Bennelong Society Conference 2005:
Remote Aboriginal Communities: Where are the Jobs?

Where are the Jobs?

John Cleary

Earlier this year the Centre for Independent Studies released my paper 'Lessons from the Tiwi Islands' in which I outlined the need for radical changes in remote aboriginal communities. I raised a number of issues resulting from my experience as the Chief Executive Officer of Tiwi Islands Local Government between 2002 and this year.

The theme of today's conference is 'Remote Aboriginal Communities: Where are the jobs?'. Well, that's not difficult to answer as there are many jobs in remote communities in local government, health, education, stores, clubs, tourism, child care , aged care, housing and resource based industries....in fact local government in the Tiwi Islands had over 500 people on its payroll as we were responsible for most community functions with nearly 400 CDEP workers providing services to those very areas. However almost all the senior jobs were held by non-indigenous people on short term contracts and all the CDEP positions were no more than subsidised 'work for the dole'. There are many reasons why this is so, chief amongst them are the complex social issues (lack of literacy and numeracy, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and mental health to name a few) and the lack of motivation created by generations of welfare dependency.

In my CIS paper which was originally in the form of a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Indigenous Council, the primary recommendation dealt with governance in which I drew attention to the over complicated systems already in place and the difficulty that indigenous residents have in understanding these. To summarise, prior to the demise of ATSIC/ATSIS, Tiwi Islands Local Government Council members had to deal with several different Federal and Territory Government Departments plus the appointed Tiwi Land Councillors (8 of whom were also appointed to TILG), the elected members of ATSIC National council and ATSIC Regional Council as well as a variety of community controlled associations such as those responsible for housing and training. There are also community associations controlling stores, clubs and art centres all with elected bodies who believe they represent the community. With all these levels of governance there is constant conflict and no clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the various levels or organisations. My strong recommendation is that a single, simple governance structure be installed for remote communities and that this be the same as that established in all mainstream Australian communities. The sad fact is that the number of local indigenous people who understand the most basic principles of governance is very small due to the low rates of literacy and numeracy and this group is getting smaller still as the older mission-educated elders meet their maker at a relatively young age. This issue of effective local governance is, I believe, fundamental to the successful development of remote aboriginal communities into modern day, economically independent townships as found in similar sized Australian communities.

I believe that the Land Rights Act should be amended in three key areas.

• First and foremost for Land Councils to be confined to their primary task of managing the land in terms of planning, environmental issues and the development of land use agreements for resource based industries and community councils. To avoid the current conflict arising from the confusion between Land Councils and Community Councils, towns and community areas should be formally leased to local government councils where members should be and mostly are, democratically elected.
• Secondly, (as we have heard this morning) for the Land Rights Act to be amended to allow for individual property rights and for the commercial use of land by indigenous people. I have already heard the response from Land Councils to this proposal which say that under the current Act, this can already happen but one needs to ask the question why it doesn't actually happen.
• Thirdly, I want to publicise the serious conflict of interest which arises for Land Councillors in the Tiwi Islands and probably elsewhere, where a number of Councillors are paid either as employees of the Land Council and/or as Directors of companies and subsidiary companies conducting businesses dependent on leases from the Land Council. This elite group of elders receive payments in relation to forestry, land trusts, tourism, transport and aquaculture businesses. During my time in the Tiwi Islands not a single cent from land leases or Land Council business interests was directed back to the communities where 99.9% of residents live. Amongst the extreme examples of this misuse of available funds were the 6 Land Councillors who were taken on an all expenses paid 3 week round the world trip.

One business set up by the Land Council and operated in partnership with a private company was 'Tiwi Barge' which has monopoly rights to all freight shipped to and from the islands. On many occasions comparative freight rates were obtained from a rival company (Perkins Shipping) who operate coastal freight services past the islands every day. Perkins rates were consistently cheaper and despite repeated representations made to the TLC by the previous manager of Bathurst Island Housing Association who could demonstrate that many thousands of dollars were being added to the cost of housing on the islands, nothing happened. The local store operators had similar complaints. Of great concern is that during my nearly 3 years on the islands, I never saw any financial reports to the community on the conduct of these Tiwi Land Council businesses nor any profits distributed for the benefit of the community

For the remainder of my time this afternoon, I want to outline a number of factors working against economic independence and job creation in communities and some suggestions on how to overcome them.

