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The Journal o f Indigenous Policy - Issue 5
ENHANCING ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE
JON ALTMAN* and JOE MORRISON**
In Reconciliation: Australia’s Challenge, The Council for Aboriginal
Reconciliation (2000: 113-14) proposed a National Strategy for Economic
Independence. This Strategy sought a combination of economic independence
equality and equity. Indigenous Australians should be in a position to enjoy the
same levels of economic independence as the wider community. At the same
time this may need to be interpreted differentially—for some, economic
independence will need to be defined in terms of the customary economy and
lifestyles. This discussion paper provides some perspectives on how economic
independence might be enhanced.
Since 1788 and the white colonization of Australia commenced, the
continental population has grown rapidly and national income has increased, to
the point that today Australia is one of the world’s very rich or developed
nations. History shows though that national wealth creation has been predicated
on the gradual alienation of both land and resources from the continent’s prior
inhabitants, Indigenous Australians. The growth of national wealth has largely
excluded this section of the population.
Widespread Indigenous poverty and growing marginalization was
clearly evident throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But it is only
since the 1971 Census of Population and Housing that this could be statistically
documented. This is because the Constitution specifically excluded the ‘natives
of Australia’ from the five-yearly census count, a crucial source of information,
and it was only in the 1967 Referendum that this discriminatory s.127 was
deleted.
The first snapshot of the Aboriginal economic situation nation-wide
used 1971 Census information. This study by Altman and Nieuwenhuysen
(1979) showed that Aboriginal economic status was not only far lower than
that for other Australians, but that within the Aboriginal population there were
significant variations depending on place of residence and timing of contact
history. Those living remotely in discrete Aboriginal communities on pastoral
stations, townships and outstations have the lowest economic status as
measured by standard social indicators. While the cross-cultural applicability
of such social indicators can be easily called into question, the six censuses
since then have all shown that as a self-identifying ethnic group Indigenous
Australians have a far lower socio-economic status than other Australians. For
example, analysis of the most recent 2001 Census shows that the Indigenous
unemployment rate is nearly three times that for non-Indigenous Australians,
median income for Indigenous individuals is only 60 per cent of the non* Jon Altman is Professor and Director o f the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy
Research, Australian National University.
** Joe Morrison is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research,
Australian National University.
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Enhancing Economic Independence
Indigenous median, Indigenous home ownership is half the national rate and
Indigenous participation in
higher education is similarly about half the national rate (Hunter 2004).
Between 1971 and 2001 the Indigenous population has grown from an
enumerated 115 000 to an estimated 460,000 so that the overall significance of
this economic difference has increased significantly..
In 1985, the Report of the Miller Committee of Review of Aboriginal
Employment and Training Programs (Miller 1985) differentiated the
circumstances of Aboriginal people in the more densely populated southeast
and south-west from those in low density rural and remote regions, especially
in the undeveloped tropical north and desert. In the former, policy focus has
been placed on equitable integration of the Indigenous population into the
mainstream economy, via the labour market and self-employment in business.
This broad approach has some similarities with the now widely discredited
assimilation policy that ran from the immediate post-war period until its
official end as Commonwealth policy in 1972.
The difference is that in an Australia more committed to cultural
pluralism there is a recognition that economic integration can sit alongside
distinctive and different belief and value systems and practices. Today, about
70 per cent of the Indigenous population lives in this part of the continent and
their problems of poverty are recognized as arising from economic and social
exclusion based on historic legacy and discrimination. The policy focus has
been on affirmative action through a mix of special programs and attempts to
provide equality of opportunity. Progress has been made in the last thirty years,
although it has been too slow, possibly because of inadequate investment by
the state, because of the depth of shortfalls, especially in health, housing and
education, and because of some difficulty in targeting assistance. Targeting is
especially difficult in urban Australia as Indigenous households are often
ethnically mixed and residentially integrated with the wider society.
Issue 1 - Will the current mix of Indigenous-specific and
mainstream programs at Commonwealth and State levels enhance
Indigenous prospects for economic independence?
