Bennelong Society Conference 2002: Celebrating Integration

Policies for the Future

Judy Spence

Acknowledgements

• Traditional Owners
• Senator John Herron, President of the Bennelong Society;
• Ms Boni Robertson, Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Task Force on Violence;
• Guest speakers and delegates; Ladies and gentlemen

Good afternoon.

It is my pleasure to represent the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, Judy Spence, this afternoon and to be able to speak this afternoon.

Judy is by no means big on self-promotion, but she has made enormously significant changes to the direction of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy in Queensland and I do feel privileged to represent her.

The Minister has asked that I send her good wishes and apologise that she is unable to make it to the conference.

In speaking this afternoon, I will present an overview of Queensland Government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy, but I will also emphasise some of the points within that which I think are important. I will make an attempt to highlight the distinction, where there is one, between the two.

This is an important time for the Queensland Government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, as we become better at working together, responsively, in partnership.

The most significant and effective changes that I have seen happen within communities have not been the result of services and programs, conceived in bureaucracy and overlaid on the lives of Indigenous people.

Rather, the good things---the really positive and sustainable progress for communities has come from the communities themselves, being supported by Government in the determination and delivery of their own solutions.

I will start with an example. Judy Spence recently announced additional DATSIP funding to support the Cape York Rugby League competition.

The establishment of the League is an initiative that began with the community, and was successful in receiving departmental support.

The competition, which began in May this year, has strengthened participating communities throughout the Cape, providing positive recreation, community, and personal development opportunities for the hundreds of people involved in the 19 League teams.

The League's governing body, the Cape York Rugby League Committee, has strongly supported strategies to address alcohol abuse and domestic violence in communities. It also supports positive community initiatives such as the establishment of Men's Groups, and has made all games alcohol-free from day one.

In short, Cape York Rugby League epitomises the philosophy of working together in partnership, to address the issues affecting Indigenous communities in ways that the community feels will work best.

Philosophical Framework

I'd like to begin by giving a brief overview of the kind of philosophical and policy framework which underlie what we are trying to do.

Government has a fundamental obligation to deliver services---to provide schools, hospitals, police---and over the years we've developed efficient and effective ways of delivering those services.

But people and communities don't grow just through the efficient delivery of services from outside. People and communities grow, or you could say, solve their problems, by getting together, connecting, coming up with their own solutions and, if necessary, getting outside support to put in place the solution.

The tension between a government service delivery model and a genuine community development model is, I believe, the crux of the challenge for modern governance.

I see it as an issue in all communities---I deal with issues in Ipswich, for instance, where people come to me wanting a community resource, but feel I'm passing the buck if I try to say there needs to be some community push first.

But it's particularly an issue in Aboriginal communities where a traditional service-delivery model is not producing good outcomes, either in protecting culture or even, as some of the early policy makers planned, in promoting integration.

Policy Framework

Two years ago, DATSIP was given approval by Cabinet to develop a whole new way for Government and Indigenous Queenslanders to do business together and create real change.

The process is called Towards a Queensland Government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ten-Year Partnership.

The process is about making sure that the services Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples want, are the services government is providing.

It's certainly not about waiting 10 years before anything changes.

Through the establishment of new working relationships and negotiation, the Ten-Year Partnership framework has given the Government a way to progress its commitment to improved quality of life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders.

While you don't hear much about the broad Ten-Year Partnership Agreement, you do hear about its offshoots.

This year, the Queensland Government has built on the Ten-Year Partnership framework, responding without reservation to the results of the Cape York Justice Study conducted by Justice Tony Fitzgerald.

The Government published its response in Meeting Challenges, Making Choices. The document responded fully to Tony Fitzgerald's observations, outlining processes for future community development through Community Justice Groups and moving quickly to change licensing requirements in communities. The changes are due to be debated in Parliament in Townsville next week.

In delivering Meeting Challenges, Making Choices, Premier Beattie made some important points. He said:

• Governments have grappled for years with the problems afflicting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Our quests for solutions have almost invariably failed.
• And that it's time to say enough is enough---and resolve to change direction...
• ... many of the reforms outlined in Meeting Challenges, Making Choices will be controversial...
• We cannot expect the answers to be easy---if they were, we would have found them long ago
• But as a government we can only do so much. There are many people in the communities who want to make a difference. We extend the hand of partnership to them. Let's work together.

The acceptance of this need to work together is premised on an understanding of the fundamental value of Aboriginal life and culture. It really doesn't sit with the somewhat loaded concept, as I see it, of Celebrating Integration.

It respects difference but believes that that difference should not be a hindrance to better outcomes.

This need to work together, whether you call it partnerships, or collaboration, or whole-of-government and whole-of-community, is being recognised by everyone in government, and for that matter, most people outside. At least in concept, it's not really a matter of debate.

There is also growing recognition of the need for government to work better with communities---on-going communication, negotiation, and effective relationships are the only way to ensure the provision of the best possible service.

The Ten-Year Partnership identifies eight priority areas to be addressed through negotiation and working together. They include:

• over-representation in the justice system;
• family violence;
• economic development;
• land, heritage and natural resources; and
• community governance.

