two key initiatives: the Council of Australian Governments' community trials in holistic management; and the principles of shared responsibility and mutual obligation.

The best we can do is surmise that the COAG trials weren't a great success; otherwise we would have heard all about them by now. The rate of sign-ups for new Shared Responsibility Agreements has been in steady decline for the past year. And worse, Regional Partnership Agreements---the mechanisms that really can bring about positive change---have only one signatory to date, the Ngaanyatjarra Council, Western Australia, which signed in August 2005.

Indigenous people have been hopelessly let down by decades of the "silo approach" to program management. Year after year we see gaps and overlaps at all levels. We continue to see avoidance of responsibility by the states and territories. Even this year, under the whole-of-government approach, indigenous groups around the country continue to apply "hell, west and crooked" for grant funding. Last year the people of Wadeye made 60 different applications for funds to run their community. This year, they are filling out more than 90. So much for the new approach that was going to cut the red tape!

We may not like to admit it, but there are irrefutable parallels between many indigenous communities across Australia and Third World communities overseas receiving assistance through international development projects.

All around the world there are Australian contractors in Third World communities working for a different federal department---AusAID. Australia regularly exports its community development expertise around the world and the thinking and skills could be applied here in indigenous communities. It is time for a shift to a developmental methodology.

With developmental thinking, programs would be subject to scrutiny in terms of a benefit-cost analysis. Programs would have a more stringent framework to solve problems, not to fund personalities. They would be measured not on how much money was committed, but instead on whether there were real and sustainable improvements. Program accountability would be objective, not political. A new thinking could let economics into Aboriginal affairs. But none of this takes more money, just a rethink on how it is spent---and an admission by all levels of government that indigenous people must be a part of the solution.

It isn't good enough to just rejig the budget and let the bureaucracy handle the rest. Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough has a choice. On the one hand, government can continue the top-down approach and just hand out money like it has done to little avail over the years. If so, he can't expect to be remembered as much more than the fourth Howard Government indigenous affairs minister. On the other hand, he can bring about a paradigm shift and have his department genuinely engage indigenous communities through a developmental approach. He must also, somehow, convince the states and territories to be a part of a new approach.

The catch is that this necessary paradigm shift is not likely to be meaningful and effective unless it comes with a new outlook and a new skill set. The lacklustre performance of mutual obligation over the past two years is not because of the concept---the concept has a lot of merit. The problem is the want of technical know-how within the ranks of public servants. Having said that, the technical proficiency is readily available.

The Minister wants to quickly bring about genuine improvements in the lives of indigenous people. On this, he has my full support. Both the man and his aspiration are widely supported by indigenous people. But he will be struggling to achieve much unless he can break away from the same old-fashioned administration that has maintained indigenous disadvantage through the recent era.