Issue 2 - How can assistance be targeted more effectively for
Indigenous people living in urban and metropolitan situations
outside discrete communities?
The Miller Committee rightly differentiated Aboriginal access to the
affluent mainstream economy from the issue of economic
development—what it termed building an economic base—in rural and
remote Australia where 30 per cent of the Indigenous population resides.
In this sector, there are an estimated 1 200 discrete Indigenous
communities with a total population of about 120 000. It is in these
remote parts that since the 1970s, land rights and, more recently
following the Mabo High Court judgment, native title laws, have seen
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Jon Altmann and Joe Morrison
the legal restitution of over 1 million sq kms to Indigenous people.
Paradoxically, most of this reclaimed land was unalienated Crown land
of perceived limited commercial value that has historically been
reserved for Aboriginal populations beyond the frontier. Consequently
its economic development continues to present significant challenges
both to residents of discrete communities and to the state.
Issue 3 - Is the strategy of building an economic base on the
Indigenous estate enhancing prospects for Indigenous economic
independence?
The term economic independence in such situations can have many
meanings. These range from an equality goal that would seek to match
economic well-being, as measured by standard measures like per capita
income, for Indigenous people to that enjoyed by other Australians; to a
goal that may be based more on equity, a recognition of difference and a
view of development as a process that allows Indigenous people to
exercise choice. Arguably, the independence equalization goal will be
extraordinarily difficult to achieve owing to the relative absence of
commercial opportunity and labour markets in remote regions and the
evident reluctance of many Indigenous people to migrate for
employment—even if it were readily available.
Issue 4 - In remote situations, should broader notions of
independence be adopted that recognize a need for ongoing state
support?
The role of the state and state aid looms large. Development strategies in
remote regions have historically been underwritten by the state. Yet
there is a growing concern that many social problems evident in
Indigenous communities are linked to a combination of too little
engagement with the market economy and too much dependence on the
welfare state (Pearson 2000). This too is a legacy of past policy, in the
1960s in particular, assimilation policy was predicated on the view that
economic development in remote regions would mirror that evidenced a
century earlier in more settled temperate regions. In the 1970s, a mix of
self-determination and belated full bestowal of citizenship rights saw a
rapid growth in the significance of the welfare state in the lives of
Indigenous people; and the concurrent abandonment of false hopes of
seamless economic assimilation. Since the late 1970s, an Indigenousspecific program, the Community Development Employment Projects
(CDEP) scheme has seen more and more Aboriginal people work for the
dole, but this state institution, with financial ceilings linked to welfare
entitlements, has been inadequate to realistically underwrite costly
economic development.
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Enhancing Economic Independence
Issue 5 - Is there adequate state support for economic independence
at Indigenous communities or is the state merely perpetuating
dependence?
In parts of remote and regional Australia, Indigenous people have
maintained aspects of their customary economy in tact, in part as a
response to the absence of the market and in part because the customary
economy articulates well with land rights and living at small
communities called outstations or homelands, on country of customary
association. In such situations, especially in the Northern Territory, the
economy is a ‘hybrid’ or mixture with three sectors, the customary, the
market and the state, as distinct to the more usual two, private and
public (Altman 2005). Customary activity today can generate direct
economic (but non-market) benefit in the harvesting of wildlife and fish
and in the production of art (based on custom) for sale. It can also
generate public good when associated with natural resource
management that enhances biodiversity conservation in under-populated
regions that are environmentally in tact.
With property rights in resources used for domestic purposes now
recognized in native title common law, it is likely that Aboriginal
economic development in remote regions will see expansion of all three
sectors of the hybrid economy. Arguably, such a form of Indigenous
economic development will also require greater recognition (and
monitoring) of the public good generated by Indigenous natural resource
management activity as a form of sustainable development.
Issue 6 - How can the Indigenous customary economy be supported
where it generates private and public benefit and how can such
benefits gain national recognition?
