Words and silences: the discursive politics of problem representation in the Northern Territory Intervention
Emma Partridge
A thesis in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Social Policy Research Centre Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of New South Wales
May 2014
Table of contents
Acknowledgements 5 Chapter 1. Introduction 9 1.1 Focus, scope and significance of the study 10 1.2 Research question and thesis aims 11 1.3 Thesis argument 12 1.4 The Northern Territory Intervention 2007-2012 14 1.5 Existing analyses of the Intervention 22 1.6 Originality of the study as a contribution to knowledge 28 1.7 Chapter outline 30 Chapter 2. Conceptual framework 33 2.1 Introduction 33 2.2 Post-positivist, constructionist approach 33 2.3 Discursive approach 36 2.4 An interest in governance and governmental rationality 40 2.5 Problematisations rather than ‘problems’ 42 2.6 Settler colonial theory and Indigenous policy 47 Chapter 3. Methodology 53 3.1 Introduction 53 3.2 Methodological approach 53 3.2.1 Qualitative research 53 3.2.2 Discursive analysis 54 3.2.3 The WPR approach as a discourse analysis method 55 3.2.4 Previous applications and assessments of WPR 59 3.3 Data sources and data collection methods 61 3.3.1 Government policy texts 61 3.3.2 Qualitative, semi-structured interviews 64 3.4 Ethical considerations 68 3.4.1 Ethical approach to interviewing 68 3.4.2 Indigenous research 69 3.5 Analysis: application of the WPR method 72 3.6 Limitations of methodology 74 Chapter 4. What is the ‘problem’ represented to be? 76 4.1 Introduction 76 4.2 Identifying problematisations in the government texts 77 4.2.1 Dysfunctionality and a lack of social norms 80 4.2.2 Welfare dependency 85 4.2.3 Individual behaviour or irresponsibility 86 4.2.4 Disadvantage 88 4.3 Interviewees who share these problematisations 92 4.3.1 Dysfunctionality and a lack of social norms 93 4.3.2 Welfare dependency 101 4.3.3 Individual behaviour or irresponsibility 102 4.3.4 Disadvantage 105 4.4 Conclusion 108
Chapter 5. Assumptions and rationalities 111 5.1 Introduction 111 5.2 Making meaning: discursive coherence 111 5.2.1 Neoliberal assumptions and rationalities 112 5.2.2 Racialised assumptions 119 5.2.3 Racialised modes of rule 125 5.2.4 Complementary and mutually reinforcing discourses 142 5.4 The discursive tension created by ‘disadvantage’ 143 5.5 Conclusion 148 Chapter 6. Genealogy 151 6.1 Introduction 151 6.2 Genealogical strand 1: welfare policy 152 6.3 Genealogical strand 2: Australian Indigenous policy 157 6.4 The Labor texts: discursive and genealogical tensions 183 6.5 Conclusion 186 Chapter 7. What is left unproblematic? 188 7.1 Introduction 188 7.2 The settler colonial context is unproblematised 188 7.2.1 Past practices of colonialism are erased 189 7.2.2 The cultural specificity of settler norms 199 7.2.3 The contemporary relevance of Indigenous culture 203 7.2.4 The relationship between the settler state and Indigenous people 207 7.3 Conclusion 215 Chapter 8. What effects are produced by this policy discourse? 218 8.1 Introduction 218 8.2 Subjectification and lived effects 219 8.3 Harms and benefits 235 8.4 Conclusion 245 Chapter 9. Conclusion: contesting and replacing the official discourse 247 9.1 Introduction 247 9.2 Contestations and replacement discourses 247 9.3 A need for reflexivity 256 9.4 Conclusion 259 Bibliography 270 Appendix A. Key to government texts 308 Appendix B. Participant information statement and consent form 316 Appendix C. Interview guide 320 Appendix D. Interviewee biographies 322
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank all those people who kindly agreed to be interviewed for this thesis. I sincerely appreciate you making time in your busy lives to share your thoughts on this topic – your contributions challenged me, developed my thinking and made the thesis so much richer. Furthermore, you all reinforced to me how many people are ‘doing discourse analysis’ of government policy without writing it up as a thesis. I hope I have done justice to your ideas.
To my supervisors Ilan Katz and Karen Fisher at the Social Policy Research Centre, thank you for your valuable input and feedback over the past four years. Thanks also to my fellow Social Policy Research Centre postgraduate students, especially Ciara Smyth and Yuvisthi Naidoo for your smiling faces and sympathetic ears around the corridors and the coffee cart.
To my employer, my lovely boss Stuart White, and my equally lovely colleagues at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney, I sincerely appreciate the flexibility you provided as I juggled work and study, and the patience you showed in tolerating periods of complete absence. You made this possible – everyone should be lucky enough to have such a supportive workplace.
My deep gratitude and appreciation to Catriona Elder for reading the overly long and very messy draft I sent you and for engaging so closely and generously with my work. Your careful mix of praise, encouragement and critical and exasperated comments gave me a much-needed dose of perspective at just the right time, and improved the thesis out of sight. どうもありがとうございました. Thanks also to kylie valentine at the SPRC, and Kate Finlayson for reading drafts and providing encouraging feedback.
To all my wonderful and much-cherished friends, especially Jess, Anna, Tracey, Mitch, Jason, Jeremy, Liza, Poppy, Annie, Nick, Annie, Melinda, Julia, Bob, Sally, Suganthi, Deborah, Min and Rica, Devon and Shalini. You asked me how it was going, or knew not to, you sent so many encouraging messages, you delivered lunch,
and you gave back-saving massages. And most importantly you provided so much essential fun and thesis distraction around dinner tables and on dancefloors. You are my community, and I’m so happy I now have more time to spend with you all.
Thanks also to Mary Maddison for your ongoing interest in my work and your love and support.
To my beloved Sam and Eliza – you were at home when I started this and you are well and truly out in the world now I’ve finished it. Thank you for enduring my parental grumpiness over the years – whether thesis-related or not. I love you so much. And no, I don’t expect you to read any further than this ☺
Lastly and most importantly, my deepest thanks to my partner, my best friend and the love of my life, Sarah Maddison. I’m pretty sure I would neither have started nor finished this without you. Thank you for too many things to mention here, but especially for reading early drafts not fit for anyone else, for talking the tricky bits through with me, and for patiently dealing with my repeated emotional meltdowns. Thank you for your unwavering support and your unshakeable faith that I could, and would, finish this thing. And thank you for nurturing me with so much delicious home-cooked food, and for shouldering an unfair share of domestic chores. The last four years have only confirmed again how much I love you and how unbelievably lucky I am to be sharing my life with you. Now, let’s go to the beach!
LIST OF ACRONYMS
AHRC Australian Human Rights Commission AIATSIS Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies AIDA Australian Indigenous Doctors Association ALP Australian Labor Party AMSANT Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory APONT Aboriginal Peak Organisations of the Northern Territory ATSIC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission ATSISJC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner CAALAS Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service CAR Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation CDEP Community Development Employment Projects CIRCA Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia CLC Central Land Council COAG Council of Australian Governments CRC-REP Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation DDHS Danila Dilba Health Service DSS (Commonwealth Department of) Social Services FaHCSIA (Commonwealth Department of) Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs GBM Government Business Manager HREOC Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission IEO Indigenous Engagement Officers IRAG Intervention Rollback Action Group LIP Local Implementation Plan NAALAS North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service NAAJA North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency NHMRC National Health and Medical Research Council NIRA National Indigenous Reform Agreement NPA National Partnership Agreement NT Northern Territory
NTCOSS Northern Territory Council of Social Service NTER Northern Territory Emergency Response PAPA Prescribed Area People’s Alliance PISC Participant Information Statement and Consent (form) RCIADIC Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody RDA Racial Discrimination Act (Commonwealth) RSD Remote Service Delivery SEAM Improving School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measure SIHIP Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program SPRC Social Policy Research Centre SRA Shared Responsibility Agreement TEWLS Top End Women’s Legal Service UNSW University of New South Wales WAHAC West Aranda Health Aboriginal Corporation WPR What’s the problem represented to be?
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
The time for talking and the time for reports is over, the Australian public wants something done about the chronic problem in the Northern Territory … I don't think we need another meeting. We know what the problem is, everybody knows what the problem is, everybody.
Prime Minister John Howard, ABC Radio, 25 June 2007.
In an interview a few days after launching the ‘Northern Territory Emergency Response’ in June 2007, Prime Minister John Howard justified the drastic and sweeping changes to Indigenous policy that he had just announced by insisting that the nature of ‘the problem’ in Indigenous communities was so obvious and so well known as to be beyond debate. In the years since, there has been significant debate about the appropriateness and effectiveness of the policy approach that has come to be known as ‘the Intervention’. What has received less attention however, is the assumption in Howard’s statement – mirrored in the policy discourse of the subsequent Rudd/Gillard Labor Governments – that the ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities are given, that they are already ‘known’, or indeed that they are best described as existing in Indigenous communities.
This thesis challenges the assumption that ‘everybody knows what the problem is’ – either in Indigenous policy or in policy more generally – and the asociated assumption that policy analysis consists of assessing and debating different ‘solutions’ or ‘responses’. It suggests instead that rather than responding to pre- existing problems, policy actively constitutes those problems, and further, that this is an inherently political and ideological process. Thus, rather than examining the policy measures of the Intervention, or indeed the ‘problems’ to which they purport to ‘respond’, it invites the reader to consider this process of ‘problematisation’ itself, and to reflect on the role that official policy discourse plays in producing what we ‘know’ about Indigenous communities.
1.1 Focus, scope and significance of the study
This thesis takes as its object of study a package of Australian Commonwealth Government policy measures applied to Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities. Originally launched in 2007 as the ‘Northern Territory Emergency Response’ (NTER), and since variously reframed and renamed by successive governments, the broad approach and associated measures are colloquially referred to as ‘the Intervention’. The thesis conducts a discursive analysis of what it terms ‘official’ or ‘government’ Intervention discourse, as represented by a selection of government texts produced between June 2007 and June 2012. The analysis also incorporates a series of original interviews, using these to explore how a range of stakeholders respond to and engage with this official policy discourse.
Originally described as an ‘emergency response’ to widespread child abuse in NT Aboriginal communities documented by the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle (or Little children are sacred) report (Wild and Anderson 2007), the Intervention comprises numerous wide-ranging and complex policy measures. These measures, together with the ways in which the policy rationale, framing, content and implementation shifted during the period under study are described in detail at 1.4 below.
The Intervention stands as a significant moment in the history of Australian Indigenous policy. Framed by the Howard Government on its launch as ‘a radical overhaul of the way we do business’ (B5: 2),1 and a series of ‘sweeping’, ‘breathtaking’ and ‘bold’ policy changes (B6) driven by the government’s determination to ‘change course’ (H5), the Intervention was presented as ‘a sweeping assumption of power’ by the Commonwealth Government (H5) and ‘a watershed in Indigenous affairs in Australia [that] overturned 30 years of attitudes and thinking on Indigenous policy’ (H16).
The significance of the Intervention has been widely noted by critics, supporters and commentators, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. Indigenous leader Patrick
1 To avoid long and repetitive referencing, the 118 government texts that comprise the primary data set for this thesis are referenced in abbreviated form, according to the key at Appendix A.
Dodson described its launch as ‘a defining date in Australian history’ that ‘changed government/indigenous relationships profoundly’ (Dodson P 2007b). Pat Anderson, co-author of the Little children are sacred report, saw it as ‘a moment of great historical significance for the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia’ (Anderson P 2007), and the then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (ATSISJC) Tom Calma described its impact as ‘best compared to an earthquake … it seems like Indigenous affairs in this country has been shaken up, turned upside-down and flipped over again’ (Calma 2007d). Academic observers suggested the Intervention represented ‘a bizarre moment in Indigenous policy making without precedent since 1967’ (Altman 2007a: 1), ‘a governmental intervention unmatched by any other policy declaration in Aboriginal affairs in the last forty years’ (Hinkson M 2007: 1), ‘the most extraordinary federal takeover in Australia’s history’ (Langton 2008c: 144) and ‘one of the largest social experiments in Australian history’ (Hunter B 2007: 44).
Unsurprisingly, given its widely acknowledged policy significance, the Intervention has generated a large volume of commentary and critical analysis, in both academic and non-academic forums. This existing body of literature, which is briefly described at 1.5 below, has generated many valuable insights and provides critical groundwork for the thesis. However, the specific research question addressed here, and the aims and approach of this thesis, are unique.
1.2 Research question and thesis aims
This thesis undertakes an analysis of government Intervention discourse. Unlike more conventional approaches to policy analysis (and much existing literature on the Intervention) its interest is not in evaluating the effectiveness of the policy as a solution to a given set of problems in Indigenous communities. Indeed, I begin by differentiating my conceptual approach from this more familiar problem (or problem- solving) orientation. Challenging the very notion of taken for granted policy ‘problems’, the thesis is instead interested in problem representations, or, as they are called here, ‘problematisations’. By this I refer to the ways in which certain issues are
represented to be problems in government policy discourse, and the process by which those issues are constructed or constituted as problems.
Thus, by interrogating processes of problematisation in government Intervention discourse, I seek to highlight the ways in which the policy creates, constitutes, or gives shape to particular ‘problems’ while simultaneously implying that those problems simply ‘exist’. To examine these processes in relation to the Intervention, the thesis adopts a specific approach to policy analysis developed by Bacchi (1999, 2009, 2012a, 2012b) and grounded in the question ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ It represents the first comprehensive and systematic application of this conceptual and methodological approach to the case of the Intervention.
The specific question the thesis seeks to answer is ‘what is the ‘problem’ represented to be in the policies of the Intervention? It aims to identify the particular issues that are constituted as ‘problems’ in official Intervention discourse and examine the implications and effects of those problematisations. Its interest is in the assumptions and conceptual logics on which the problematisations, ideas and narratives in the government texts are based; the silences they involve, or the issues they leave unproblematic; the genealogy of these problem representations; the political effects they produce; and the ways in which these official problematisations are variously reproduced and contested by other stakeholders, including by Indigenous people themselves. The thesis further aims to identify the particular forms of ‘governmentality’ (Foucault 1978b, Dean 1999) invoked by the Intervention, that is, the ‘rationalities of governance’ (Bacchi 2009: 155) that underpin it, and the implications of these for the relationship between Indigenous people and the Australian state. In taking this overall approach, the project seeks to challenge the ‘truth’ status (Foucault 1980: 131, Bacchi 2009: 212) of settler state policy discourse.
1.3 Thesis argument
The thesis argues that government Intervention discourse constitutes four specific ‘problems’ in NT Indigenous communities, namely a generalised dysfunction or lack of social norms, welfare dependency, particular kinds of individual behaviour (especially irresponsibility), and disadvantage. It demonstrates that these
problematisations draw on forms of explanation, and legitimise regimes of governance, that are both typically neoliberal and specifically racialised. It further demonstrates three effects of this official Intervention discourse.
Firstly it locates the ‘problems’ and their causes as attributes of Indigenous people, communities and culture, rather than as an effect of the settler colonial relationship. Secondly, it excludes Indigenous peoples’ own representations of the ‘problems’ that form their lived experiences. Thirdly, government Intervention discourse attributes responsibility for change to Indigenous people and communities, while simultaneously reasserting the authority of the settler state to determine the direction of this change, and to assume an increasingly interventionist, coercive and supervisory role in Indigenous people’s lives in order to achieve it.
Considering the Intervention texts in the broader historical context of Australian Indigenous policy, the thesis argues that the overall effect of this discursive regime is to reproduce, justify and naturalise longstanding settler colonial relationships. By doing so, it closes off the potential for more radical discourses – specifically those that seek to challenge or disrupt the settler colonial order – to contribute to policy debate.
Much existing criticism of the Intervention rests on the nature of its policy ‘solution’ and the manner of its imposition on Indigenous people and communities, without appropriate consultation and participation. While affirming the need for Indigenous people to be involved in determining and implementing policy ‘solutions’, this thesis asserts that there are important considerations that precede these concerns, specifically the right to influence or control the process of problem representation. It concludes that examining processes of problematisation in contentious policy domains such as this both enables policy to be more effectively contested and opens up space for subject populations to define for themselves the shape of the ‘problems’ that affect their lives.
1.4 The Northern Territory Intervention 2007-2012
This section will describe the policy package that came to be known as the ‘Northern Territory Intervention’.2 While much of this policy is still in place at the time of writing, the thesis limits its analysis to the first five years of the Intervention. This comprises the period between its launch in June 2007 as the ‘NTER’, and the passage in June 2012 of the Stronger Futures legislation, which repackaged and established a new framework for the policy over the next ten years.
‘The Intervention’ is not a single policy, but a large number of different measures. Many of these have morphed over time, and some have been presented as part of the Intervention at times, and not part of it at others. As Altman and Russell reflect (2012: 2) the fact that the policy content, target, population and timeframe have been ‘constantly in flux’ makes the question ‘what is, or was, the Intervention?’ difficult to answer. Over time the complex policy package has encompassed measures relating to such diverse policy areas as land tenure and access, policing and law and order, health, housing and infrastructure, education, employment, welfare and community governance and administration. The measures are cross-portfolio and cross- jurisdictional in nature, and their implementation, administration and coordination has been highly complex, involving at least ten Federal Government agencies in the first year alone,3 as well as a partnership with the Northern Territory Government and its agencies. Another level of complexity is added by the fact that the Intervention spanned three different Federal governments during the period under study, each of which framed and implemented it in slightly different ways. Given this complexity, the following is necessarily a simplified outline.
2 Following this convention, I use the term ‘the Intervention’ as shorthand for the broad policy approach that is the subject of this thesis (including measures applying to NT Indigenous communities under both Coalition and Labor governments in the study period, that is, between June 2007 and June 2012). However in places I also use the terms ‘NTER’ or ‘Stronger Futures’ to refer to specific periods or elements of the Intervention, or to reflect other authors’ usage. 3 The Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce (2008: 9) report mentions nine. Others included the Australian Crime Commission and the coordinating agency the (former) Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA).
The announcement of ‘the Northern Territory Emergency Response’
On 21 June 2007, the Howard Government announced a ‘dramatic and significant Commonwealth intervention’ (H1), comprising a ‘national emergency response’ (B1), to ‘deal with what we can only describe as a national emergency in relation to the abuse of children in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory’ (H1). Then Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, and Prime Minister John Howard stated that the move was a response to the findings of the report of the Northern Territory Government’s Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse (Wild and Anderson 2007), and that the ‘Northern Territory Emergency Response’ (NTER) would comprise a series of measures to ‘stabilise and protect communities in the crisis area’ (B1).
The newly designated ‘prescribed areas’ to which these measures would apply included all land held under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976, all Aboriginal community living areas and all Aboriginal town camps; a total area of over 600,000 square kilometres, encompassing more than 500 Aboriginal communities and comprising over 70 per cent of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory – or approximately 45,500 Aboriginal people (Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board (2008: 9).4 The measures included:
• alcohol restrictions • welfare reforms (later specified as a system of compulsory income quarantining) • enforcing school attendance by linking income support and family assistance payments to school attendance • compulsory health checks for all Aboriginal children ‘to identify and treat health problems and any effects of abuse’ • government acquisition of 73 ‘prescribed’ townships on five year leases
4 In addition to the prescribed areas, 73 of the larger settlements were designated ‘prescribed communities’ and targeted for intense application of NTER measures. For maps and lists of prescribed areas and communities, see Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board (2008: Appendices 4 and 5).
• increasing policing • clean up and repair activities to be undertaken through ‘work-for-the-dole’ schemes • housing improvements, reform of tenancy arrangements and the introduction of ‘market based rents’ • banning pornography and auditing publicly funded computers ‘to identify illegal material’ • scrapping the permit system for prescribed communities on Aboriginal land • appointing managers of all government business in prescribed communities (B1).
The NTER was a military-led intervention, to be headed by Major General Dave Chalmers and overseen by a ‘taskforce of eminent Australians’ (B1), led by Indigenous Magistrate Sue Gordon, then chair of the National Indigenous Council and author of a report into Aboriginal child abuse in Western Australia (Gordon 2002).
In August 2007 a package of legislation5 gave effect to the measures the Government had already announced. In addition, the legislation suspended the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (RDA) for the purposes of the NTER. This enabled the Government to implement measures that treated Aboriginal people in ‘prescribed communities’ differently from other Australians, on the basis of their race, by removing the possibility of a legal challenge on the grounds of racial discrimination. Somewhat paradoxically, the legislation simultaneously declared the provisions to be ‘special measures’ under the RDA.6
5 This comprised five Acts: the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cth), the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Act 2007 (Cth), the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory National Emergency Response and Other Measures) Act 2007 (Cth), the Appropriation (Northern Territory National Emergency Response) Act (No. 1) 2007-2008 (2007) (Cth), and the Appropriation (Northern Territory National Emergency Response) Act (No. 2) 2007-2008 (2007) (Cth). 6 Section 8(1) of the RDA provides that actions that are ‘special measures’ do not amount to discrimination. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination states that such measures may be necessary in order to advance ‘effective equality’ by ‘secur[ing] to
Many of the Intervention’s policy measures began in the days following their initial announcement, with others being implemented progressively in various communities in the following months. A number were modified slightly following their original announcement. The commencement of the legislation introduced a number of additional measures, including:
• compulsory acquisition of ‘town camp’ leases • preventing consideration of customary law or cultural practice in bail and sentencing decisions • licensing for community stores on Aboriginal land • provisions for the Commonwealth to retain ownership of facilities built on Aboriginal land • the gradual abolition of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) program7 (McIntyre 2007: 90-91).
The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 specified that the announced ‘welfare reforms’ would comprise a system of compulsory income management, applied to all residents of prescribed communities in receipt of income support, whereby at least 50 per cent of their payments would be quarantined for use only on approved purchases. Income management began immediately in September 2007. From September 2008 the system has incorporated a new ‘BasicsCard’ issued by Centrelink to each income support recipient, on which all quarantined funds are stored electronically. The BasicsCard can only be used in approved stores for approved items.
disadvantaged groups the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms’ (2009: paragraphs 11-12 and 16-18). The Committee stipulates conditions that ‘special measures’ must meet. 7 The CDEP program was introduced in 1977 and until the advent of the NTER, accounted for a high proportion of Indigenous employment, particularly in remote areas. The program saw Indigenous people undertake work for a locally managed CDEP organisation, in return for wages paid at a similar or slightly higher level than income support payments. See Altman et al (2005). In introducing the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 as part of the NTER, Brough stated that CDEP would ‘progressively be replaced with real jobs, training and mainstream employment services’ (B9:5) and that current CDEP participants who did not ‘move into real jobs [or] training’ would be moved onto a ‘Work for the Dole’ program, with the CDEP program to cease by 30 June 2008 (B9: 5-6).
Labor Government review and redesign 2008-2010
The Labor Government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (elected in November 2007) continued to implement the NTER, with the only changes being announcements to reform rather than abolish the CDEP program8 and the permit system.9 In 2008 the Government appointed a Review Board to conduct an independent review of the first 12 months of the NTER. The Board’s report (Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board 2008) supported continued action to address ‘the unacceptably high levels of disadvantage and social dislocation’ in Aboriginal communities, but recommended changes to a number of measures and stated that actions should comply with the RDA.10 It was highly critical of the implementation of the Intervention and pointed to a pressing need for governments to ‘reset their relationship with Aboriginal people based on genuine consultation, engagement and partnership’ (2008: 12).
In response to the review (see MMR7 and MMR9), the government announced that the NTER measures would continue, and released a discussion paper (D2) on future directions for the policy, with a focus on how the measures might be made consistent with the RDA. The Government then conducted consultations on this issue in the NT between June and August 2009 (see D3), and subsequently released a policy statement outlining changes to the NTER (D4). Legislation introduced in November 2009 and passed in June 2010 gave effect to these changes (from 1 July 2010), including by:
• reinstating the RDA in respect of the NTER (from 31 December 2010)
8 The new arrangements included moving CDEP participants onto income support, which made them subject to income management. 9 While the Government announced plans to reverse the NTER’s changes to the permit system, legislation to achieve this failed to pass the senate in 2008. For current arrangements see Department of Social Services (DSS) (2012). 10 Major recommendations included that blanket application of compulsory income management cease, that ‘urgent priority’ be given to ongoing treatment of children with health issues identified through health checks, that just terms compensation and rent be paid to landowners subject to five-year leases and that the permit system be reinstated. The Board called for negotiated, place-based agreements rather than a single approach across different communities, and pointed to a need for improved support for Aboriginal leadership and community governance, improvements to funding arrangements and the machinery of government, professional training and better data systems.
