Caring for country

Caring for country: An overview of Aboriginal land management in the Top End of the Northern Territory
Séan Kerins / Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
Owning and managing lands of the significance of the tropical savannah of the Northern Territory brings many diverse challenges. This presentation discusses the formalisation of Aboriginal land and sea management activities in the mid 1990s and the establishment of the Caring for Country program. Posted 05-05-2008

Poverty, Deprivation and Exclusion Among Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians

Poverty, Deprivation and Exclusion Among Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians
—Peter Saunders, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW
CAEPR Seminar Series, 31 October 2007 Streaming Audio / MP3
Abstract: The problematic nature of using low income as a proxy for poverty is widely acknowledged amongst Australian poverty researchers in general, and Indigenous researchers in particular. The reliance on income fails to recognise the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and disadvantage and the credibility of the findings depends upon the poverty line on which they are based. This paper presents findings from a new study that is seeking to identify what constitutes material deprivation and social exclusion as a way of developing new indictors of poverty and disadvantage. The study is being conducted in collaboration with ACOSS, Mission Australia, The Brotherhood of St Laurence and Anglicare, Sydney, and its basic premise is that the measurement of poverty must be grounded in the actual living standards and experiences of those identified as poor. The findings are based on two surveys one of the general population, the other of users of welfare services, that explore community understandings of different dimensions of deprivation, social exclusion and poverty. The extent and severity of deprivation and social exclusion will be compared with conventional poverty measures, in total and for specific sub-groups in the population, including Indigenous Australians.

(Im)mobility:

further thoughts on the nodal network model for regional population structures in north east Arnhem Land October 24 2007 Streaming Audio
—Frances Morphy (Fellow, CAEPR)

Abstract: The structure and dynamics of regional populations in remote Aboriginal Australia are little understood and under researched. Memmott et al. (2004: 1) remark that 'whereas larger scales of mobility are analysable (to a limited degree) using the statistical methodologies of demographers and using the gross census units of Statistical Divisions and ATSIC regions, there is a need to develop a greater understanding of smaller-scale regional characteristics.' One could add that much of the smaller scale research that has taken place has focused on the phenomenon of intra-regional mobility.

ANU - RMAP Seminar: Police failure in Indigenous affairs. Altman

RESEARCH SEMINAR - Policy failure in Indigenous affairs: The social and economic impacts and likely legacies of the NT emergency intervention.
Jon Altman MP3 Audio
On June 21 2007 the Australian government dramatically declared a 'national emergency' in relation to child sex abuse in the Northern Territory. In an unprecedented set of actions the Commonwealth has taken direct control of communities, overriding the authority of both the NT government and local community organisations using the territory powers conferred under the Australian constitution. Subsequently in August 2007 these actions and others were enshrined in Australian law. This seminar addresses the immediate policy background to this intervention and then from a development anthropology perspective assesses the likely social and economic impacts of these new laws on prescribed communities and their residents. It is argued in the seminar that for a wide range of reasons the new measures are unlikely to work and indeed may result in adverse and unsustainable outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

Aboriginal Leadership in Health and Social Policy

Dr Mark Wenitong, President, Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association
5 September 2007. Streaming Audio and MP3
Abstract: How do we determine, without polarising or politicising, what is best practice in social and health reform for Indigenous Australians?
European health and social policy has assumed the right to declare what is 'acceptable' practice for all of society. Even if, within this ideology, we were able to keep Indigenous kids safe tonight, how would we ensure they have something meaningful to live for tomorrow?
Indigenous Australians have been here a long time, yet continue to battle to have Indigenous knowledge systems acknowledged. The Anderson-Wild Report has laid out the rules of engagement with Aboriginal people by recommending that '…there needs to be a radical change in the way government and non-government organisations consult, engage with and support Aboriginal people.' This presents public health and social planners with a real challenge.

Indigenous victims of violent crime

Don Weatherburn (Director, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research)
CAEPR Seminar Series August 29, 2007 (Streaming audio, MP3)

Abstract: A number of theories have been put forward to explain the high level of violence amongst Australia's Indigenous population. Up until 2002, lack of suitable data on the risk factors associated with Indigenous violent victimisation made it very difficult to assess the adequacy of these theories. In 2002 the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted a national survey of Indigenous Australians (the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, or NATSISS). That survey made it possible to examine a range of correlates of Indigenous violent victimisation. Analysis of the NATSISS victimisation data, however, has so far been limited to a few bi-variate comparisons. This seminar presents the results of the first multivariate analysis of risk factors for violent victimisation among Indigenous Australians using the NATSISS. The results provide little support for cultural theories of Indigenous violence but strong support for social disorganisation, social deprivation and lifestyle theories, particularly the latter.

