Opinion & Commentary
Policy reform to close the gap between black and white
After some 200 years of discrimination, the basic principles that must inform policies that affect Indigenous Australians are at last emerging. Firstly, it is clear that as the oldest immigrants, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have a special place in Australian history, society and culture. Such recognition benefits all Australians. Secondly, discrimination of any sort – economic, social or cultural - against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders will no longer be tolerated. Thirdly, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders must have access to a mainstream education to be free to make the same choices as other Australians about where and how they wish to work and live. Fourthly, Indigenous people are entitled to the same protection of the law in policing, courts of justice and all statutory regulations as other Australians.
These principles must have bi-partisan support. But how they are to be reflected in the policy reforms essential to putting them into practice is still the subject of debate. It therefore cannot be subject to bi-partisanship. Vigorous government programs to end discrimination against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and dysfunction in their communities are needed at state and territory levels together with vigorous parliamentary oppositions to guarantee sensible, democratic outcomes.
Mr Rudd has announced that he will mark the first day of each year in the Australian Federal Parliament with a report on the progress of closing the gap in life expectancy, infant mortality and numeracy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. He is thus making the ending of discrimination against Indigenous Australians a central objective of his Government.
Public servants will have to start working on establishing the data for his first report in January 2009 to correct currently used misleading estimates. For example the 17% shorter life span of Indigenous than other Australians is almost certainly an understatement for those living in remote settlements. It has been obtained by averaging the expectation of life for all the 455,000 people who identify as Indigenous in Census data. But about a third of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders work and live in the open society like other Australians, They have similar health and expectation of life to other Australians. Their inclusion in averages for Indigenous people masks the higher ill health and lower expectation of life of the Indigenous Australian families that are not participating in the labour force.
The introduction next month of National Assessment literacy and numeracy benchmark testing for all Australian school children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will provide data for the numeracy and literacy gap. In the past, students not likely to pass have been excluded from these tests. Most remote children in Northern Territory Learning Centres and Community Education Centres have not been tested. Those tested by qualified teachers have been found to have the numeracy of five to six year olds on leaving primary school. Children’s test results are to be made available to parents so that they can monitor their children’s progress. To fulfill Mr Rudd’s promise, the test results will also have to be published for each school together with enrollment figures to ensure that all children have been tested. Parents will then be able to see the performance of the school their children attend and the literacy and numeracy gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students will become evident by the state and territory responsible.
The dysfunction of Indigenous families and communities is clearly related to labour force participation, employment and the cumulative effects of welfare dependence as well as to educational failure. But the 2006 Census indicates that most people who identify as Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders live within reach of jobs. In remote Indigenous settlements where jobs are limited, Indigenous parents are desperate for mainstream education for their children because they see the available jobs going to non-Indigenous staff. Most Indigenous parents live where farms, mines, shops and tourist enterprises are crying out for workers, but their children are unable to fill out a job application form for apprenticeships or read safety instructions when they leave school. Mr Rudd will also require data on labour force participation, employment and welfare dependence, not only to monitor the gaps between Indigenous and other Australian living standards but to analyse the reasons other than education that have created Indigenous deprivation.
A considerable agenda of issues, many arising from past discrimination, remains to be considered. Private property rights on the nearly 20% of Australian land under Native Title are a major determinant of employment. The absence of private property rights has prevented investment and hence employment creation in such coastal settlements as Palm Island. Communal banana farms are limping in areas suitable for agriculture. Indigenous tourist operators have to find land away from their Native Title homes to go into business. Overcrowded public housing bears a major responsibility for social dysfunction and poor health, but bureaucratic obfuscation is delaying the use of 99-year leases for private housing and hence the emergence of a construction industry that could provide a major new source of employment.
Welfare dependence can only be eroded as Indigenous people become employable, but the role of the semi-welfare CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects) scheme as a cause of unwillingness to work in real jobs must be evaluated.
The distribution of the very considerable royalties accruing to native title lands and the roles of land councils requires new standards of accountability. So does the distribution of public funds. Commonwealth governments have been spending more than $3 billion a year on Indigenous programs. More than $2 billion was allocated to Indigenous public housing in the decade to 2006. It was impossible to trace the destination of thesefunds, but there were fewer occupied houses at the end than at the beginning of the period. An ‘Aboriginal industry’ of federal, state and territory public servants, administrators, board members, service providers, and contractors absorbs such a high proportion of public funding that little trickles down to Indigenous families. Public funding has spawned a vast array of Indigenous organizations, but most fail to deliver benefits to Indigenous families. The Rudd Government will have to find new ways of delivering public funding if it is to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous living standards.
Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes is a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. Her Education in the Northern Territory is available at www.cis.org.au
