Indigenous voice our very best chance of finally Closing the Gap

Indigenous protesters outside Parliament House. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The emerging debate on the voice has placed public attention on government policies and programs that are supposed to improve the lives of First Nations people in Australia. This is a good thing and is long overdue.

There is pervasive ignorance, or at least indifference, by most Australians about the failure of governments – federal, and state and territory – to solve the impoverishment and despair so many First Nations people experience wherever they live in Australia.

Yet, despite this, I sense Australians generally are frustrated by the lack of return from substantial public investment in programs and initiatives in the so-called Indigenous affairs service delivery and development space.

At a recent event for the Australian National University, I was discussing this issue with former Treasury secretary Ken Henry. I suggested that roughly 30c in the dollar would hit the ground from Canberra for Aboriginal programs and projects. He pondered the thought and remarked that in terms of real impact on people’s lives that figure probably wouldn’t be far off the mark. Australians are reminded with yawning embarrassment about this cataclysmic failure every February with the ­annual report to parliament on progress in Closing the Gap.

First Nations people know too well about the overwhelming dysfunction of the government program and service delivery arena that traps so many in our community. It is a complex web of ­bureaucracy straddling federal and state and territory governments, employing thousands of people with tentacles reaching deep into First Nations communities through an elaborate patronage system of outsourcing and cost-shifting.

The irony that this relationship between governments and community-controlled organisations occurs under the guise of self-determination adds to what the Uluru Statement expressed as the “torment of our powerlessness”.

That this unwieldy maze of ­bureaucracy, which has been entrenched for several decades, continues to grow without any formal accountability to the people it exists to support should be a source of national shame. It is propelled year on year by a vague and blind inertia that more of the same from governments will somehow improve things for First Nations ­people – despite the fact our communities constantly call for, but are hardly anywhere given, any meaningful say in the decisions taken that impact our lives.

And so this institutional madness is entrenched as normal – a predictable part of an unchanging, constantly failing status quo. And despite the lack of accountability to and meaningful input from First Nations people, our communities are blamed for the failures.

More than a quarter of a century ago, in the wake of the Mabo High Court judgment and the promise of a new relationship between First Nations people and the Australian nation, the Keating government reached out to First Nations people seeking ideas about how that new relationship should take shape. It was called the Social Justice Package, and following extensive community consultations three leading national institutions at the time – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council and the Australian Human Rights Com­mis­sion – produced detailed reports that offered a road map to build a new and inclusive relationship.

Those reports captured the voices of First Nations people throughout Australia and represented the only comprehensive First Nation critique of the dysfunctional relationship the Australian nation-state has with First Nations people, with compelling proposals for reform. Those reports revealed a unity of First Nations people throughout Australia concerning principles for policy and institutional reform.

In summary, First Nations people said in those consultations in 1995, and continue to say today, that we want governments to invest in the priorities that we determine are important to us: our culture and languages; economic opportunities from our land and community assets; care and support for our vulnerable; building our governance and organisational capacity. We said then and we continue to say that governments should work hand-in-hand with us and focus public investment at the local and regional level rather than applying state, territory and nationwide programs that ignore community leadership and regional dynamics. And we said and continue to say that public funds should be accounted for on the basis of outcomes achieved and not senseless administrative accountabilities determined by bureaucrats in faraway cities.

In 1996, the newly elected Howard government jettisoned the Social Justice Package, opting to listen to bureaucrats in determining public policy concerning First Nations people. Since then, Australia has witnessed a plethora of public policy approaches with an array of slogans ranging from practical reconciliation to welfare reform to authoritarian intervention. And during this time, the social and economic crisis facing many of our people has got deplorably worse while the unwieldy bureaucratic system has continued to grow and disempower us.

Corresponding to the dysfunctional relationship between governments and First Nations people is a perverse narrative that has found its way into the debate on the voice. A prominent argument against the voice is that it will be merely symbolic and add another layer of bureaucracy. It will therefore do nothing to address the crippling issues of inequality that are all too familiar. This raises two obvious questions directed at those advancing this argument. Do you believe the current administrative apparatus of government in the First Nations policy arena should be preserved and not restructured? Because the underlying assumption of your ­argument is that the current dysfunctional arrangements are achieving results, or at least that they are satisfactory and acceptable. And, second, do you believe that public servants are better at advising parliament and government about First Nations policy than First Nations people from across Australia?

First Nations people have long called for institutional and policy reform to achieve better outcomes for our communities. Over time, those voices are stifled or ignored as government officials maintain control of the program and service delivery, and policy levers. The proposed constitutional voice is a game-changing opportunity to do something about this dysfunction – to finally embrace First Nations people as equitable partners in the Australian nation. It is an opportunity to create better, more efficient policy responses to matters affecting First Nations people, and to realise that the gap won’t close and the failing status quo will ­persist unless we take a different approach that empowers First ­Nations people to have a voice.

It is an opportunity we can sorely afford to miss, and one that may not come again.

Professor Peter Yu is vice-president, First Nations Portfolio at the ANU. He is a member of the Referendum Working Group and the Referendum Engagement Group.