Strachy's perceptions
Executive Summary
The principal aims of the Northern Territory Emergency Response were to improve the safety and well being of children, and then to begin the process of closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous NT residents. This submission suggests that the first of these aims has achieved some success, but aspects of the second aim have failed under Measure 1 (Welfare Reform and Employment) and Measure 7 (Coordination).
Introduction
The Little Children are Sacred report of 2007 by Pat Anderson and Rex Wilde and the Ministerial Statement of 2002 by Jack Ah Kit about the appalling state of far too many NT remote communities directly prompted the radical government action, known initially as the Intervention, and later given the official title of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER). I personally feel that the principles behind the Intervention and the Gun Laws are the two high points of the Howard Government.
My comments come from two perspectives: (1) as a long-term resident in Alice Springs married into a local Indigenous family; and (2) as a former CEO of an Indigenous Employment Service Provider with contracts in remote Central Australia and in Alice Springs.
What is working?
Many Indigenous families living in remote communities and in town camps now have a safer and saner life, greater control over their income, and work has begun to improve their health care, housing and community prospects. Perpetrators of the crimes identified in the Little Children are Sacred report are more likely to finally face justice. And both the Federal and NT Governments are finally committed to a long-term process of Bridging the Gap. None of this would have happened without the NTER.
What isn’t working?
The safety and well being of children:
When I was in Yuendumu on 2nd August 2008, a very reliable source told me that there is still a non-Indigenous man who is a frequent visitor to that community who is preying on young women aged about 13 through a combination of drugs and alcohol, and made two of them pregnant. The same source spoke of a non-Indigenous man who lives in the community who is a significant supplier of drugs to community people.
School attendance is still treated by too many community, town camp or urban parents/guardians as something determined by the mood of any given day. Yet education became free, secular and compulsory in Australia in 1862! I fail to understand how in 2008 it is acceptable that a child’s future must suffer just because the parent or guardian is slack or drunk or stoned. I firmly believe that linking school attendance to income support is overdue.
Closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous NT residents
Income management has been a positive factor for many people, but not for all. On 5th August 2008, a 77 year old Indigenous pensioner who lives just out of Ti Tree told me that despite bringing his kids up successfully, and living a responsible life, he now has to submit to income management of his pension. He feels insulted and demeaned. There is no discretion in the system, and there needs to be.
The employment objectives are not being met. The employment arm of DEEWR recently reported on their outcomes, focusing on Work for the Dole project creation and participation, and transition of jobs from CDEP into “real” jobs. In reality, very few new full-time jobs have been created in the Emergency Response designated areas. Work for the Dole supervision has often replaced CDEP supervision, and in some cases has meant fewer hours of employment for those supervisors. Jobs now paid for by the NT or Federal Government were often CDEP plus top up, so that the job holders may now have full employment conditions, and maybe increased income. However, without the reintroduction of CDEP, the level of unemployment actually grew. As for Work for the Dole, there may have been more people “engaged in activity” than had been through CDEP, but I note that DEEWR failed to document the actual level of skills development (despite all the emails, hook ups and face to face reporting in the 12 months of Intervention).
Have there been unintended consequences?
Coordination, to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous NT residents
The Emergency Response certainly had some unintended consequences. Former Minister Brough said in a public lecture on 28 July 2008 that part of his strategy was to avoid having the bureaucracy bog the whole process down. The creation of Government Business Manager and DEWR Community Employment Broker positions started the rot. As I understand it, both layers of bureaucracy had to report on a weekly basis on “progress”, and these reports were relayed to Minister Brough’s office. To report “no progress” was a sin almost as vile as those prompting the Intervention. The other factor working against successful coordination was Australian Workplace Agreements. Senior public servants were not about to jeopardize their status, or bonus payments, by daring to explain a “lack of progress” as a result of the realities in most communities – a lack of infrastructure, limited skills, minimal accommodation, access to appropriate training, and literacy barriers. The military tone of the Intervention was unmistakable, and counter productive. The organization I worked for was told by one DEWR staff member that “we now worked for them”, another frequently reminded us that we had to get Work for the Dole up and running because it was a directive “from the Prime Minister”, and a third DEWR staff member threatened us that we would lose our contract if we didn’t generate a remote community Work for the Dole contract within 40 minutes. On top of this swarm of bureaucrats on communities and in Alice Springs was a Task Force and a secretariat of quite senior Federal public servants. No wonder Mr. Brough was nervous about bureaucracy.
