Bennelong Society Conference 2003:
An Indigenous Future? Challenges and Opportunities

Remote Communities and the Need for Balance and Partnership

Chris Marshall

When I was asked to speak about the problems in remote communities, I hesitated for two main reasons---the first being that I wasn't really sure that I had something to say. The longer I am involved in Aboriginal affairs the more reticent I feel about adding to all that has already been said about it all. I generally prefer to do the stuff rather than talk about it.

The other reason is that I'm doing native title work in Victoria this year and it has required considerable effort to turn my mind from the challenges of the post-Yorta Yorta native title environment to reflecting on what is going on in remote communities.

But I do thank you for the invitation to speak. It has for me involved a very worthwhile discipline, forcing me to distil from my experiences of working and living in remote communities a few key observations for the time that's available to me today. These are complex issues and there can be no pat answers.

I also want to acknowledge, as did Minister Ruddock, that we are meeting on the traditional land of the Ngunnawal people.

And I applaud the Bennelong Society's stated objects of promoting debate and analysis of Aboriginal policy in Australia so that policy settings can serve the best interests of the indigenous peoples of this country.

My Own Rich Experience in Remote Communities

I want to say at the outset that my life has been immeasurably enriched by my experiences with remote Aboriginal communities over the last 30 years. As a young man at Hooker Creek (as it was then called---now Lajamanu) I worked alongside the Walpiri tribal men. I sweated and laboured alongside them, and they sweated and laboured as hard as I did. I hunted with them. I attended their ceremonies and observed the superb theatre of the Walpiri initiation cycle. Absolutely wonderful!

I was then a member of the final group of Northern Territory field officers to go through the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) in Sydney. We graduated in 1974 having been trained in such things as law, community development, economic development, anthropology, political science and human development.

With that preparation for the work in remote communities I was posted to Areyonga, west of Alice Springs, where I was a community development practitioner for three years. There I met and married my wife---an event in which the whole community was involved.

A few years later---in the early 1980s---I spent three years at Warburton Ranges (Western Australia) as a community development practitioner, and I mention that time because it is relevant to what I want to say today. I went to Warburton because it was in a state of serious dysfunction. The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs of the day was Senator Chaney---if I may say so, a fine Minister for Aboriginal Affairs---and he declared, if I recall correctly, that Warburton may in his experience as Minister have been the worst Aboriginal community in Australia.

It was certainly very troubled. The nursing staff had all walked out, having been subjected to threats and intimidation. There were constant attacks on public infrastructure; rocks rained on the rooves of staff houses at night; petrol sniffing, public drunkenness and general alienation were the order of the day. It had reached a stage where even basic services were barely being provided.

I went there as an officer of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (Commonwealth) because of the Minister's concern and, indeed, as a result of a departmental assessment (to which I contributed) that some form of direct intervention was required. In fact, I volunteered to go there and I was given, as part of my role, the capacity to coordinate all staff working in the community---whether employed by the community or by government agencies, State or Commonwealth.

Now that is relevant because that sort of cohesion is something that we've lost at the community level. Nowadays every agency working within communities seems to need to protect its own right to autonomy---to get on with what it perceives to be its own good works without much cooperation or sense of teamwork. More on that shortly.

In more recent years I have performed several regional roles working variously with the remote communities in the Pitjantjatjara-Yankuntjatjara region in the extreme northwest of South Australia, the Ngaanyatjarra communities of West Australia, and I spent 10 years setting up and managing a royalty association based in Alice Springs---the Ngurratjuta Association.

In all these tasks I have received as much as I have given and have counted it a privilege to have been involved with remote communities. I love the unaffected humanity of the people---the wonderful personalities, their generosity, tolerance and good humour, and the essential 'otherness' of the cultural values.

The many frustrations and demands involved in working in remote communities have not dimmed my admiration and respect for the people one finds in those communities and I probably should admit that it's not hard for one to become a little bit assimilated oneself.

