RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Aboriginal Group Besieged by Hostile Gov’t

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Sep 1 2003 (IPS) - A major government review is set to propose a radical restructuring of the elected peak Aboriginal body that supporters fear will prevent the organisation from being able to effectively advocate policies opposed by the government.

The president of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Michael Mansell, argues that the government has no intention of tolerating an organisation independently advocating on behalf of the indigenous community where its views conflicted with those of the government.

"Is it understood by all concerned that whenever the indigenous position is not the same as that of the government, ATSIC (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) will represent indigenous people as a priority?" he wrote in a submission to the review.

The government announced in November last year a review into the adequacy of the ATSIC, which was established in 1990 to allow Aboriginal people to have a greater voice in government policy and funding decisions.

While many within the Aboriginal community are critical of the Westminster-style electoral structure of ATSIC and problems with accountability to local communities, government ministers have resented the outspoken advocacy by the organisation’s leadership, including at hearings of U.N. committees.

Prime Minister John Howard has come in for particular criticism for his refusal to offer a formal government apology for the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents.

In April this year, before the review team had commenced its consultation meetings with the Aboriginal community, Minister for Indigenous Affairs Phillip Ruddock announced a massive restructuring that stripped ATSIC of all funding decisions and nearly all its staff.

ATSIC was left with only a small secretariat with the remainder transferred to a new agency, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services, under Ruddock’s control.

Mansell is also critical of ATSIC for bending to the government’s wishes too often. "At the behest of the government, the ATSIC Board approves the imposition of review after unnecessary review of Aboriginal groups with the result the effectiveness of those organisations is seriously diminished," he wrote.

Speaking at the weekend conference of the Bennelong Society, a conservative lobby group on Aboriginal policy, Ruddock dismissed the emphasis by Aboriginal leaders on issues such as land rights and the failure of government services to match those available to the non-indigenous population.

"Rights and responsibilities are inseparable, and there is a view, well-founded I believe, that the responsibility of the individual has not been given sufficient attention," he said.

The national coordinator for Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR), Dr David Cooper, welcomes the acknowledgment in the discussion paper prepared by the review team that ATSIC is unfairly criticised, such as on Aboriginal health, over which it has no control.

"It seems that indigenous people are increasingly being blamed for ATSIC’s real and perceived failures while governments have largely escaped responsibility and accountability. Disturbingly, such failures, whether warranted or not, are now being used by some to justify the winding back of ATSIC’s role in delivering self-management and self-determination to Indigenous people," he submitted to the review team.

It is a point acknowledged by one of the review team members, former New South Wales Liberal Party politician, John Hannaford. "ATSIC is the most evaluated organisation I think this country has ever seen. Yet does ATSIC actually deliver all of the programmes for indigenous people? No. In the main those programmes are delivered by state governments and funded by the federal government," he said.

In the first budget after his election in 1996, Howard stripped 305 million U.S. dollars from ATSIC’s funding base. However, ANTaR argues that the review team fails to acknowledge the underfunding of critical indigenous programmes.

"It fails to address the broader implications of critical underfunding by governments, particularly in areas of indigenous disadvantage, and the particular impacts of such underfunding on ATSIC," he said.

The final recommendations of the three person-review team, which are being finalised this week and scheduled to be announced at the end of September, are likely to focus on a limited advisory role for a "new" ATSIC to the government and restructuring services to Aboriginal communities.

Gary Johns, senior fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) – a conservative think thank heavily funded by the mining industry – dismisses the importance of Aboriginal people staying on their traditional lands.

"What is happening in Queensland right now is a terrific discussion about what bits of the land that Aboriginal people own in all of these discrete communities will be held collectively in trust and what bits can be turned over to private ownership," he enthusiastically told the Bennelong Society conference.

Johns argues that there will be a shift over a generation of Aboriginal people away from their land to larger towns and cities.

"If we know in our hearts and in our analysis that the carrying capacity of most Aboriginal communities, who now have sufficient land, is not enough to make all of their residents Australian citizens, then a lot of Aboriginal children will have to go and grow up somewhere else," he said.

Cooper believes that Johns puts little value on the maintenance of Aboriginal communities and culture and underestimates the non-traditional economic options open to many communities. "It should be up to indigenous communities to decide what they want to do and it should be the role of government to facilitate it rather than dictate options to them," he said.