The transformation of Aboriginal communities in crisis; what does it entail?

CAEPR Seminar Series August 22, 2007 (Streaming audio, MP3)
—David Martin (Visiting Fellow, CAEPR)
Abstract: This seminar is set against the background of the Federal government's 'National emergency' response to the Children are Sacred report into child abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. It is based as much on my personal experience of living and working in a remote community, and raising an Aboriginal son within and outside that community, as it is on my anthropological research.
There are understandable reasons why many commentators have expressed cynicism about the response, given that the matters canvassed by the report have been placed before governments for decades now. Nonetheless, the available evidence demonstrates that in many Aboriginal communities, and not just those in the Northern Territory, there is indeed a deep crisis around a cluster of factors such as extremely high levels of interpersonal violence, abuse including that of children, and severe alcohol and drug abuse.
The government's response as announced thus far involves a curious mix of short and longer-term initiatives. The seminar argues that the restoration of social order in severely dysfunctional communities is a defensible intervention to establish the conditions for change—if the long-term goal is the transformation of Aboriginal societies to more sustainable forms, as it must be. However, in the absence of a very substantial commitment by governments to redress the well documented historic deficits in such areas as health, housing, and education, such change cannot and will not take place. In particular, without these essential precursors, the reliance on Aboriginal personal responsibility leveraged through market-based incentives simply avoids government responsibility, and will fail as an instrument of sustainable change. .....

Community policing in Australasia: Lessons from the community

CAEPR Seminar Series August 15, 2007
Manuhuia Barcham (Director, Centre for Indigenous Governance and Development, Massey University)
Abstract: Much of the community policing literature looks at the ways in which police officers are able to more effectively interact with the community in terms of the maintenance of law and order and other policing functions. Less attention, however, is paid to the ways in which communities police themselves and how this impacts on policing more generally. Looking at the case of indigenous community policing initiatives in Australia and New Zealand this paper explores the impact that this form of policing is having in these communities. The paper ends by discussing how these types of initiatives might be usefully transferred through to other policing environments such as the Pacific Islands.

In the name of failure: The Howard government's generational revolution in Indigenous affairs

Will Sanders (Senior Fellow, CAEPR)
CAEPR - Seminar Series August 02, 2007 (Streaming Audio, MP3)
Abstract: Since 2004, the Howard government has used the idea of past policy failure to introduce major new organisational arrangements in Indigenous affairs. In the name of failure, after fifteen years, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was abolished and its programs were re-assigned to 'mainstream' Commonwealth departments. A Commonwealth Secretaries Group on Indigenous Affairs (SGIA) was significantly enhanced and a National Indigenous Council (NIC) and a Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs (MTIA) were established. Further down the hierarchy of Commonwealth administration, both a central Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination (OIPC) and regional Indigenous Coordination Centres (ICCs) were established and built up. Through these new organisational arrangements, the fourth term Howard government has also put considerable effort into new agreement making at State/ Territory, regional and local levels through bi-lateral Commonwealth State/Territory agreements, Regional Partnership Agreements and local Shared Responsibility Agreements. From June 2007, also in the name of past failure, the Howard government has also now begun developing its 'national emergency' response to allegations of widespread child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities.

Indigenous poverty in urban NSW: A multidimensional approach

May 30 Rebecca Reeve, (PhD Researcher, Macquarie University)

Abstract: This seminar seeks to identify the degree and causes of urban Indigenous poverty in NSW using multiple indicators, with a view to assessing the efficacy of current policy approaches to improving Indigenous welfare. The study utilises the Productivity Commission's Key Indicators Framework for Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, NATSISS (2002) and GSS (2002) data and is part of a broader forthcoming doctoral thesis tentatively titled 'Indigenous Poverty and Policy Approaches in Urban NSW'. This seminar will examine some possible causal relationships between the indicators identified by the Productivity Commission and explore how one might test such relationships econometrically.

Transcript available