This paper suggests that Indigenous economic independence might be
enhanced if the differences within Indigenous Australia were better
understood—for example, in more settled regions Indigenous economic
futures might mesh with the mainstream Australian economy. In remote
regions, especially where Indigenous people live on the Indigenous
estate, economic futures might lie in the hybrid economy and prospects
for independence might be constrained. Such distinctions are clearly
over-simplifications that do not accord with lived reality—people may
migrate and there are many aspects of socioeconomic disadvantage
apparent in metropolitan, urban, rural and remote contexts.
Issue 7 - How can the diversity of Indigenous economic
circumstances be better understood by both the Australian public
and policy makers?
Issue 8 - Will mainstreaming enhance a national understanding of
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Jon Altmann and Joe Morrison
Indigenous diversity and difference?
Since the 1990s, some development programs, for example the
Indigenous arts industry, have used Australia-wide approaches, many
auspiced by the now defunct national Indigenous representative and
program delivery organization ATSIC. It is unclear which agency will
now have carriage of such national strategic development approaches
and if the corporate knowledge that ATSIC had accumulated over its 14
years will be transferred effectively to new service delivery agencies. In
north Australia, new forms of land and sea management organizations
have been established coordinated by Aboriginal representative
organizations. A part of the success of such initiatives has been the
growing recognition that Indigenous knowledge has value in natural
resource management and sits comfortably alongside western science.
Many of these initiatives have been grossly under-funded on a project
rather than recurrent basis.
Issue 9 - How can successful economic development programs from
the past be maintained and enhanced?
In the past there was also a view that restitution of land, via land rights
and native title laws, will underwrite Aboriginal economic development.
Now it is increasingly apparent that the proper basis for economic
development will need to be based on the recognition of Indigenous
property rights in commercially-valuable assets like water, fisheries, and
minerals—land rights alone cannot deliver development and
independence. Alternatively, such property rights may need to be
purchased with financial payments from land or resource use
agreements or compensation in regions where such rights may have
been invalidly extinguished. The negotiation of regional agreements
might provide important institutional mechanisms for such restitutions.
Federal-State relations will also loom large in enhancing economic
independence—the
apparent
intractability
of
Indigenous
underdevelopment and the escalating costs of existing backlogs suggests
that this will need to become an arena for enhanced cooperation rather
than cost shifting. This is especially in situations where fair access to
basic services will be essential to increase the human capital
endowments needed to make Aboriginal people more competitive in
labour markets. Indigenous economic development will need to utilise
competitive advantage, where it exists, while also acknowledging the
realities of historical legacies and the cost disadvantages of remote
living, even in modem Australia.
Issue 10 - What new institutions might be needed to ensure that new
whole-of-government mainstream approaches deliver enhanced
economic independence opportunities?
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Enhancing Economic Independence
In an Australia Day speech on 26 January 2005 the Prime Minister
stated ‘So as we celebrate this day, we count it a privilege to be
Australians, we pay respect to the first Australians-the Indigenous
people of this country and we look to their full enjoyment of the benefits
and the bounty that Australia brings to all of its citizens’. There is a
growing recognition that Indigenous Australians need a greater share of
the national economy both to enhance their economic independence and
for national benefit.
Issue 11 - How can the reconciliation process facilitate enhanced
economic independence for Indigenous Australians?
References
Altman, J.C. 2005. ‘Development options on Aboriginal land:
sustainable Indigenous hybrid economies in the twenty-first century’ in L.
Taylor, G.K. Ward, G. Henderson, R. Davis and L.A. Wallis (eds) The Power
of Knowledge and the Resonance of Tradition, Aboriginal Studies Press,
Canberra, pp. 34-48
Altman, J.C. and Nieuwenhuysen, J. 1979. The Economic Status of
Australian Aborigines, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation 2000. Reconciliation: Australia’s
Challenge. Final Report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation to the
prime Minister and the Commonwealth Parliament, Commonwealth of
Ausralia, Canberra.