1. Education: Unless there is a willingness to attend school and for literacy, numeracy and work ethics to improve, it will be difficult to employ more people.
Child Welfare/Parent Support payments should be conditional upon school attendance. This should apply to both indigenous and non-indigenous parents and fundamentally for parents to accept responsibility for their children's education.

2. Tourism: One area where there is a great potential for growth in employment is tourism. At the moment, the only tourism operation permitted on the islands is 'Tiwi Tours', a company of which the Directors are Tiwi Land Council Members. This business is currently leased under licence to AAT Kings trading as Aussie Adventures Tours. With the advent of a new passenger ferry service between Bathurst Island and Darwin, there is now a 100 passenger vessel operating. The difficulty for the operator is that the only tourists he can take are those booked on a 'Tiwi Tour' and because of a lack of willingness by the tour company to increase capacity, he is limited to 15-20 tourists each day. During my time on the islands, I also had an approach from a young Tiwi already operating indigenous tours on the mainland. He was interested in operating tours on Melville Island but after directing him to the Tiwi Land Council for advice, I was not surprised when nothing happened.

3. Local business enterprise: the formation and development of business competition and services normally found in the wider Australian community should be encouraged and supported. To assist the development of new businesses, it needs to be recognised that support in the provision of a mentor/trainer or a person that I would call a driver needs to be put in place. This person should be employed on a performance based fixed term contract and not allowed to take long term control as seems to often happen now.

Again, most businesses currently operating in communities are given monopoly rights and often as 'not for profit' associations under the Associations Act. My experience was that there was no active monitoring by the authorities of compliance with the rules. I am aware of a number of businesses which were not submitting annual financial returns (in one case for at least 7 years) and as a result when things go wrong, they ended up in a real mess. If authorities regularly monitored these associations, remedial action or better still active support, could be used before it was too late. The theory of the monopoly provisions is that profits can be returned to the communities but the reality is that the level of service is poor, prices high and benefits to the communities are few or non-existent. In my view, competition for the delivery of service must be encouraged.

4. Financial Management: this is the most difficult issue that needs to be addressed if indigenous businesses are to succeed. The reality is that indigenous owners have great difficulty with the management and control of money, partly because of a lack of training but often because of their cultural obligations to share goods and money with family members. I could tell many stories of my experiences but we all know that if businesses are to be successful, then financial management is critical. Most indigenous businesses fail because of financial mismanagement and a lack of personal responsibility. There is a need to put in place controls and strategies to support fledgling indigenous enterprises. There are two ways this can be done. One is to import contracted non-indigenous managers and/or pay private accountants which is what is happening now. This option is often expensive and there is little or no incentive to train local people or to develop their sense of ownership and responsibility. There is also a long history of non-indigenous accountants or managers taking total control of management rather than playing an advisory and educative role. The second way is to recognise that in many or most communities, there are administrative and financial structures such as local government already established and actively training local people in financial management. Local Authorities could provide financial management services on a fee for service or commercial arrangement. The advantage of this approach is that business management jobs stay in the community and could be tied to training local people in the skills required.