Remoteness is a Relative Concept

I want to say that remoteness is a very relative concept. If you've grown up in a place like Papunya or Pipalyatjara, Sydney and Melbourne are very remote places. And why should Sydney or Melbourne, or even Canberra, necessarily be the measure of things?

Mr or Mrs Average in some community may find it very interesting to visit such remote places---that is, the remote places on the southeast coastal fringe of this country---but they do not generally aspire to participate in that alien society. The aspirations of most people in remote communities are very different from those in the mainstream and they possess a very different view of what the good life is.

I want to suggest that there is something precious about those cultural values that are so different our own, and that their loss should not even be accepted with resignation, let alone with approbation. Having said that, there is immense value in biculturalism---just so long as matters of individual identity are treated with sensitivity.

The New Assimilationism

This leads me to say that I have some difficulty with the new assimilationism that is being advocated in some quarters. Whilst I understand its tenor, I think that it can too easily involve an ethnocentric absence of respect for Aboriginal 'otherness'.

It is one thing to suggest that indigenous people need to become more bicultural in order to increase their own range of choices, but quite another thing to suggest that they need to be actively encouraged to abandon their own unsatisfactory cultural identity in order to become like us. Respect is the essential attitudinal difference involved here.

Assimilation is, in any case, a one-way street, and it is the inevitable effect of all of our programs for education, health and housing. There can be no doubt that no extreme of 'remoteness' can prevent the unrelenting inroads of the dominant culture on the minds and lives of indigenous people, with virtually all Government assistance programs having the inevitable effect of making 'them' more like 'us'.

Stasis is simply not possible. The reality is that even in the most remote communities a process of rapid cultural change is underway. There is no need to advocate assimilation when it is a given. Rather, there is a need to provide support to remote black townships so that the casualty rate of this process of rapid cultural change can be minimised.

I am not advocating a romantic primitivism. I'm merely saying that, for all their problems, remote communities generally offer a better chance for their residents to live happy and fulfilled lives than the only real alternative, which (from the perspective, at least, of someone like myself who lives in Central Australia) is a move to Alice Springs to live as urban fringe dwellers in often ghetto-like town camps.

Tribal people in remote Australia generally want to live in their own townships, on their own land, and amongst their own relatives.

An Eye-Witness Report from 'Remote' Australia

But lest you think that I inhabit some sort of romantic fog in relation to these issues, I want to present you with some sort of first hand report. I've been home in Alice Springs for the last few days and I can share a little vignette to make the point that there's a high casualty rate out there.

We had a visit from an Aboriginal woman---a dropout from community life---who has lived in Alice Springs for some years and who does it tough. She visits us from time to time and in the decade or so that we've know her she's lost her husband, a son, a sister, and a daughter and her visit afforded an opportunity to hear of her latest bereavements. Her brother and his wife had just been killed when their car had rolled over.

On top of this, in just those very few days back home at Alice Springs I received disturbing news from several communities. At Balgo (WA) the community was mourning two deaths in recent days---one being that of a child who had been shot. At Pipalyatjara a man had been knifed to death over an argument concerning his own brother's funeral.

At Galiwinku (Elcho Island) a climate of fear and sorcery was said to be prevailing, with several families being forced to move out of the community to Darwin---where they don't particularly want to be, and where they must run the gauntlet of the recently-introduced Government policy whereby they may be given one-way airfares to go back to the community.

While this is the Government's measure to get the so-called 'long grassers' out of Darwin, the people affected can become no different from refugees---forced from their communities by various adverse circumstances, but then unable to find refuge elsewhere. So you have people being forced out of their communities by dysfunction, fear, sorcery, and conflict and then being forced back to their communities because Darwin and Alice Springs don't want them. It's not easy.

The Situation on the Pitjantjatjara Lands

I spent all of last year working on the Pitjantjatjara lands---based in the Canberra of the lands, Umuwa---and I was struck by the dramatic deterioration in the quality of life that has occurred at Pukatja (Ernabella) and at other communities on the lands---Fregon and Amata in particular---over the past couple of decades. I used to be the Department of Aboriginal Affairs Area Officer responsible for the administration of Commonwealth programs in those communities so I know what they used to be like.