• allowing income management to be applied to any community in the NT, not only Indigenous communities • allowing communities to ask for tailored local alcohol management plans • allowing communities to ask to have local pornography restrictions lifted • extending community store licensing to roadhouses and takeaways, and requiring stores to be licensed in order to participate in income management.
The actual changes to policy content were minor. While the RDA was reinstated, many of the measures that might have been considered in breach of the Act (alcohol and pornography restrictions, five-year leases, community store licensing and law enforcement powers), were not abolished, but retained and, the government claimed, ‘re-designed to more clearly be special measures’ under that Act (MMR17). In the case of income management, the scheme was redesigned such that it could be extended to any community in the NT, thereby enabling the Government to claim that the measure was now ‘non-discriminatory’ (D4: 1).11 Indeed the Government went further, effectively decoupling income management from the Intervention and Indigenous policy altogether. It specifically stated that ‘income management is not limited to Indigenous communities and is no longer an element of the NTER’,12 and that it was in fact a ‘new scheme’ (D4:1, D5:2) that was part of the government’s broader, national ‘welfare reform agenda’ (MMR: 16). Under the new income management scheme, which took effect on 1 July 2010, various categories of income management were introduced, its application was no longer limited to Indigenous communities, and people in some categories were now able to make a request to be exempted from the scheme.13
11 This claim was met with some scepticism however, following reports that as of February 2011, of the nearly 16,000 NT residents being income managed, 94 per cent were Indigenous, while more than three-quarters of those who had successfully applied for an exemption were non-Indigenous (Drape 2011). 12 The statement originally appeared on the FaHCSIA website in November 2010. The same statement can now be found on the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) Redesign page of the DSS website:
A number of other administrative changes were made under the Rudd/Gillard Labor Governments in this period which, like the changes to income management, largely saw existing measures continued in practice, but packaged under different (and increasingly complex) institutional arrangements. Hence various measures were increasingly subsumed by and described as part of a number of simultaneously developing strategies and funding agreements that were separate to and broader than the Intervention. These include the Closing the Gap strategy (see Department of Social Services 2014), developed to enact the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), December 2007 commitment to ‘close the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and comprising seven National Partnership Agreements (NPAs),14 and guided by the National Indigenous Reform Agreement (NIRA), made by COAG in November 2008.
The Intervention’s housing measures were incorporated under the Remote Indigenous Housing NPA, and the Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory NPA provided for the continuation until June 2012 of many of the other NTER measures.15 The Remote Service Delivery (RSD) NPA designates 15 of the original ‘prescribed communities’ in the NTER as ‘priority remote communities’, to receive funding under the agreement (others receive support and services ‘at least to existing levels’)16 and are served by a Regional Operation Centre in Darwin that supports the locally based Government Business Managers (GBMs) and Indigenous Engagement Officers (IEOs). The RSD NPA is overseen by a Coordinator General for Remote Indigenous Services, who also monitors its contribution to achieving the Closing the Gap targets in the priority communities. Local Implementation Plans (LIPs) are being developed to ‘guide future government investment’ in the 29 RSD communities (Department of Social Services 2013b).
14 These consist of six Indigenous-specific agreements concerning health, remote housing, early childhood development, economic participation, remote service delivery and internet access, and one focusing on the Northern Territory. See Department of Social Services (2013a). 15 These included income management, policing measures and alcohol plans, family support, early childhood, child and family health and education measures, remote service delivery measures’ including GBMs and ‘leadership development, engagement and community development’ measures. See Council of Australian Governments (2011: 3). 16 See Department of Social Services (2013b).
Stronger Futures 2011-2012
In 2011 the Gillard Government produced a discussion paper (D8) concerning the future of the NTER legislation beyond its original end date of August 2012, and undertook further community consultations (D9). It then released a new policy statement (D10) and package of legislation, both entitled Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory. The Stronger Futures legislation,17 which passed in June 2012, repealed the 2007 NTER legislation, but continued (in slightly amended form) many of the original NTER measures, including pornography bans, the prohibition on considering customary law in bail and sentencing decisions, and the expanded powers of the Australian Crime Commission to investigate allegations of violence and child abuse in Aboriginal communities, including the removal of the right to silence. In addition, the legislation:
• increased penalties for possession of alcohol on Aboriginal land • provided for the original compulsory leases to transition to voluntary leases (extended to community living areas and town camp land) • continued community store licensing, with a focus on ‘food security’.18
The Stronger Futures legislation also amended social security law to:
• change the existing ‘Improving School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measure’ (SEAM) to enable its national application,19 and to provide that a parent may be required to attend a compulsory conference and comply with a school attendance plan, and that failure to do so can lead to suspension of income support • enable income management measures to operate in five new sites (outside the NT)
17 The legislation comprises three Acts: the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012, the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2012 and the Social Security Legislation Amendment Act 2012. 18 These first three measures are contained within the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act and are stated to be special measures under the RDA. See D11. 19 SEAM was announced in the 2008-09 Budget and had been trialed in six NT communities.
• allow income management to be triggered by referrals from State and Territory agencies, including by the NT Alcohol and Other Drugs Tribunal • provide that a person continues to be subject to income management if they move away from the declared income management area (see D12).
This new legislation, which came into effect on 16 July 2012, provided a basis for the continuation of these measures for a further ten years (with a review after three years).
1.5 Existing analyses of the Intervention
The specific focus of this thesis is an analysis of problematisations in official discourse, as represented by government texts produced during the policy period described above. While the specific focus and approach of this study is original, it adds to a large volume of literature and contributions to public debate that the Intervention, as a significant piece of Australian social policy, has generated. This section briefly describes, and situates the thesis within, this existing literature.
Public debate20 about the Intervention has been fraught and characterised at times by extreme claims, provocative accusations and personalised attacks. Writers on all sides note that, both within the Aboriginal community and more broadly, opinion has been ‘extremely divided’ (Sutton 2009: 9), and debate bitter and polarising (Vivian and Schokman 2009: 85, Brown and Brown 2007), even ‘rancorous’ (Langton 2008b). Cowlishaw points to the ‘ideological fervour’ of these debates (Cowlishaw 2010: 47), which Langton describes as characterised by ‘starkly drawn camps of protagonists and antagonists’ (Langton 2010: 96).
Notably, as part of this public debate, the Intervention has attracted both Indigenous supporters and critics. Supporters such as the Cape York Institute’s Noel Pearson, Indigenous magistrate and NTER taskforce member Sue Gordon, Indigenous
20 Media coverage of this debate, and the involvement of various media outlets as active and significant participants in it, is outside the scope of this thesis, but has been widely discussed (see Macoun 2012, Barnard 2010, Due and Rigg 2011, Hinkson 2010b, McCallum and Reid 2012, Proudfoot and Habibis 2013, McCallum and Waller 2012, Graham 2012).
academic Marcia Langton,21 former Australian Labor Party (ALP) President Warren Mundine, and Member of the NT Legislative Assembly Bess Price, see it as a necessary and appropriate response to suffering, violence and welfare dependency in Indigenous communities (Pearson 2007b, Gordon 2008, Langton 2007, Mundine in Karvelas 2008, in Rintoul 2011, Price 2009).
Numerous Indigenous critics on the other hand, dispute the connection between the policy measures and issues of child protection or the findings of the Little children are sacred report (Watson N 2009, Behrendt 2007a 2007b, Bamblett 2007, Marika 2007, Brown and Brown 2007, Dodson M 2007). Others suggest control over Indigenous land was a more likely motive for its launch (Arabena 2007, Scrymgour 2007, Turner and Watson 2007, Watson I 2009a, Tilmouth 2007, Dodson P 2007b, Martinello 2007). Many see a blanket approach across all Indigenous communities as inappropriate (Marika et al 2009, Major 2010, Brown and Brown 2007). Many also object to the Intervention’s coercive, paternalistic nature (Dodson P 2007b), its contravention of human rights (ATSISJC 2008, Shaw et al 2009), and the lack of appropriate consultation with Indigenous people either prior to or in the years since its launch (Behrendt 2007b, Anderson P 2009, National Congress of Australia’s First People’s 2012, Aboriginal Peak Organisations of the Northern Territory (APONT) 2011, Watson 2012). The stigmatising effects of the policy are another common concern (Dodson P 2007a, Marika 2007, Brown and Brown 2007, National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples 2011). While the specific object of analysis in this thesis is official or government discourse, this body of Indigenous opinion and analysis is highly relevant. The thesis makes a specific effort to include Indigenous contributions to the debate, both to demonstrate the diversity of Indigenous perspectives on the Intervention itself, and more broadly because they demonstrate that official discourse is always subject to interpretation, critical analysis and contestation, including by its own subjects.
Much of the existing academic literature (by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars) is broadly evaluative in nature – that is, it examines the policy approach,
21 Langton can loosely be described as a supporter rather than an opponent of the policy, however her opinions on particular elements are mixed. See footnote 20.
content, implementation and/or impact in order to assess whether it is an effective, adequate or appropriate solution to problems in Indigenous communities. While it is not the aim of this thesis to evaluate the success of the Intervention, nor to examine existing evidence and opinion for and against the policy, it is nevertheless worth noting that this evaluative literature is largely negative in its assessment of the Intervention. Indeed, among the academic literature more generally, while there are some authors who express partial or qualified support for some measures or some aspects of the policy, there are very few who express strong support for the Intervention in general, or as a whole.22
This body of academic literature comprises contributions from various fields. It includes assessments of the Intervention’s various measures against existing evidence and standards of good practice by scholars and practitioners in the fields of child protection, domestic violence and social work/community development (Arney et al 2009, Hunter 2008, Nancarrow 2007, Fawcett and Hanlon 2009, Thompson and Hil 2009, Young 2008, Atkinson 2007), and public health (Anderson I 2007, Sorensen et al 2010, Evans 2012, Boffa et al 2007, Brady 2007a, 2007b, Brimblecombe et al 2010, Brown and Brown 2007, Tait 2007, Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association and Centre for Health Equity, Training, Research and Evaluation 2010).
Legal scholars have also provided extensive analyses, particularly focusing on the suspension of the RDA (Behrendt 2007a, Davis 2007a: 61, Billings 2010a, 2010b Mohr 2009), the designation of ‘special measures’ (Hunyor 2009, Pounder 2008, Vivian and Schokman 2009, Vivian 2010, Chappell et al 2009, Behrendt 2007a, Gruenstein 2008), and the relationship of the policy to Australia’s international human rights obligations (Davis 2007a, 2007b, 2009, Calma 2010, Gruenstein 2008, McCausland 2008, McIntyre 2007, Pounder 2008, Schokman 2012, Libesman 2012,
22 Marcia Langton and Peter Sutton (Indigenous and non-Indigenous anthropologists respectively), are the academics who come closest to this position (see Langton 2008a, 2008c, 2011, Sutton P 2007, 2008, 2009). However, their support tends to be implied by their criticism of the policy’s opponents, and of previous policy approaches, rather than demonstrated by explicit endorsements of particular Intervention policy measures. Indeed, Langton (2008b) appears to suggest that communities should be able to ‘opt in’ to the income management measures; an option not available under the Intervention. Further, the specific policy model she most clearly endorses (2008a: 20, 2011: 23) is that of the Family Responsibilities Commission implemented in Cape York, Queensland – a quite different measure to any included in the NT Intervention.
Billings and Cassimatis 2010). A special issue of Law in context edited by Billings (2010) offers interdisciplinary perspectives on legal issues relating to the Intervention’s social security measures, alcohol and pornography restrictions, and policing, bail and sentencing provisions.
Public policy analysts have assessed the government’s approach to consultation (Manderson 2012, Partridge et al 2012), evidence (Cox 2012, 2011, Behrendt 2010, 2008, Altman and Johns 2008, Partridge 2014, Wild 2007), and monitoring, assessment and evaluation (Altman and Russell 2012, Altman 2011d, Hunter B 2007, Dillon 2013). Some consider the Intervention within the broader public policy context, describing it as an example of a political leadership style that thrives on division and crisis (Brett 2007), and as evidence of an emerging ‘command culture’ in Australian policy-making whereby ‘leader-centric’ policy development is favoured over more deliberative and democratic practices (Walter 2008). Others assess the Intervention against the literature on ‘wicked policy problems’ (Hunter B 2007), or draw on the interdisciplinary field of crisis research to situate it as an example of ‘crisis exploitation’, whereby governments use a rhetoric of ‘crisis’ or ‘emergency’ to justify drastic and extraordinary policy (t’Hart 2007, 2008, Howard-Wagner 2010, Gulson and Parkes 2010, Boulden and Morton 2007).
While this broadly evaluative literature provides important context, the approach taken in this thesis is different in that it comprises a detailed discursive analysis of government Intervention discourse, and is specifically focused on processes of problematisation. While no such analysis has previously been undertaken, there are three sets of literature on the Intervention that are of most direct relevance to the analysis and the development of the argument in this thesis.
These comprise firstly, literature on the Intervention produced by scholars with a broader interest in Indigenous policy and politics and settler colonialism. Indeed, the thesis draws more generally on and is situated within the wider literature in Indigenous studies, Indigenous policy and settler colonial studies, as described in more detail in Chapter 2. The literature within this field that specifically discusses the Intervention is therefore of particular relevance, as it tends to situate the contemporary policy in relation to past Indigenous policy paradigms, an approach
that especially complements the genealogical component of this thesis. Such analyses of the Intervention typically express concern about its similarities with previously discredited approaches, and conclude that it is reminiscent of the protectionist era (Libesman 2012: 198 Beckett 2010: 38, Anthony 2009: 39), or represents ‘a return to assimilation’ (Pitty 2009: 36, also Gulson and Parkes 2010, Watson and Venne 2010, Altman 2007a, Scrymgour 2007, Gaita 2007b, Cowlishaw 2012: 397), and is a contemporary form of paternalism or ‘neo-paternalism’ (Altman 2007a, Anderson I 2007, Maddison 2008, Martin 2011). Many highlight the way the Intervention discredits and rejects ideas of self-determination, land rights and reconciliation and pathologises Aboriginal culture (Rowse 2007, Gaita 2007a, Rundle 2007, Dodson 2007a, Mansell 2007), in order to justify the imposition of market-based settler culture (Hinkson J 2007, Altman 2007b).
The second set of Intervention literature of particular relevance is political theory literature that considers the forms of governance inherent in the Intervention (for example Howard-Wagner 2010, Lattas and Morris 2010a, 2010b, Tedmanson and Wadiwel 2010). Such analyses interpret the Intervention as a form of contemporary governance of Indigenous people that is part of the neoliberal project of a colonial regime (Lattas and Morris 2010a, Arabena 2007, Dodson P 2007a, Stringer 2007), a project that seeks to reduce the ‘risk’ to the state posed by non-conforming citizens (Altman and Hinkson 2010b). These analyses are highly relevant to the thesis, particularly given its interest in identifying the particular forms of governmentality underlying the Intervention.
Finally, of particular relevance to the development of the argument in this thesis are those writers who also take a discursive approach to the Intervention, offering arguments about the way in which associated government (and/or media) texts represent Indigenous people and communities. These include Buchan (2008: 146) whose reference to the Intervention in his larger study of the colonial representation of Indigenous peoples in Australia demonstrates that the use of familiar language and concepts of colonial government in contemporary Intervention discourse reveals the long legacy left by colonial representations, and their continuing influence on contemporary policy. Likewise Gulson and Parkes (2010) argue that the discursive
effect of the Intervention, like that of other social and planning policies relating to Indigenous people, is to maintain and extend the Australian colonial project. Fogarty and Ryan (2007) see the Intervention as a product of increasingly dominant neo- conservative policy discourse in Australia. Other discursive studies include analyses of associated media representations (see footnote 20), an exploration of the legal structure of land tenure measures as part of the wider discourse about Aboriginal land tenure (Howey 2012), and a detailed analysis of a single ‘Closing the Gap’ speech by Prime Minister Gillard which, while broader in scope, does reference the Intervention (Moore 2012).
Elements of a discursive approach can also be found in some contributions from the field of anthropology, including a small number that consider the Intervention’s interpretation by particular communities (Puszka et al 2013 from Mäpuru, Musharbash 2010a, 2010b from Yuendumu), and others (most notably Austin-Broos 2011 and the Culture Crisis collection edited by Altman and Hinkson 2010a) that consider the Intervention in the context of broader contemporary debates about remote Indigenous communities and the way in which ideas about Indigenous culture figure in these debates (see also Coram 2009, Lattas and Morris 2010b, Cowlishaw 2012, Lea 2012).
Within this body of discursive literature, of most direct relevance for this project are a methodological case study of the NTER announcement provided by Goodwin (2011), and discussed in more detail in Chapter 3, and two doctoral theses by Macoun (2012) and Lovell (2012a). Focusing on the first two months of the Intervention, Macoun interrogates the discursive constructions of Aboriginality deployed by architects and supporters of the Intervention, pointing to the ways in which these constructions draw on ideas of Aboriginal people as ‘primitive’ and/or ‘savage’. Lovell compares the discourses used by the Howard and Rudd/Gillard Labor governments in the Intervention’s first two years, arguing that, while the latter employ notions of ‘human rights’ and ‘Aboriginal development’ in contrast to that of ‘Aboriginal failure’ used by the former, both share negative understandings of Aboriginal culture and a settler colonial mentality.
While both these studies are valuable points of reference, neither assumes the same
temporal scope or methodological approach as this thesis. Also while this thesis focuses specifically on a close reading of ‘official’ or government texts, Macoun’s encompasses diverse types of sources, including texts produced by non-government parliamentarians and external commentators, and media texts. Further, neither Macoun nor Lovell employ the ‘What’s the problem represented to be’ (or ‘WPR’) methodology applied here, and neither study incorporates original interview data.
1.6 Originality of the study as a contribution to knowledge
Much existing literature on the Intervention is evaluative in nature. While there are a small number of discursive analyses, none shares the scope and focus of this thesis, nor involves a comprehensive and systematic implementation of the WPR methodology, and none combines a discourse analysis of official policy texts with original interview research.
In conceiving of policy as discourse, this thesis treats policy as a ‘text that is subject to interpretation’, and understands it to be ‘the outcome of discursive practices and contests’ (Lejano 2006: 93). Further, it not only acknowledges these processes, but positively seeks to encourage, open up space for, and actively participate in, the contestation of policy. The task of the thesis is, in other words, to ‘problematise’, ‘question’ or ‘interrogate’ the government’s policy discourse (Britton 2007: 61, Bacchi 2009: 30, 46, Turnbull 2006, Fischer 2003: 216-217), to test ‘truth claims’ in that discourse, and to ‘consider or imagine alternative ways of developing policy and practice’ (Goodwin 2011: 170). In adopting the approach, I actively seek to ‘return politics to policy analysis’ (Bacchi 2009: 251), that is, to repoliticise policy as a means of creating space for contestation and opening the potential for a more democratic policy discourse (Torgerson 2003). As the first study of the Intervention to take this approach, the thesis makes a contribution to knowledge in three ways.
Firstly, it provides a new perspective on the Intervention. Rather than seeking to evaluate the policy, judge its effectiveness, or assess it against particular policy standards or principles, the thesis instead considers the Intervention as an example of problematisation in policy discourse. Unlike some more conventional approaches to policy analysis, it does not assume that the task is to assess whether the Intervention
is an appropriate or effective ‘solution’ to a set of given problems in Indigenous communities. Rather the task is taken to be an interpretive and discursive analysis of the ways in which policy constitutes ‘problems’. The use of a discursive approach, based on a poststructuralist view of language, helps expose the political nature of social policy and the values on which it is based (Gregory 2007). By showing that policy language ‘not only depicts but also constructs the issues at hand’, it exposes the ‘central questions of truth and power’ in policy (Fischer and Forester 1993: 1). In this respect the thesis complements existing discursive analyses, and builds on these by adopting a new conceptual approach that focuses specifically on problematisations and their effects. By taking this approach, it is able to demonstrate that, while the government’s Intervention discourse may function as an influential and institutionally sanctioned form of truth, it is in fact an ideologically particular way of representing and constituting the ‘problems’ it claims to address.
Secondly, the study offers a new application of an existing methodological framework. By applying Bacchi’s WPR methodology to a current example of policy- making in Australia, it contributes to the development of policy analysis theory and methodology. It further contributes to the emergent field of research that demonstrates how the WPR approach can be applied in different policy fields, and the kinds of insights that can be gained from this methodological approach to policy analysis. Apart from the brief illustrative outlines provided by Bacchi (2009: 116- 120) and Goodwin (2011: 175-7), this is the first application of the WPR method to an example of Indigenous policy. As such, it suggests a potentially valuable new way of understanding this notoriously complex area of public policy.
Thirdly, the thesis extends the WPR methodology by generating and drawing on original stakeholder interviews. The incorporation of interviewing enables me to explore the diversity and complexity of people’s understandings and interpretations of the government’s policy discourse. Further, because qualitative interviewing provides perspectives on people’s lived experiences, it is of great value to a WPR approach, which calls for a particular focus on the ‘lived effects’ of policy discourse. This methodological extension is also a response to the WPR questions that encourage policy analysts to consider not only the dominant representation of an
issue, but also how that issue might be thought about differently, and how and where that dominant narrative is being reproduced and/or challenged. The thesis demonstrates that interviewing a range of stakeholders with diverse perspectives on the dominant discourse under analysis is an effective means of doing this. In this case, it places the government’s Intervention discourse in a broader context, and enables the representations, ideas and narratives found in the government texts to be considered in relation to those employed by other stakeholders.
The incorporation of the interview data lends a degree of multi-vocality to the thesis, providing reflections on, and interpretations of, the government’s ideas and narratives, other than my own. Some interviewees share a similar discourse to the government, demonstrating that particular representations have wide currency as accepted ‘truths’. In contrast, others offer their own critical analysis of the ways in which the government’s discourse represents or constructs certain issues, makes questionable assumptions, or obscures other issues. By drawing on these analyses, together with the existing critical literature on the Intervention, I am able to insert contesting voices and alternative representations directly into the text. This is a strategy that foregrounds the ways in which people – particularly Indigenous people themselves – are questioning, contesting and resisting the problem representations that are implicit in the policies of the Intervention.
1.7 Chapter outline
Chapter 2 outlines the conceptual framework of the thesis, which brings together insights from five theoretical approaches. Locating the thesis within the field of policy theory, it firstly describes its orientation within constructionist and post- positivist approaches to policy analysis, secondly specifies a discursive approach to policy analysis, and thirdly points to a specific interest in governance. Fourthly, it explains that the thesis approaches ‘problematisations’ rather than problems as its object of study, a conceptualisation that draws specifically on the WPR approach to policy analysis (Bacchi 2009). Finally the chapter locates the thesis within the field of Indigenous studies and settler colonial theory.
Chapter 3 outlines the methodological approach, explaining the set of six questions that both comprise the WPR method and structure the thesis. It describes the research design and scope, and the approach taken to the selection and analysis of government texts and the conduct and analysis of interviews. It discusses the ethical approach of the project, and assesses the value and limitations of the methodology.
Chapter 4 begins the application of the WPR method, using the first WPR question to identify the problem representations contained in the government Intervention texts. The chapter finds that these texts represent the ‘problems’ in NT Aboriginal communities to be a generalised dysfunctionality and lack of social norms, welfare dependency, individual behaviour or irresponsibility, and disadvantage. Each of these problematisations is described in turn, with extracts from the government texts demonstrating how these ‘problems’ are represented. Extracts from a number of interviewees who represent the problems in similar ways are also included, demonstrating that these problematisations have a currency beyond government discourse.
Chapter 5 begins the critical analysis of the problematisations identified. Applying the second WPR question, it demonstrates that the conceptual logic underpinning the government texts is both typically neoliberal and specifically racialised. Similarly it argues that this official Intervention discourse represents and justifies a mode of governance for Indigenous people that, while it involves numerous characteristics of neoliberal governmentality, is also specifically racialised.
Chapter 6 pauses the critical analysis of the texts themselves, in order to explore the genealogy of the problematisations, narratives and ideas identified in Intervention discourse; the focus of the third WPR question. It identifies two strands to this genealogy, one being recent debates about welfare policy broadly, and the other being a more specific history of ideas that have defined Indigenous policy in Australia. The chapter demonstrates how the problem representations in the Intervention discourse weave together these two genealogical strands.
Chapter 7 returns to the critical analysis of the government texts, applying WPR question 4 to consider what these problematisations leave unproblematic, or what
silences they involve. It argues that the most significant silence in these texts is the failure to acknowledge the settler colonial context for current policy. As a result, the contribution of past practices of colonialism to contemporary ‘problems’ is obscured, and the nature of the relationship between Indigenous people and the settler state left unproblematised.
