Bennelong Society Conference 2004:
Pathways and Policies for Indigenous Futures

Seize the Moment

Hon. Tony Abbott

For 200 years, nearly every speaker on Aboriginal policy has dwelt on problems: the difficulties of preventing conflict, building relationships, generating resources, and dealing with dispossession. Problems there are and they can't be ignored or glossed over. They are among the most serious and intractable problems our society faces. But fixating on problems, however natural the temptation, won't make them better.

How productive has all this doom-saying been? It's surely more useful to focus on the opportunities now presenting themselves to break free from the old destructive cycles of guilt, anger and victimhood. We've all moved on from 'identity politics'. A society which has successfully adapted to the presence of millions of newcomers from every corner of the globe should be more than capable of giving its indigenous people a fair go, especially as the new generation of indigenous leaders want to be modern Australians as well as distinctively Aboriginal. As Noel Pearson puts it, Aboriginal people should be confident and comfortable whether they're in the bush or the boardroom.

The facts of history can't be changed. The challenge is to learn from them, not dwell on them. It's important to acknowledge past mistakes and mutual misunderstandings in the way that decent people do. Even so, the task that matters most is enabling Aboriginal people to create for themselves what other Australians create namely, safe communities, good schools, reasonable health and normal prospects of a better life for their children.

The big difference between the old policy paradigm and the new is that it's no longer as pre-occupied with race and guilt. Racism used to be offered as the complete explanation for Aboriginal poverty, alienation and early death. Racism hasn't disappeared. Still, if racism caused poverty, why hasn't poverty declined as racism diminished?

Pearson's great insight has been to understand that people living in welfare dependent communities are poor and alienated regardless of their colour or their location. The Aboriginal communities of Cape York aren't poor because they're black but because there's no economic base and almost no one has a real job. By all means, says Pearson, pursue apologies and treaties but the right response to poverty in Aboriginal communities is to prevent substance abuse, promote good education (mainly in English rather than community languages), foster personal responsibility and encourage people to take whatever economic opportunities present themselves. However real the injustice and whatever the case for extra government help, to Pearson and his allies the big task is not to lament historical injustice or to demand more funding but to restore purpose and self-respect to people's lives.

According to Pearson, idleness is the scourge of most Aboriginal communities. Drunkenness and drug addiction is the inevitable by-product of having nothing much to do. Reconstructing the social fabric means reducing alcohol availability and enforcing the rules which are supposed to mean 'no show, no pay' for Aboriginal work for the dole schemes. It means creating a local service economy where local people rather than outside contractors work to meet community needs (such as road maintenance, house building and municipal services). It also means finding ways to treat Aboriginal land as an economic as well as a cultural asset. To Pearson, the most corrosive feature of long-term life on welfare is the dependency and defeatism it inevitably brings.

The Pearson critique is a serious challenge to the political left and a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the political right. The left has consistently let down indigenous people because of its faith that, despite failing everywhere else, somehow socialism might work in Aboriginal communities. The right once alienated indigenous people by demanding that they lose their identity and become 'just like everyone else'. In a more multi-cultural era, conservatives regard Aboriginal people as fellow Australians who need a hand to break out of the welfare cycle.

By contrast, as Pearson has noted, there's something self-serving in the left's pre-occupation with Aboriginal disadvantage when it's used to 'prove' the charge that Australia is essentially unfair. Poor and alienated Aborigines are 'exhibit A' in the left's indictment of Australian society. Poor Aborigines vindicate the left's social critique but successful Aborigines undermine it---hence Pearson's doubts about whether the left is serious.

Because we can't change the past, we should be more determined to change the future. The objective indicators of Aboriginal disadvantage should not be regarded as a moral judgment on yesterday so much as a spur to action today. They highlight the vast challenge still facing us if Australia is to be the land of opportunity for all that we think is our nation's 'best self'.

The early settlers' hostility, indifference or sympathetic curiosity (as to a dying friend) towards indigenous culture reinforced the 'otherness' between indigenous and European Australians which subsequent goodwill has not fully resolved. Indeed, a new problem has been created: the 'idealisation' of Aboriginal ways of life and the treatment of Aboriginal individuals and entities as artefacts to be displayed, preserved and sometimes excused.

Pearson calls this 'romantic foolishness about Aboriginal people' and comments that 'the vast majority of those who have seen themselves as allies in the political struggle have had utopian tendencies in their thinking about indigenous people'. We owe it to our Aboriginal fellow Australians to treat them as human beings with the same vices and virtues, strengths and weaknesses, capacities and limitations as anyone else in similar circumstances. Heritage is important to Aboriginal people but, like everyone else, they also have lives to get on with.

Pearson has skewered this latest version of the fable of the 'noble savage'. In a speech in May, the prominent Jesuit, Frank Brennan, claimed that the most difficult task of Aboriginal Australians was to transcend the 'secularism, materialism and individualism of Australian society'. Brennan has done much good work for Aboriginal people but now seems keen for them to validate his own critique of contemporary Australia and to live out his (and not necessarily their) conceptions of what a decent society might be. Pearson's riposte was deadly: 'Man cannot live by bread alone but he does need bread'.

