Views from Western Australia

Indigenous rights is based on the principles that Indigenous people should be acknowledged as the first peoples of this country and that they should enjoy the rights and interests that flow from that status.  This debate is as relevant today as at any time of our history.

Contrary to this rights based approach, the Northern Territory Intervention that began in the dying year of the Howard Government and continued, in some fashion under the Rudd Government, is a doomed experiment of social and economic reconstruction.  It has failed to gain the traction in the communities it was supposed to support and will continue to fail because of a very fundamental lack of consultation, recognition, and consent of the people it is seeking to engage.  It is an exercise in top-down enforced change to which the community must capitulate or face sanctions.  It makes a mockery of their rights as citizens let alone their rights as the traditional owners of the country.

Nevertheless, there has been some good that has come from the NT Intervention but these outcomes are from the large amount of resources that have been thrown at the issues such as health screening or other remedial measures.  These are resources that should have been there in the first place and it shouldn’t have taken near economic and social collapse for them to be brought to bear.

There are lessons from the NT Intervention.  One is that there is a huge task ahead to overcome Indigenous disadvantage and that it will take more than one season of commitment from the Government.  The other lesson from the NT is that the Aboriginal community must be part of any solution to the problems they face.  The community cannot be “done unto”.  It is old government, old thinking, and it should have been relegated to the rubbish heap of history.  But history does have a habit of repeating itself and WA looks set to do just that.

The WA Government recently revealed its Indigenous implementation committee.  This is a committee chaired by Lieutenant General Sanderson and includes influential people such as Fiona Stanley along with some members of the Indigenous community such as Sue Gordon and Mark Bin Bakar.

The Indigenous Implementation Committee is a poorly conceived process that lacks any statutory clout and has no public sector mandate.  On one hand it is a board to oversee a government department and on the other a free-wheeling think tank.  It appears to be creating leadership by proxy for a Government that has very little commitment to Indigenous interests and rights.

The Indigenous Implementation Committee has been set up to fail.  Lieutenant General Sanderson has no authority, no statutory powers, and no way - other than by the force of personality - to compel the Government to do anything. 

I don’t seek to criticise the Lieutenant General or any of the members of the committee, they are as committed and desperate as anyone to see an end to the misery and despair faced by many Aboriginal people in WA; particularly in regional and remote areas.  My criticism is focused squarely at the Government.  They are seeking to once again to impose yet another regime and authority on a community dealing with the accumulated impact of generations of imposed religions, laws, regulation, removal and representation.

Why didn’t the Government consult on how Aboriginal people actually wanted to have change take place in their community.    Why didn’t they learn from the lessons of the NT Intervention and seek to get people’s ownership of the programs and solutions that are put in place.

We do have an example of what works for change in Aboriginal communities.  Last year, women in Fitzroy Crossing fought for and won an important reprieve for their community – the restriction on the sale of take-away alcohol to at least give the community breathing space from the debilitating effect of alcohol on their community.  In achieving these things, they have undertaken an important process: the change they sought and the change brought about came from the ground up – for, indeed, this is the only way sustained change can occur. 

Sustained change in Aboriginal communities does not come from ideas imposed from outside the community; where community members have no role in decision making – including no consultation and no negotiation.  Change will only be sustained when they have had a key role in the decision making process.

The Sanderson Committee has not been formed through community engagement and the community has had no buy-in.  We have seen by it actions the value the Government places on Indigenous consultation.  The Premier’s announcement that Kimberley traditional owners must submit to his ideas on the Kimberley Gas Hub speaks volumes for the importance he places on the views of Indigenous people.

The formation of the Indigenous Implementation Committee raises more questions than answers.  It has no mandate other than the personal desire of the Minister.  There is no indication of how the committee will function. What will happen if the committee disagrees with the Director General of the DIA, the Minister, or the Premier for that matter?  What will happen if the WA Aboriginal Advisory Committee has an alternate view of the policy developments of the Sanderson committee: and, who will the Minister back?  Will the Government be bound by the committee’s decisions?  Will other Ministers or their directors-general heed or even care what they have to say?

The third, and most disturbing, aspect of the committee’s formation is that it is being undertaken at a time when Indigenous rights and the condition of the Aboriginal community are under renewed attack.

While the Government is trying to shroud itself in the idea that it actually cares about Aboriginal people in this state through the formation of the Sanderson Committee, look at what it had done in its short time in office.

Before Christmas, the Attorney-General announced his intention to introduce measures and laws to Parliament that will swell the numbers of Aboriginal people in our already over-crowded jails.  One of the first actions of the Premier was to signal his intention to override the rights and views of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley regarding the go-ahead and location of the gas hub – a gesture made all the more disturbing when one considers the progress and process of negotiation that had taken place up to that point and had brought agreement almost to point of being achieved. Finally, on the issue of ‘Native Title’; this government has had three different Ministers for Native Title in its first 100 days of government!

What does that tell us?