Under each area, we've developed goals and measures so that we know what has been achieved.

These goals were negotiated with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders all over Queensland to make sure communities believed they were appropriate, and that the ways we intend to achieve the goals are the right ways.

The purpose of the negotiations is to form partnerships between Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders and the Queensland Government at the local, regional, and State levels.

The principle objectives underlying the Partnership are:

• improving outcomes for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders by individual agencies involving them in the planning, design, and delivery of their core business;
• setting outcomes and measures to drive performance and accountability;
• increasing cross agency co-ordination to achieve whole-of-government outcomes (such as notional pooling of resources);
• facilitating partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders based on sustainable community development; and
• enhancing the capacity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to negotiate directly with government.

Talking to all government departments about our shared responsibilities, and the need for cohesion and co-operation is a big part of DATSIP's job and one we're taking very seriously. Bringing matters of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy to the centre of government priorities has given DATSIP the legitimacy to do so.

Specific Agreements

No doubt you're all well aware that there can tend to be controversy about the degree of consultation and negotiation. On the one hand, a lot of Aboriginal people have been consulted to death and would like to see some change in their circumstances. On the other, as with the Fitzgerald reforms, there can be loud protest if people don't think you've consulted enough.

The Queensland Government is taking a pragmatic approach. We have moved in areas where we clearly know how communities want to address some of their issues.

A good example of this is the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Justice Agreement, which aims to address the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system.

Community Justice Groups, Juvenile Justice Bill

We're also working on agreements in the areas of Family Violence, Land, Culture and Natural Resources, and Economic Development.

Stradbroke Island

The small, community-based initiatives we're fostering on the ground reflect these broader strategies and the aims and objectives of the Ten-Year partnership as a whole.

For example, over on Stradbroke Island, there's been a great partnership forged between the local Indigenous community and one of the island's top resorts.

With support from DATSIP, Arts Queensland, and the Department of State Development, the local community has been able to develop a professional performance showcasing traditional dances, for presentation at the resort on a regular basis.

This is a locally based project which is consistent with the partnership approach and which involves a number of arms of Government, co-ordinated through DATSIP. In practice, is delivering economic growth, jobs, and increased cross-cultural awareness and reconciliation.

Reconciliation and Racism

In my view, you can't talk about reconciliation and about giving Aboriginal people, particularly urban Aboriginal people real opportunities in Australian society, without talking about racism.

I'm well aware of the fact that racism is hard to talk about in politics because it's not wise to go around offending people and I'm also really aware that it's easy for white Australians to be oblivious to its existence or to miss how it affects individuals.

But it is there, it's there in fewer opportunities for jobs, it's there in the way police will ask an Aboriginal person what they're doing when they're just walking down the street and it's there to keep you in your place through jokes told at barbeques.

If you're going to give Aboriginal people a go in the broader society, you've got to address racism. There must be reconciliation.

The Queensland Government's approach is the Reconciliation Action Plan endorsed by Cabinet in September 2001.

The Action Plan has four endorsed strategies---a communications campaign, a reconciliation forum, a business and tourism awards scheme, and a program to foster leadership.

Implementation

Of course of lot of the changes we're seeing are not happening so close to Brisbane and are not happening in the central offices of government departments.

To be successful, the Towards a Ten-Year Partnership model has to be applied in communities. For that reason the framework will give regional offices a greater role in policy and program development than ever before.

Regional officers from DATSIP and other departments will have most of the responsibility for undertaking the negotiation with communities which is to be done under Towards a Ten-Year Partnership.

The integration of the strategies I have outlined in the Queensland Indigenous Strategic Partnerships Framework, which is due for release later this year, will define a coherent strategic policy within which all relevant government agencies can respond to Indigenous issues.

The other side of this coin is that communities, too, need to change the way they work with government.

While it's easy for communities to know what government processes don't work for them, it takes certain skills to be able to identify, in concrete ways, things that need to change within government in order for the population to be better served.

People in communities don't necessarily have that education or those skills now, so the Government aims to help develop them so that Aboriginal people and Government can meet on equal terms, half way.

While the idea of self-determination has been around for twenty years, it's not been genuinely applied and efforts to build the skills base in Indigenous communities have not been effective in ways that have equipped Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders to take control of, and responsibility for, the activities occurring within their communities.

For example, it's difficult for a community wanting to change the structure of its council and the way the council's elected, to do so, if the community doesn't have a sound knowledge of how government works, and how to effectively lobby the relevant bodies.

The Queensland Government is intending to increase capacity within communities, or social capital, from two angles.

Firstly, by addressing the individual needs of communities for relevant and ongoing training programs.

Secondly, by addressing systemic needs across Government, such as how staff engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Community capacity-building is about moving from a consultation phase, to a negotiation phase. It's not appropriate any more (in fact it never was) for government to provide what it thinks Indigenous Queenslanders want.

By moving to a framework of negotiation and partnership, we're taking equal responsibility for tailoring government policies and programs to suit identified and real needs.

Community capacity-building is about making sure that the negotiations are conducted on an equal footing. And while we realise it will not be easy, we are committed to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to ensure that their aspirations are met.