Mark Latham's announcement of the Labor party's intention, if elected, to abolish ATSIC is designed to trump the government, which is still considering its response to the November 2003 report "In the Hands of the Regions: A New ATSIC".
Labor's proposal broadly follows the recommendations of the report, especially with respect to the regional devolution of service delivery and decision-making. Labor favours a directly elected national body, the Report an indirectly elected body, consisting of the currently constituted 35 regional council chairs. Is this a significant shift from the Labor platform, which, as recently as January, promised to "continue the development of ATSIC as a self-determining indigenous organisation"? Not at all, it simply recognises that, as Latham stated, "the current model has not delivered sufficient gains to indigenous communities" and "It's been very much damaged by ... Geoff Clark".
Latham added the political point, ATSIC had been "gutted by the Howard Government", which "had left a vacuum in indigenous policy".
I think Latham is correct, there is a vacuum in indigenous policy. How does Labor, or for that matter, the government intend to fill it?
In many ways, the two sides are artfully avoiding the real issues, finding comfort in ATSIC's discomfort. For example, Senator Kerry O'Brien, the Labor shadow minister, argues that the new national body should not make spending decisions. In this regard, it is no different to the government, which has established ATSIS, to make funding decisions.
Labor is also close to the government in recognising that the major responsibility for the delivery of services to indigenous communities rests with state governments. Senator O'Brien wants to talk to the state governments to try to create a "bundling of resource delivery and a federal-state-territory agreement on regional and community plans".
Labor wants to make indigenous services a national priority, "to list indigenous services and governance on the COAG agenda". Such priority is already assured, with reports in recent months from the Commonwealth Grants Commission and the Productivity Commission.
Labor wants to promote regional governance "to ensure that services and resources are getting through to the people who need them". This was a major theme in the ATSIC Review, and no doubt the government will similarly give some credence to the new fashion of regionalism.
Labor wants to strengthen indigenous participation in national policymaking by having its new directly-elected national indigenous body, "have responsibility for providing independent policy research and advocacy, delivering policy advice to government ..." The government would, no doubt, also like to see a body providing advocacy and research advice.
Beyond this apparent convergence, the pretence should end. The real difference between the Labor and the government, both are too frightened to admit, is that Labor believes in collective self-determination, and the government believes in individual self-determination.
To illustrate the difference, think of Redfern.
Redfern was a reclaimed white slum, which, with millions of taxpayers dollars became a black slum. It became a refuge for Aborigines, many of whom had significant personal problems, to escape the woes, which beset them in rural and regional NSW. The solidarity they found in Redfern was not sufficient to help those who needed something more. In fact, political solidarity probably only helps the competent to cut their political teeth and either move on to a new level of politics, or make a living out of government programs designed to help their comrades.
Similarly, disbursing the Redfernites will not help much either if Aborigines continue to rely on government services. Better delivery of Government services is not the issue. Regional coordination is not the issue. The issue is having Aborigines, or anyone else for that matter, make best use of their abilities.
Political structures and coordinated service delivery are no substitute for helping self-determining individuals achieve their potential. The key to this is to have the correct individual incentives to make choices of real consequence.
This means that governments must intervene in Aboriginal lives, not in the way they and the missionaries did in the past. But intervene, through truancy officers and patrol officers to make it clear that Aborigines must access the skills they need to survive. They must take the pathways common to all to a productive and fulfilling life.
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