Chapter 8 considers the topic of the fifth WPR question: the kinds of ‘subjectification effects’ and ‘lived effects’ that are produced by the government discourse. Interviewees’ comments provide particularly valuable perspectives on this question, illustrating the many ways in which the effects of the Intervention discourse are experienced – including by those it targets.
Chapter 9 serves two purposes. Firstly it completes the application of the WPR method by addressing the final WPR question,23 which concerns discursive contestation and replacement. I synthesise the key contestations that have been made in the preceding chapters, and outline a number of potential ‘replacement discourses’. Secondly it provides a formal conclusion to the thesis. It draws together the findings of the analysis and makes overall conclusions about the ways in which ‘problems’ are represented in the government’s Intervention discourse, and the implications and effects of these representations. I reflect on the theoretical and methodological approach taken and acknowledge a number of limitations of the study. I conclude by summarising the contributions of the thesis and discussing its broader implications.
23 Bacchi’s articulation of this sixth question actually encompasses two foci, but in terms of the structure of the thesis, it is the issue of discursive contestation and replacement that is the specific focus of Chapter 9. See footnote 41.
CHAPTER 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Introduction
The conceptual framework I have developed to guide the analysis in this thesis brings together insights from five theoretical approaches, or sets of literature. Firstly, the thesis adopts a social constructionist perspective, influenced by the insights of post- positivism. Secondly, it takes a discursive approach, explicitly treating policy as discourse. Thirdly, it has a specific interest in governance, broadly conceived. Fourthly, it conceives of its object of study not as policy problems, but problematisations, and in this respect draws specifically on the work of Bacchi (2009, 1999). Finally, as a study of a policy that targets Indigenous people, the thesis draws on the theoretical and conceptual contributions of settler colonial theory and Australian Indigenous policy studies. This chapter both outlines this conceptual framework and makes a case for the value of this particular approach for a study of the Intervention.
2.2 Post-positivist, constructionist approach
The past three decades have seen a ‘post-positivist turn’ (Lejano 2006: 93) in policy analysis,24 an epistemological reorientation that mirrors that seen in the social sciences more generally (Fischer 2003a, Gottweis 2003, Callahan and Jennings 1983), and that has undermined the rationalist accounts of policy that previously defined the field. The shift towards post-positivist perspectives increasingly saw policy approached as ‘a social phenomenon in its own right’ (Hajer 1995), and understood as a ‘sensemaking’ or ‘interpretive’ process (Yanow 2000: 5, 1996, Jenkins 2007) in which ‘defining the situation’ is a key task (Hajer and Laws 2008: 252).
This shift has produced a range of constructionist approaches to policy, including those that are variously (and somewhat inconsistently) described as interpretive
24 Alternative terms used to describe this reorientation of policy studies include the ‘poststructuralist’, ‘discursive’ or ‘narrative’ turn. The metaphor of the ‘turn’ mirrors the language used to describe the influence of poststructuralism in other fields. Hodgson and Irving (2007: 5) for example, note that policy studies in the UK has in recent decades been influenced by the ‘cultural turn’ in sociology, and Fischer and Forester (1993: 5) compare the ‘argumentative turn’ in policy studies to the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy.
(notably Yanow 2000, 1996, but see also Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2006, Wagenaar 2011, Hajer and Wagenaar 2003, Jennings 1983), critical (Orsini and Smith 2007), or value-critical (Rein 1983), frame-reflective (Rein and Schon 1991), narrative (van Eeten 2007, Stone 1997, Roe 1994, Stevens 2011), discursive (Yanow 2000, 1996, Fischer 2003a, Hajer and Wagenaar 2003, Hajer and Laws 2008, Bacchi 2000, Marston 2004, Gottweis 2003, Goodwin 2011), argumentative (Dryzek 1993, Fischer and Forrester 1993, Majone 1989, Hajer 1995) and participatory and deliberative (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003, Dryzek 1993, Fischer 2003b). These various strands are constitutive parts of a broad ‘postempiricist’ or ‘postpositivist’ approach to policy (Fischer 2003a 2003b). What these approaches have in common is that they theorise the existence of multiple different interpretations or understandings of a policy issue. They assert that policy is less about facts than about meanings and subjective interpretations, each of which will be value-based, and ‘reflect and sustain particular beliefs and ideologies’ (Fischer 2003a: 62).
Consistent with this post-positivist, constructionist literature, the conceptual framework of the thesis rejects the ‘scientism’ of technocratic policy accounts (Hawkesworth 1988), based on objectivist conceptions of reality and instrumental rationality (Orsini and Smith 2007:3, Dryzek, 1993: 213). Disputing the strict distinction between policy and politics that tends to define rationalist accounts (Colebatch 2009: 20, Jenkins 2007: 27, Stone 1997: x), the constructionist framework adopted here instead assumes that political values and power relations play a significant role in policy making (Hodgson and Irving 2007: 10). Similarly, in relation to the study or analysis of policy, the thesis rejects as untenable the positivist notion of policy ‘science’ (Yanow 1996: 4, Turnbull 2006: 5), because, like policymaking itself, policy analysis conceals value choices and normative implications. Neither endeavour is value-neutral, nor ‘merely administrative or technical’ (Callahan and Jennings 1983: xix), nor can the study or analysis of policy be apolitical or removed from the ‘mess’ of politics (Stone 1997: 7).
Critiques of empiricist policy enquiry are now hardly new, and it is acknowledged that few policy makers or analysts would actually adhere to a strictly positivist position that policy is, or can be, based on neutral empirical observation (Dryzek 1993: 218). Nevertheless, the ‘ghost’ of rationalism haunts policymaking circles
(Freiburg and Carson 2010: 155), and positivist-oriented accounts and rationalist models and theories of ‘the policy process’ or ‘the policy cycle’25 persist. Many writers (Marston and Watts 2003, Sanderson 2006, Bacchi 2009, Shergold 2011, Freiburg and Carson 2010, Sanderson I 2002), highlight ‘evidence-based policy’ as an example – a rationalist framework that gained wide influence in government policymaking circles in the same period that the empiricist assumptions on which it is based came under sustained criticism in the literature (Hodgson and Irving 2007: 9- 10).26 Further, the continued tendency for governments to present policy as the rational outcome of ‘official problem-solving’, is a strategy for ‘making the outcome acceptable’, and validating the policy as a form of legitimate authority (Colebatch 2009: 140, 21). For these reasons, contesting rationalist accounts remains an important task for critical policy analysts.
The post-positivist framework adopted here entails a very different way of thinking about policy, and foregrounds a range of issues neglected or obscured in rationalist accounts. In particular, its interest is in the ‘meaning making’ functions of policy. By this I refer to the normative dimensions of, and the inevitable role of values, ideology, culture and institutions in, both policymaking and analysis (see for example Jenkins 2007, Fischer 1995, 2003, Yanow 2000, Yanow 1996, Fischer 1995, Majone 1989, Fischer and Forrester 1987); the role of language and discourse in constructing policy meanings, subjects, objects and disciplinary regimes and practices (Gibbins 1998: 36); and the inherently political, and therefore contested, nature of both policy making and policy analysis (Stone 1997). As a constructionist approach, the thesis is driven by an interest in exploring the political nature of social policy, or what might be called ‘policy politics’ (Gregory 2007). Viewing depoliticising accounts of policy as regressive for their tendency to ‘encourag[e] quiescent behaviour among citizens’ (Bacchi 2009: 254), it instead adopts ‘a mode of policy analysis that accepts politics as a creative and valuable feature of social existence’ (Stone 1997: x). Indeed, the
25 For a summary of the various different expressions of the ‘stages’ model of the policy process, or policy ‘cycle’, see Howlett and Ramesh (2003). For useful discussions of the status and function of these models in the Australian context, see Maddison and Dennis (2009: 82-90) and Colebatch (2009: 131-9). For a summary of the major criticisms that have been made of the stages model see Turnbull (2006:10). 26 Indeed, as I have discussed elsewhere, the rationalist ‘evidence-based policy’ paradigm is used both by the (Labor) government to explain and justify the Intervention, and somewhat paradoxically, by many critics (Partridge 2013).
conceptual framework applied here is one that actively seeks to ‘return politics to policy analysis’ (Bacchi 2009: 251), to repoliticise policy as a means of creating space for contestation and opening the potential for a more democratic policy discourse (Torgerson 2003).
2.3 Discursive approach
The second feature of the theoretical framework developed for the thesis is its discursive approach. The specific method of critical discourse analysis used to analyse the government texts is described in detail in Chapter 3. Here however, I explain at a conceptual level what it means to treat policy as discourse, and why this conceptual approach is particularly suitable for analysing Indigenous policy.
One of the most profound effects of the influence of constructionist or post-positivist theory on the field of policy studies has been to open up the question of language to radical new kinds of critical attention. More specifically, Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse – which explores the function of language in the creation of meaning and the way in which objects, actions and subject positions are discursively constituted – prompted the theoretical reorientation of the policy field. In particular Foucault’s theories on the discursive production of power/knowledge and subjectivity, and the role of discourse in the regulatory techniques of modern governance (see especially 1977, 1978), have been highly influential, and are widely regarded as having transformed the landscape of political theory generally (Brown 2008: 75), and social policy studies specifically (Bessant et al 2006: 55, Gibbins 1998: 36).
Policy theorists influenced by these ideas conceive of language as ‘the key creator of the social worlds people experience, not a tool for describing an objective reality’ (Edelman 1988: 103). They insist therefore, that ‘language does not simply mirror or picture the world but instead profoundly shapes our view of it in the first place’ (Fischer and Forester 1993: 1). This conception of language as ‘a construction of a social world’ implies that there can be no value-neutral language for studying or describing policy (Fischer 1995: 13). Rather, by foregrounding its interpretive, expressive and symbolic dimensions, constructionist accounts highlight the function of language in the social construction of policy meanings. They show how political language gives meaning to political events, constructing both political reality and
subjectivity, such that ‘political language is political reality’ (Edelman 1988: 104). The implications of this poststructuralist view of language for the field of policy are thus profound, for it helps expose the political nature of social policy and the values on which it is based (Gregory 2007). Indeed, by showing that policy language ‘not only depicts but also constructs the issues at hand’, it exposes the ‘central questions of truth and power’ in policy (Fischer and Forester 1993: 1).
The conceptual framework of this thesis reflects these broad ideas. Specifically, it represents an approach to policy analysis that has emerged in the past two decades, one that explicitly uses a conception of ‘policy as discourse’ (Bacchi 1999: 39-48, 2000, Goodwin 2011). This conception is highly suitable for a thesis concerned with problem representations in government policy because it:
captures the ways in which policy shapes the world through the framing of social ‘problems’ and government ‘solutions’ and the construction of concepts, categories, distinctions and subject positions (Goodwin 2011: 170).
While approaching policy as discourse is still a relatively new development in the policy studies field (Goodwin 2011: 178), there are an increasing number of examples of this approach across diverse policy areas.27 Furthermore, a social constructionist conception of ‘policy discourse as problem construction’ is now an established alternative to more conventional conceptions of ‘issue identification’ and ‘agenda setting’ in the policy process (Maddison and Dennis 2013: 111).
In approaching the policies of the Intervention as discourse, the thesis seeks to investigate the processes of ‘meaning-creation’ (Bacchi 2009: 7) inherent in the official discourse associated with the policy, and to understand how that discourse has come to ‘make sense’ (Goodwin 2012: 33). Perhaps most importantly, it is concerned to understand the various implications and effects of that discourse. This interest in the effects of discourse reflects that of policy as discourse approaches more generally, which apply Foucault’s ideas about the discursive construction of subjectivity, and his conceptualisation of power as productive, or creative (see especially 1978a, 1982), to explore the way in which one effect of policy discourse is to construct or produce
27 See for example, Ball (2006) in education policy, Gill (2012) in relation to gender and education, Marston (2004) in housing policy, Shaw (2010) in health policy, Bessant (2002) in welfare policy, and Phillips (1996) in relation to feminist policy analysis.
particular kinds of subjects. This approach assumes that subjects are ‘embedded’ in discourse (Bletsas 2012: 43), and therefore that a particular kind of policy discourse creates ‘a particular type of subject with a particular ideology, role and self- conception’ (Edelman 1988: 112). An interest in the effects of the government’s Intervention discourse, in an ideological sense, and as they are experienced – both subjectively, and in the daily lives of ‘those who are governed’ (Bacchi 2009: 7) is therefore a central concern of the thesis.
Further, the particular approach to discourse analysis taken by this thesis is, following Bacchi, especially concerned to bring to light ‘deleterious effects’, or those that constitute ‘forms of harm’ for particular groups of people (Bacchi 2009: 18, 15), in this case, for Indigenous people. The WPR approach is one that explicitly ‘takes the side of those who are harmed’, by challenging such effects and ‘suggest[ing] that issues could be thought about in ways that might avoid at least some of these effects’ (Bacchi 2009: 44). Consistent with this normative orientation, and more generally with the post-positivist paradigm described above, the conceptual framework adopted here makes no claim to objectivity or value-neutrality. Rather it is explicitly motivated by a commitment to work towards the broader goal of social justice for Indigenous people, and by a conviction that interrogating the representations in government policy discourse and drawing attention to those that appear to produce harmful effects for Indigenous people is a necessary component of this work.
Consistent with this motivation, the conceptual framework of the thesis assumes not only that policy meanings are constituted discursively, but also that they are contestable, and contested. A discursive approach begins from the assumption that there can never be an objective or singular perception of a policy issue (Yanow 1996: 3), and that policy language is necessarily ambiguous because it depends on ideology and assumptions, and so cannot be shared by everyone (Fischer 2003a: 57-8). It is therefore a characteristic of policy problems that ‘controversy over their meanings is not resolved’ (Edelman 1988: 3). Policy discourse is always contested and political, and its inherent processes of categorisation necessarily contingent, provisional, context dependent and, because they are constructed, always open to challenge and change (Britton 2007). In conceiving of policy as discourse then, the thesis treats it as a ‘text that is subject to interpretation’, and understands it to be ‘the outcome of
discursive practices and contests’ (Lejano 2006: 93). Indeed, like other critical discourse analyses, this thesis not only acknowledges these processes of contestation, but positively seeks to encourage and open up space for the contestation of policy. Like other contributions from this perspective, it sees its task as being to ‘problematise’, ‘question’ or ‘interrogate’ policy discourse (Britton 2007: 61, Bacchi 2009: 30, 46, Turnbull 2006, Fischer 2003b: 216-217), to test ‘truth claims’ in that discourse, and to ‘consider or imagine alternative ways of developing policy and practice’ (Goodwin 2011: 170).
The benefits of a discursive approach to the study of Indigenous issues have been affirmed by a number of writers in the field, who point to its ability to identify the discursive traditions and legacies that contemporary Indigenous policy draws on, and examine ‘the power relations these discourses generate, reflect, reinforce and foreclose’ (Macoun 2010: 2). Approaching Indigenous policy as discourse can reveal how contemporary representations of Indigenous issues are ‘influenced by the socio- political context of the past’, and specifically by the ‘historical hegemonic power relations’ produced during colonisation (Barnard 2010: 10), and can help to draw out the often ‘violent material and discursive effects’ of these policies, including the justification of ongoing dispossession (Gulson and Parkes 2010: 311).
Part of the value of this conceptual approach lies in the importance it places on what Buchan calls ‘the language of colonial government’ (2008: 2). This is a language that is not just ‘descriptive’, but that has, since the beginning of colonisation in Australia, used deeply entrenched concepts drawn from the traditions of Western political thought as a foundation for moral and political claims about how Indigenous people should be treated, and for ‘the policies and techniques of government’ that colonists adopted (Buchan 2008: 2). Discursive approaches help demonstrate that these colonial foundations of policy remain relevant, revealing for example, how contemporary Indigenous policy discourses draw on longstanding essentialist discourses of ‘Otherness’ (Aldrich, Zwi and Short 2007). Because Indigenous struggles for recognition are ‘fought as much against the language as against the institutions of colonization’ (Buchan 2008: 2, emphasis original), the value of a discursive approach lies in its ability to interrogate this colonial language.
Perhaps most significantly, a discursive approach to policy helps to show that the impact of focusing on selected conditions that are defined as policy ‘problems’ can be to obscure other damaging conditions that are not constituted as problems, but that are simply accepted as ‘the way things are’ (Edelman 1998: 13-14). The discursive approach taken here is thus concerned not only with the construction of particular issues as problems for the policy agenda, but with the silences in, and the limits of, policy discourse, that is, the ways it simultaneously contains a ‘latent statement’ about a range of other issues that are not mentioned (Edelman 1988: 28, emphasis added), thereby implicitly deeming these issues ‘unworthy of interest’ or unproblematic (Bacchi 2009: 49). This focus on the silences within policy discourse is highly relevant given the ongoing struggle by Indigenous people for recognition of a range of issues relating to their political status as First Peoples – issues that remain neglected or actively denied by the settler colonial state. The field of Indigenous policy is one that appears to illustrate particularly clearly that ‘silence is meaningful when it represents avoidance of an issue that is divisive if mentioned’ or a ‘problem’ whose potential solution might threaten established institutions (Edelman 1988: 27-28).
2.4 An interest in governance and governmental rationality
The third feature of the conceptual framework adopted by the thesis is an interest in governance and government ‘rationalities’. At the broadest level, the thesis acknowledges that government policy is only one form of governance. ‘Government’ is neither a singular entity nor does it comprise only parliament and the bureaucracy. Rather, as the ‘governmentality’ literature suggests, it encompasses ‘a plurality of governing agencies and authorities, or aspects of behaviour to be governed, or norms invoked, or purposes sought, and of effects, outcomes and consequences’ (Dean 1999: 10). Governance is accomplished not only through the more obvious technologies such as government policy, but via multiple strategies aimed at the regulation (including the self-regulation) of behaviour, or what Foucault called the ‘conduct of conduct’ (1982: 220). Theorists of governmentality point to the various ‘technologies of rule’, or methods used in the process of governing behaviour (Colebatch 2009: 77), and to the diverse range of actions that seek to shape, affect or regulate our own or others’ conduct or behaviour (Gordon 1991: 2, Bessant et al 2006: 56-58), ‘according to particular sets of norms and for a variety of ends’ (Dean 1999: 10). The breadth of
this conception is particularly relevant for a study of the Intervention, for as the thesis demonstrates, the problematisation of behaviour, and its regulation based on particular norms, are central features of Intervention discourse.
However, while government policy is just one element of a much broader network of power relations involving a wide range of actors and institutions (Marston 2004: 26), it remains a particularly influential technology of rule. Hence the thesis understands policy to be a significant ‘intellectual technology of power and its exercise’ (Jenkins 2007: 21). Thus policy discourse is also a highly significant form of power/knowledge. Not all discourses have equal cultural standing. Those that are institutionally sanctioned are more accepted and valued than others – they are ‘discourses of status’ (Bacchi 2009: 36). Government policy has precisely this privileged status. Consequently, while there will be many competing constructions of a policy issue or ‘problem’, it is usually those produced by government that prevail:
Governments play a privileged role because their understandings ‘stick’ – their versions of ‘problems’ are formed or constituted in the legislation, reports and technologies used to govern. Hence, these versions of ‘problems’ take on lives of their own. They exist in the real (Bacchi 2009: 3).
Thus government policy is a significant medium for ‘the packaging, communication and promotion of values and ideology’ (Jenkins 2007: 21, 27-8). It also plays a central role in the discursive construction of subjectivity described earlier, by producing particular kinds of ‘governable subjects’ (Bacchi 2009: 39). For these reasons, examining policy discourse is a politically important task, and one that remains central to developing an understanding of ‘governance’.
The thesis further assumes that truth is not best understood as existing outside power, but rather as an effect of power (Foucault 1980: 131). Given the tendency for discourses of status to ‘function as true’ (Foucault 1980: 131), it is particularly important to interrogate the ‘truths’ produced in and through government policy. Thus, in relation to the Intervention, it is the government’s versions of problems that the thesis seeks to interrogate; because they inform and underpin the policy measures themselves; and because, as forms of institutionally sanctioned, official discourse, they occupy a privileged truth status.
Finally, in exploring the representations, understandings and versions of issues found in government policy, the thesis also demonstrates a particular interest in the ‘rationality of government’ (Foucault 1978b), that is, in the way in which the techniques, activities and practices of governing are imagined and thought about (Dean 1999, Rose N 1999, Dean and Hindess 1998, Gordon 1991). The concern in other words, is with how the act of governing is conceived and justified, and what kinds of technologies of government are imagined as appropriate, effective or necessary. As the following section argues, one particularly effective means of bringing these ‘governmental rationalities’ or ‘mentalities’ of rule (Bacchi 2009: 6-7, 155) into view, is to identify and analyse the problematisations in government policy discourse.
2.5 Problematisations rather than ‘problems’
The fourth characteristic of the conceptual framework developed to guide the thesis is a focus on problematisations, rather than problems. The thesis is not an inquiry into the social ‘problems’ to which the Intervention purports to respond, nor into the relationship between this policy and those ‘problems’. Rather, it is an investigation into the representation of problems in the policy discourse. It seeks in other words, to ‘inquire into ‘the terms of reference within which an issue is cast – into its “problematization”’ (Bacchi 2012b: 1).
The notion of ‘problematisation’ is a Foucauldian one, which describes the way in which particular issues are constituted in moral terms (Foucault 1985: 10). The concept is central to Foucault’s endeavour to focus not on a history of behaviours and events, but on a ‘history of thought’, that is, to examine the ways in which particular behaviours are thought about, or the ‘conditions in which human beings “problematize” what they are, what they do, and the world in which they live’ (Foucault 1985: 10). By interrogating processes of problematisation, the thesis foregrounds the way in which policies actively constitute, or give shape to a ‘problem’, while simultaneously implying that the problem simply exists.
The concern in this thesis with problematisations rather than problems is one that rejects the kind of conventional assumptions about policy ‘problems’ that dominated the field of policy studies until relatively recently. Social problems are ‘a paramount
theme of political discourse’ (Edelman 1988: 12) and the idea of policymaking as a technical, rational response to (pre-existing) social problems has arguably defined the policy field since its origins as a ‘policy science’ (Turnbull 2006: 3, Callahan and Jennings 1983: xvi). However, this problem-solving paradigm is one of the reasons that rationalist approaches to policy have long come under the kinds of post-positivist criticisms discussed at 2.2 above.
A conception of policy as problem-solving obscures the issue of ‘problematicity’, or the inherently political way in which issues are defined as problems (Turnbull 2006). Conceived in this rationalist way, policy also tends to obscure its own ideological functions, for while a social problem is always ‘a construction that furthers ideological interests’ (Edelman 1998: 18), this is often masked by the kind of political language that ‘present[s] itself as a tool for objective description’ (Edelman 1988: 115). It is a desire to unmask the political and ideological dimensions of policy discourse that informs critiques of the problem-solving paradigm of policy, and that underpins the conceptual approach to problematisations adopted in this thesis.
Rather than approaching problems as pre-existing or fixed, and as simply awaiting a policy solution, the conceptual framework adopted here understands them as ‘always and endlessly being actively constituted’ (Bletsas: 2012: 41). The implications of this insight for a conception of policy problems are profound, for it follows that ‘policies … constitute (or give shape to) ‘problems’ (Bacchi 2009: 1), that is, that they play a role in ‘making’ problems rather than simply responding to them (Goodwin 2011: 170). This reconception allows policies to be analysed for their symbolic and expressive dimensions; for the things they say, the values and intentions they communicate and the ‘symbolic rewards’ they distribute (Maynard-Moody and Stull 1987: 249).
While the suitability of a discursive approach generally to an analysis of Indigenous issues is well established, the specific focus of the thesis on problematisations is of particular relevance, because Indigenous policy in Australia is a domain that long described its object of focus simply as ‘the Aboriginal problem’ (Aitken 2009: 22). The tendency for successive Australian governments and government agencies to see Indigenous people and communities only as ‘problems to be solved’, has been noted by many (Dodson P 2000, Calma 2008, Major 2010, ATSISJC 2011, Cowlishaw
2010, Anderson 2009: 13) and is suggested as the reason for ‘continual and unambiguous policy failure’ in this area (Maddison 2009: 1, also Aitken 2009). Many Indigenous people view the Intervention as another example of this longstanding approach, because it:
made it abundantly clear where the problem lay: it lay with us, it was Aboriginal people who were to blame for the conditions in which we lived. What we needed was a good kick up the bum, and then the non-Aboriginal State would just have to come in and fix it all for us, as we were obviously incapable of doing so ourselves (Anderson P 2011: 26-27).
