Minister Macklin has responded very swiftly to reject the key recommendation of the NTER Review Board that she appointed: “that the current application of compulsory income management in the Northern Territory cease” and that it should be available on a voluntary basis to community members who choose to have some of their income quarantined for specific purposes as determined by them.
The NTER Review Board, like everyone else, seems to prefer the term “income management” to “quarantining”, but the bottom line is that this is the most contentious measure in the intervention because it contravenes the Racial Discrimination Act, is blanket and hence makes no distinction between responsible and irresponsible spenders of welfare, and is limited to only Aboriginal people residing in NT prescribed communities and not, for example, to those participating in the Cape York trials.
Where is the horizontal equity even between Aboriginal people?
In the NTER Review Report’s Foreword the Board highlighted that “there is intense hurt and anger [in prescribed communities] at being isolated on the basis of race and subjected to collective measures that would never be applied to other Australians. The Intervention was received with a sense of betrayal and disbelief. Resistance to its imposition undercut the potential effectiveness of its substantive measures.”
These are very powerful words uttered by a distinguished Board of three, supported by a team of eleven experts, all hand-picked by the Minister and other independent advisers.
The NTER Review Board’s recommendations were based on visits to 31 communities, meetings with representatives of 56 communities and overall consultation with over 140 different organisations over three months. On top of this, the Board received 222 submissions including mine and commissioned its own consultancy research much of which has not, as yet, been made public.
Against this, the Minister is pitting her evidence base which seems to consist of two elements. The first is information from stores which indicates that Aboriginal people in prescribed communities are spending more on food, especially fresh fruit and vegetables, and other basics and less on grog. The Minister contends that this is resulting in early evidence of better health outcomes for children.
If there are stores or household expenditure surveys that can convincingly demonstrate such outcomes then it is incumbent on the Minister to make them publicly available for critical scrutiny. It is surprising that such surveys were not mentioned by the Review Board. The Minister does not countenance the possibility that such increased expenditure, especially on fresh food and vegetables, might result from greater availability of such produce now that community stores need to be licenced to meet minimum Australian standards rather than income quarantining.
The second source of evidence is anecdotal, representations made by unnamed women to the Minister to retain compulsory quarantining because of their fear that if it were made voluntary they would be bullied, presumably by men, to bypass such voluntary options. Such statements are reminiscent of how Mal Brough used to construct his moral authority in order to support his pre-determined actions via shadowy anonymous anecdote.
This is not only a poor basis for evidence based policy making to which the Minister is committed, but it is also demeaning of Aboriginal women’s agency, demeaning of men to suggest that they would force their own kin to act against their wishes, and demeaning of the Review Board that tables no such evidence despite widespread consultations.
One can only speculate on why Minister Macklin has taken this surprising route to extend the stabilisation phase and this most draconian and paternalistic measure for a further 12 months. Perhaps she is just being pragmatic knowing how difficult it will be to pass amendment through a hostile senate?
Or else she hopes that in 12 months time there will be such a major turnaround in favour of quarantining in prescribed communities so that it becomes a positive special measure that is popularly sought and hence not in contravention of the RDA. Or perhaps she is still looking for bipartisanship, Opposition spokesperson Tony Abbott has certainly been first out of the blocks to support this decision.
One has to wonder why a considerable amount of public money, over $2 million according to Senate Estimates, has been spent on an independent review if the Minister was just going to cherry-pick from its recommendations? In terms of future reviews and evidence-based policy making the Minister sends a very negative signal, choosing to continue the Howard government’s approach of jettisoning expert opinion, in this case a hand-picked expert Review Board, in favour of the ‘person in the street’, in this case the Minister.
This is very worrying for the development of effective public policy in an area of enormous complexity that needs hard evidence, transparent and widespread community consultation and the advice of experts; and not recourse to selective anecdote and unsubstantiated generalisations at best, or mere ideology at worst.
As the person who wrote the original article I want to thank all who made comment. I only want to post a comment to GJL who seems to have some problem with the fact that I am a professor. So let me assure you GJL that I have not always been a professor and that I have resided for very long periods of time in the remotest Aboriginal communities in north Australia in the most difficult circumstances and learnt a great deal. But if I had not, would that disqualify me from having a considered view? Do I have to be homeless to make informed comment about homelessness; or to be unemployed to make comment about the problem of unemployment. At once GJL you seem to be saying that ministers of the crown should and should not take advice from specialists. My main point is that policy should not be based either on anecdote or on the Minister’s interpretation of the views of a privileged few, especially when significant public money and much time and effort has been spent by an appointed Board to review these issues.
There is no doubt that income quarantining is a blunt instrument, and a mixed blessing. In some places it has made economic prisoners of remote community people, hostage to the high prices and limited availabilities of some remote community stores. The measuring stick of money being spent on “fresh food” disregards the poor practices of some agencies providing “bush orders” – which include charging for goods that are missing once the boxes arrive at the (usually small) communities, meat that is too putrid to eat on arrival at teh community, and inedible fruit and veg. These orders are delivered only once a week, to people who have no capacity to safely store food,and who have to order off a list rather than being able to see what they are buying.
Anything that reduces the amount of grog going into remote communities will reduce the appalling levels of violence against women and kids, and will make more money available for food, clothing, bedding etc. However, dare I suggest this would be best tackled by supply reduction at the outlets – selling less of the wretched stuff. This has not been mentioned as a strategy, as it is inconceivable to interfere with the rights of the liquor industry to sell as much of their product as they can. There is even some alarming discussion of “wet canteens” being placed back into remote communities in the Central Desert, despite the very strong evidence base that having a wet canteen increases the need for, and cost of providing health services, domestic violence services, kids services, and extra policing. It also guts the social life of communities, as everything revolves around the opening hours of the wet canteen. Macklin, (and NT politicians) – are you listening??? The Aboriginal women in this region DO NOT WANT INCREASED AVAILABILITY OF GROG! They’ve marched in the streets, they’ve written submissions, they’ve met with government and industry reps – and still have to keep fighting the same old battles.
Yes Professor – you obviously know all about how it is to live in the remote communities of the NT, with all the complexities and competing interests that exist in these poverty-stricken, mostly disfunctional communities. Peter Yu too – he would know well??
But Minister Macklin would only be following the lead of her boss in making decisions and announcing policy without any of the benefit that might spring from getting specialist advice from people who say they know. Rudd and Swan have set wonderful precedents for their fellow ministers in receiving (or not receiving) and following (or not following) the advices of their learned bureaucrats.
But make no mistake professor – women and children in these remote areas are generally speaking, currently far better of in terms of safety, nutrition, health and welfare since the effects of the intervention have kicked in.
claret sez ” I have worked in Aboriginal health for many years and can tell you that it is much better to rely on ‘anecdotes’ than ‘expert opinion'”
funny that whenever the intervention is mentioned another string of anecdotes is put in from someone who claims to work in ‘aboriginal health’ and thereby claims expertise.
Claret you work as what? an admistrator? a nuse? a doctor? you don’t say.
Jenny Macklin referred on radio this morning to the views expressed by women in Wadeye. It seems that policy for the NT is often dictated by the situation there. It is probably one of the least functional communities in the Territory and should not be used as the yardstick for decision-making. Mal Brough always seemed to make the same mistake.