For the past five years, at great cost to his standing with the politically correct, Pearson has hammered the theme: 'our right to take responsibility'. Along with others in Cape York, he's devised practical ways to restore community tranquility (by limiting tavern hours), to empower individuals and families (by encouraging family budgeting) and to create a business mind-set (by promoting micro-credit for would-be business people).

It takes rare courage to tell disadvantaged people that their own efforts will determine their future---especially when the chattering classes insist that only government can really help. The jealousies of potential rivals and the disappointments of working with demoralised communities make leadership of this quality very hard to sustain---so government needs to respond decisively to the opportunities it provides.

Since 1996, the Howard Government has taken the view that big symbolic gestures matter less than empowering individuals, families and communities. The Government thinks that meaningful reconciliation is much more likely to be achieved when people have jobs, a good education and decent places to live than through formal apologies or institutionalised processes. Reconciliation can't be ordained by government. It can only take place when people feel respect for themselves and for each other. Better indigenous outcomes depend on trust and friendship as much as money and programmes, the kind of personal engagement now being fostered through Indigenous Community Volunteers.

The Government has tried to replace 'feel good' programmes with 'do good' programmes. Since 1996, spending on indigenous measures has increased by over 40 per cent to nearly $3 billion (or more than $5,000 for every indigenous man, woman and child) and spending on Aboriginal people under general programmes has also increased. For instance, indigenous use of Medicare and the PBS has increased from 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the general community rate since 1996.

Still, as successive governments have found, it's easy to spend money on indigenous programmes but much harder to make a difference. Rather than fund large-scale 'commercial ventures' which need perpetual subsidy, the Government has tried to make it easier for individual Aboriginal business people prepared to have a go. The Government has backed Aboriginal development projects supported by a strong business case but it has never pretended that full-time, standard wage jobs are likely to exist for everyone living in remote areas. A self-employment programme to make interest free loans of up to $5000 is an important micro-business innovation. Three of six applicants in Shepparton and 34 of 38 applicants in western NSW have commenced repayments after starting businesses such as lawn mowing, photography, book-keeping and hair dressing. It's a small start, no doubt, but a necessary introduction to the real economy.

In 1998, the Government changed the Native Title Act to facilitate economic development on Aboriginal land. The number of indigenous land use agreements has risen from just 6 in 2000 to 130 now. Developments include new mines, tourist ventures and industrial parks, usually with guarantees of training and employment for local Aboriginal people.

Rather than leave things in the 'too hard basket', usually in the name of cultural sensitivity, the Government has opted for enlightened pragmatism. For instance, it deployed army engineers to build houses and improve water supplies when this proved beyond the capacity of standard contractual arrangements. It badgered ATSIC into noticing the domestic violence pandemic on some Aboriginal communities. It established the same separation of policy-making and administrative functions for ATSIC as has long existed within Westminster systems of government. When ATSIC finally degenerated into a 'rats in the ranks' parody, the Government decided to abolish it---to such general applause that the looming announcement was pre-empted by the Opposition!

The Government has tried to address the two biggest failings of indigenous community governance: the fragmentation of service delivery and the overloading of Aboriginal organisations. The 'whole of government' initiative is designed to ensure that governments can tackle fundamental problems rather than just aspects of them. The 'mainstreaming' initiative is designed to ensure that small communities under stress are not required to do more than is expected of others in much less difficult circumstances.

In any week, small Aboriginal communities might host visits from several different officials. Each time, all the leading figures of the community drop what they are doing to explain their issues to the distinguished outsider---and the official invariably has to refer most of them to another department. Such people are often dubbed 'seagulls' who fly in, scratch around and fly out with nothing much achieved. As one Kimberley-based indigenous leader has commented, rather than talking to the representatives of 48 different government departments and agencies, he'd like to talk to one official who can then ensure that all 48 agencies are working effectively together.

Under the 'whole of government' initiative, one federal department and one state department are designated 'lead agencies' for all the federal and state services delivered to particular Aboriginal communities. For instance, in the Cape York communities of Hopevale, Aurukun, Lockhart River and Bamaga, the federal Department of Employment and the Queensland Department of Aboriginal Affairs are working together to deliver federal and state services in a more seamless way. If there's a truancy problem, instead of pointlessly hassling teachers, the secretaries of the two departments could facilitate a decision to change tavern hours and support local police to stop late night parties so that children wake up in time to attend school.

In remote parts of Australia, traditional authority was replaced by mission authority which has often been replaced by no authority. Often, community councils exercise little sway over non-kin. General managers are often short-lived because they have to placate unstable majorities on council to keep their jobs. So far, the most dramatic move to provide effective leadership for chronically divided and demoralised communities has been the appointment of former Senator Bob Collins to act as administrator of the Pit Lands in South Australia. Unfortunately, Collins' car accident and lengthy hospitalisation has not allowed this domestic application of the 'Solomon Islands doctrine' (or modern version of the district officers who once did such good work in PNG) to be effective. Still, the fact that the South Australian Labor Government took this drastic step shows a welcome awareness that it's impossible to ask people who can't always manage effective work-for-the-dole schemes to run entire communities.

