- BY:PATRICIA KARVELAS AND PAUL KELLY
- FROM THE AUSTRALIAN
TONY Abbott has thrown his support behind a radical plan devised by indigenous leader Noel Pearson to empower Aboriginal communities, to ensure that monies spent deliver real gains on the ground.
“I am happy to be working with Noel Pearson on this project and I believe there are lots of lessons to be drawn from his experience on Cape York,” the Opposition Leader told The Weekend Australian yesterday.
His support means an Abbott government would assess a sweeping new agenda for governance in indigenous communities. It would be based upon the Pearson concept of an Indigenous Policy Productivity Council to evaluate the multiple programs that service Aborigines.
Mr Pearson’s blueprint, “Empowered Communities”, will be released in Sydney next Wednesday with Mr Abbott promising a $5 million commitment to develop the idea.
This signals that Mr Pearson will become a close personal adviser to Mr Abbott if he becomes prime minister.
“Governance is a terrible problem in remote Aboriginal communities,” Mr Abbott said. “Noel Pearson has been a prophet for our times. He is a remarkable thinker on social policy and I want to support his efforts.
“The urgent task now, however, is to get kids into school, parents into jobs and ensure there is law and order in these communities.”
The Pearson concept, based on a new statutory body, aims to monitor current programs, identify why they are failing and entrench the principle of indigenous-led responsibility at the heart of all policy. It involves a five-year pilot program for eight different regions on an opt-in basis.
“We have the money but we are not getting the results that we should be getting,” Mr Pearson told The Weekend Australian.
“This is about re-engineering the existing investment. It is about making the existing investments more productive.”
Mr Abbott and Mr Peason have held extensive talks about the difficulties facing indigenous communities and the need for major reforms.
The Opposition Leader has stated that indigenous policy will be one of his top priorities if he wins the September 7 election.
The Pearson plan means the new IPPC will hold both government and indigenous parties to account for progress.
“It would say, ‘you guys made these commitments, said they would be delivered by this date, so how are we going and what’s the blockage?’,” Mr Pearson said.
“I see this as the most important second-tier reform.
“The first-tier reform is the recognition agenda in the Constitution at a high level of symbolism and both parties are committed to that.
“The next step down is the practical delivery.
“I see this happening in this reform of empowered communities. In my view it will be the thing that gives substance to the headline commitment.
“If you go into the Lockhart River (community) in Cape York, you know there are 90 government programs there.
“You have one organisation having to report 90 different grant programs. The issue is: how do we account to a single point rather than 90 separate points?”
Mr Pearson’s aim is to bring the transformative progress in Cape York to other communities. Under his plan, funds would be pooled on a region-by-region basis under bold new partnership agreements.
Mr Pearson, as head of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, has drafted a 25-page reform blueprint along with other indigenous leaders.
It has been given to Labor and the Coalition and obtained by The Weekend Australian.
Under the pooled funding proposal, spending would be overseen by the IPPC. It would co-ordinate different agencies to help close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous living standards faster.
That body would audit the performance of both government and Aboriginal organisations.
Mr Pearson is also concerned that private companies who have outsourcing contracts are not performing to expectations.
Since June, eight regions have been working together to develop cross-regional collaboration and a new interface between government and indigenous communities.
The regions are Cape York, the central coast of NSW, inner Sydney, Goulburn Murray, East Kimberley, West Kimberley, APY/NPY Lands, and Northeast Arnhem Land.
The idea is to test the effectiveness of programs. Pooled funding for opt-in regions would be based on empowered local communities. The blueprint asked for $5m to fund a nine-month design phase.
The overall aim is for the Closing the Gap targets to be achieved faster.
Mr Pearson is keen for government to reform its tender process so that indigenous organisations and people assume more responsibility.
This means tenders must recognise characteristics relevant to service delivery that are currently excluded: for example, connection to community and indigenous leadership.
Related articles
- NACCHO political alert: The Guardian reports Tony Abbott’s plan for Aboriginal Australians is fatally flawed (nacchocommunique.com)
- NACCHO political debate alert :Aboriginal policy- check out where the parties stand (nacchocommunique.com)
- NACCHO political alert: Coalition Health Policy: Aboriginal health missing in action (nacchocommunique.com)
- NACCHO summit media NITV The Australian :Call for both sides to close the Aboriginal gap (nacchocommunique.com)
- NACCHO political alert: What is the future of Aboriginal leadership and activism ? (nacchocommunique.com)
Noel Pearson’s Indigenous Policy Productivity Council just won’t work! Tony Abbott’s proposed aboriginal advisory council’s member, Noel Pearson, is proposing a concept of an “Indigenous Policy Productivity Council (IPPC) to evaluate the multiple programs that service aboriginal people. The IPPC will be a new statutory body, aimed at monitoring current programs, identify why they are failing and entrench the principle of indigenous-led responsibility at the heart of all policy. It involves a five-year pilot program for eight different regions on an opt-in basis”. The IPPC won’t work because basically it’s just another advisory body to the federal government who can either take or leave its recommendations.
Advisory bodies haven’t worked for the past 50 years. Also, this isn’t a new concept. The IPPC is basically another version of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, which ex-Prime Minister hated and got rid of. And I don’t know if aboriginal nation groups around Australia will agree with the concept that their receipt of funding will be determined upon the advice of one aboriginal person, Noel Pearson. Noel’s aim is to “bring the transformative progress in his own and other communities in Cape York to other communities”.
However, not everyone thinks Noel’s approach is prefect. A James Cook University academic has questioned the teaching model being used in some Cape York aboriginal communities. The academia says the ‘direct instruction’ model involves teachers following a script and students mimicking them. It would appear the ‘direct instruction’ model attempts to replace bad habits with good habits. Its primary flaw is that it doesn’t seek to get aboriginal people healthy in respect that they can start thinking for themselves and, in the end, take back control of their lives. The ‘direct instruction’ model can be argued to be a way of creating a ‘cult’ environment that could make it easier for governments to control aboriginal people. The trouble with the IPPC model is that it is just the same as all other ‘consultative’ approaches of all Australian governments for over the past 50 years.
Australian governments must start ‘negotiating’ with each and every aboriginal nation group and the only way to do that is through a treaty or treaties. And the first task would be for Australian governments to provide comprehensive medical services to all aboriginal communities to get them healthy so they can take back control of their lives. The era of patronizing Australian governments acting as a nanny state are well and truly over. Aboriginal people don’t want to live and die by the decisions of Australian governments anymore; aboriginal people want to live and die by their own decisions. And wonder if Noel Pearson would like it if an aboriginal leader from another State advised the Federal government on the nature and extent of the funding that his community would receive?