Further, a number of Indigenous writers explicitly reject a conception of Indigenous policy that is confined to governments proposing ‘their solutions to us as the problem’ (Dodson P 2000: 13), pointing instead to a willingness on the part of Indigenous people to both define and ‘own’ their own problems and solutions (Anderson 2009: 9- 10, 2011: 23, Calma 2008: 12). The arguments of these Indigenous critics illustrate clearly that ‘the banal and vague notion of ‘the problem’ and its partner ‘the solution’ are heavily laden with meaning (Bacchi 2012: 23), and that ‘“problems” are never innocent’, but are a product of the power relations intrinsic to the policy process (Shaw 2010: 201).
A specific focus on processes of problematisation thus enables a targeted examination of whether and how the Intervention continues this tendency to represent Aboriginal people as ‘a problem to be solved’, and an exploration of the political effects of this ongoing problematisation, particularly on Indigenous people themselves. In this way the critical and structured focus on processes of ‘problematisation’ that defines the conceptual framework of the thesis provides a new and valuable means of both engaging with and contesting Indigenous policy.
‘What’s the problem represented to be?’: a conceptual approach
The conceptual interest of this thesis in the issue of problematisation draws specifically on the work of Bacchi (2009, 1999), whose ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach is both a practical method of discourse analysis (described in detail in Chapter 3) and a conceptual framework for the study of policy. Grounded in the kind of post-positivist, constructionist theory described above,
Bacchi’s conceptual approach starts from the position that, rather than reacting to pre- existing ‘problems’, governments are active in creating or producing those ‘problems’ (2009: 33), and that their policies actively constitute ‘problems’ in particular ways (2009: 2, emphasis original). In deliberate contrast to the problem-solving paradigm, Bacchi’s approach centres on ‘problem’ questioning (2009: vii, 2012: 23, emphasis original). Its aim is to put into question processes of problematisation in policy discourse by asking ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’
Bacchi argues that policies are inherently ‘problematising activities’ (2009: xi), because they carry with them the implication that something needs to change or be ‘fixed’ (2009: ix). This suggests that problems are ‘endogenous’, that is, they are created within the policy making process itself, rather than existing outside it. In making this claim Bacchi is not arguing that the issues or experiences to which a policy refers are not real, or do not actually exist in the world, but rather that problematisation is a means of ‘producing the “real”’ (2012b: 7), and that the act of naming particular issues or conditions as ‘problems’ is one that ‘fixes them in ways that need to be interrogated’ (Bacchi 2009: xi).
This task of interrogation, or problem questioning, is what drives the WPR approach. Accordingly its method of analysis consists of a series of six questions to be applied to the policy discourse under analysis (see Bacchi 2009: 48). These questions are described in more detail in Chapter 3, however in summary, they begin by asking what the ‘problem’ is represented to be in a particular policy. Secondly, they seek to make explicit the implicit assumptions that underlie that particular problem representation, and the governmental rationalities that it relies on. Thirdly, they explore how that problem representation has come about, and fourthly, consider what issues it leaves unproblematic and what silences it contains. The fifth question seeks to identify the various kinds of effects of that problem representation, including discursive effects, subjectification effects (or the ways in which particular kinds of subjects are invoked), and the kinds of ‘lived effects’ (Bacchi 2009: 17-18) that are experienced by the targets of the policy in their daily lives. The sixth and final question explores how and where this representation of the problem has been produced and legitimised, and conversely, how it could be contested and replaced. As
this summary makes clear, the WPR approach draws together the various theoretical strands described thus far as comprising the conceptual framework of the thesis.
The last of the six questions outlined above, which opens up the possibility of contesting and disrupting the problematisations in official policy, is critical. While the WPR approach draws attention to the significant constitutive powers of discourse, especially government discourse, it does not conceive of discourse as completely determinative, but rather points to the possibility of opposition and resistance (Bacchi 2009: 237-8). Accordingly, by incorporating the WPR approach, the conceptual framework of the thesis seeks not only to explore official Intervention policy discourse and understand its effects, but also to open it up for contestation and disruption and to create space for those official meanings, ideas and narratives to be challenged by alternative discourses. It is this feature of the WPR approach in particular – the concern to highlight the possibility of ‘resistance and re- problematisation’, and to consider ‘subjugated knowledges’, or lesser status and marginalised knowledges (Bacchi 2009: 139, 237) that makes it an especially appropriate conceptual framework for a study of Indigenous policy discourse.
The thesis takes up this concern in two ways. Firstly it aims to open up precisely such a ‘space for challenge’ (Bacchi 2000: 55) by demonstrating that, while the government’s Intervention discourse may function as an influential and institutionally sanctioned form of truth, it is in fact an ideologically particular way of representing and constituting the ‘problems’ it claims to address. Secondly, by drawing on the existing critical literature on the Intervention, as well as on the perspectives of those interviewed, the thesis deliberately aims to insert a number of lesser status knowledges, contesting voices, and alternative discourses directly into the text. It does this to foreground the ways in which people – particularly Indigenous people themselves – are resisting and contesting the problem representations that are implicit in the policies of the Intervention, thereby contributing to the disruption of the government’s broader policy discourse and bringing alternative or replacement discourses into view.
2.6 Settler colonial theory and Indigenous policy
Finally, the conceptual framework of the thesis supplements the four general approaches to policy analysis described above with insights from literature specific to this content area, namely settler colonial theory and Indigenous studies (specifically analyses of Australian Indigenous policy). This literature particularly informs the exploration in Chapter 6 of the ‘genealogy’ (Foucault 1984) of the Intervention, or the ways in which past concepts and practices in Indigenous policy continue to inform contemporary policy discourse.
In the broadest sense, the thesis understands the Intervention in relation to the global and historical dynamics of colonisation, a context that determines the nature of Indigenous peoples’ relationship to the state, and that makes the very existence of a sphere of government activity known as ‘Indigenous policy’ possible. That nation states come to be in the business of making policy for a sub-group of citizens known as ‘Indigenous people’ is the result of historical processes of colonial conquest and subsequent settler state development. These colonial processes position Indigenous people as marginalized minorities in these newly constituted nation states, and continue to frame ‘the social, political, and economic framework of indigenous collectivities’ (Maaka and Andersen 2006: 10-11).
By situating this Australian study in the context of global histories of colonialism, the thesis understands that the history of ideas that can be traced through past eras of Australian Indigenous policy is not in fact unique, but is rather derived from narratives common to colonial policy and discourse internationally. Writers in varied colonial contexts have demonstrated how these narratives draw on common intellectual foundations to rationalise the domination of Indigenous peoples by the superior, sovereign and civilised modern state (Smith 2006, Maaka and Andersen 2006, Murphy 2009: 255, Buchan 2008). This history of ideas saw Western European colonising powers construct Indigenous people as the inferior part of a dichotomous relationship with Europeans, thereby justifying colonization as both a civilizing mission (Maybury-Lewis 2006) and an inevitability (Murphy 2009: 260, Brownlie 2009: 21-2).
These generic colonial narratives are understood not simply as relevant historical context for the thesis, but rather as continuing to underpin contemporary policy discourse.28 As a number of critics have argued, the Intervention, equally under Howard (Macoun 2010) and Rudd/Gillard (Lovell 2012), employs a deeply settler colonial conception of ‘development’ that ‘privilege[s] settler culture as a benchmark against which to evaluate Aboriginal culture and find it wanting’ (Lovell 2012b: 200). Drawing on longstanding colonial ideas about ‘the nature, value and future of Aboriginality’, the policy discourse simultaneously constructs Aboriginality as both ‘primitive’ and so in need of ‘erasure, modification or development’, and ‘savage’ and so ‘in need of control or discipline’ (Macoun 2010: 3). These ideas draw on long held colonial myths about Indigenous people as uncivilized, to legitimise state intervention as a necessary imposition of law and order over ‘barbarism’ (Cunneen 2007: 44), while simultaneously silencing discussion about the original and ongoing violence of colonialism (Watson I 2009b). As Lovell argues, the similarity in the discourses employed by the Coalition and Labor in relation to the Intervention demonstrates that the policy is a continuation and renewal of a collective and unexamined ‘settler colonial mentality’ that is shared by both governments (2012: 200b).
In addition to placing the Intervention in the context of these generic and global colonial narratives, the conceptual framework of the thesis draws in particular on an emerging body of literature that is developing a distinct ‘settler colonial theory’. This conceives of settler colonial states such as Australia as distinct from both colonial and post-colonial states. In settler colonial states, the settlers are the founders of the political order and carry their sovereignty with them, permanently displacing the Indigenous population, yet there is an absence of any transformative moment or phase that disrupts colonial rule and inaugurates a post-settler or post-colonial state (Veracini 2010, 2012, Gulson and Parkes 2010: 300, Strakosch and Macoun 2012, Lovell 2012). In the Australian settler colonial context, government policy can be understood as the means by which the settler state responds to the continuing presence of Indigenous people in the newly constituted nation state. Indigenous policy is an
28 Indeed as many point out (for example Strakosch and Macoun 2012: 60, Stringer 2007: 7) Howard directly referenced the European philosophical tradition in which these colonial narratives have their roots when he described NT Indigenous communities as ‘a Hobbesian nightmare of violence, abuse and neglect’ (H5).
instrument for maintaining colonial rule, under which ‘Aboriginal people are designated and governed as an excluded-inclusion in the Australian political community’ (Brigg 2007: 404, emphasis original).29
As such, Indigenous policy is also the means by which the Australian state maintains its own continuity (Watson I 2009a: 46). Yet it does this in the face of ongoing challenge from the survivors of the state’s founding colonial violence, who continue to contest its very foundation as illegitimate (Watson I 2009a: 46). This ongoing contestation ensures that the imposition of government policy by the settler Australian state is also only one half of a relationship characterised by ‘a pattern of Settler domination and Aboriginal resistance’ (Brigg 2007: 411). Nevertheless, in the ongoing absence of any form of settlement between Indigenous people and the Australian state that might initiate a process of decolonisation, Indigenous policy in Australia continues to reproduce the settler colonial relationships it seeks to regulate.
It is within this context that the thesis understands the specific history of Australian Indigenous policy. In addition to drawing on broad insights from settler colonial theory, its conceptual framework draws on a more specific body of literature that analyses the history and development of Indigenous policy in Australia over the past two centuries, with a particular focus on its changing discursive and administrative forms (discussed in detail in Chapter 6). This policy history reflects the shifting ways in which the settler state imagines its arrangements for the ongoing settler colonial governance of Indigenous people. Indeed, in terms of the theory of problematisation described above, these changing policy discourses constitute changing representations of the ‘problem’ of Indigenous people’s ongoing presence within (and by extension their challenge to the legitimacy of) the Australian state. They also point to ‘different logics and intentions on the part of the dominant white population’ for the governance of Indigenous peoples (Bessant et al 2006: 238). As such they are various forms of ‘state racism’ (Foucault 1976) or ‘racial government’ (Bessant et al 2006: 237), that is, they are ‘processes whereby a population in a given political space is separated into allegedly distinct groups using ‘racial criteria’ and those groups are then
29 On the tension created by the simultaneous narratives (and practices) of Indigenous exclusion and inclusion that are found in various ‘stories about being Australian’ see Elder 2007.
subjected to different modes of administration, law-making or treatment’ (Bessant et al 2006: 237).
An understanding of this settler colonial context, in which racial government has been ongoing (if varied in form and discursive expression) is a core characteristic of the theoretical orientation of the thesis. The analysis therefore draws on the existing body of critical Indigenous policy literature that analyses the Intervention from a similar perspective. These analyses are numerous, for the view that the Intervention is a reassertion of colonial practices of government informs much of the strong opposition it has attracted from many critics. In particular, the measures relating to land tenure and the permit system are seen by many as a revival or continuation of a colonial history of dispossession because they increase government and colonial property rights at the expense of Aboriginal land rights or sovereignty (Turner and Watson 2007, Martinello 2007: 123, Arabena 2007, Ting 2009, Stringer 2007, Altman 2007a: 8). Such analyses demonstrate the ‘enduring traces of colonialism’ in the policies of the Intervention, and contribute to an understanding of the role such contemporary policy plays in the ongoing project of settler nationalism (Gulson and Parkes 2010: 300).
The thesis explores the Intervention as a continuation of this project, one that uses an established colonial cultural lens to reproduce and reimpose existing structures and processes of colonisation onto people and communities (Marika et al 2009: 412), and that demonstrates ‘a lack of capacity to abandon past thinking about colonialism’ (Scrymgour 2007: 23). In doing so, it not only reproduces longstanding settler justifications for occupation and sovereignty (Conor 2011, Kramer 2012, Macoun 2010), but also asserts them in new ways, by claiming for the Australian state ‘a right, indeed, an obligation, to occupy Indigenous communities to impose order’ (Howitt 2012: 826). The thesis incorporates and builds on these analyses, in particular through its exploration of how these kinds of racialised, settler colonial rationalities underpin the government’s Intervention discourse in the policy texts analysed. In doing so it deliberately seeks to challenge the truth status of settler state discourse.
Finally, the thesis framework is one that approaches the Intervention in relation to a series of complex ideological debates and tensions that are well-recognised characteristics of Indigenous affairs in Australia. These debates tend to reflect a series
of established dialectical tensions (Pearson 2007a) or competing ideological positions and principles (Sanders 2009). Various authors have pointed to the different ways in which these are expressed, for example as tensions between rights and responsibility (Pearson 2007: 63); collective rights and individual rights (Davis 2009); structure and behaviour, or agency (Pearson 2007: 64, Sanders 2009: 10); equality and cultural difference, or identity, or plurality (Austin-Broos 2011, Sanders 2008a, Altman and Rowse 2005: 177); exclusion and inclusion (Brigg 2007, McGregor 2011, Rowse 2010, Elder 2007); assimilation and separation, or self-determination (Dodson M 1996: 11, Sullivan 2011b, Coram 2009); anarchy and bureaucracy (Lea 2012); mainstream management and culturally-specific governance (Sullivan 2011b); justice and care (Sutton 2009); symbolism and practicality (Behrendt 2008); remedialism and orientalism (Kowal 2008); and between treating Indigenous Australians as ‘peoples’ with rights and self-governing capacities, and treating them as a ‘population’, or a subset of Australian citizens (Rowse 2012).
This kind of ideological oscillation or tension is not unique to Indigenous policy. While it is obviously a simplification,30 the pairs of principles referred to above are loosely aligned with liberal and conservative ideologies, or ‘left’ and ‘right’ political positions in the Indigenous policy debate. Indeed many of these tensions are iterations of classic ‘right/left’ debates in the humanities and social sciences more broadly31, and the policy implications of these different theoretical and ideological positions play out in political debates about any area of public policy. However these questions are additionally complicated in Indigenous policy by their intersection with other dimensions, particularly the settler colonial context discussed above, and associated complex debates about questions of ‘race’, culture and identity.32
30 For a more nuanced ideological classification, see Sanders (2009: 12-13), who identifies two sub- sets of each ‘right’ and ‘left’ camp, based both on their different views about the desirability of a large scale industrial market economy, and on the extent to which they think people’s behaviour should be either respected as an informed choice, or externally directed in pursuit of an externally defined social good. 31 Including for example, those between equality and difference theorists in political theory (see Squires 2008), accounts of structure and accounts of individual agency in sociology (see O’Donnell 2010, Giddens 1984), and leftist structural and rightist behavioural explanations of poverty and unemployment in social policy debates (see Welshman 2007). 32 Sanders’ (2008a) examination of the various and unique ways in which these broad ideological tensions play out in Australian Indigenous affairs as a form of the ‘equality/difference’ debate is a pertinent illustration of this complexity.
The conceptual framework of the thesis is one that understands the Intervention in relation to these longstanding ideological debates about Indigenous policy. Consistent with the overarching focus on ‘meaning making’ processes in public policy, the thesis understands both the government’s Intervention discourse, and the various responses to it, as making ‘sense’ largely in relation to, and as a continuation of, these established debates. This is particularly demonstrated in the genealogical discussion in Chapter 6 and the synthesis of critiques and contestations of the policy in Chapter 9.
By bringing together contributions from the five theoretical approaches described above, I have developed a conceptual framework that is carefully tailored to the needs of this project. It combines insights from the field of policy and political theory that together enable a discursive analysis of policy and governance generally, with those from settler colonial theory and Indigenous studies that provide specific context for a study of Indigenous policy.
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the methodology employed, and justifies this approach as appropriate for the research questions. It details the research methods used, including the specific steps taken to identify, collect and analyse the data, considers questions of ethics, and discusses some limitations of the methodology.
3.2 Methodological approach
The qualitative methodological approach of this thesis is consistent with its conceptual framework. The thesis employs a particular form of critical discourse analysis developed by Bacchi (1999, 2009) and comprising a set of six questions for application to policy texts. The thesis applies this method to two distinct data sets: a selection of 118 government policy texts, and 19 original semi-structured interviews.
3.2.1 Qualitative research
Qualitative research methods are practices that enable researchers to make sense of, interpret and bring meaning to the phenomena under study. They are in other words, practices that ‘make the world visible’, and that aim to develop a deep and interpretive understanding of those phenomena ‘in terms of the meanings people bring to them’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2003: 4-5). Qualitative methods emphasise the socially constructed nature of reality and the value-laden nature of inquiry (Denzin and Lincoln 2003: 13), and assume that meanings are multiple, contingent and socially and historically constructed (Cresswell 2003: 18). These characteristics make a qualitative approach the appropriate choice for this study, given its focus on understanding the meaning-making processes associated with the Intervention, and how those meanings are produced, interpreted and contested by a range of socially, politically and culturally situated players within a value-laden policy context.
3.2.2 Discursive analysis
Consistent with the theoretical orientation of this thesis, which views public policy as discourse, the research method applied is that of critical discourse analysis. It can be difficult to describe the actual practical process of carrying out a discourse analysis, because of the intuitive and reflexive nature of the task (Muncie 2006: 75), and there are therefore few concrete accounts of how to apply a discourse analysis to policy in a systematised manner (Goodwin 2011: 170). Discourse analysis is perhaps most simply described as a qualitative method of ‘reading’ various kinds of ‘texts’, and that pays particular and critical attention to ‘the connections between language, communication, knowledge, power and social practices’ (Muncie 2006: 74). The term ‘text’ refers to ‘any actual instance of language in use’ (Fairclough 2003: 3), including both written texts and speech (or transcripts of speech), and in the context of policy analysis, the focus is specifically on ‘political text and talk’ (van Dijk 2001: 360).
The close focus on the language of texts that defines the method, is motivated not by any intrinsic interest in texts’ linguistic properties, but by the recognition that language is ‘an irreducible part of social life’, and that social analysis and research must therefore always take account of the role of language (Fairclough 2003: 2). Thus, critical discourse analysis specifically explores ‘text in context’ (van Dijk 1993: 96), or ‘acts of communication in context’ (Muncie 2006: 74), with the analyst focusing both on the ‘structures and strategies’ of texts and on their relationships to social, cultural, historical and political contexts (van Dijk 1993: 96, Paltridge 2006: 179). In practice, the method requires close and repeated readings of the texts in question with the aim of identifying recurrent themes and ideas, subjects, objects and categories, forms of expression, emphases and silences, together with a constant process of reflection on how these discursive formations and strategies relate to the social and political context in which they are situated.
The aim of this kind of close and reflexive textual reading is specifically to reveal the norms, values, positions and perspectives that underlie texts, but that are often ‘out of sight’ (Paltridge 2006: 178). In particular, it seeks to reveal ‘how institutions and individual subjects are formed, produced, given meaning, constructed and represented through particular configurations of knowledge’ (Muncie 2006: 74). The fundamental
objective of critical discourse analysis is therefore to illuminate the relationship between discourse and power, and more specifically the role played by political discourse in the ‘enactment, reproduction, and legitimization of power and domination’ (Van Dijk 2001: 360). To this end, it is a research method that ‘force[s] the researcher to look beyond the immediate message of a text’ in order to understand both how that text ‘produces and disseminates particular ways of knowing’ and ‘how some discourses come to be taken as more legitimate than others’ (Muncie 2006: 75). The specific method of critical discourse analysis employed in the thesis is Bacchi’s (2009) question-based WPR method.
3.2.3 The WPR approach as a discourse analysis method
In addition to providing a conceptual framework for policy analysis as described in Chapter 2, the WPR approach is also explicitly designed as a practical, question-based methodological tool, for direct application to policy texts. By providing specific procedural direction for the research design, the WPR method constitutes the ‘strategy of inquiry’ used in the thesis (Cresswell 2003: 13). It puts the conceptual framework ‘into motion’ in an empirical sense by linking the theoretical ‘paradigm of interpretation’ with the actual research process and the methods used to collect and analyse data (Denzin and Lincoln 2013: 29). Specifically, it translates a conceptual concern with problematisation into a set of six33 explicit questions, which together constitute the practical analytical tool used in the thesis.
The WPR questions
The specific questions that make up the WPR method, and the objective of each are as follows:
1. What’s the ‘problem’ represented to be in the policy?
This first question is a clarification exercise (Bacchi 2009: 3). Instead of accepting that the policy ‘problem’ sits outside the policy process, the task is to ‘work backwards’ to ‘read off’ the implied problem from the selected policy texts. The aim
33 In its first (1999) iteration Bacchi’s method comprised five questions. The 2009 iteration, which adds a question on genealogy, and reorders and rewords some of the other questions, is the version of the WPR method outlined here and used in the thesis. However, I make a slight modification to question 6, by splitting it into two parts, as explained at footnote 41.
is to reveal the problem representation(s) that are implicit in those texts (Bacchi 2009: 3).
2. What presuppositions or assumptions underlie this representation of the ‘problem’?
The second question involves thinking about the epistemological and ontological assumptions that underpin the identified problem representation – the conceptual premises, or ‘conceptual logics’ on which it relies (Bacchi 2009: 5). This refers not to the assumptions or presuppositions of policy makers, but rather to those ‘that lodge within problem representations’, and accordingly this question seeks to identify the ‘deep-seated cultural values’ that underpin the policy discourse and the worldviews, forms of knowledge or ‘assumed thought’ on which on it relies (Bacchi 2009: 5, emphasis original).
This task requires close attention to the particular uses of language in the policy and the binaries, key concepts and categories that give it meaning (Bacchi 2009: 7). The analyst must also consider whether the policy relies on patterns of problem representation that are common across other policies, for these may illustrate particular political ‘rationalities’, or ‘modes of governance’ (Bacchi 2009: 6).
3. How has this representation of the ‘problem’ come about?
This third question requires reflection on the specific practices and processes that, over time, and in a particular space have contributed to the development of the identified problem representation(s). Its concern is to explore the history of the contemporary problem representation in order to understand how it took shape over time, and how it came to assume its current dominance (Bacchi 2009: 11).
This WPR question draws directly on Foucault’s (1984) concept of genealogy, which is concerned with the historical and social context in which knowledge is produced, and the power relations that enable particular knowledges to gain status. Identifying a policy genealogy thus involves ‘tracking the emergence of a particular way of thinking’, in order to understand how particular discourses have come to be understood as forms of ‘truth’ (Bacchi 2009: 212). Thus the application of this particular WPR question has the effect of destabilising contemporary problem
representations by questioning their taken for granted status (Bacchi 2009: 10-11) and revealing ‘contesting claims to truth in different discourses’ (Bacchi 1999: 40). In doing so it helps to open up different ways of thinking about a policy issue and ‘highlights the spaces for challenge and change’ (Bacchi 2012: 23).
4. What is left unproblematic in this problem representation? Where are the silences? Can the ‘problem’ be thought about differently?
The fourth WPR question begins to ‘problematise the problematisations’ (Bacchi 2009: 12). It does this by exploring the limits of the particular problematisation(s) identified – the things the texts do not problematise, and the issues and perspectives that are effectively silenced by the problem representations that dominate. Uncovering these silences, and highlighting simplifications, distortions or misrepresentations, is a means of demonstrating that ‘specific policies are constrained by the ways in which they represent the ‘problem’’ (Bacchi 2009: 13).
The focus of this question is therefore on identifying tensions and contradictions, limitations and inadequacies in the way the ‘problem’ is represented (Bacchi 2009: 13). A genealogical approach is also helpful here, because drawing attention to different, competing problem representations is one way to identify the silences in the dominant representation (Bacchi 2009: 14).
5. What effects are produced by this representation of the ‘problem’?
This question points back to the original motivation for the WPR approach, for the point of applying this methodology is to investigate the effects on people, of particular policies and the problem representations on which they rely. The question reminds us that discourse is not just a set of ideas, or a particular kind of language, but a series of ‘practices with material consequences’ (Bacchi 1999: 2). Further, those consequences are assumed to be differently distributed, hence the reason for interrogating problem representations is ‘to see where and how they function to benefit some and harm others, and what can be done about this’ (Bacchi 2009: 15).
