The best of intentions, the worst of outcomes for indigenous people

IN my 20 years as an Australian public servant, I found no area of public policy more challenging than seeking to influence and administer government support to Aboriginal people and Torres Strait islanders.

As chief executive of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, and successively as departmental secretary of Employment, then Education, and finally Prime Minister and the Cabinet, I had significant responsibility for the design and oversight of indigenous programs. It was rewarding. It was also demanding and wickedly complex.

I learned a great deal, made abiding friendships and took comfort in modest but real achievements. Overall, however, I look back on those years as a period of failure in indigenous affairs, judged against the criteria of equal opportunity, economic and social mobility, human rights and civic responsibilities, control and empowerment.

I don't accept this was because of a lack of political will or hostile public sentiment. I believe all the governments I served wanted, in different ways, to improve the lot of Australia's first peoples. The great majority of relevant ministers I served, of widely varying political persuasions, all sought to make a positive difference.

Most of the public servants I worked alongside did their best. Yet, after two decades, the scale of relative disadvantage suffered by indigenous Australians remained almost as wide as ever. I can think of no failure in public policy that has had such profound consequences.

Since I left the Australian public service five years ago, I have reflected at length on that failure, personal and systemic. Three key things I have learned.

First, far too many government initiatives, generally well meant and adequately implemented, simply end up compounding the problem of passive welfare and learned helplessness. Programs meant to alleviate social exclusion are all too frequently delivered in such a way as to reinforce a sense of dependence and marginalisation. Too often the best of intentions creates the worst of outcomes.

Stripped bare of the language of self-determination, mutual responsibility or practical reconciliation, what is too often provided to Aboriginal Australians is "sit-down money"or "go round-in-circles" training. They face an array of financial disincentives and administrative barriers to taking real control of their lives.

Second, the structure of bureaucratic programs tends to ossify over time. Process rules. Programs are often designed and regulated to the most exacting of ethical standards, meet every guideline, tick every box and acquit every expenditure but still end up disconnected from the outcomes they were meant to deliver.

Programs also focus too much on addressing need and too little on providing reward. Aboriginal communities that use their limited resources most effectively and, as a consequence, are adjudged to be "well-functioning", end up receiving less of the available public funds. Expenditure on crisis management always seems to trump investment in preventative interventions.

Third, government programs still tend to be designed for administrative convenience rather than centred on the needs of the individual. They offer little diversity, choice or flexibility. The particular problems of indigenous communities whether in remote parts of Australia, regional centres or inner cities are treated as uniform.

There is far too little willingness to tailor services to local need or to devolve responsibility and decision making to the community level. There are also too few opportunities for individuals and families to direct and manage their own publicly funded support.

Over the years I have increasingly come to recognise the unintended consequences of public policy. The bold rhetoric of "self-determination" has proved hollow, lacking economic or political substance. My recurring theme has been the need to support people who, even at a time of low unemployment, remain welfare dependent. We need to financially support, mentor and assist indigenous Australians to address their multiple needs but, more essentially, encourage and help them to become self-reliant and their communities self-sustaining.

At present the large sums spent on benefits too often entrench the poverty and hopelessness the payments are intended to eradicate. Surely it's better to spend more money on providing assistance to help people get off benefits?

Let's change the mindset from expenditure on welfare to investment in keeping children at school, providing employer-focused training, working with business to guarantee job opportunities and enabling the establishment of small enterprises (whether run by individuals, families or communities). People (individually and collectively) need to be given the chance to take full control of their lives. The present program structures tend to act as a disincentive to effort. Instead of celebrating achievement they penalise it.

It's absolutely vital that political risk aversion or administrative caution does not stand in the way of public and social innovation. Governments need to explore their appetite for risk, learn by doing and carefully measure the results. Let's be willing to use public funds to pilot new approaches, accept occasional failure and demonstrate success.

Let's identify trial sites at which we can, with community support, test different ways of building economic independence. Let's allow indigenous people, as "consumers", to direct their own care. There are occasions when we should "just do it" and evaluate what works and what doesn't. This is such a time.

Peter Shergold, chancellor of the University of Western Sydney, was formerly secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. This is an edited version of his foreword to In Black and White.