The effect of petrol sniffing, in particular, on community life has been devastating and, while it tends to be somewhat cyclical in terms of its intensity, petrol sniffing constitutes a serious its threat to the social fabric of several remote communities.

I am not alone in my view that somewhere along the line something went wrong in the Pitjantjatjara communities. The causes are complex, but they would include the following:

• unrealistic expectations of land rights

While the essential justice of the grant of freehold title to the Pitjantjatjara people is incontrovertible, it is certainly arguable that the social effect of the granting of land rights has been deleterious. In a situation of weakened social controls and uncertain sanctions the tendency of individuals at all levels to behave as if no-one can tell them what to do on their own land undoubtedly contributes to general dysfunction.

• loss of cohesion at the community level---a factor I referred to earlier

There used to be a senior co-ordinating staff member (community adviser) in every community, with all staff understanding that their activities were undertaken under the broad direction of that authority. These days there is less co-ordination of effort and staff are employed with a more administrative function, rather than having an overall co-ordinating role.

• the rush to introduce new technologies

We have social impact assessments undertaken if we're going to do mining on Aboriginal land, but we don't have social impact assessments if we're going to suddenly put a television in every home in some remote community, or roll out other new technologies.

Such technologies are assumed to be good for everyone. At the risk of appearing a Luddite I want to suggest the need for a more sensitive and consultative introduction of new technologies. But the Networking the Nation juggernaut rolls on.

• policing methods

Now I don't want to be down on the police, who are trying to be innovative and culturally aware in a lot of places, but certainly there is a real need to have another look at how policing is done on the Pitjantjatjara lands.

And so I could go on. Social deterioration is over-determined and the causes are complex.

It also needs to be said, however, that Pitjantjatjara people do not see their communities as distressed to the extent that we do. But they are aware, of course, that they have some significant problems and that life has not necessarily changed for the better. How could they not be aware of the social devastation wrought by petrol-sniffing, in particular, when that behaviour is on daily public display?

Report of the Positives

I've given this paper a working title---'The Need for Balance and Partnership'. In Aboriginal affairs we tend to lurch from one policy position to another, and often tend to throw out babies with bath water without achieving the necessary balance in relation to complex issues. As for the Pitjantjatjara communities, there are still a lot of positive things happening---Aboriginal people exercising control and responsibility in community management, in the art centres, in land management issues on the Lands, and in the churches in every community.

The trend in all remote communities is not necessarily toward greater dysfunction. There are many examples of a demonstrable improvements in the quality of community life and, in that regard, I cannot but refer back to my own years at Warburton in the early '80s. We saw decided improvement in the quality of life, in social cohesion and in the level of security and peace in which the Aboriginal families of that community could live their lives. There was a range of factors there---quite apart from my own community development input.

Indeed, there was a dramatic revival of Christian commitment in the Ngaanyatjarra communities at the time, which certainly contributed greatly to the community development effort. Such was its impact that Jana Wendt came out and did a 'Sixty Minutes' story on the revival in 1982. For a brief time there was no better good news story in the country!

Unfortunately the Almighty does not always make such a dramatic contribution to community development, but my own experience at Warburton and, prior to that, at Areyonga has convinced me that the application of community development principles can contribute significantly to social amelioration.

An assessment carried out last month by the responsible Department in the Northern Territory concluded that, of the 24 major communities in central Australia, just six were adjudged to be seriously dysfunctional---that is, 25 per cent.

Now we could go into the criteria used in making such judgements. It may be, for instance, that their criteria were a tad narrow in their focus---that, for example, proper governance was said to be occurring at a given community if council meetings were being held and if the Town Clerk was doing his job such as to allow certain administrative boxes to be ticked---rather than looking at the full picture of quality of community life and well-being.

But the point, nevertheless, is that the Department judged only 25 per cent of Centralian indigenous communities to be seriously dysfunctional.

