Engage with us, says Commissioner Gooda

It has been just over twelve months since Australia elected Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. It’s been a time of great expectations, anxieties and stress for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Australians.

During the 2013 election campaign, Prime Minister Abbott pledged to be the nation’s first ‘Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs’. His commitment to achieve positive and practical change in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is demonstrated by the elevation of Indigenous Affairs to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the appointment of a designated Minister of Indigenous Affairs, Senator Scullion.

I don’t doubt the Prime Minister’s commitment to placing Indigenous Affairs at the heart of the Coalition Government’s agenda.

When he spoke to the Sydney Institute on 15 March 2013, the Prime Minister seemed to understand the human and financial costs associated with a constant churn in Indigenous policies and programs, when he said: I am reluctant to decree further upheaval in an area that’s been subject to one and a half generations of largely ineffectual ‘reform’.

However, in the period since the election we have witnessed one of the largest-scale upheavals in the administration of Indigenous Affairs in a very long time.

It has been a year characterised by deep funding cuts, the radical re-shaping of existing programs and services, the development of new structures and major ‘machinery of government’ changes.

All of this has coincided with reviews into Indigenous training, employment and welfare.

It is not clear if these reviews, along with the budget measures and restructuring, complement each other or not. Nor is it clear what bearing these changes have on other areas of government. What is clear is that such reviews have the potential to impact greatly on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I understand the prerogative of governments to make change and to implement budget measures such as those we saw in May this year.

But the more far reaching the change and the more drastic the budget cuts, the more engagement is needed with the community and its representative organisations.

To give some idea of the magnitude of the changes confronting the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is the rationalisation of approximately 150 programs and activities down to five. This affects about 1,440 organisations with just over 3,000 funding contracts. On top of this, the Department will have to manage a budget cut in the vicinity of $400 million over the next four years.

After the May budget announcements, I said in this newspaper that our Aboriginal leadership is mature enough to understand if cuts are needed, that we're willing to put our shoulder in, but there needs to be proper engagement with our mob.

This remains the case.

We need respectful engagement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, particularly with the sector leadership, in key areas such as health, criminal justice, employment, education, early childhood and economic development. However, the portents are not great. In the past year, new advisory arrangements have been put in place, with the establishment of the Indigenous Advisory Council. Existing organisations such as the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples has had its funding significantly reduced.

Our organisations stand ready for this engagement. Sectors such as health, justice and family violence have long and extensive knowledge of the challenges and some of the remedies. This knowledge is invaluable.

Policy by imposition in any area of Australian life has rarely produced sustainable change. I believe respectful engagement of the Indigenous sector will help ameliorate the stress and anxiety our communities are experiencing right now.