The Northern Territory Indigenous Affairs Minister, John Ahkit, has pointed out that, in the name of self-management, indigenous communities are required to run a wider range of services than Darwin City Council. As the historian, John Hirst, puts it: 'If I had to coordinate with 100 neighbours to organise water supply, street sweeping, garbage collection and running a corner store, the jobs would not be well done and I would spend too many frustrating hours in committees. But Aborigines, poor bastards, were told they should run their own services. The compensation for years of oppression was the opportunity to control their own sewerage'. According to Hirst, misguided and unrealistic expectations of 'culturally sensitive' service delivery along cooperative principles---but without waste and mismanagement---require community leaders who are a 'cross between a 70s hippie and a 90s accountant'.

'Mainstreaming' indigenous services should not mean less culturally appropriate services, just more professionally delivered services. It certainly won't mean less spending on indigenous services but ought to mean more effective delivery to indigenous people. Freeing local Aborigines from the need to be general managers might enable them to be more effective artists and tradesmen. For instance, health services have been 'mainstreamed' through federal, state and territory health departments for years. This hasn't yet produced satisfactory health outcomes (which depend upon lifestyle at least as much as access to doctors and nurses) but it has produced more comprehensive health services. Sometimes, the doctors and nurses serving indigenous communities are employed by government, sometimes by local collectives and sometimes by Aboriginal controlled health organisations but, in each case, the quality of the service is the responsibility of government.

It's too early to say how much these initiatives have helped Aboriginal communities' social fabric. Aurukun has limited its tavern hours and seems to have boosted school attendance. Lockhart is trying to implement an alcohol control plan but worries it might be undermined by takeaways from the Archer River roadhouse three hours drive away. Aboriginal community police are often no more resolute towards anti-social behaviour and petty crime than their white counterparts in Kings Cross. So far, there has been no agreement to keep and publish regular statistics on things like school and work attendance and trauma presentations which might indicate each community's progress.

Still, people like Pearson think that a start has been made and worry about the consequences of going back to the days when no one was expected to exercise any personal responsibility. The last things indigenous people need more of, Pearson thinks, are 'libertarian social values and bewildered and ... hesitant government policies in the areas of social order and substance abuse'.

Last year, a 22 year old from Cape York told the harrowing story that of the 15 people in her class, she was the only one who had finished secondary school and the only girl who did not have a child at 15. Only three were not alcoholics and, of the boys, seven had been in gaol, two for murder. Four of her classmates had committed suicide. It's easy to find communities at breaking point but this is not the whole picture. The 22 year old in question was herself a university graduate who had come home determined to make a difference.

The Tiwi Islands have been in the news for youth suicide and substance abuse but not for the Silvertech forestry development, a new barramundi aquaculture farm and an indigenous owned and operated island ferry service. Petrol sniffers are news but not their banishment to out-stations, such as Mt Theo, which has virtually eliminated sniffing from Yuendumu. Almost universal welfare dependency in remote Aboriginal communities is taken for granted but not the determination of elders in places like Daly River to demand activity testing and compulsory participation in work schemes. For all the understandable focus on 'third world' squalor, there are Aboriginal communities such as Bamaga and Seisia which win 'tidy town' awards.

The statistics don't justify the common view that the lot of indigenous people is going from bad to worse. Since 1996, under the Howard Government, the indigenous year 12 retention rate has risen from 29 to 39 per cent. The number of indigenous TAFE students has increased from 26,000 to 60,000. There are 36 per cent more indigenous university students. The number of indigenous people employed in the private sector has risen from 44,000 to 55,000. The number of indigenous nurses has increased by a third and doctors by a half. Since 1994, indigenous death rates from respiratory illness and infectious diseases have fallen by more than 50 per cent (but are still some four times the national average). Between 1996 and 2001, the proportion of Aborigines earning more than $600 a week rose 20 per cent faster than for the rest of the Australian workforce.

These figures are not grounds for satisfaction let alone complacency because of the vast disparity remaining between Aborigines and other Australians. They indicate that change is hard but not impossible when enough people want to make a difference. The past is littered with failures and disappointments. What's insufficiently recognised is the effort many black and white Australians have always made to engage with each other.

The past provides examples of heroic commitment to the welfare of Aboriginal people as well as misunderstanding, insensitivity and exploitation. In 1922, Pastor Carl Strehlow died of pleurisy because he didn't want to leave his post at Hermannsburg Mission. If so many people, for different reasons, had not been so conflict-obsessed, Strehlow's story might have become as well known and as iconic as the story of Simpson at Gallipoli. Admiring the work of missionaries remains deeply unfashionable but how many of the culturally correct critics have the same commitment or have inspired the same love.