The kinds of effects in which the WPR method is interested are not the kind of ‘outcomes’ that a more conventional policy evaluation purports to measure (Bacchi
2009: 15). Rather, Bacchi draws on poststructuralist discourse psychology and feminist body theory to highlight three particular kinds of effects to be investigated:
• ‘Discursive effects’ are the ways in which discourses ‘produce truths’ (Bacchi 2009: 92), both by sanctioning or legitimising particular representations, and by delegitimising or silencing others. Thus the application of this question investigates the ways in which the problematisations in the policy create silences and close off other ways of thinking, thereby limiting ‘what can be thought and said’, and the kinds of social analysis or social intervention that can be undertaken (Bacchi 2009: 15-16).
• ‘Subjectification effects’ refer to the discursive constitution of subjectivity, or the ways in which policies produce certain kinds of subject positions and social relationships. There is a particular focus in this question on the way that policies target certain groups of people via the kind of ‘dividing practices’ identified by Foucault (1982: 777). Such practices ‘set groups of people in opposition to each other’ with the effect that they think and feel about themselves as different to others (Bacchi 2009: 16-17). Further, because policies typically contain ‘implications about who is responsible for the problem’, it is also important in applying this question to investigate the effects of any such ‘implied attributions of responsibility’ (Bacchi 2009: 17).
• The notion of ‘lived effects’ refers to the direct material impact of problem representations on people’s lives. These are the ‘effects in the real’ to which Foucault (1980: 237) refers. The inclusion in the WPR method of a focus on lived effects differentiates it from some other discourse analytic approaches that neglect to consider non-discursive or structural factors, such as the differential social location of different subjects (Bacchi 2009: 43). In assuming that ‘there are real bodies and real people living the effects of discursive conventions’, the WPR method seeks to identify these ‘lived effects’ of policy discourse (Bacchi 1999: 46).
6. How/where has this representation of the ‘problem’ been produced, disseminated and defended? How could it be questioned, disrupted and replaced?
The first part of this question (which I refer to as 6a) seeks to investigate the ‘practices and processes that allow certain problem representations to dominate’ (Bacchi 2009: 19). The second part (6b) opens up the possibility of resistance, by asking how those dominant discourses can be ‘re-problematised’, or contested by counter-discourses, with the aim of ‘challenging problem representations that are judged to be harmful’ (Bacchi 2009: 19).
The six questions in the WPR approach are followed by a directive, namely to ‘apply the list of questions to your own problem representations’ (Bacchi 2009: 48), a challenge I return to in the thesis conclusion.
3.2.4 Previous applications and assessments of WPR
Bacchi’s WPR method has been used to analyse policy across a wide variety of fields. Diverse applications of WPR method in the international literature include analyses of cultural policy in Scotland (Stevenson 2013), ethnic integration policy in Denmark (Agergaard and Michelsen la Cour 2012), equal pay policy in Finland (Saari 2011) and vocational education and training policy in the European Union (Cort 2011). In the Australian context, the method has been used to explore the construction of problems in drug policy (Lancaster and Ritter 2013, Fraser and Moore 2011), domestic violence policy (Murray and Powell 2009), health care systems policy (Elliot 2006) and mental health policy (Henderson and Fuller 2011). Primarily the method has been used to analyse government policy texts as Bacchi intended, although Rönnblom and Keisu (2013) and Saari (2011) apply it to interview data, Goodwin and Voola (2013) to program goals and practice statements, Zufferey (2013) to media representations, and Begley and Coveney (2010) to both media and academic articles.
These various authors concur on the value of the WPR method as a practical tool for ‘taking policies apart’ (Cort 2011: 15) and one that has significant value across diverse policy contexts (Bletsas and Beasley 2012: 1). Further, in a specific assessment of the WPR approach as a ‘methodological advance in policy analysis’, Goodwin notes that the ideas associated with a ‘policy as discourse’ framework are sometimes ‘fairly abstract’, and that there are few examples of practical tools that enable the systematic and transparent application of a discursive approach (Goodwin
2011: 179). In this context, the WPR method is particularly valuable as a means to ‘operationalise’ these ideas in a practical and methodological sense, and to enable researchers to be ‘more explicit about their method’ (Goodwin 2012: 179, 34).
To date, the WPR method has not been used to analyse the policy discourse of the NT Intervention, with the exception of brief illustrative examples by Bacchi herself (2009: 116-120) and Goodwin (2011: 175-7). Bacchi uses the Howard Government’s original (2007) NTER announcement to illustrate how the WPR approach can be applied to a specific text. Suggesting that the Intervention ‘positively invites a WPR analysis’ because of the lack of an obvious connection between the problems it represents and the measures it introduces (2009: 117, emphasis original), Bacchi suggests how each WPR question could be applied to illuminate particular aspects of the Government’s announcement. Goodwin also refers briefly to this original NTER announcement to illustrate her methodological assessment of Bacchi’s WPR method (2011: 175-7).
Bacchi and Goodwin’s analyses, while necessarily brief, and focused on a single exemplary text, together provide a useful and instructive starting point for the analytical chapters of this thesis. A number of their initial observations about Intervention discourse, that were based on the NTER announcement, are reflected in the more in-depth and extended analysis conducted in this thesis. These include the way it produces remote Aboriginal culture, self-determination and irresponsibility as ‘problems’, and as discursively associated with child abuse (Goodwin 2011: 176, Bacchi 2009: 117); its use of ‘dividing practices’ (Bacchi 2009: 119, Goodwin 2011: 176); its reliance on a discourse of ‘responsibilisation’ (Bacchi 2009: 118, Goodwin 2011: 177); and its ‘stigmatising effects’ (Bacchi 2009: 118-9). However these previous brief analyses are developed and extended by the more comprehensive analysis undertaken in this thesis. Further, while Bacchi and Goodwin consider a single policy text produced at a particular point in time, this thesis considers numerous texts produced over a five-year time period and spanning three governments, resulting in an integrated analysis of this significant archive of policy texts. It further extends the method by juxtaposing these texts with original interview data.
3.3 Data sources and data collection methods
The thesis applies the WPR method described above to a mixed archive comprising two sources of data. The first is a selection of government policy texts on the Intervention. The second is a series of original semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of key informants who have a particular interest or involvement in the Intervention. The incorporation of multiple sources and perspectives into a qualitative analysis is a means to add breadth, complexity, richness and depth to a research study (Denzin and Lincoln 2003: 8). The use of a mixed archive particularly complements the post-positivist conceptual framework of the thesis, given its concern with multiple perspectives and interpretations.
The two research methods have different but complementary aims. The discourse analysis of government policy texts is a strategy that aims to identify the ‘conceptual logics’ that enable particular meanings to be made, and that shape dominant understandings of the policy issues (Bacchi 2009: 252). Juxtaposing this analysis with diverse stakeholder interviews enables an interpretive exploration of the relationship between the governmental policy texts and the various discourses, meanings, understandings and interpretations employed by a range of subjects who are differently situated in relation to the official texts.
3.3.1 Government policy texts
The WPR method approaches policies as ‘prescriptive texts’ or ‘practical texts’ (Bacchi 2009: 34). These Foucauldian terms refer to the kind of texts that offer ‘rules, opinions, and advice on how to behave as one should’, and that are intended to constitute a ‘framework of everyday conduct’ (Foucault 1985: 12). While the method is designed to be applied to a ‘policy proposal’ (Bacchi 2009: 3), government policy is rarely contained in a single document.34 For this reason Bacchi suggests it is
34 Indeed, while this thesis takes a discursive approach to policy analysis, and its focus is on problem representations at the textual level, it is also necessary to acknowledge that policy is not something that should be analysed or understood only at this level – that is, as contained within written texts. Policy is also a process or series of actions undertaken by a range of policy actors who interpret and implement government rules and directives (that may well initially be provided in written form), in varying ways as part of the frontline practice of policy. The literature on street-level bureaucracy (for example Lipsky 2010, Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2003, Meyers and Vorsanger 2003, Smith 2003) is instructive here.
usually necessary to examine a range of different kinds of relevant texts, in order to build up a full picture of the problem representations associated with the policy (2009: 20). As discussed in the thesis introduction, the Intervention is not a single policy measure, but a complex package of policies, that has also changed significantly over time, meaning that it is not contained within any single ‘policy proposal’. For this reason the thesis analyses multiple government texts produced over a five year period. In this respect it greatly extends upon previous WPR analyses of Intervention discourse, both in terms of the volume of texts considered, and by adding a temporal dimension.
Text selection
The 118 texts chosen for analysis were selected from publicly available government policy statements and reports, Parliamentary records, Ministerial speeches, government press releases, and media interviews given by the two Ministers for Indigenous Affairs and three Prime Ministers in office during the study period. The period chosen for analysis – between June 2007 and June 2012 – spans three Federal Governments.
In relation to the Coalition Government led by Prime Minister John Howard, the texts selected for analysis include all relevant transcripts on the former Prime Minister’s website, as available on the National Library of Australia’s internet archive (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/). The search period was from the announcement of the NTER on 21 June 2007, to 13 October 2007, when no further documents were posted as the Government entered caretaker mode prior to the election. Also included is the transcript of a relevant speech given by Howard later in October 2007, as published by the Sydney Institute (http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/). The Howard Government texts further include relevant media releases issued and public speeches given by the then Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, as archived on the Australian Government’s ‘Former Ministers’ website (http://www.formerministers.dss.gov.au/mal-brough/); as well as transcripts of Brough’s relevant Parliamentary contributions, located from a search of the Hansard record (http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard) between 21 June and 20 September 2007 when Parliament broke for the election.
In relation to the Labor Governments led by Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, the texts selected include all written reports and policy statements on the Intervention, all relevant speeches (both Parliamentary and other) and opinion pieces by the then Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, and the explanatory memos issued by Macklin in association with proposed Bills. They also include all relevant press conferences and interviews given by Gillard, and the four annual Closing the Gap speeches made by Rudd and Gillard. In addition, a sample of texts was taken from the large volume of Macklin’s media interviews (including radio, television, doorstops and formal press conferences) and media releases. The sampling process selected the most important of these, by identifying significant points in the development of the policy and including the associated media releases and interviews. Where (as was often the case) these types of texts contained substantially the same content as a written report or policy statement that had already been included, they were discarded. This resulted in a sample of 28 of a total of 70 media releases and 22 of a total of 54 interviews. Finally, four of the eight six-monthly monitoring reports issued by the government to report on the Intervention were included.35 The majority of these documents were located from searches of the websites of the then Prime Minister36 and Minister,37 which contained a complete archive of media releases and transcripts of interviews, press conferences, speeches and opinion pieces. Others were located on the government’s Indigenous policy website (http://www.indigenous.gov.au).
To avoid repetitive and long-winded referencing of these many government texts in the empirical chapters of the thesis, each document was given a shorthand reference code (for example, texts authored by Prime Minister Howard are coded H1, H2 and so on). These shorthand codes are used to reference extracts throughout the thesis, with a key to all documents provided at Appendix A.
35 As these reports are issued every six months, only the second report in each year was selected (July – December reporting period), as these encompass relevant information from the first reports of each year. 36 These items are now archived at the ‘PM Transcripts’ page (http://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/) of the Australian Government website. 37 Then located at (http://www.jennymacklin.fahcsia.gov.au/), and now archived at the ‘Former Ministers’ page (http://www.formerministers.fahcsia.gov.au/jenny-macklin).
3.3.2 Qualitative, semi-structured interviews
The second source of data is a series of qualitative, semi-structured interviews conducted as fieldwork for this project. Qualitative interviewing is a particularly suitable method for collecting a diversity of opinion and experiences (Dunn 2005: 80) and exploring the subjective, interpretive and social process of meaning making (Travers 2006: 86). A semi-structured approach is suited to the research aims, because it involves some degree of predetermined format, while allowing sufficient flexibility in how the issues are covered that the interviewer can follow leads and topics introduced by the interviewee (Dunn 2005:80). This research required both these characteristics, as it began with a specific set of research questions derived from the WPR tool, but also sought interviewees’ spontaneous perspectives and reflections. Further, the relevance of particular issues to each of the various interviewees was variable, so a semi-structured approach enabled the interview to be tailored slightly for each.
The incorporation of interviewing enabled me to explore the diversity and complexity of people’s understandings and interpretations of the government’s policy discourse. The interviews lend a degree of multi-vocality to the thesis, providing additional reflections on the government’s ideas and narratives other than my own. The inclusion of interviews also introduces an element of methodological innovation by extending the WPR model. This extension is a response to the WPR questions that encourage policy analysts to consider not only the dominant representation of an issue, but also how that issue might be thought about differently, and how and where the dominant narrative is being reproduced and/or challenged. I suggest, and this thesis confirms, that interviewing a range of stakeholders with diverse perspectives on the dominant discourse under analysis is an effective means of doing this. Further, because qualitative interviewing provides perspectives on people’s lived experiences (Travers 2006: 104-5, Dunn 2005: 103), it is of great value to a WPR approach, which calls for a focus on the lived effects of policy discourse. While it would be problematic to assume that interviews give the researcher direct access to lived experience, or that interviewees attach a singular meaning to their experiences (Silverman 2010: 45), interviews are nevertheless a means of exploring how the meanings of events, opinions and experiences differ among people (Dunn 2005: 80).
Thus this extension of the WPR method is a means of demonstrating the diversity and complexity of meaning-making processes (including problematisations) in policy.
Another reason for including interviews in the methodology was specifically to seek Indigenous perspectives on the topic, and thereby to try to avoid the pitfalls of previous research that failed to listen to the views of Indigenous people (National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 2003). There are of course already many documents in the public domain that provide Indigenous perspectives on the Intervention generally (for example, Indigenous organisations’ submissions to inquiries, Indigenous media articles and public commentary and academic analysis by Indigenous scholars), and these are referenced throughout the thesis. However, conducting interviews provided the opportunity to seek Indigenous people’s perspectives on the specific questions of problem representation that are the focus of this study. Further, much of the public commentary and debate about the Intervention occurred in its early phase. Conducting interviews in 2011 provided an opportunity to seek more recent comments and reflections on the evolution of the government’s policy discourse over the first four years of the policy.
Selection of interviewees
Interviewees were chosen using ‘purposeful’ or ‘judgement’ sampling, that is, based on my knowledge of the research area and available literature, I selected interviewees who I considered likely to be able to help answer the research questions (Marshall 1996: 523, Patton 2002: 230). However, from the outset, I considered the prospect of visiting affected communities and seeking to interview residents to be too intrusive. Rather I aimed to identify key informants who could speak either in a professional capacity or as a member of a group or organisation that was already publicly active on this issue. Thus my interviewees were people with policy, community, activist, media, research or organisational experience. As a flexible and emergent technique, rather than one based on strict rules (Patton 2002: 246), purposive sampling allowed my own ideas about who may be suitable key informants to continue to develop as my knowledge and understanding of the issue evolved during the fieldwork. My approach to sampling also allowed for the possibility that interview subjects may recommend other candidates (‘snowball sampling’), and a number of interviewees were recruited this way.
It is widely acknowledged that in qualitative research, the number of interviews conducted is less important than how the material is used (Travers 2006: 89), and further, that the value of interview data has more to do with ‘the information richness of the cases selected’, and the researcher’s interviewing and analytical capabilities, than with sample size (Patton 2002: 245). For this reason, I did not determine a sample size at the outset. Consistent with the objectives and theoretical basis of the research, the aim was to conduct sufficient interviews to capture a range of views about the way the ‘problems’ are represented in the policies of the Intervention, and the effects of these problematisations. Of course, the number of interviews conducted was also constrained in a pragmatic sense, by time and resources available, particularly as most potential interviewees were located in the Northern Territory.
I recruited and interviewed 19 people. All interviewees consented to the inclusion in this thesis of a brief biography referencing them by name and describing their role and connection to the Intervention (see Appendix D). The exceptions were a senior FaHCSIA officer and a solicitor at the Top End Women’s Legal Service, whose requests for a biography that did not identify them by name were met. Interviewees either provided or approved the wording of their biography.
The 19 interviewees, comprising 9 Indigenous people (3 women and 6 men), and 10 non-Indigenous people (4 women and 6 men), represent diverse perspectives, with 7 service providers, 3 public servants (two in the Commonwealth and one in the NT public service) and 9 others. While many interviewees were employed by or associated with agencies, organisations or groups, and brought these perspectives to the interview, all spoke in a personal capacity. The views of all interviewees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of their organisations.
Interview guide
A written interview guide (Appendix C) was prepared, informed by an initial review of relevant literature, media coverage and public debate. The guide comprised a loosely ordered script of specific questions and general topic prompts. According to the conventions of semi-structured interviewing (see Bryman 2004, Dunn 2005, Travers 2006), it aimed to strike a balance between ensuring a structured focus on my research questions, and allowing sufficient conversational flexibility. I also tailored
the guide slightly prior to each interview, usually by crafting one or two additional questions, based on my background knowledge of that interviewee’s particular expertise or experiences.
Two pilot interviews were undertaken in an opportunistic manner when two people I had identified as potential interviewees visited Sydney to speak at a forum on the Intervention. The interview guide was adjusted following these pilot interviews. It evolved further during the fieldwork period as new information was provided or new themes emerged during interviews – a dynamic design process that is appropriate for this kind of exploratory, qualitative research (Travers 2006: 93, Dunn: 2005: 83).
Interviewing process
The majority of interviewees were interviewed in person during field trips to Darwin and Alice Springs during 2011, with a small number interviewed either in person in Sydney, or by telephone.
Interviews ranged in length from 45 minutes to almost two hours, with the average being just over one hour. All interviews were digitally recorded with the written consent of interviewees, and subsequently transcribed in full. Interviewees were provided with an electronic copy of the transcript and asked to approve it, subject to any amendments they wished to make. This practice improves the quality of the record, leaves interviewees with a copy, and helps continue their involvement in the research process (Dunn 2005: 98). It is also consistent with the principle of respect for Indigenous peoples’ cultural property rights in relation to knowledge, ideas, cultural expressions and materials (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) 2002: principle 6).38
A number of interviewees took the opportunity to amend their transcript, typically to clarify or expand upon a point they had made, but occasionally to remove comments that on reflection they did not wish to be made public.
38 In designing and conducting the approach for this thesis, including the fieldwork (conducted in 2011) I was guided by the 2002 AIATSIS Guidelines, hence this version is referenced here. However these guidelines have since been updated, with rights to cultural expressions and knowledge now covered by the new principle 4. See AIATSIS (2012).
3.4 Ethical considerations
3.4.1 Ethical approach to interviewing
The qualitative fieldwork (interviewing) was carried out in accordance with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Human Research Ethics Committee guidelines, and UNSW policies regarding intellectual property, data storage, and occupational health and safety.39
All potential interviewees were provided with a Participant information statement and consent (PISC) form (Appendix B) prior to agreeing to participate in an interview. Where possible, first contact was made by email, in order to allow the recipient to consider the request in their own time. In most cases, follow-up phone calls were necessary to arrange interview times. For some interviewees, recruitment was more spontaneous and involved a face-to-face introduction and initial explanation. However, I employed the same recruitment principles, providing written information that the person could take away and consider before agreeing to participate. All confirmed participants were required to sign the PISC form.
Approach to quoting interviewees in the thesis
The PISC form gave interviewees a choice about the degree of anonymity that would be attached to their responses. All interviewees provided their consent for me to include their interview comments in this thesis. Further, all but three interviewees consented to the specific attribution of any quotations to them by name. However, given the small number of interviewees, I later decided against attributing comments by name, in order to avoid inadvertently identifying those who did not consent to this. Interviewees have instead been randomly allocated numbered reference codes. Because I deemed it important for the reader to be able to distinguish between Indigenous and non-Indigenous interviewees, these numbered codes are preceded by the prefix ‘I’ for an Indigenous interviewee and ‘N’ for a non-Indigenous interviewee. There is a sufficient mix of men and women in each of these two categories to allow me to use gendered pronouns in the text without identifying any individual interviewee.
39 UNSW ethics approval (no. 11019) was granted on 12 April 2011.
3.4.2 Indigenous research
There are a number of specific ethical considerations that arise, firstly because this thesis engages Indigenous research participants, and secondly because it is research on an Indigenous topic carried out by a white, non-Indigenous researcher.
Almost half of the interviewees (nine of nineteen) were Indigenous. In addition to the general ethical considerations pertinent to qualitative interviewing, researchers seeking to recruit Indigenous participants have a responsibility to consider additional issues. This is especially important given the failure of some previous researchers to conduct research with Indigenous people in a way that fully respected their rights or that recognised differences in values and culture (National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 2006). The legacy left by previous insensitive approaches means that a failure to appreciate and respect these rights and recognise these cultural differences is a significant risk of contemporary research. These issues informed my decision not to select potentially vulnerable members of Indigenous communities, but to seek out key informants, in order to minimise the risk of discomfort or distress for participants.
I also recognised that with regard to this particular research topic, there may have been social or cultural risks for some participants with respect to the position they are seen to take, as there are many differences of opinion and some divisions within the Aboriginal community about various aspects of the Intervention, and the policy has been highly contentious. Some interviewees for example, have been involved in government consultation or inquiry processes that uncovered widely divergent opinions, including significant criticisms from some in the Aboriginal community. Interviewing needed to be sensitive to these issues in order to minimise these social, cultural or reputational risks, and to protect interviewees’ dignity and cultural integrity. There was also a need to recognise that sharing their views about this contentious topic may cause some Indigenous participants a degree of discomfort.
Further, while the topic is essentially focused on government policy discourse, it is consistent with my theoretical approach to acknowledge that policies have real lived effects on the people whom they target. Some interviewees had experienced the Intervention at a personal level, with impacts (whether positive or negative) felt in
their own lives or those of their friends, family or community members. Participants may therefore have felt a degree of discomfort in talking about this issue, particularly to a non-Indigenous researcher. However, this risk was reduced by the fact that most of the participants had previously chosen to speak or write publicly about the topic – indeed this contributed to my selecting them.
The methodological choice of semi-structured interviewing also goes some small way towards demonstrating the principle of ‘respect, recognition and involvement’ outlined in AIATSIS (2002). The semi-structured format enabled the interviewees to have some control over the direction of the interview. This is not only a matter of courtesy and good research practice generally, but also a recognition of the contribution that Indigenous knowledge systems and processes can make to the research process. In many instances it was indeed the case that interviewees’ own expertise and knowledge enabled them to take the interview in a far more useful direction than would have been the case if the interview had followed a more predetermined format.
To ensure that my project respected the rights of Indigenous people in relation to research (and drawing on the general principles in NHMRC 2006: 10-13), the following practices were incorporated:
• a recruitment process that respects Indigenous people’s ‘right to say no up front’, by making the initial approach by email • respecting people’s right to ‘request more time to talk about the research proposal’ and clearly stating (on the PISC form) their right to discuss it with others • respecting Indigenous people’s right to negotiate how they will participate by: o providing a range of options for the interview (face-to-face or telephone) o allowing interviewees to nominate the time and place of the interview o providing a range of options for how interviewees will (or will not) be identified and their quotes attributed o providing copies of the original transcripts to enable participants to check and amend the transcripts if they wished.
While these formal processes are critical, trust and ethical behaviour are not just about following set rules, but about exercising discretion and judgement (NHMRC 2003: 3), and I endeavoured to develop trust through my personal interactions with participants.
Apart from the Indigenous interviewees, Indigenous participants were also engaged in the design and development of the research method. Throughout 2010 and 2011 I consulted with the Indigenous members of an associated project steering committee40 on the development of my project, particularly in relation to the research questions, the selection of interviewees, and the ethics application for the thesis. Incorporating the committee’s feedback was one means of ensuring that ethical considerations were paramount in my research generally, and specifically that the Indigenous representatives had input into, and were comfortable with, my methodological approach. The inclusion of a degree of snowball sampling also went some way towards enabling meaningful engagement with Indigenous people and allowing them a degree of input into the research process, both of which are aims that are strongly favored by AIATSIS (2002).
There are also specific ethical considerations relating to my position as a white, non- Indigenous researcher. Foremost among these is the need to acknowledge the social and cultural specificity and the racial privilege of the position from which I conduct research. As a white person I experience white privilege – a range of benefits and rights and an access to certain kinds of power and resources that are unearned and conferred on the basis of race (Kendall 2006: 22). Simultaneously, while I am a recent immigrant, as a non-Indigenous person I, like all immigrants to Australia, am a beneficiary of this country’s colonial history (Curthoys 2000: 32).
