A once-in-a-generation chance

MS Anderson should be on the indigenous advisory council.

Alison Anderson

AFTER the Country Liberal Party's failure to improve their third-world living conditions and services, remote Aborigines in the Northern Territory will be further disillusioned by Chief Minister Adam Giles's relegation of Alison Anderson to the backbench. In August last year, the CLP won five bush seats to gain office, four of which returned indigenous CLP members, including Ms Anderson.

It was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle indigenous disadvantage after decades in which both sides of politics and the NT bureaucracy had cultivated developers in Darwin and diverted resources to its suburbs, largely ignoring the chronic problems of remote communities. The situation was exacerbated by the lacklustre local media, which failed to hold successive governments to account or highlight indigenous disadvantage.

Mr Giles, who ousted Terry Mills as chief minister in March, is in the same mould as his Labor predecessors. His abolition of the department of indigenous advancement was indicative of his lack of interest in practical reconciliation. While failing to repair the NT's debt-ridden balance sheet, he has continued Labor's preposterous reallocation of commonwealth funding. Under Labor, $200 million to $300m a year earmarked for welfare and housing was diverted to consolidated revenue to pork-barrel marginal seats in Darwin's north, the stronghold of well-paid bureaucrats. The Territory's indigenous schools are the worst in the nation but Mr Giles rejected the Gonski package because it would divert money from Darwin. Nor has he delivered the CLP's promised local government or indigenous housing reforms.

Despite his indigenous ancestry, Mr Giles has earned no standing among remote Aborigines, unlike leaders such as Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Ms Anderson, who speaks six indigenous languages. An experienced minister who understands her people, Ms Anderson would be highly valued as a key player in a government committed to reforming the provider-capture that has enriched bureaucrats and white-run businesses but produced abysmal outcomes for remote Aborigines and taxpayers. Mr Giles appears intent on silencing dissenters who oppose his urban-centric policies and administration. But he should be careful. Saturday's federal election was disastrous for the CLP.

Tony Abbott, who is determined to make indigenous engagement a priority, should encourage Mr Giles to reorder his priorities. With the commonwealth providing 80 per cent of NT revenue, funding should be tied as tightly as possible to areas of need. Another option would be to appoint a special commissioner to monitor the NT's progress in education and infrastructure in remote areas and to hold it accountable.

Mr Abbott should also strengthen his indigenous advisory council, to be headed by Warren Mundine, by including Ms Anderson and Andrew Penfold. Mr Penfold has a strong record through his leadership of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, a non-profit body that assists hundreds of indigenous students. The bush constituents who voted for Ms Anderson and her colleagues last year have few advocates in the NT. Regardless of the indifference of Mr Giles and the deal makers who surround him, their cause should be helped with the incoming prime minister on their side.