Depending on your perspective, this could be seen as encouraging. It could, of course, also be seen as profoundly disturbing. I take the former view. Such are the pressures on remote community life these days that the fact that the great majority of Centralian communities are not seen as seriously dysfunctional has to be seen as a sign of hope.

In explaining community dysfunction the most immediate key variable seems to be the competence of the (generally non-indigenous) administrator or Town Clerk and the extent to which that individual facilitates and promotes participatory management, community development and community cohesion.

There are a range of more complex factors---related to geography, history, social and spiritual dynamics---but the dependence on a single authoritative individual to mediate contact with the external environment is generally fairly significant.

There have in my experience been several indigenous administrators with the capacity to give real leadership to non-indigenous staff at the community level and who have therefore been key figures in determining community cohesion. Alison Anderson, before she went into national ATSIC politics, was an outstanding community leader at Papunya. Archie Barton at Yalata, Robert Lee at Barunga and Cedric Wyatt at Jigalong are other talented indigenous administrators who have worked in remote communities.

But it is generally the non-Aboriginal input that creates an environment in which local people can contribute and exercise responsibility.

The Need for Better Local Government Arrangements

As a general observation, I think those communities that exist within some form of supportive local government arrangement are generally less likely to be dysfunctional than those that do not have such a structure. Local government arrangements not only tend to require an administrative discipline that in turn necessitates the employment of competent administrators at the community level, but they also provide an external network that can both foster accountability and provide support in times of crisis.

Some positive examples are the Ngaanyatjarra communities in WA, with their own Ngaanyatjarra Shire, and parts of the Northern Territory, though there is in the Territory a need to move beyond the community government scheme to something that is more regional in scope. (In this context, I was involved in developing a new model of regional governance for the Tiwi Islands, involving the establishment of a Tiwi Assembly with representation from both traditional land-owning clans and elected community councils.)

Communities that would appear to need better local government-type structures to help ameliorate local dysfunction would include the Pitjantjatjara communities in South Australia and Balgo (Wirrimanu) and its neighbours in the southern Kimberley area. The Balgo area is nominally part of the Halls Creek Shire, but is not represented on the Shire Council and receives minimal services or support from that Shire.

The Missing Ingredient---Community Development

I was last here at University House in 1977 when I attended a significant national 'Community Development and Planning Seminar' organised by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Ian Viner was the Minister at the time.

The stated purpose of that seminar was 'to examine the delivery of advisory services to Aboriginal communities, to propose suitable strategies to upgrade the Department's involvement in Aboriginal advancement through community development, to identify the roles of departmental and other field staff in community development, and to discuss the selection and training of change agents.' (Italics added)

The key point to note here is that the assumption underlying all departmental policy considerations was that remote communities required the implementation of an agenda for positive change through the application of community development principles. I can recall that there was a good deal of discussion at the Seminar about whether departmental public servants should themselves be community development practitioners, but no-one questioned the underlying assumption.

I want to suggest that the missing ingredient these days---the thing that we talked about twenty years ago, but that we seem to have forgotten today---is community development. There is a buzz-word these days---'capacity building'---which means many things to many people and which, in any case, cannot properly describe the process that I understand to be enshrined in the concept of 'community development'.

Community development has a literature and a track record and, by definition, it relates only to communities.

It is about developing people and their capacity and control. It is not principally about bricks and mortar. It requires skilled intervention and it views communities not as passive recipients of services but as active participants in planning and implementing development. It is a specialised form of social work.

We pump armies of social workers out of our universities to do social casework with needy individuals and groups but we have seriously neglected the need for similarly-skilled people to work with communities.

The community development process in an accepted part of the government assistance process in similar situations in the Third and Fourth worlds, but in Australia we seem to have reacted to a few negative comments about the paternalistic 'white advisers' by removing all such skilled intervention and adhering to a fiction that transformation will occur if we simply keep repeating the self-determination mantra.

We do nothing to ensure that community development professionals are available to work with remote communities and then we complain about social dysfunction when communities are forced to employ persons unprepared for the job at hand.