My occupation of this subject position confers on me an ethical responsibility at two levels, a responsibility that I hope this thesis upholds. Firstly I have a responsibility for ongoing self-exploration, or what Kendall (2006: 1) calls the ‘personal work’, of examining how race affects my life as a white person and what role I play in maintaining systems of white superiority. The work of critical whiteness theorists internationally has provided valuable insights into how individual white people
40 This doctoral study was originally a component of a (now discontinued) project involving the Lingiari Foundation and the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) as partners, which included Indigenous representatives of both these organisations on its steering committee.
experience whiteness in our own everyday lives, carrying our white privilege as an ‘invisible knapsack’ of unearned assets, resources and advantages (McIntosh 1989) but often evading consciousness of its normative power (Frankenberg 1993). In Australia too, scholars have shown how whiteness and non-Indigeneity are central to, and privileged by, narratives of national identity and nationalism (Hage 2000, Elder 2007). They have highlighted how white womanhood operates as ‘an invisible racialised subject position’, deployed in ways that maintain white race privilege (Moreton-Robinson 2000: xxii); and how unexamined ‘white guilt’ structures and constrains the ways in which non-Indigenous Australians think about ourselves as much as it affects the way we think about and relate to Indigenous Australians (Maddison 2011). Such insights continue to inform my thinking about how my own subject position affects my work as a researcher.
Secondly, I have a responsibility to examine not only how whiteness confers privilege at the personal level, but also how racism and racial stratification operate at a structural level in society; that is, to ‘dissect the institutional arrangements through which racism continues’ (Andersen 2003: 26). It is this responsibility that motivates the choice of subject matter for the thesis. I am deliberately not studying ‘Aboriginal people’ or ‘Aboriginal communities’, much less ‘problems’ in Aboriginal communities. Indeed I actively hope to avoid replicating the intense and at times voyeuristic scrutiny of Aboriginal people and communities that has accompanied the Intervention and associated media coverage and public debate. Rather I focus critical attention on government, and specifically on government policy discourse, as a key component of the institutional arrangements to which Andersen refers. In so doing I share Gillian Cowlishaw’s conviction that ‘rather than trying to explain Aboriginal people to the state’, non-Indigenous researchers need to turn a mirror on ourselves and our own society; to acknowledge the peculiarity of our own state institutions and of the government policy that we take for granted (2010: 48-9).
3.5 Analysis: application of the WPR method
The discourse analysis undertaken in this thesis comprised close and multiple readings of the government texts and interviews, and an iterative and integrated process of reflection on these two sources of data. This interpretive process included a
comprehensive and systematic application of the six WPR questions as different lenses for reading the texts.
The analysis process began with the preparation of an initial coding framework, a recognised method of organizing, managing and categorising qualitative data, in order to generate concepts with and from that data (Coffey and Atkinson 1996: 26). The six WPR questions were used as a basis for the framework, augmented with other analytical categories and concepts drawn from the literature and my own thinking about the research questions. The first reading of the government texts used this framework, and involved processes of data simplification, reduction, and complication – both breaking up the data according to the predetermined analytical categories, and expanding it to tease out new themes – the aim being not to simply sort the data in a mechanistic way, but to interact with it, reflect on it, and develop different ways of thinking about it (Coffey and Atkinson 1996: 30). The framework was then reviewed, and various categorical and conceptual relationships (thematic links, cross references and overlaps) identified and resolved. The texts were then analysed a second time using this refined framework. Populating this framework with relevant data created a useful resource for the later, more discursive stages of the analysis, enabling me to quickly locate sections of text, and identify multiple occurrences of particular themes and ideas.
The second stage of the analysis involved multiple close and reflexive readings of the government texts, in order to explore them at a discursive level, as meaning-making processes. As part of this discourse analysis, the six WPR questions were applied as different lenses through which to read the texts. As a discourse analysis, this process of reading and reflection had two central points of focus. Firstly it paid specific and critical attention to language use in the texts, seeking to identify recurrent themes and ideas, subjects, objects, categories, forms of expression and points of emphasis. Crucially this included attention to gaps and silences as well as prominent ideas and narratives. Secondly, the analysis involved critical reflection on the implicit social and cultural norms and values that underlie the texts, and the ways in which their discursive formations and strategies relate to the social and political context in which they are situated. These two analytical strategies worked together in an iterative process. As new insights emerged in relation to particular texts they were
incorporated into the analysis of other texts, with the interpretation of the government’s discourse as a whole developing in complexity and sophistication over time.
A similar process of close and reflexive reading was then applied to the interview transcripts, although in this case the analysis was guided both by the six WPR questions and by the insights already gained from the analysis of the government texts. The interviews were analysed both in their own right, and in relation to the government texts, with the analysis seeking not only to identify the meaning-making structures and processes within the interviews, but also to explore the similarities and differences between the interviewees’ language and representations and those of the government. In this way, the discourse analysis of the government texts and interview data was both an integrated analysis and one that had the WPR questions at its core.
3.6 Limitations of methodology
Two limitations of the methodology are acknowledged. Firstly, an important sampling criterion was that between them the interviewees had a range of different experiences and positions in relation to the Intervention, and hence diverse perspectives on the topic. This is in line with AIATSIS (2002: principle 5) and NHMRC (2007: Chapter 4.7), both of which call for a recognition of the diversity of perspectives among Indigenous peoples, both as groups and individuals. This criterion was only partially met. While the sample included non-Indigenous interviewees who were largely supportive of the policy, none of the Indigenous interviewees could be described as an overall supporter of the Intervention (although their views on some aspects of the policy were reasonably diverse). I was unable to secure an interview with an Indigenous person who strongly supports the policy, despite several attempts at recruiting potential key informants of this kind. Thus the views of Indigenous people who share and support the representations in the government discourse are not well represented. While this limitation is partially addressed by the inclusion of references to existing Indigenous-authored literature and commentary of this kind throughout the thesis, further research specifically targeting Indigenous supporters of the Intervention would be a useful extension of this project.
Secondly, while it is less a methodological limitation than a question of scope, the thesis does not consider media coverage of the Intervention in any detail. The role of the media in disseminating and supporting particular problem representations and therefore in the construction of knowledge is an important consideration in the WPR approach (Bacchi 2009: 19, 232, 242), and the media has certainly played a very active role in relation to the Intervention. Indeed, high profile (and controversial) television coverage of particular cases and allegations of violence and sexual assault in Central Australian Indigenous communities in 2006 is widely understood to have been the catalyst for the NT Government Inquiry that produced the Little children are sacred report (see Sutton 2009: 34, Thill 2009: 545, Graham 2012); that was in turn cited by the Howard Government as the trigger for the Intervention. Further, as noted in Chapter 6, sections of the Australian media have reproduced, disseminated and validated the kinds of ideas, problematisations and narratives used by the government to describe ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities. The influence of media representations, both of these ‘problems’, and of the Intervention itself, thus deserves a more in-depth analysis than space allows. There are however, a number of existing critical discourse analyses of media representations of the Intervention (see footnote 20) which, while they do not use the WPR approach, nor necessarily the language of ‘problematisations’, do include consideration of the ways in which the media represents the problems.
CHAPTER 4. WHAT IS THE ‘PROBLEM’ REPRESENTED TO BE?
4.1 Introduction
This chapter has two parts. In the first I apply the first WPR question: What is the problem represented to be? to the government policy texts, exploring how the policy gives shape and meaning to particular social conditions or phenomena, by constructing them discursively as ‘problems’. My analysis identified four core problematisations in the government texts. These are described in turn and illustrated with relevant extracts. The second part of the chapter incorporates the views of some of those interviewed, specifically those interviewees who represent (some aspects of) the ‘problems’ in similar terms to the government. While later chapters explore the ways in which many interviewees also question or counter these representations, the focus in this chapter is on discursive similarities between the government and interview texts.
While the main focus of this chapter is on applying WPR question 1, it also by its nature provides an answer to WPR question 6a,41 which asks: How/where is this representation of the ‘problem’ produced, disseminated and defended? Because policy texts such as those analysed in this thesis are designed to communicate and justify the government’s actions and rationale to the public, they are also the primary official means by which the associated problematisations are produced, disseminated and defended, and by which these meanings are made to ‘stick’ (Bacchi 2009: 3). The close reading of the government texts in this chapter demonstrates how they perform this public ‘meaning making’ role. The chapter also addresses this question in its exploration of how the government’s problematisations (or aspects of them) are also produced, disseminated and defended by some interviewees. This suggests that the
41 Bacchi’s sixth question is actually two questions. I refer to these as 6a and 6b. Bacchi notes that while the WPR questions may be applied sequentially, it is more likely that they will form part of an integrated analysis, with specific questions applied as and when relevant in the analysis (2009: 233), hence the consideration of question 6a in this chapter that is otherwise focused on question 1. Consideration of question 6b, which concerns the contestation of the government’s problematisations, is both integrated throughout the thesis and specifically addressed in Chapter 9.
representations employed by the government have a degree of currency or legitimacy in the public domain, that is, that they operate as ‘forms of truth’ (Bacchi 2009: 212).
4.2 Identifying problematisations in the government texts
The first task in the WPR method, that of asking what the problem is represented to be in the policy texts under analysis, is primarily an exercise in clarification (Bacchi 2009: 2). Some problematisations identified will be explicit. Others may be implicit, requiring the reader to ‘work backwards’ from the stated goals or rationale to reveal them (Bacchi 2009: 3), but they should nevertheless still be located in the texts themselves. The primary aim in this chapter is therefore to identify, describe and classify the problematisations in the government texts, rather than to critique or extrapolate from them – a task that is the subject of later stages of the analysis. For this reason, and notwithstanding the interpretive nature of my analysis, this chapter uses descriptive language that echoes that used in the government texts. I have also taken care not to distort these texts when choosing extracts to support my classification of the problem representations (Bacchi 2009: 20). In contrast to later chapters, I refrain from making reference to secondary literature that analyses or critiques the government discourse.
This first WPR question is focused on the most ‘basic proposition’ in the policy, and the forms of ‘commonsense’ contained within it (Bacchi 2009: 3). However, the task of identifying the problem representations in a policy is not necessarily straightforward, because policies are often complex and contain multiple problem representations that may sometimes conflict, and sometimes overlap or be ‘nested’ one within the other (Bacchi 2009: 4, 21). Consistent with this, the four core problematisations identified in my analysis encompass several other interrelated ideas and narratives. Three of the problematisations are closely nested together in complex ways, while the fourth introduces a degree of potential tension. In this first part of the chapter, I both describe these four problematisations and draw attention to the complex relationships between them. Overall however, I conclude that they operate in mutually reinforcing ways. Further, the texts display a level of discursive consistency – even across different governments – that is typical of the way in which policy actors use dominant ideas to create ‘persuasive policy stories’ (Stevens 2011).
Four core problematisations
My analysis of the government texts42 revealed very clear patterns of problematisation. The Intervention, like all policy, contains within its proposals for change, a number of implicit representations of problems (Bacchi 2009: 1, 2, 31, emphasis added), which can be identified in policy goal statements and rationale. A policy that aims to ‘foster greater personal responsibility’ (see D2: 9, MMR8, MMR7 also MR1, MR2, MR3:4, D3: 5) for example, implies that the target population currently demonstrates insufficient responsibility – without necessarily stating this.
However in this case it is also noticeable that the government texts involve a quite explicit use of problematising language, and are unambiguous in their construction of a wide range of issues in NT Aboriginal communities as problems. From its introduction, the Howard Government refers to the NTER as a response to a ‘chronic problem’ (H3), a ‘blight’ (B2), ‘an Australian problem’ (H5), a ‘nightmare’ (H5), a ‘crisis’ (H1) and a ‘national emergency’ (HI, H2, H4, B1, B2). Such explicitly problematising language continues under Labor. While the Labor texts are more sparing in their use of the term ‘national emergency’, Minister Macklin endorses this description, referring to the situation in remote Aboriginal communities as ‘nothing short of an emergency, a national emergency’ (MO1). She also refers to ‘a systemic, complex problem’ (MS1) and a range of ‘entrenched’ and ‘critical problems’ (MI21, MGPC2) and sees the NTER as addressing ‘problems traditionally put in the too-hard basket’ (MO3).
But what precisely is being constituted by the government as ‘the problem’? My analysis identifies four overarching ‘problems’ that are represented in the government texts as characterising NT Indigenous communities, namely:
1. A generalised dysfunctionality and lack of social norms 2. Welfare dependency
42 While I do make some comment on particular issues that are specific to one government or another, a comparison of the discourses of the Howard and Rudd/Gillard Labor Governments is not a specific aim of the thesis, particularly as the analysis found more similarities than differences between them. Hence when I use the terms ‘government texts’ or ‘government discourse’ I am referring to my sample of government policy texts in a general sense. Where I am referring specifically to either the Howard Government or the Labor Government texts I make this clear. Unless otherwise specified, reference to the ‘Labor Government texts’ includes those produced under both the Rudd and Gillard Governments.
3. Individual behaviour, particularly irresponsibility 4. Disadvantage.
While there are many different problematisations in the government texts, it is the four listed above that emerged in the document analysis as discursively central. These are the core ideas that are repeated most frequently in those texts, and that constitute the most prominent explanations of the ‘problems’ in Aboriginal communities. It is also these four problematisations that are used as a rationale and justification for the Intervention, that is, the goals of the policy are consistently described in relation to these four problems. While there are many other specific problematisations contained in the texts, they tend to be closely related to, or derived from, these core four, or different ways of expressing similar ideas. For example, the texts also contain prominent problematisations of violence (including child abuse) and alcohol abuse, although these are typically conceived as examples of the generalised ‘dysfunctionality’ of these communities (and are incorporated into the discussion of this broader problematisation below). They are also often referred to as examples of problematic individual behaviour, and might equally be discussed under that heading, illustrating Bacchi’s observation that ‘problematisations are often overlapping and ‘nested’ within each other (Bacchi 2009: 21).
The first three problematisations are largely consistent, both over time and across the Howard and Labor Governments, and are also mutually reinforcing, creating an internally coherent discourse about the ‘problems’. This consistency can be seen as an example of how policy makers tend to reconfirm the existing narratives that dominate their field (Stevens 2011). At the same time, it is important to recognise that policies often contain internal tensions (Bacchi 2009: 20). The fourth problematisation, namely that of ‘disadvantage’, provides an example of this. This problematisation is less evenly spread across the total sample of texts, being concentrated in the Labor texts, and its implications and its relationship to the other problematisations are somewhat ambiguous. The specific nature of this relationship is explored in later chapters.
The following section describes each of these four problematisations in turn, drawing on extracts from the government texts to illustrate how these ‘problems’ are represented.
4.2.1 Dysfunctionality and a lack of social norms
The clearest and most totalising level at which problematisation occurs in these texts is the problematisation of remote NT Aboriginal communities per se, as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking in ‘social norms’. There are many instances in which the government texts locate the ‘problem’ at this community-wide level. The Howard Government texts refer to ‘dangerous and unhealthy communities’ (B7) that are characterised by ‘human misery’ (H5), ‘desperate circumstances’ (B2: 12) and ‘dysfunction’ (B2, B2: 11, B5: 3, H5), or that are ‘fundamentally dysfunctional’ (H3, also H2). Howard repeatedly describes these communities as ‘broken down’ (H2, H3), ‘chaotic’ (H3, H7) exhibiting ‘extreme social breakdown’ (H5) or ‘social malaise’ (H5) and as places of ‘Hobbesian nightmare’ (H5), in which ‘the basic elements of a civilised society don't exist’ (H2). Just as Brough describes these Aboriginal communities collectively as ‘a failed society’ (B2: 10), so too does Macklin speak of them using the metaphor of a ‘failed state’ (MS1). Other Labor texts also reinforce the concept of ‘dysfunction’ as characteristic of whole communities (D10: 6, MS6), repeatedly using a broad notion of ‘community dysfunction’ (D8: 3, D8: 15, D11: 30, M03), or referring to a ‘dysfunctional culture of violence and neglect’ (RS1).
The evidence repeatedly offered for the ‘dysfunctionality’ of remote Indigenous communities is that they lack ‘social norms’ (B2: 4, B7, H5), and particularly the ‘basic standards of law and order and behaviour’ (B2: 10). These social norms, or basic civil standards are said to be ‘broken down’ (H3, B2:10), ‘destroyed’ (B7) or to have suffered a ‘tragic deterioration’ (H5). The particular focus on ‘social norms’ introduced by Howard and Brough is continued in the Labor texts – both in their representations of the ‘problem’, and as a justification of particular policy measures. Macklin speaks of ‘the breakdown of social norms’ (MI14) and of how ‘decades of alcohol and welfare dependency [has] all but destroyed social norms (MO2)’. In addition to these explicit problematisations, a lack of social norms is also implied by the policy goal of ‘re-building the everyday social norms that underpin strong families and healthy communities’ (RS1). Indeed, the intention to ‘rebuild social norms’ is one of the four core goals that are repeatedly mentioned in explanations of the government’s policy rationale (MMR7 also MR1, MR2, MR3: 4, D3: 5).
Violence as evidence of dysfunction
One specific issue that is repeatedly cited as evidence of the generalised dysfunction and breakdown in social norms is that of violence – a problematisation that is, as previously mentioned, also nested within that of individual behaviour discussed below. Both the Howard and Labor Governments explicitly represent generalised ‘violence’ to be a problem (for example B2, B2, B2: 11, RS1, MMR9, MGPC1, D8: 3, MS5), and point specifically to violence against children and women. Howard describes ‘the fundamental problem’ as being that ‘people are in fear of their physical safety’ (H7), and refers to remote Indigenous communities as places where ‘women and children [are] exposed to violent crime and sexual abuse’ (H3), and children are experiencing ‘violence, abuse and neglect’ (H5). Brough refers to high rates of ‘murder’ and ‘stabbing’ in Alice Springs (B2: 41, B2: 13), makes graphic reference to a number of specific cases of murder and child sexual assault (B3, B4, B6), and describes communities as characterised by a ‘climate of fear and intimidation’ (B2, B2: 15).
In an example of how the different problematisations in these texts are ‘nested’ within one another, the Howard Government texts also represent the problem to be a lack of ‘law and order’ (H3) or a ‘law and order crisis’ (H5), arguing that ‘basic standards of law and order and behaviour have broken down’ (B2: 10). While clearly alluding to the specific issue of violence, the term ‘law and order’, like ‘dysfunction’ or ‘social norms’ also serves as a shorthand to describe a generalised, whole-of-community problem. Law and order is positioned as ‘fundamental’ (H2, H7), ‘the core of the problem’ (H5) and ‘at the heart of this issue’ (H5), and addressing it as ‘critical’ (B3), a ‘central focus’ (H1) and ‘the top priority’ (H4). Establishing or reestablishing ‘some semblance of law and order’ (H3) is described as the most pressing task of the Intervention (H7).
While the Labor Government texts use the term ‘law and order’ less frequently and tend not to position it as such a central problem, they do refer to high levels of ‘serious crime’ (D8: 17) and to police and night patrol services as a necessary ‘response to law and order problems’ (D1: 11, also MMR23) and a means to ‘enforce the law’ (D1: 11). They echo the Howard Government’s repeated references to violence, pointing to ‘unacceptably high levels of violence in many communities’
(MMR9), ‘terrible violence’ (MS5), ‘appalling levels of violence’ (D8: 15) ‘serious violence’ (D1: 11), and a ‘culture of violence and neglect’ (RS1). They also refer specifically to particular kinds of violence, namely ‘family violence’ (D2: 4, D2: 13), ‘family and community violence’ (D4: 3-4), ‘domestic violence’ (MMR9), as well as ‘alcohol-fuelled violence’ (D3: 5, MI14, MMR7, MR1, MR2, MR3:4).
The various texts also make repeated use of the notion of ‘vulnerability’ in this context, representing children and women in Indigenous communities as particularly vulnerable to violence. Howard describes Indigenous children as ‘the most vulnerable fellow citizens in our nation’ (H5, also H7), defending his approach as legitimate because ‘nothing is more important than protecting vulnerable children’ (H2, also H3, H4, H5, H7, H9). The Labor texts continue these repeated references to vulnerability, and increasingly focus on the vulnerability of Indigenous women and the elderly as well as children (D3: 11, D4: 3-4, RS1, MI4, MMR9).
Child abuse is the most problematised form of violence – particularly in the Howard Government texts. Having introduced the NTER in response to ‘a national emergency in relation to the abuse of children in indigenous communities’ (H1), the Howard Government texts make numerous references to the ‘huge problem with child abuse in the Northern Territory’ (H12), the incidence of ‘child abuse’ and ‘neglect’ (B2: 2, B2: 3), the ‘tragedy of widespread child abuse’ (B2: 12), and specifically to ‘child sexual offences’ (B6) ‘sexual molestation’ (H5) and ‘sexual abuse’ (H1, H2, H3, H5, H7, B2, B7). Brough refers to ‘physical and sexual abuse of boys and girls and men and women’ that ‘knows no boundaries’ (B7), and to sexual abuse as intergenerational, and so prevalent that it is ‘seen to be normal’ (B3). These texts also point to specific cases of child sexual assault committed by ‘people in positions of great authority’ (B6, see also B3) as evidence of the more general claim that ‘[children] live in a living hell’ (B6). The absence of law and order is again invoked when Howard claims that victims are unable to report offences because they fear ‘retribution’ from people in authority if they do so (H13) or are ‘scared to death that if they complain they'll be bashed or further molested’ (H3).
In contrast to these direct and sometimes graphic (B7) references to child sexual assault, the Labor texts refer far less often and less explicitly to the specific issue of child sexual abuse as the ‘problem’ to which the Intervention responds. There are
exceptions to this, but these use the term either in summarising the issues raised by relevant inquiries and reports (D2: 15, MS1, MS5, D8: 17), or in justifying the specific measures restricting pornography (D4: 9, D1: 11, D2: 21 D10: 8). Nevertheless, the problem is inferred by Labor’s maintenance and extension of policy measures intended to address child sexual assault (among other child protection concerns).43 In addition, the referral of the issue to the Australian Crime Commission because its powers include ‘strong secrecy provisions,’ that ‘ensure that people have the confidence to take appropriate action against perpetrators of violence and abuse’ (D2: 22), reinforces the implication that there is a particular fear of reporting sexual assault in Indigenous communities. On the whole however, Labor’s policy discourse points specifically to child sexual abuse far less often, usually referring more broadly to ‘child abuse and neglect’ (MO2), emphasising the prevalence of ‘neglect cases’ (MS6, MR4 22, MR3: 20) and using broader terms like ‘the wellbeing of children’ (D4 3-4), the ‘protection of children’ (D1: 3, D1: 11), the ‘safety of children’ (D1: 11, D2: 13, MS1), ‘child safety issues’ (D4: 4) and ‘child protection’ (D1: 2, MMR4, D8: 8, 9, MS6).
Over time, the government texts also broaden the problematisation of violence to include violence against women. While the initial announcement of the NTER (H1) does not mention violence against women, subsequent Howard Government texts introduce this problematisation, describing Indigenous communities as places where ‘women and children are unsafe’ (B2: 10), ‘exploited’ and ‘exposed to violent crime and sexual abuse’ (H3), and pointing to specific instances of murder, rape and physical and sexual abuse of both women and children (B4, B7). Again, as well as these explicit problematisations, violence against women is implied in the expression of the policy goal as being to ‘give the women and children of these communities the offer of physical security’ (H7).
The Labor Government texts extend the focus on violence against women. Macklin nominates the ‘levels of violence and abuse against women and children in remote communities and town camps’ as one of the main reasons for continuing the NTER
43 See D1: 21. Legislative measures maintained by Labor include pornography restrictions, prohibitions on consideration of customary law in bail and sentencing decisions, and the Australian Crime Commission powers (D10:8). Services funded by Labor as part of the Intervention include the NT Mobile Outreach Service and Mobile Child Protection Team, Remote Aboriginal Family and Community Workers and Mobile Child Protection teams (see for example MR3: 14, 21, MR4: 22).
(MMR7). The government’s annual monitoring reports also consistently express the protection of women and children as one of the four core policy goals (MR1, MR2, MR3).44 The protection of ‘vulnerable people’ or ‘vulnerable groups’, which are consistently defined as ‘women and children’ (and occasionally ‘the elderly’) is repeated as a central or fundamental focus of the Intervention in the Labor texts (D3: 11 D10: 8, RS1, MS2, MI4, MI7).45
Just as Brough and Howard had done before her (B2: 5, B6, B7, B3, H5), Macklin also represents women as particularly vulnerable to and victims of ‘harassment and humbugging’46 (MO2). Over time, this problematisation is used increasingly by the Labor government to justify the policy of income management, which is described as ‘one of the few tools [women] have to withstand harassment and humbugging’ (MO2), and as resulting in ‘women and elderly people feeling safer’ because there is ‘less humbugging for money for alcohol, drugs and gambling’ (D7: 1, also MGPC2, MI2, MMR16).