Hunter, B.H. 2004. Indigenous Australians in the Contemporary Labour
Market, ABS Catalogue no. 2052.0, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra.
Miller, M. (Chair) 1985. Report of the Committee of Review of
Aboriginal Employment and Training Programs, Australian Government
publishing Service, Canberra.
Pearson, N. 2000. Our Right to Take Responsibility, Noel Pearson and
Associates, Cairns.
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The Journal o f Indigenous Policy - Issue 5
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM STATE AND TERRITORY
GOVERNMENTS!
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Introduction
This paper examines Aboriginal reconciliation from the Western
Australia Government's perspective. The paper is structured around the four
'pillars of reconciliation':
1.
2.
3.
4.
Promoting recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rights;
Overcoming disadvantage;
Sustaining and growing the reconciliation process; and
Enhancing economic independence.
The Western Australia Government is committed to shared leadership,
shared responsibility and a partnership with Indigenous people. The
Government acknowledges its role in addressing past injustices against
Indigenous people. The Government also acknowledges the Indigenous
community's responsibility for managing individual, family and community
actions.
The commitment to develop partnerships is based on shared
responsibility as part of the Statement of Commitment to a New and Just
Relationship between the Government of Western Australia and Aboriginal
Western Australians and the Government's broader Indigenous affairs policy.
The commitment includes working in partnership with Indigenous people to
design and implement programs that contribute to reconciliation by
empowering Indigenous people to take responsibility within their communities
and families for developing practical solutions to problems.
The Government has developed a framework with four key themes for
Indigenous affairs in Western Australia. The themes are:
•
•
•
•
Building capacity and governance;
Land and sea title tenure and use;
Economic opportunity and development; and
Improved access to government and local government services.
The framework will form the basis for the Australian Government to add
value to the State's effort in, and intergovernmental bilateral agreement on,
Indigenous affairs.
1 Background paper for the National Reconciliation Workshop, Canberra 30-31 M ay 2005.
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Contributions from State and Territory Governments
Promoting Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights
Aboriginal reconciliation is a priority for the Western Australian
Government. One of the Gallop Labor Government's first major gestures of
support for reconciliation was the signing of the Commitment to a New and
Just Relationship between the Government of Western Australia and
Aboriginal Western Australians in 2001. Signing the Statement of Commitment
with Western Australian Indigenous representatives was of immense symbolic
and practical importance.
Symbolically, the Statement of Commitment acknowledges, among
other important principles, the rights of Aboriginal people as the first peoples
of Western Australia including their ownership and connection to land and
waters, the need for legislative protection of Aboriginal rights, equity of
citizenship entitlements, the importance of addressing issues arising from past
acts of displacement, and the importance of improving governance, capacity
building, and economic independence for Aboriginal people.
Practically, the Statement of Commitment provides a framework for
Government and Indigenous people to negotiate, in partnership, regional and
local agreements for improving health, education, living standards, and wealth
acquisition. The Statement of Commitment embodies the principles of
reconciliation, and is the foundation for enabling the Government and
Indigenous people to connect in ways that engender trust, strengthen
relationships, and lead to a better quality of life for Indigenous people.
Since the Australian Government announced the abolition of the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the Western Australia
Government has embarked on a project to consult with Indigenous people to
develop representative structures that can be used by Government to continue
the partnership.
Furthermore, the Western Australian Government has commenced
discussions with the Australian Government on a bilateral agreement to
coordinate government effort to improve social and economic outcomes for
Indigenous people.
Overcoming Disadvantage
The Western Australian Government has increased its effort to improve
outcomes for Aboriginal people in the key areas of housing, health, education,
and employment. The requirement for Governments to report under the Council
of Australian Governments' (COAG) key indicators of Indigenous disadvantage
will demonstrate whether policy and programs are achieving outcomes for
Indigenous people, and will help guide future work.
In working towards reducing disadvantage, the Western Australian
Government has had to critically look at the way it develops policy in relation
to Aboriginal people and delivers services to them. The Government has had to
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