Secondary school age Aboriginal children who live in remote communities are returning to boarding schools in regional centres around Australia. Like other students, some may want to stay at home. Some primary school age Aboriginal children who live in remote communities on the other hand, may look forward to returning to the local school, if only to escape the chance of being assaulted at home.
Who has the authority to make the older students attend school? Who has the authority to protect the younger students?
Ideally, parents should, but unfortunately some lack the requisite authority. Indeed, when a family member abuses a child, the family is unlikely to provide protection. In these cases, it is essential that the state intervene. Until very recently, too many administrators have failed in their duty to Aboriginal children by not enforcing truancy and child protection laws for fear of offending Aboriginal politicians.
Fortunately, times are changing. In a number of ways, state power is being reintroduced to help Aborigines integrate.
Truancy laws are beginning to be enforced in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. In Western Australia, parents will need to attend counselling or be fined if their children persist in truancy. Teachers, education administrators and parents are learning that letting children escape schooling does not preserve indigenous culture.
Soon, officers of the Department of Families in Queensland will, for the first time in decades, be based in Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal children at risk will no longer be placed with an Aboriginal family as a first priority, but with whomever can best care for them.
Aboriginal councils in Queensland will for the first time be elected on a non-racial basis. For the first time, these councils will be able to levy their residents, to raise funds for house maintenance and other essential services. Rates have never been an option, as there is no private property.
Aboriginal communities in Queensland have been given the power to control the possession and consumption of alcohol. These laws, in the hands of Aboriginal people, are producing some startling results in reducing alcohol related offences and alcohol related injuries.
In the Northern Territory, the "cultural" defence by old men having sex with Aboriginal girls "promised" to them is now outlawed. This hole in the criminal code was a disgrace to both sides of politics.
These changes are significant -- they eschew collective self-determination as an end in itself, although they embrace it where it promotes life chances, most likely to occur in the wider world, beyond Aboriginal-controlled enclaves.
How is the Commonwealth government to respond to these state government initiatives?
Since 1967, the Commonwealth has had the whip hand in Aboriginal policy, but it has squandered too much of its power on symbolism, rhetoric, and ideology. It has invested too much of taxpayers' money on building remote slums. It chooses to not use its authority in the few -- though expensive -- tools it has to intervene. The two major programs -- the Community Development Employment Program and the Community Infrastructure and Housing Program -- come with few obligations.
The Commonwealth will need to decide if it should be propping up outstations and remote communities with CDEP and CHIP, or whether it uses the funds for training to help people leave communities. Remote Aboriginal communities must come to grips with the need for at least some parts of their population to live and work elsewhere, balanced against the need to maintain connections with country and with kin. CDEP should be a training program, not a work-for-the dole program. Non-training unemployment beneficiaries could opt to undertake volunteer activities of the sort presently undertaken by CDEP.
The Commonwealth has been lumbered with big-ticket items like administering Native Title and funding the Indigenous Land Corporation. The land rights struggle has ensured a particular historical form of Aboriginality, but it will not provide a life to other than a few tour guides and community gatekeepers.
The Commonwealth has also been lumbered with ATSIC. A political infrastructure designed to create Tammany Hall politics. ATSIC can act as a national secretariat for the Aboriginal community, and provide advice to the Minister, but that is all. The Commonwealth should lend support to those with real authority in state government, the police, the teachers, the welfare officers -- many of whom will be Aboriginal -- who can make a difference.
Perhaps one of the most powerful tools in economic development will be the realisation that it is not enough to exist "on country", but to generate an income that can sustain the country. The key will be to use state powers to ensure that children attend school. In this regard, the Commonwealth needs to put its shoulder to the wheel.
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