Indigenous leaders in remote communities are often subject to extraordinary pressure and they require much better support than is generally available to them. They have to engage with the multitudinous external agencies and organisations that inhabit indigenous affairs these days and they are often expected to deal with every problem that arises at the community level. They burn out. They deserve better.

The Whitlam Government's scrapping in 1974 of the full-time training course for Northern Territory Field Officers was, in my view, a serious mistake, but no subsequent Federal Government has done anything to fill the void.

The remote community is a tough place to work in---tougher than ever before. Community development is hard work. It requires (if I may use a phrase that Mick Dodson used in that recent 'Four Corners' program on ATSIC) 'moral courage', and there is these days very little of the idealism that used to abound in the 1970s and 1980s and that moved to many well-motivated people to apply for positions on remote communities.

The quality of everyday life for people in remote communities is dependant very much on local factors, rather than on regional and other structures. That is to say that, while national bodies like ATSIC, regional umbrella organisations, native title PBCs, land councils, local government bodies etc may all have an important role to play, it is local factors that are the key determinants of community well-being.

Any program or initiative conceived outside of the local community is only as good as the quality of its implementation at the community level.

So, Where to From Here?

I will conclude by offering a few key propositions:

• No real community development can occur without there being a basic level of peace and stability. This raises issues about policing, zero tolerance of criminal behaviour, the enforcement of sanctions in relation to anti-social behaviour etc
• Government assistance programs must be such as to enable people to become bicultural---capable of moving easily between their home community and the wider world and capable of contributing constructively to both. A romantic celebration of a traditional lifestyle can often ignore the reality that the younger generation of remote community residents have aspirations that go well beyond the maintenance of traditional pursuits.
• There is a need to devise ways of supporting individual indigenous enterprise initiatives in remote communities and on Aboriginal land. The system currently tends to put up rather too many disincentives---such as the need to share any profits with traditional land owners---when indigenous entrepreneurs attempt to undertake a new commercial activity.
• State and local government regulations should be made to apply unless there is good reason for them not to. (At Balgo, for instance, the Building Code, the Dog Act, and various health regulations do not apply and so the Crown is not bound to ensure compliance, as it should be)
• Where communities have become seriously dysfunctional, then there has to be a willingness on the part of Government to take decisive action, so long as there is informed community consent.
• Such action will generally focus on the capacity of Government to appoint a skilled person with leadership authority, administrative capacity and a community development commitment, with responsibility for the co-ordination of all Government assistance (Commonwealth, State and local government) to the community.
• In such circumstances there could be some form of negotiated agreement between Government and the community, whereby continued subvention may become dependent on such factors as kids attending school, people being willing to work where there are jobs available or else losing Centrelink or CDEP entitlements, and people generally taking responsibility. The Government appointee would have powers to be an agent of genuine change, with responsibility for restoring a basic platform for community development and with an authority endorsed at Ministerial level.
• The beer canteens are generally, in my view, destructive of community life and should be closed down. Alcohol is simply destroying some communities. The canteen at Oenpelli, the Taj Mahal boozer at Aurukun, and similar 'clubs' are not promoting 'responsible' drinking but, rather, are damaging family life and community harmony.
• We need to get back to the participatory planning approach and to 'solution-focussed practice' that draws on people's own strengths. As Minister Ruddock said here today, there are solutions. Positive change is possible.
• We need always to adopt approaches that build partnership at the community level. Generally the answer to the problems of remote communities will be found through the development of appropriate forms of local government, but augmented by the application of community development practices.

Are remote communities still viable places of residence? A thousand times 'yes', but they need sensitive, coordinated support.

I conclude with a quote from David Turner---an anthropologist who in 1986 wrote a report for the Northern Territory Government on the introduction of a community government scheme in remote Territory communities:

'Somewhere between assimilation and separate development---between incorporation and exclusion---lies a middle ground. It is a ground much sought after, but only rarely achieved, in history. Once won, it is a ground to be defended at all costs.'

['Transformation and Tradition: A Report on Aboriginal Development in the Northern Territory of Australia' (1986)]