Alcohol use/abuse as evidence of dysfunction
Alcohol abuse is another prominent problematisation in the government texts. Brough speaks of ‘lethal rivers of grog’ (B2: 12) in NT Indigenous communities and of alcohol as ‘the most insidious problem that faces Indigenous people’ (B3: 37). The Labor texts also emphasise ‘the grog problem’ (MS5), repeatedly constructing ‘alcohol abuse’, or sometimes simply ‘alcohol’ as ‘a huge problem’ (G in MGPC1) and ‘one of the most serious issues facing Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory’ (MS3).
As an example of the way in which different problematisations are discursively nested in these texts, alcohol is problematised both because of its contribution to community dysfunction and the breakdown of social norms in Aboriginal communities, and specifically as a cause of violence. The texts argue that alcohol ‘lies at the heart’ of
44 Oddly unlike the others, the 2011 monitoring report reviewed in the document analysis (MR4) did not articulate a set of goals or objectives for the policy. 45 Notably as the government sought to extend the income management measures beyond Indigneous communities, the notion of ‘vulnerable groups’ became increasingly broad, and was no longer restricted to those vulnerable to violence. 46 The term ‘humbugging’ means harassing or threatening someone in order to obtain cash. See also footnote 52.
this dysfunction, representing ‘devastation and community dysfunction’ and ‘appalling levels of violence [and] harm’ as being ‘driven by’ or ‘caused by’ alcohol abuse (D8: 15, also D8: 3, D8: 17, D10: 6). The causative link between alcohol and violence is made repeatedly, with alcohol said to ‘put the lives of women and children at risk’ (B2: 12), and described as ‘a threat to the safety of Aboriginal women, children and the elderly’ (MS3) and as what ‘leads to much of the violence and much of the abuse’ (B3: 37, see also B3, D2: 13, D8: 17, D10: 6, D11: 30). This link is also implied in Macklin’s statement that protecting vulnerable women and children (D10: 6, MMR22) is the goal of alcohol management measures.
4.2.2 Welfare dependency
‘Welfare dependency’ is the second central problem representation identified in the analysis of the government texts. Brough describes the NTER as intended to address the ‘scourge of passive welfare’ (B2: 1). The Labor texts demonstrate precisely the same problematisation, referring repeatedly to ‘entrenched welfare dependency’ (MO2, also MS2, MS3), the ‘destructive, intergenerational cycle of passive welfare’ (D4: 1, also MS2), and the ‘passive welfare that is destroying so many vulnerable people and communities’ (D4: 1).
Again illustrating the nesting of problematisations, the texts repeatedly use a cyclical metaphor to link welfare dependency with other problems. They refer to a ‘cycle of unemployment and welfare dependency, alcohol abuse and violence’ (B2: 17), and represent intergenerational dependency, and a breakdown in social norms and individual responsibility as a vicious ‘cycle’ triggered by welfare payments:
The provision of welfare has not had the desired outcome. It has become a trap instead of a pathway. Normal community standards, social norms and parenting behaviours have broken down and too many are trapped in an intergenerational cycle of dependency (B2: 4).
People in remote Indigenous communities are described as having spent years ‘waiting for the next welfare payment – as their parents and grandparents had done, trapped in a cycle of hopelessness and dependency’ (MS5). Consistent with this, the policy aim is describe das being to ‘tackle’ (MS2, MS3) or ‘break’ (D8: 11) the cycle
of welfare dependency, or to ‘help families up and out of entrenched welfare dependency’ (MO2).
The problematisation of welfare dependency also suggests that inappropriate spending of welfare is an inevitable consequence. This in turn is attributed to a lack of individual responsibility, because people have too much ‘discretion’ over how they spend their welfare (B2: 5), and to a lack of social norms that means recipients are ‘humbugged’ (B2: 5, B3, H5, MGPC2, MO2, MI2, MMR16). The texts consistently assert that there is widespread ‘socially irresponsible’ (B2: 5), spending of welfare payments by Indigenous people, and in particular that these payments are being spent on alcohol, drugs, gambling (H1, H5, B3, also MMR1, D2: 11, MS5), cigarettes and pornography (D4: 4).
As well as these explicit problematisations, the goals of the Intervention, and particularly of income management, are described in terms that implicitly construct irresponsible spending as a problem, and further, as a contributor to poor life outcomes. The policy goal is described as being to produce ‘socially responsible’ spending of welfare (D2: 10, D4: 4), and to ensure ‘that the funds meant to be used for children's welfare are actually used for that purpose’ (H1, H5, also MMR1). Income management promises to ensure that people’s income support payments are spent on ‘basic necessities’ such as ‘food, clothing and shelter for children’, and ‘rent and utilities’ (B3, MMR1), or as Macklin puts it, that ‘people buy groceries not grog’ (MS5). Further, in claiming that income management will ‘improv[e] community safety’ (D2: 11) and ‘assist in improving people’s lives, in particular [those of] children and women’ (D4: 4) the texts imply that poor levels of safety and poor life outcomes are (at least partially) caused by welfare dependency and the lack of socially responsible behaviour that is apparently an inevitable accompaniment.
4.2.3 Individual behaviour or irresponsibility
A lack of ‘individual responsibility’ is the third core problematisation found consistently throughout the government texts. As is evident from the problematisations outlined above, these texts consistently define problems in Indigenous communities as stemming from various forms of individual behaviour, whether a failure to act according to social norms, problematic consumption of
alcohol, interpersonal violence, or irresponsible spending of welfare. Again, the interlinked and mutually reinforcing nature of these various problematisations is illustrated by the representation of individual behaviour as both the cause of, and an effect of the ‘social breakdown’ and ‘dysfunction’ discussed above.
The problematisation of individual behaviour in Indigenous communities includes descriptions of individuals as violent and affected by alcohol and other drugs, as discussed above, as well as those who damage or destroy property (H1, B4: 2, RS1), ‘don't feed their children’ or send them to school (B7), or engage in ‘unacceptable behaviours’ (RS1) or ‘anti-social behaviours’ (D1: 13, also MMR9). The texts cite ‘manifest failures on the part of individuals and communities [that] place others at risk of harm’ (RS1) and suggest that ‘people’s sense of responsibility and care for each other’ is ‘diminished’ (D2: 1). They claim a need to address ‘bad behaviour by individuals’ (GS1: 2) and call for ‘a serious discussion about sanctions and the consequences of people’s actions’ (MO3).
The problematisation of irresponsibility is also implicit in these texts, and is revealed by ‘working backwards’ (Bacchi 2009: 3) from their repeated valorisation of personal responsibility. The policy objective is described as being ‘for the person to take responsibility for their own welfare and for the welfare of their family’ (B2: 2). The texts represent ‘personal responsibility’ as ‘the foundation for healthy, functional families and communities’ (GS1), and point to the responsibility of individuals to:
‘provide safe and secure homes for their children; to go to school or to make sure their children go to school; to pay rent, look for work, avoid self- destructive behaviour, and give the people in their care every opportunity to thrive’ (RS2).
Furthermore the intention to ‘foster’ or ‘generate’ greater personal and community responsibility (D2: 9, MMR8), is repeatedly stated as one of the four core goals of the Intervention (MMR7 also MR1, MR2, MR3: 4, D3: 5).
One group that is represented as particularly lacking responsibility is Indigenous parents. The texts claim that in some remote Indigenous communities, ‘parenting behaviours have broken down’ (B2: 1), that Indigenous parents are ‘failing to fulfill their parental responsibilities’ (H5), or are not ‘undertaking responsible parenting’
(MS3), or ‘taking responsibility for their family’s wellbeing and their children’s health, safety and education’ (MS2). The problematisation of inappropriate spending of welfare discussed above is one that particularly targets Indigenous parents’ behaviour, because they are ‘not responsibly spending the benefits they get on the welfare of their children’ (H2).
Producing ‘an increase in parental responsibility’ (MI11, also H2, H5) and ‘encourag[ing] better social and parenting behaviours’ (B2: 2) are repeatedly stated to be goals of the Intervention. Over time, the texts expand this discourse of parental responsibility from that associated with responsible spending of welfare, to emphasise ‘the responsibility of all parents for children’s school enrolment and attendance’ (D10: 4). Again, the problematisation of parental irresponsibility is both explicit and implicit; sanctions in the form of income suspensions will be applied to ‘parents that aren’t meeting their responsibilities’ (MI22), while there will be ‘incentives and responsibility targeted exemptions to families who demonstrate responsible parenting’ (MS3).
4.2.4 Disadvantage
The final problematisation identified in the government texts is that of ‘disadvantage’. This problematisation has a somewhat different character to the first three discussed above, and these differences, together with the nature of the relationship between this problematisation and the others are explored further in later chapters. In this chapter, I focus on the preliminary task of identifying and illustrating this problematisation. It is pertinent to note here however, that one of these points of difference is that while the above three problematisations are common to both the Howard and Labor Government texts, ‘disadvantage’ is primarily a characteristic of the Labor texts. It is included as one of the four core problematisations however as it is clearly central to these texts, which cover all but three months of the five year period under study.
The specific term ‘disadvantage’ does not appear in any of the Howard Government texts analysed, although they do make occasional reference to several issues that might be understood as facets of ‘disadvantage’. There is one reference to the ‘grinding poverty’ of remote Indigenous communities (H5), and on a few occasions these texts also problematise aspects of the living conditions, infrastructure and
services in those communities, including the ‘poor quality food’ available (B2: 14), physical conditions that constitute ‘abject squalor’ (B4: 2), insufficient police services (B6, also H5), ‘dilapidated housing’ (B3), ‘unmet housing need’ (B3) and ‘second- or third-class’ government services and infrastructure (B2: 13). Overall however, the problematisation of these kinds of material or environmental issues in the Howard Government texts is relatively rare.
When the Labor Government assumed responsibility for the Intervention however, it immediately introduced the explicit language of disadvantage, making this a central narrative. Over subsequent years, while largely maintaining the problematisations established by the Howard Government (particularly dysfunction, a lack of social norms, violence, alcohol, welfare dependency and irresponsibility), the Labor texts also represent ‘disadvantage’ as a major problem that the Intervention seeks to address. Hence the Rudd Government’s earliest publication on the NTER frames the policy as part of its plans to ‘continue addressing Indigenous disadvantage’ (D1: 2), and its first discussion paper on the policy states that there is ‘a lot more to be done’ because ‘the level of disadvantage in still very high’ (D2:1). Macklin’s first speech as Minister describes the goal of the Intervention as ‘reversing the entrenched inequality and disadvantage’ experienced by Indigenous communities (MS1). The government’s response to the 2008 Review Board announces that ‘we're continuing the intervention because of the very acute levels of disadvantage in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory’ (MI6). Its 2009 policy statement on the NTER, outlining ‘landmark reforms’ to ‘strengthen’ the policy, provides as its rationale the government’s belief that ‘exceptional disadvantage warrants long-term action’ (D4: 3). This problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ continues over time, with subsequent Labor texts referring to ‘entrenched disadvantage’ (D9: 6, RS1); ‘huge levels of disadvantage’ (MGPC2) that are ‘unacceptable’ (D10: 1, D9: 13); ‘very acute’, ‘very severe’ and ‘exceptional’ disadvantage (MI4, MI6, MI18, MMR7); and ‘generations of Indigenous disadvantage’ (RS1).
However, while the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ is repeated and prominent in the Labor texts, the question of what precisely the problem is represented to be is sometimes difficult to determine because the term is often used ambiguously. Generally, it seems intended as a ‘catch-all’ concept that problematises a range of
material and environmental issues relating to the living conditions and life circumstances of Indigenous people in remote communities. Its symptoms, and/or sometimes causes, appear to include poverty (MS1, MS2, MS5, MI7, GS2), overcrowded and dilapidated housing (RS1, MS1, MS2, MI3), inadequate services (D4: 14, GS2, MI22, MS6, D1: 25) and infrastructure (GS2), poor governance (D4: 14), poor education outcomes (MMR9, MI15), and high levels of unemployment (MI22). At the same time, various behaviours are also implicated in the persistence of disadvantage, with alcohol abuse represented as ‘both a major cause and symptom of Indigenous disadvantage’ (D11: 16), and both alcohol abuse and poor levels of school attendance (MI22) represented as issues that must be tackled in order to ‘address Indigenous disadvantage’ (MI22).
Despite the imprecision of the term – or perhaps because of its capacity to signify such a range of issues and relationships between different ‘problems’ – ‘disadvantage’ is a central problematisation in the Labor government’s discourse about the Intervention.47 Prime Minister Gillard describes the areas of focus for the Stronger Futures approach (school attendance, alcohol and employment) as having been chosen ‘because they’re pivotal to turning around the disadvantage that we see in Aboriginal communities’ (MGPC2). The subsequent Stronger Futures policy statement opens with the problem statement: ‘Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory still face unacceptable levels of disadvantage’ (D10: 1), and Macklin describes the associated legislation as necessary because ‘Aboriginal people continue to experience significant levels of disadvantage and more needs to be done to achieve the change we all want to see’ (MMR28).
As noted in Chapter 1, the Rudd and Gillard Governments reframed the Intervention such that its administration is a component of their broader Closing the Gap strategy for ‘eliminating Indigenous disadvantage’ (Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs 2013), with the continued NTER measures included within the relevant COAG agreements and partnerships. My analysis of the Labor government texts shows this reframing of the Intervention – as
47 While consideration of how non-Intervention related income management measures is beyond the scope of this thesis, it is notable that ‘disadvantage’ is also the central concept used to justify the extension of income management beyond Indigenous communities to other ‘disadvantaged locations’. See http://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/place-based- income-management.
addressing problems of disadvantage and inequality in order to ‘close the gap’ – occurred not only in an administrative sense but also on a discursive level. These texts repeatedly describe the various Intervention measures, including those extended from the original NTER, as ‘a key element of the Government’s plan for closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians’ (D1: 1, see also MR3: 4, D2: 5, D5: 50, D10: 2, MR6). In line with this approach, these texts problematise a range of factors that might be understood to contribute to Indigenous disadvantage, or the socioeconomic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that the government seeks to close. These include for example; limited access to fresh and healthy food in remote communities (D2: 10, D5: 50, D8: 20); ‘horrific’ living conditions (MGPC1) that are ‘a complete disgrace’ (MI17); housing undersupply and overcrowding (RS1, MGPC1, MI3, MGPC1); the ‘appalling state of housing’ (RS1), which is often characterised by ‘squalor and neglect’ (MGPC1);48 poor levels of school attendance, leading to poor educational outcomes (D8: 10-11, D10: 4, MO3, M in MGPC1, MI16); and high levels of unemployment (D8: 8, MGPC2).
While it can be a somewhat ambiguous or ‘catch-all’ concept then, disadvantage is a central problematisation in the Labor texts and one that constitutes the ‘problem’ in relative, socioeconomic terms. In this sense, the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ differs somewhat from the other problematisations discussed above, because it focuses on the negative economic, physical and environmental conditions that characterise Indigenous communities, rather than on the behaviour and attitudes of individuals who live in them. On the other hand however, the texts also suggest that various behaviours are implicated in the persistence of disadvantage. Subsequent chapters will return to the ambiguities apparent in the government’s problematisation of disadvantage, exploring the complex relationship between this problematisation and the others in greater depth.
48 There is an ambiguity about whether Commonwealth funding for housing in these communities should be considered part of the Intervention and/or Closing the Gap. It is often mentioned by Macklin and Gillard in interviews in the context of the Intervention, but there are also instances where it is explicitly excluded (for example Macklin states that the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) is not a measure under the NTER or Closing the Gap (MR2: 5). However poor housing and the failure of previous governments to provide adequate housing is regularly represented in the government texts as a contributor to the ‘problems’ that the Intervention is intended to address.
4.3 Interviewees who share these problematisations
Having identified the problematisations that dominate the government texts, the second part of this chapter turns to the second data source, namely the interviews conducted as fieldwork for this thesis. The addition of interviews represents a valuable extension of the WPR model, allowing me to explore the diversity and complexity of people’s understandings and interpretations of the government’s discourse, and the problematisations within it. Hence, as well as considering the interview data in its own right, my analysis explored it in light of, and in relation to, the analysis of the government texts.
My analysis of the interviews found that interviewees understood, interpreted, responded to and engaged with the government’s policy discourse in a range of complex ways. As subsequent chapters will demonstrate, many explicitly questioned or criticised this official discourse, contested the ways in which it represented the ‘problems’, and countered it with quite different problematisations and alternative narratives. The focus in this chapter however, is on the ways in which some interviewees presented problem representations that were similar to those identified in the government texts, that is, they described the ‘problems’ in similar terms, made use of similar language, ideas and narratives, and concurred with at least some aspects of the government’s discourse. These examples of other participants in the public debate using similar ideas and narratives to the government also provide a partial answer to WPR question 6a, which asks how and where the problem representations in the policy are reproduced, disseminated and defended. In the case of the Intervention, the identification of shared forms of language and similar ideas and narratives in both the government’s discourse and that of (some) interviewees suggests that the problematisations identified in the government texts circulate more broadly, and that they have achieved a degree of legitimacy in the political and public debate as ‘forms of truth’ (Bacchi 2009: 212). While the ideas did not necessarily originate with the Intervention (indeed many draw on longstanding ideas, as Chapter 6 suggests), it seems that their promotion and circulation in the Intervention policy discourse has increased their ‘truth status’.
The following section considers each of the government’s problematisations in turn, and points to the various, and sometimes complex, ways in which these
problematisations are shared by some interviewees. However, even among the interviewees cited in this chapter, the degree to which each concurs with the government’s discourse varies significantly, and an individual interviewee may share the government’s problematisation of one particular issue, but strongly contest its representation of another. Further, while those aspects of the interview texts discussed here may be similar to the government’s discourse, they are not entirely alike. As I will indicate, even among interviewees who use similar concepts to the government, the way in which particular terms or narratives makes ‘sense’ to different participants varies in complex and nuanced ways. For this reason, each extract from the interview texts cited below needs to be read in context, and the inclusion of an interviewee’s comments in this section should not be taken to imply general concurrence with the government’s discourse.
4.3.1 Dysfunctionality and a lack of social norms
Overall, few of the interviewees use the specific notions of ‘dysfunctionality’ or a ‘lack of social norms’ to describe NT Indigenous communities. However, one exception is interviewee N7, who sees such communities as having become ‘radically dysfunctional’ in the two to three decades preceding the Intervention. Referring specifically to Indigenous communities in Central Australia, N7 argues that over this period a widespread and generalised ‘social crisis’ developed in these communities, the ‘intensity’ of which increased in the years immediately preceding the launch of the Intervention, with ‘increasing fragmentation and breakdown’ reduced the ‘ability of people to regulate their own families, their young people, and to control their excesses’. It was, suggests interviewee N7, increasing public recognition of ‘the problems, the social dysfunction’ in Indigenous communities, and the ‘realis[ation] that there was a huge social crisis’ that ‘finally forced the NT government to move’ and establish the Wild/Anderson inquiry. For interviewee N7 then, the notion of ‘toxic dysfunction’ is appropriate to describe both ‘a lot of Aboriginal communities’, and some individuals and families, such as Indigenous parents who are ‘so dysfunctional’ that their children need to be removed for their own safety.
Interviewee N8 is another who uses the same generalised representations of NT Indigenous communities as socially deteriorated or broken down as those found in the government texts. While he does not use the term ‘dysfunction’, N8 describes
conditions as ‘a nightmare’ and as evidence of a ‘deterioration of the social fabric’. He also reproduces the specific problematisation of a lack of social norms that is found so often in the Government texts, suggesting for example, that residents of remote Indigenous communities ‘don't read newspapers, they're not tuned in to current affairs TV or radio. So how could they know how far out of step they are with societal norms?’ For interviewee N8, it is this level of detachment from ‘societal norms’ that justifies the ‘brutal impact’ of the government’s response, as a means of providing ‘a jolt for a bit of introspection’.
Other interviewees use the notion of dysfunctionality in a less totalising way than is apparent in the government texts. Interviewee I1 for example, draws attention to the difference between communities, noting that some are ‘functional’ and some ‘dysfunctional’, but does describe some as ‘so dysfunctional they can't take control’ of the issues they face. Similarly interviewee N5 observes that while some communities are ‘very proud’ and ‘more active in terms of trying to get things to function’, others, particularly those where different clan or language groups are living together, are ‘a bit more dysfunctional’.
These examples suggest that even among interviewees who use similar concepts of dysfunction and social breakdown to the government, the ways in which these terms make ‘sense’ to different participants in the debate vary in complex and nuanced ways. As another example of the way in which similar terms evoke different meanings, a number of those interviewees who describe Indigenous communities and/or people as ‘dysfunctional’ simultaneously point to the role that governments have played in producing this dysfunction. Interviewee I5 for example, describes the current situation in these communities as one of ‘dysfunction’, but argues that it is as much the longstanding ‘system of paternalism’ as the communities themselves that is dysfunctional, because it has failed to ‘breed responsibility’ among Aboriginal people. Similarly for interviewee I1, while many communities may well be described as dysfunctional, ‘government [is] one of the most dysfunctional parts of this equation’.
Interviewees N8 and N7 both see the current situation as the result of government policy that for decades ‘failed Aborigines’, including welfare policy that was ‘backfiring on Aboriginal people’, ‘working against [their] wellbeing’ (N7) and
producing ‘inadvertent outcomes’ (N8). While this problematisation is similar to the government’s claim that current dysfunction is the result of welfare policies that ‘have not had the desired outcome’ and ‘become a trap instead of a pathway’ (B2: 4), both interviewees N8 and N7 paint a more complex picture of current dysfunctionality. Interviewee N8 points to the failure of governments to provide sufficient education, training, employment, infrastructure, services and opportunities as a fundamental contributing factor. Interviewee N7 also suggests multiple and varied causes of current ‘dysfunction’, including ‘poverty and marginalisation’ and Commonwealth and NT Governments that have for decades been hostile towards ‘the aspirations of Aboriginal people’ and ‘deliberately designed a situation … where [remote communities] were left to stew in their own juices’. While welfare policy played a role, for interviewee N7 it is the more general nature of government antagonism towards Indigenous communities that created the ‘continual cycle of crisis, poverty and dysfunction’. In these cases then, ‘dysfunction’ is a term that carries both similar and somewhat different connotations to the way it is used in the government texts.
Violence and child abuse
While only a minority of the interviewees used language that echoed the government’s representation of the problem as generalised or total community dysfunction, or a complete breakdown in social norms, many more explicitly problematised specific issues relating to violence.
The three interviewees who were the most supportive of the general approach of the Intervention (N3, N7 and N8) also tended to place the greatest emphasis on issues of violence, especially against women and children. Interviewee N3 for example points to the number of Indigenous women he sees in Darwin ‘whose faces are misshapen because they've suffered a lifetime of physical abuse’, arguing that they are ‘a visible sign that [violence] is a problem’ in the remote communities in which many of these women live. Similarly, interviewee N7 argues that the Intervention followed a long- running concern among ‘responsible Aboriginal leaders’ in Central Australia about ‘violence issues, particularly for women’. He notes that the two years prior to the Intervention had seen ‘a major upsurge in homicides’ in Alice Springs and surrounding communities, and describes these incidents as ‘generally people off their faces on grog and/or dope, killing their young partners’ (interviewee N7). This
succession of ‘serious incidents’ of violence he suggests, had led to ‘an increasing sense of crisis’, which was heightened by media coverage of this ‘major spike in deaths and incidents of violence’. Interviewee N8 is another who points to violence as a significant problem, mentioning the ‘interlocked’ indicators of ‘hospitalisation rates, violence, Aboriginal on Aboriginal homicides and domestic violence’. Interviewee N3 also echoes the government’s specific representation of violence by people in positions of authority in communities, referring to the damaging influence of community ‘big men’, some of whom ‘commit horrendous crimes’ and whose influence means ‘vulnerable people [are being] taken advantage of’.
For these three interviewees, the issue of violence is a central reason for their support of the Intervention. However, many of the interviewees who are generally opposed to the Intervention also concur with the representation of violence as a problem in Indigenous communities. For example, both interviewees N10 and I3, who are each very strong opponents of the Intervention, problematise high levels of violence in remote Indigenous communities, with I3 pointing to the incredible frequency with which ‘someone gets murdered, someone gets raped’ in these communities. Others who object to various aspects of the Intervention nevertheless agree unequivocally that ‘violence is a problem’ (interviewee I1). Interviewee I6 states that in some communities people are ‘running amok’, interviewee N5 is concerned that children are witnessing violence, and interviewee N4, states that the levels of violence and child abuse are ‘shocking and alarming’. Interviewees generally agree that the issue of violence requires a serious response, typically concurring that there is a pressing need to improve ‘community safety’ in many Indigenous communities (interviewees N4, N5) and to ensure that people’s ‘basic rights’ to ‘live safe lives on a day-to-day basis’ (interviewee I1) and ‘walk around and be safe’ (interviewee I6) are protected.