All principles of project management and community development were disregarded in this mad rush to have things happen. Because we as an Indigenous organization stood up for the idea of consulting with communities before generating projects, we were deemed negative, and then progressively accused of making up stories as to why things weren’t happening. If the DEWR Community Employment Broker had a different perception, or set of priorities, it was their word that held sway. The relationship between DEWR and us quickly became poisonous and all sense of partnership that had been built up in the previous 7 years was blown away. Reporting became the major focus. Two of my managers (both skilled local Indigenous people) resigned because they had “had enough of the bullshit”.
One final piece of unintended consequence has been the impact on the viability of Employment Service Providers. DEWR expected Providers to respond to their demands for wholesale shifts in focus, staffing, infrastructure and, you guessed it, reporting. All the major Providers accepted the importance of the Emergency Response, but from early on flagged that they were incurring significant cost increases. We were told that this would be addressed, while DEWR had immediate access to Treasury to expand its staffing profile across the NT and all their on costs (accommodation, travel funds, fuel, vehicles etc). Finally in late January 2008, Minister O’Connor had heard enough from Providers about the additional cost burden in delivering Work for the Dole. He instructed the now DEEWR to create an ancillary payment process to cover these costs. The organization I worked for finally got approval for payment in late June 2008, after the goalposts for claims had been frequently shifted. This delay in payment of over $300,000 was a killer blow to our viability.
After eight and a half years as the CEO of our enterprise, I feel that I have an understand the harsh world of running a business, and sense that there is no such understanding within the higher and lower ranks of DEEWR. The recent announcements by the Prime Minister and Andrew Forrest on Indigenous employment and partnerships with the private sector can have a huge impact on closing the gap in remote communities and town camps. I suggest that the Review consider recommending DEEWR staff have a crash course in the highs and lows of small to medium size enterprises.
Are there other ways of working that would better address the circumstances facing remote communities and town camps?
The first suggestion is to engage in consultation with Indigenous people in changes that will affect them. It isn’t easy, and can be done to death, but ultimately Indigenous Australians make the big decisions after they have had a chance to hear the messages, talk it over and come to a conclusion. Just because governments want change does not mean that there will be change. The good thing about the Review is that it is led by people who understand this concept and have had years of experience wrestling with the tougher issues.
The second point builds on the messages to the Review team about the need for genuine long-term commitment and investment. COAG has a renewed emphasis as a process for addressing complex issues, but I am skeptical of the capacity of the bureaucracy to engage in community development. In 1996, the former Federal Government chose to move to a purchaser provider model for employment services. Health follows a similar model. The current NT Government is struggling with its costs and responsibilities in health, education and infrastructure for remote communities and town camps. It is my suggestion that an independent commission or statutory body needs to oversee the process. In the past, Australia initiated the Snowy Mountains Authority as a model for major infrastructure construction. Maybe there are lessons from this for the NT requirements.
Conclusions
The Review Board and its expert group have a unique opportunity to assist in the transformation of the NT into a place where all its citizens are genuinely economically and educationally equal, share cultural wealth and health, and where the family and extended family principles are nurturing our kids, not destroying them. It is a huge task, and I wish you well.
As a final gift, I offer the attached perspective which came from an unnamed, underground publication soon after the Emergency response began. I hope some of it makes sense.
12 simple steps to manage a national emergency
- Invent a taxation system that gives you squillions, which you don’t spend on the infrastructure or services that could have prevented a disaster.
- Find a human or natural disaster, at home or abroad.
- Convince the other political party that this thing is a disaster, so that we have a bi-partisan approach (one Dictionary meaning defines this as having two groups who “prefer their interests to truth or justice”).
- Set up a task force, and find some underemployed military figure keen to do something useful.
- Make it a hole of government issue.
- See what resources the Defence Minister is not using, and declare that they must be used for this “national emergency”.
- Recruit public servants via an AWA that offers lots of money, excitement, personal danger, a return trip home, but no pets or family.
- Recruit lots of doctors, engineers, builders, the Red Cross and Aid groups, no matter what the actual disaster is.
- Assume it is a “ground zero”, so no local infrastructure or expertise exists, and potentially alienate those actually affected by the disaster or emergency.
- Adopt the jargon of both the military and the spin doctors – stabilise, normalize, communications teams, survey teams, community brokers – and plenty of meetings, briefings, video conferences and bulletins with an absolute hunger for good news stories.
- Learn the language you may need just in case some dreadful people don’t agree with everything that is being done for them or to them – unAustralian, paedophile supporters, terrorist supporters, self-interested, creating artificial barriers.
- After a couple of months, realise that this isn’t as straight forward as first thought, and might mean years, serious money and run the risk of being overtaken by a brand new national emergency.