5. Industry Assistance: The development of resource based industries such as forestry, aquaculture and sandmining are the main industries on the Tiwi Islands with the forestry operation Sylvatech Tropical Timbers the most public of these ventures. The forestry potential of the Tiwi Islands has a long history with early plantings of Pinus Caribbean many years ago but during my time on the islands there were many people questioning the long term viability of the Sylvatech venture and in recent years increasing concern in the local communities about the vast areas of land being cleared for plantations (over 100,00 ha or one fifth of Melville Island has been identified for plantation planting). Although the area was agreed and clearly spelt out in agreements with the Tiwi Land Council, very few if any local people understood the scale of the forestry operation. The sale this year of Sylvatech to Great Southern Forests has I believe secured the future of the forestry venture but what does it mean in terms of Tiwi employment? Despite promises of up to 400 jobs for Tiwi people, the reality was that Sylvatech preferred to employ contractors to local people. During my 3 years the average number of Tiwi actually employed was just 6 people with attempts last year to train a further 10 Tiwi people using approx $0.5M of government funding including a non-indigenous mentor/trainer. Sylvatech did not contribute a single dollar towards the wages of these people who were paid as CDEP participants. I fully recognise the difficulties with work ethic, skills and reliability but it certainly appeared to me and to others that when either the Land Council or Sylvatech made representations to Government for financial assistance, it was more often than not on the basis that this would help develop an 'independent Tiwi economy' and provide Tiwi people with jobs. As a result substantial financial assistance has been provided by both the Territory and Federal Government to Sylvatech and its partner the Tiwi Land Council for forestry infrastructure and yet when Sylvatech was sold to Great Southern Forests for about $40M, it was reported to me that somewhere between 80 and 90% of Sylvatech shares were held by just four business people. I don't believe that any of the $40M proceeds from the sale went to any Tiwi people. So what should governments do about industry assistance to resource based industries in remote communities? I believe it should be conditional upon the company achieving agreed employment targets. If targets are not reached, then adjustment or repayment of grants and assistance should apply. During any sale or transfer of assets by companies receiving government industry assistance, Governments should ensure that benefits arising from government subsidies are shared with those communities and are not cashed in by non-indigenous shareholders.

The only financial benefits for the Tiwi from the forestry operation are in land lease payments to the Land Trusts (there's another story there) and a share of the profits from the future sale of timber which the Land Council has decided will be directed to education. However it has also been decided that the Land Council will not support the 4 primary schools already existing within communities but build a new secondary school in a separate location on the islands. The irony is that this school will be largely dependent on yet more government funding for its long term survival.

This brings me to my last point about the provision of education and training in remote indigenous communities which is the key to future jobs. In my earlier paper I made 3 recommendations:

• CDEP, Job Network, Work for the Dole and other training programmes should be integrated with real incentives to focus on long term sustainable jobs for those on welfare. In some employment programmes, payments should be made for actual work undertaken and completed rather than for the hours worked
• Funding should be provided for mentor/trainers directly to employers of participants in CDEP and Training programmes ( this in response to my concerns about Registered Training Organisations providing 'fly-in' training and courses on an intermittent basis in remote communities).
• Wage subsidies for commercial businesses (such as arts centres, stores and community clubs) should be restricted to recognition of the need for training and apprenticeships; long term dependency on these funds for ongoing employees should be eliminated.

Employment and training funding by government should be conditional on the development of a single local or regional employment and training plan. . The Tiwi Islands had the ridiculous situation while I was there of having numerous separate employment and training plans prepared by the Land Council (for forestry operations), Job Network for its operational requirements, CDEP for its operations, Centrelink for its operation, the Tiwi Training Board for its operation and so on. There were variously plans for forestry, bakeries, fish fertiliser factories, sand mining, market gardens, golf courses, plant nurseries and womens enterprises which one group knew about and the others didn't. I fully acknowledge that under existing Job Network agreements, there are requirements for the preparation of local employment plans but my experience was that plans were prepared from templates simply to receive the payments attached to their receipt by government and did not require the local council's approval. Certainly there was little or no consultation with the wider community in the Tiwi Islands nor any sense of ownership of these employment strategies by community members.

To be useful, the employment and training plan must be developed in wide consultation with the community, prepared by independent consultants, released for extended public discussion and consideration by all relevant local organisations with the local council having final authority to sign off. Feasibility studies and business plans should also be prepared for priority business/commercial opportunities and again, signed off by the local council. All existing jobs and local skills must be audited and a single data base established and maintained for reference by all organisations. Annual monitoring and evaluation of this unified employment and training plan will be needed with employment and business targets a condition for the future funding of either training organisations or local employers and enterprises.

In summary, there are plenty of employment opportunities in remote aboriginal communities but they will not be realised until we provide indigenous communities with a first world system of governance which allows aboriginal people the same rights as other Australians to own land for home building, business development and independent living. Government has dealt with ATSIS and ATSIC. The next step should be amendments to the Land Rights Act to

• Clearly define the role of Land Councils as land managers
• Remove and deal with self-interest and conflict of interest issues
• Allow for the leasing of community/township lands and the commercial use of property for housing and enterprise.