Since 1985, the Commonwealth has spent almost $17 billion on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. That is almost $54,000 per indigenous Australian. And it does not include extra spending by state and territory Governments, or spending on general services also used by indigenous Australians.
Yet, indigenous Australians continue to have health profiles much worse than other Australians -- with life expectancies 15 to 20 years below the national average. Many of their communities continue to be ravaged by domestic violence, high rates of incarceration, high unemployment.
If we could point to improvements, that would provide some hope -- but in so many of these areas, there has been remarkably little gain. The welfare model of public policy -- of indigenous advancement through income support and other welfare expenditure -- has not worked.
Nor, despite the current fuss, will native title provide much basis for indigenous advancement. Only a very limited number of indigenous Australians are likely to end up with confirmed native title rights. Second, native title is a studiously non-commercial form of title. It is held collectively, so individual title-holders have little or no incentive to invest effort in improving the value of the title since any benefits are shared with every other title-holder, but every incentive to use as much of it themselves as they can.
Nor is it a recipe for improved community relations to tie a set of non-commercial rights to land in with highly commercial pastoral lessees. Particularly when lessees who bought their leases face the uncertainty of sharing with persons as yet unknown, with rights as yet undetermined and who did not have to pay for those rights.
Nor is looking at matters through the prism of discrimination helpful. History is full of ethnic groups which were discriminated against, but have still been disproportionately successful -- Jews, Chinese-Malays, Japanese-Americans, Armenians, etc. These groups have not been successful because some benevolent state dropped a pile of money on them or gave them special property rights.
What they have in common is cultural traits reinforced by circumstances which encouraged commercial success: strong family structures, commitment to education, internal networks and trust.
The frayed family structures, lack of cultural background in formal education or mercantile society and divided clan and tribal structure of indigenous Australia do not provide good bases for successful participation in the wider economy.
These have not been created by a lack of money, nor can they be solved by throwing money at them.
Indeed, welfare can be positively harmful. Huge spending on specific indigenous programmes directs talent in indigenous communities to careers in qualifying for, and administering, government funding. It weakens incentives to change behaviour in ways which might mean losing such funding.
Australian institutions must be open to all Australians willing to participate in them. But that does not get you very far, as individuals, families and groups ultimately have to do it themselves.
Indigenous Australians can only achieve similar health, employment and income profiles to other Australians if they participate fully in the economic and other life of Australia.
Public policy can partly bridge the gap by ensuring access to the normal services and programmes. But much of the bridge has to be built by indigenous Australians themselves if they want achieve the full benefits of participation in society. This does not mean surrendering their cultures, but adapting them to the modern world. Which is, to a greater or lesser extent, what everyone else has had to do.
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