Barry Smith

Submission to the Review Board

Regarding the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review

I am not an Indigenous person; and my knowledge of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) is based primarily on an analysis of what has been available in the public arena. I do not have first hand experience of the NTER. I have over 30 years of policy and practical experience in the areas of: Indigenous policy; Indigenous housing programs; community policy; and community program structures and processes, including in remote Indigenous communities of location.

In general my comments focus on Questions 6-9 published by the Review Board; but in particularly on Questions 7 and 9.

Statistical data and field reports indicates that most remote Indigenous communities of location¹, including those in the Northern Territory, are extremely disadvantaged in that their residents experience living conditions that are at the extreme end of deprivation in most of the basic core aspects of life. This has been known for at least the past two decades.
There is evidence that over the last two decades many women and the young in many of those locations have experienced increasing levels of violence and abuse (including child sexual abuse); the morbidity and mortality rates linked to violence and harmful behaviour is increasing; and this and other life matters have reached a tipping point. Such a widespread crisis needs to be addressed through a single national integrated long term well resourced response that starts with a crisis response phase that addresses basic life needs (physical and safety and security needs). However, the crisis response phase needs to be followed by a well planned and well resourced long term recovery phase.
Without a clear policy and program framework and an associated clear set of objectives the current Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), or any future variant, will waste considerable resources without fundamentally changing the lives of the residents of the targeted locations. Without a framework and clear measureable objective any emergency response will achieve something but not necessarily effectively, efficiently or what the evidence indicates needs to be achieved or sustained.
In Australian, in the current governing and policy environment, the NTER, or whatever might replace it, needs to be hardwired into the Australian Government's Social Inclusion Agenda and the Closing the Gap commitment. As such any emergency response and recover initiative should become one strategy to achieve outcomes for Indigenous Australians under the Agenda and Commitment. It cannot and should not stand alone.
It could now be useful to stop referring to a NTER and instead draw the most effective elements and approaches of both the NTER and the former Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP)² program into a National Indigenous Social Inclusion Action Strategy (NISIAS); and implement this strategy in all disadvantaged Indigenous communities of location. As indicated the NISIAS would be part of the Social Inclusion Agenda and the Closing the Gap commitment.
Given that the available evidence indicates the NT communities of location are in the most disadvantaged category they would be given top and immediate priority under the NISIAS.
Today (2008 onwards) one of the measures of the need for and success of any Australian Government emergency or priority response, such as the NTER, is the contribution it aims to and actually makes to the reduction of the social and economic exclusion of people (individuals, families, groups) and places (geographic communities). An emergency response should not start or continue if it can't clearly and practically identify: why it is addressing issues; what specific aspects of social and economic exclusion and gaps it aims to address; how that change in each specific area will be achieved; and how each change will be measured and reported on.
Maslow's hierarchy of need still provides a useful policy framework for the sequential phases of a long term “emergency” response. Evidence indicates that if people don't have their basic physiological and safety and security needs met they are less likely to be able to operate at higher levels such as experiencing purpose and realising inner potential. The contribution of the various activities and initiatives of an emergency response strategy should be hardwired to these basic needs.
Communities of location are not all the same. It is important to identify the different types of communities of location that the emergency response is going to operate in. This focus on diversity could go quite a way in addressing the negative impacts and failures of the 'one size fits all' approaches of many universal programs. Differentiating community types has been articulated and used effectively in Canada and to a lesser extent in the UK, Scotland and Ireland. The Canadian model suggests there are locations on the way up, on the way down, in balance, and on the way out. Each community type requires a unique approach and timeframe.
One of the failures of the past 30 years has been to implement many programs, services and infrastructure in remote Indigenous communities using a community self-management model. The community self-management model places too many complex management responsibilities on local people who are often struggling to achieve the basics of life. It also provides other levels of government with the opportunity to abdicate responsibility for the provision of core and basic goods, services and infrastructure. Whilst strong local Indigenous organisations and partnerships with government service providers are critical to the success of any community based service or initiative, the community self-management model should be put aside in favour of a real legal local community partnership management model that includes Local, Territory and Commonwealth Governments as well as local residents and leaders.
Success in addressing social and economic crisis the social and economic exclusion of people (individuals, families and groups) in disadvantaged locations (places) in economies similar to Australia, including the UK, Scotland and Ireland, have been reliant on a number of key elements. Without the following key elements a place based emergency response such as NTER will not succeed:

long term (10 years or more) response commitment

commitment to local community development and regeneration;

the collaborative development of integrated long term local community development or regeneration plans;

high priority delivery or establishment of core services and infrastructure by universal providers³ to a national minimum standard (including housing, quality and affordable food, water, sewerage, healthy housing, safety and security, education, employment, income);

local management structures that include local residents and all levels of government in a real legal partnership that shares planning, decision making and responsibility not shift it;

additional and sufficient resources committed to address particular issues identified through the long term local integrated plan (food, housing, employment etc);

identifying and measuring the gaps and setting targets and objectives; and

regularly monitoring and publicly reporting progress.

Contact details

Barry Smith

1. In this submission the term community of location means population centres or places where people live.

2. The recent CDEP review should identify useful community development band employment and training elements of that program that could be rolled into the NISIAS.

3. The term “universal providers” refers to government institutions and agencies who have legal and moral responsibility for the provision of universal public goods, infrastructure and services to all citizens.