Several of the interviewees concur with the specific problematisation of welfare recipients being harassed, humbugged or subjected to violence by other community members as a means of obtaining cash. Interviewee N8 for example, claims that the payment of welfare in cash to women ‘often leads to humbug and probably a beating on the male’s part to get it off her’. Interviewee N7 also concurs with this problematisation, pointing to the ‘big problem’ of people with alcohol, drug and
gambling addictions ‘hassling and often threatening’ other community members for money to maintain those addictions.
For these interviewees, their conception of this problem informs their support for income management. Interviewee N3 for example, feels that the policy is ‘protecting people from humbug’. Interviewee N1 argues that it gives welfare recipients a means to ‘partition some money off so that they don't get hassled and get it taken away’. For these interviewees, the belief that income management protects people from this kind of harassment and violence justifies the compulsory nature of the policy. As interviewee N1 puts it, if the measure was not compulsory then welfare recipients who wanted to have their income managed might face harassment: ‘they’d have their partners or whoever else [pressuring] them, saying ‘no get off it, you can get off it’, so they might be forced [by those people] to get off it’. Similarly, interviewee N7 argues that because welfare recipients in Indigenous communities are so commonly subject to harassment and threats from relatives who are continually ‘exploiting their feelings and obligations’ in order to obtain money for alcohol, drugs and gambling, the policy ‘would not have worked unless it was compulsory’.
Other interviewees who do not necessarily agree with the compulsory and blanket application of income management nevertheless concur that harassment and humbugging are common problems. Interviewee N5 for example, suggests that while the way it was imposed was problematic and not supported by many women, in practice, income management is ‘beneficial for some women’ because it helps them obtain more control over household bills because they are not having their money ‘humbugged from them’. Similarly, interviewee I5 feels that while the blanket application of the measure, which saw ‘pensioners and people who genuinely looked after their kids … all caught up in the policy’ was ‘poorly thought through’, its compulsory application to some groups in the community was an effective means of protecting them from this particular kind of violence. He bases this assessment on changes he has witnessed in his own family:
The BasicsCard, the quarantining of money I think has been a good thing. My grandmothers out bush now don't get bashed and humbugged and their money stolen from them. That’s a good thing.
While many interviewees share the government’s problematisation of ‘humbugging’ however, this term is also contested, as noted in Chapter 5.
In relation to violence against children in particular, few interviewees specifically highlight or emphasise issues of child abuse, with many feeling that the issue has already been given saturation coverage in public debate, and further that it has sometimes been distorted or exaggerated by the Government and the media. Interviewee N7 is one interviewee who does stress the specific problem of child abuse and neglect, pointing to a ‘downward spiral in terms of child neglect and in some cases child abuse’ in the years preceding the Intervention, and specifically to some ‘outrageous child sexual assaults and murders that were associated with petrol sniffing’. He sees the Intervention as an appropriately drastic response to what had become the growing ‘urgency of addressing child neglect, child welfare and child abuse issues in the NT’. While some other interviewees do refer specifically to child sexual abuse, many tend to frame this issue as part of a broader concern for children’s wellbeing, with violence or sexual violence against children not necessarily more prominent in their narratives than child neglect, poor school attendance, child health, poor housing and children’s rights to education and welfare support.
However, while many question the emphasis the government places on child abuse, or contest the particular way in which it is represented, interviewees do not deny that child abuse is a problem in Indigenous communities. In fact many, including interviewees N6, I1, N4 and I6, make a specific point of emphasising that their criticisms of the policy should not be taken as denying the existence of what interviewee N6 calls ‘alarmingly terrible child protection issues’. Furthermore, the Little Children are Sacred report is widely respected among interviewees as providing credible evidence of the nature and scale of child abuse (and other child protection issues) in Indigenous communities.
Alcohol
The government’s representation of alcohol (and other drugs) as a serious problem in many Indigenous communities is one that is shared by many interviewees. The similarity of these narratives is particularly pronounced among interviewees N3, N8 and N7, all of whom are generally supportive of the Intervention. Interviewee N8
argues that ‘a terribly high proportion [of people in Indigenous communities] are now so wasted from grog and marijuana and whatever else that they can't realistically go to work’. Interviewee N7 claims that ‘the levels of alcoholism and excessive drinking on the camps is very high and the problems it creates are enormous’, and that significant violence is a result of ‘people off their faces on grog and/or dope’. Interviewee N3 suggests that ‘people who live in remote communities see on a daily basis the impact of alcohol, that devastates lives, but also the violence that ensues from it [and] the neglect of children that is caused by it’. He rejects criticisms that the government’s depiction of Indigenous communities as riven with alcoholism is stigmatising:
Sure, people, and particularly men, felt that they were being pigeonholed as paedophiles and as alcoholics, and many, many men are not, but to a large degree, the problem existed and it needed to be acknowledged ... The problem with that argument about stigma is that it tries to say there is no problem, this is an imagined thing that has been put upon us … Like any generalisation it has risks, but the problem is real, it exists, it needs to be addressed.
As this comment suggests, for some interviewees the depth of the problem of alcohol justifies the extreme nature of the government’s representations of this issue. Further, any criticism of the particular way in which it is represented is seen to be a denial that the problem exists.
It is notable however, that among many other interviewees there is both an understanding of alcohol as a serious problem, and a level of discomfort with the government’s representations of this issue. Numerous interviewees who are far less sympathetic to the Intervention than the three cited above, nevertheless understand alcohol to be a problem, and a cause of other problems. Interviewee I9 for example, describes numerous ‘problems around alcohol consumption’, and interviewee I7 points specifically to the prevalence of ‘alcohol related harm’, and ‘alcoholism’. Interviewee N2 refers to the issue of alcohol as ‘a wicked problem’. Many point to the various negative impacts of alcohol, and particularly to the way that ‘alcohol impacts on social problems’ (interviewee I7), and problems that ‘drinkers’ cause for other community members (interviewee N1). Impacts mentioned include people who ‘are drunk and run amok and make trouble for others’ (interviewee N1), old women resorting to ‘sleeping [away from their community] in sand dunes because everyone
gets drunk at night’ (interviewee I1) and alcohol-fuelled arguments and violence among adults being regularly witnessed by children (interviewee N5). Interviewee I7 accepts Brough’s metaphor of ‘the rivers of grog’, arguing that they are ‘still flowing’ despite the Intervention. Interviewee I6 rejects the notion of ‘rivers of grog’ but nevertheless agrees that ‘there is an economy for grog and drugs’ in Indigenous communities, that some people use these substances ‘to assist them to get through life’ and that issues of alcohol and substance dependence need to be addressed. Further, hose who mention the problem of humbugging, or people being harassed for their money, suggest it is largely caused by the prevalence of people with substance abuse issues who are seeking cash for alcohol and drugs.
As with the issue of violence, many interviewees make a point of stressing that while they object to the government’s approach (or aspects of it) they do not question the existence of problems associated with alcohol in Indigenous communities. For example, while she objects to the Intervention’s alcohol measures, interviewee N2 stresses ‘I am not saying for a second that alcohol is not disastrous’. Similarly interviewee N4 suggests that, while many people object to the particular policy approach, ‘very few’ of these critics ‘will say there was no need for anything to be addressed’, and that, like ‘improving community safety’, the objective of ‘addressing alcohol problems’ is one that few people disagree with. Similarly, interviewee I1 states unequivocally that ‘there are problems [in Indigenous communities], there’s no doubt. I don’t gild the lily here’.
Many interviewees who understand these issues to be serious and prevalent problems, nevertheless strongly question the particular ways in which alcohol issues are problematised by the government. In particular, many express frustration that the government’s crisis-oriented discourse fails to recognise that alcohol has long been understood and highlighted as a problem by Indigenous communities themselves. As interviewee N5 points out, ‘Aboriginal people already acknowledge there is a significant drinking problem’ and have long been concerned about ‘patterns of alcohol dependence’. Many contrast the government’s apparently recent concern about issues of alcohol with the ways in which communities have been actively attempting to deal with problems associated with alcohol for decades, and point out that many communities long ago declared themselves ‘dry’ in an attempt to reduce
alcohol problems. Interviewee I6 reports that, far from being in denial, many communities share the government’s concerns about alcohol, with community members ‘saying very similar things to what the government is saying – they don’t want people drinking’. Similarly, interviewee N1 points out that the communities his service works with have long called for greater government assistance in addressing this problem, including funding for more night patrols and more alcohol and other drugs programs. For many interviewees, the failure of the government to recognise this long history of Indigenous concern about alcohol gives them cause to question the government’s understanding of and approach to the issue. For some it contributes to a totalising, sensationalistic and racist representation of these issues. For others it is a disingenuous representation designed to further the government’s unrelated policy agendas. These types of objections and contestations will be discussed in later chapters.
4.3.2 Welfare dependency
As with the issue of alcohol, it is interviewees N3, N7 and N8 whose representation of ‘welfare dependency’ and ‘passive welfare’ as problems is closest to that of the government. Interviewees N8 and N7 are particularly emphatic in their problematisation of welfare dependency, with interviewee N8 referring to ‘a welfare tsunami’ and the ‘evils of welfare, passive welfare, with no mutual obligation, welfare for life, intergenerational welfare’. Interviewee N8 points to the replacement several decades earlier of previous job creation and training schemes with welfare entitlements, suggesting this created self-destructive attitudes by removing the incentive to work. He suggests that this policy shift was greeted with ‘absolute amazement’ by remote communities who felt they were now being ‘paid to sit down rather than to work’ and came to understand government welfare payments as ‘sit- down money’.
For interviewee N8, it is several decades of this kind of welfare policy, in which ‘mutual obligation is lacking’, that has created entrenched dependency in Indigenous communities:
Welfare benefits are perceived by bush communities as income for life. They’ve been encouraged in that way of thinking by the generosity with which
these benefits have rolled out. The way a Remote Area Exemption was applied for 30 years obviated the need to actively pursue work [and] in fact allowed them to decline work with no impact on benefits. That then compounds. Kids [think] ‘well I've never seen either parent working, [why should I be] attending school? I don't need an education.’ And on it goes, its intergenerational.
Interviewee N7 also represents welfare dependency in similar terms, arguing that because welfare policy has, since the 1960s, been based on a principle of ‘simplistic equality’ that sees welfare as universal right, it has had unintentional and damaging consequences for Aboriginal people. Interviewee N7 reports having long opposed this policy of universal welfare because of its damaging impact in Indigenous communities. This representation of welfare as having ‘unintentional consequences’ is the same narrative found in the government texts discussed earlier. Interviewee N3 also shares this conception, and like the government texts, describes welfare as ‘a trap’. He further claims that people in Indigenous communities ‘have an entitlement mentality because they've been receiving handouts for so long’.
While it is these three interviewees whose problematisation of welfare dependency is most similar to that found in the government texts, others also point to a need to ‘enforce Aboriginal people to get off welfare dependency’ (I7). Interviewee N9 suggests that while many people like him have objections to the government’s approach, ‘no one's advocating a passive welfare approach for any second’. On the other hand however, many interviewees strongly contest the prominence given to the issue of ‘welfare dependency’ as the primary problem or root cause of other problems in Indigenous communities. Many also object to the government’s problematisation of welfare dependency as an individual failing. These and other contestations of the government discourse on welfare, employment and unemployment are explored in later chapters.
4.3.3 Individual behaviour or irresponsibility
Again, it is interviewees N3, N7 and N8 who most obviously share the government’s problematisation of individual behaviour and irresponsibility in Indigenous communities. For interviewee N8, the previous four decades of Indigenous policy
have, albeit unintentionally, ‘destroyed personal responsibility and personal endeavour’ in these communities. Interviewee N3 also represents the problem as an absence of ‘mutual responsibility’. He highlights for example, attitudes towards housing, which he suggests ‘people don’t necessarily value’ as a result of receiving ‘handouts’ for so long, suggesting they need ‘support in understanding their responsibilities for looking after the house’.
Like the government texts, these interviewees also point specifically to a failure of parental responsibility. Interviewee N3 for example, speaks of:
the number of people who just don't look after their kids, don't feed them, don't ensure they get to school, don't look after their health, either because they don't understand what it takes to parent, or because they're caught up in their own substance abuse problems.
Likewise, interviewee N7 sees parental irresponsibility as a particular problem, referring to various communities he has worked in, from which a number of children have been removed ‘because their parents are so dysfunctional, and the kids are at extreme risk’. He suggests that there are children in many communities where:
no-one is taking an interest in those kids’ lives, or none of the parents or guardians have the skills or self-discipline or nous to be able to think about how to get those kids on track and benefiting and able to have a future. They are just being condemned to early deaths.
Interviewee N7 also suggests that the irresponsible actions of some parents who are ‘just wasting money on drink and smokes’, ‘neglecting their children’, or ‘mak[ing] the choice to drink themselves to death’ are compromising the rights of children – particularly their right to an education and to access social security. He argues that ‘if none of the money or the attention or emotional investment is going into the child, well you can’t allow that to happen on a mass scale’ and that in such cases the state is justified in intervening to protect ‘the wellbeing of children’ and their ‘basic rights’ (interviewee N7).
Again echoing the narrative in the government texts, these interviewees highlight ‘irresponsible’ spending of welfare payments by Indigenous parents as a significant
problem. It is for this reason interviewee N3 approves of the Intervention as ‘the Commonwealth saying ‘enough’s enough’ … we're not going to allow people to spend welfare money and neglect children, there's going to be some control over how you spend your welfare money’. This understanding of the problems informs his support for income management as a means of curbing irresponsible spending and parenting behaviours:
welfare money is not paid to people for any purpose they so desire, it’s a safety net to make sure they have the basics to look after their children and themselves. If it’s being spent on gambling and alcohol, then government and taxpayers have a right to say something about that (interviewee N3).
These interviewees also point to poor levels of school attendance as evidence of parental irresponsibility. Interviewee N7 supports the government displaying ‘zero tolerance for non-attendance in school’ as a means of asserting the importance of parental responsibility. Likewise, interviewee N8 suggests the government’s response to poor school attendance should be to increase (or enforce existing) sanctions for parents, by vigorously applying truancy laws:
What is the point in the [truancy] law if it is not applied? Let's get some showcase cases … We've got to get out there in a noisy way, in a spectacular way that will get people's attention. To say ‘it is not okay not to send your kids to school!’ And we need to do it with a bang.
For interviewee N7 this kind of sanction-based approach is preferable to other kinds of government policy, such as the provision of school breakfasts, which he suggests are making the problem worse by ‘supplanting parental responsibility’.
While these three interviewees do largely reproduce the government’s problematisation of irresponsible individual behaviour, (and particularly parental irresponsibility), this is occasionally qualified by the problematising of other contributing factors that are outside people’s individual control. For interviewee N7 for example, while poor school attendance may in some cases be down to ‘irresponsible parents or carers’, the far greater problem is insufficient government investment in schools. While he understands parental irresponsibility as a problem, more significant problems are ‘stresses in classrooms’, overcrowded classes, and ‘too
many kids with special needs and behavioural problems for teachers and other kids to cope with’, all of which are created by a failure to invest sufficiently in education infrastructure and teachers (interviewee N7).
Because the government texts emphasis parents’ individual responsibility for ensuring their children attend school, they are therefore focused on sanctions for parents, an approach interviewees N3, N7 and N8 also endorse. At the same time however, these interviewees suggest the problem of poor school attendance is more complex and multi-faceted than the government implies. This perspective informs interviewee N7’s suggestion that while some irresponsible parents may need ‘heavying’, in many cases a more supportive and collaborative approach to developing parental responsibility is needed, one that addresses service provision issues as well as identifying ‘the right people with the time to spend with those parents and kids and other family members, to work out individual plans and efforts to get those kids back into the system’ (interviewee N7). Similarly, while interviewee N8 advocates stronger sanctions for irresponsible parents, his suggestion that school absences might be reduced by adjusting term dates to accommodate locally important cultural events implies that the problem of poor school attendance is not only caused by parental irresponsibility, but is also related to the current administration of the education system.
While these interviewees problematise individual behaviour in similar (if not identical) ways to the government texts, many others strongly object to this narrative. Indeed as later chapters will demonstrate, many suggest that the way in which the government problematises individual behaviour in Indigenous communities is racist, creates a stigmatising effect, and ‘blames the victim’ rather than acknowledging what they see to be a myriad of contributing factors.
4.3.4 Disadvantage
Many of the interviewees explicitly problematise ‘the depth of social disadvantage’ (interviewee N3) and the ‘entrench[ed] poverty and marginalisation’ (interviewee N7) that exists in Indigenous communities, referring to a wide range of economic, environmental and material issues as components of and contributors to disadvantage. These include poverty, a lack of basic services and infrastructure, poor and overcrowded housing in particular, and the generally poor physical environment and
living conditions that characterise remote communities. In this respect, the interviewees share the concern expressed in the (Labor) government texts for the problem of disadvantage, and understand this to refer to a wide range of socioeconomic issues. Indeed, some specifically acknowledge the more prominent recognition that Labor gives to this issue. Interviewee N4 for example, welcomes Labor’s shift towards describing the policy goal in a broader sense than the Howard Government, as ‘addressing disadvantage’, because this conception encompasses a range of significant socioeconomic issues that many people felt were under acknowledged by the Howard Government’s focus on individual behaviour.
What is noticeable in comparing the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ in the government texts with those expressed by the interviewees however, is that while there are similarities, there are also significant differences in the way this particular concept is used. For many, the various components or symptoms of ‘disadvantage’ and poverty are emphasised as part of a criticism, or at least a questioning, of the government’s Intervention discourse rather than an affirmation of it, because they see these issues as under-acknowledged or even denied by the government. For example interviewee N7 suggests that the government’s concern for disadvantage is obscured by its focus on individual responsibility. With regard to the issue of school attendance he suggests that the Intervention’s emphasis on ‘zero tolerance’ for parents who are not meeting their responsibilities, while justified, obscures the many other material issues of disadvantage that contribute to low school attendance. He calls for a more balanced approach that also involves ‘zero tolerance on the government’ for its ongoing underinvestment. Interviewee I3 makes a similar point in relation to health, arguing that Intervention policies that focus only on select issues (such as better food in stores or increased funding for medical services) will only be ‘a band-aid’ if the government does not also address the physical environment – including housing and living conditions – as a fundamental determinant of health.
Many others question what they see as the Intervention’s particularly troubling failure to prioritise housing as a fundamental component of addressing Indigenous disadvantage. Reflecting on some of the communities in which he works for example, interviewee N1 states that ‘in terms of a hierarchy of human needs’, it should be obvious that when people ‘do not have toilets or showers’ and ‘everyone is
overcrowded’, then policy needs to begin by meeting these most ‘basic needs’. There is widespread frustration among interviewees that housing is not a greater priority, particularly when there is substantial evidence that poor housing, overcrowding and poor living conditions are social determinants of poor health (interviewee N10), and when so many of the poor social and economic outcomes in these communities can be ‘attributed to housing’ (interviewee I7).
Other interviewees contrast the government’s approach with one that would explicitly recognise income poverty as a significant component of disadvantage. Interviewee N2 for example, points to the extremely low household incomes in remote Australia, arguing that living in such poverty means that for many Indigenous people ‘you are focused on your own survival, never mind anything else’. She also argues that the Intervention is part of long tradition that sees ‘the problem always defined in terms of race, not in terms of poverty’, and that therefore obscures the economic changes needed:
What you are dealing with is abject poverty, but because that poverty occurs in a [location] that doesn’t have a mixed population, it gets labeled as ‘the Aboriginal problem’. Whereas actually the issues are about alleviating poverty and appropriate service provision for people who live in remote areas. You are dealing with many, many years of underinvestment in Aboriginal issues.
While the government’s discourse may include a problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ then, for this interviewee and several others, it is one that fails to fully recognise the material, structural and economic dimensions of the problem.
Further, while the government frames its response to disadvantage as one of ‘closing the gap’, a number of interviewees (N2, N3, N10, I3, N4), though broadly supportive of this goal, are simultaneously critical of the government’s conception of this task. For example, interviewee N2 suggests the government’s approach to ‘closing the gap’ has an insufficient focus on increasing government investment in communities, and interviewee N10 is cynical of the government’s intentions because despite adequate housing being fundamental to closing the gap, the provision of new housing has been
completely halted in some communities.49 Similarly, interviewee N3 suggests that while culture is ‘critical to closing the gap’, the need for a ‘cultural framework’ is under-acknowledged in the government’s approach. Interviewee N4 also questions whether the current approach to closing the gap is ‘evidence-based’, given the evidence pointing to the importance of ‘community ownership of responses to problems’, ‘empowering people to take charge of a situation’, ‘teaching people in their first language’ and supporting pride in heritage and culture. He suggests that when it comes to ‘any gaps they try to close’, the government is ‘really not going to get far without addressing those fundamental issues’ (interviewee N4).
Finally, interviewee N10 introduces a very different perspective on the concept of disadvantage to that of the government, using it to describe the way in which the history of colonisation determines social and economic outcomes in Indigenous communities. Arguing that the problems that the government implies to be unique to Aboriginal communities need to be viewed in a broader historical context, she states:
It’s clear when you look internationally that groups of people who have been particularly disadvantaged or dislocated or legislated against, all end up in similar situations, of having high alcohol and violence and homelessness and overriding poverty (interviewee N10).
Thus as with other interviewees, interviewee N10 might share the government’s use of the term ‘disadvantage’, but her conception of what this involves and how its causes need to be understood is very different. Her emphasis on the need to acknowledge both the historical, social and economic causes of disadvantage, and the social problems that are a result, is offered as a strong contestation of the government’s ‘punitive’ approach that focuses on individual behaviour.
4.4 Conclusion
This chapter identified the most prominent problematisations in the government texts, and explored the ways in which some of the interviewees share these
49 This is a reference to the ‘hub towns’ approach, which directs government funding to a number of selected ‘priority locations’. This selective funding approach to remote NT communities is a feature of both the NPA on RSD and the then NT Government’s Working Future policy (in place between 2009 and 2012). See Australian Government (Office of the Coordinator General for Remote Indigenous Services) (2009), and Anderson and Henderson (2009).
problematisations, or describe the ‘problems’ in similar terms. The first part of the chapter identified four main problematisations in the government texts, and in doing so revealed how the issues in remote Indigenous communities are ‘being thought about’, and ‘which particular issues are conceived as ‘problems’’ by the government (Bacchi 2009: 3, 30). Specifically, the texts represent remote NT Aboriginal communities as characterised by dysfunction and a lack of social norms (as evidenced by high levels of violence and alcohol abuse), as well as welfare dependency, irresponsible behaviour and disadvantage. The analysis found that the government texts use both explicitly and implicitly problematising language to construct the policy ‘problems’ to which the Intervention is represented to be a response. In other words, these problematisations occur both as explicit problem statements, and as inferences within the policy goals and rationale.
This exercise also confirmed that, as in many policies, the problematisations in the Intervention are overlapping and nested together. These interrelated and mutually reinforcing problematisations combine to create a consistent and coherent discourse about the ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities, and in doing so the policy texts actively constitute these problems in particular ways. Further, while comparing the Howard Government and Labor Government texts is not a particular goal of the thesis, the temporal dimension of the analysis found that the problematisations contained within the two sets of texts over the five-year period are largely consistent. The discursive consistency of these particular representations, ideas and narratives, both over time and across different governments of different political persuasions is notable, and can be seen as an example of how policy makers tend to produce descriptions and explanations that reconfirm the particular narrative that currently dominates their policy field, as part of the process of creating ‘persuasive policy stories’ (Stevens 2011).
At the same time, there are a number of ambiguities or points of tension in the policy discourse. One concerns the sometimes circular narrative about cause and effect. At times the texts seem to suggest that it is because these communities are ‘dysfunctional’, lacking in ‘social norms’, have high levels of ‘welfare dependency’ and are ‘disadvantaged’, that individuals behave in irresponsible ways, while at others they imply that individual behaviour and irresponsibility are drivers or causes of
‘dysfunction’. Similarly, the somewhat ambiguous problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ generally refers to socioeconomic factors, yet sometimes seems to also imply behavioural drivers, such as alcohol abuse and irresponsible parenting. The assumptions and rationalities that underlie the problematisations identified in this chapter, and that create both a high level of discursive consistency and a degree of potential ambiguity or tension, are the subject of the following chapter.
The second part of this chapter found that the problematisations that characterise the government texts are also evident, at least to some extent, in the interview texts. The degree to which different interviewees concur with these problematisations varies significantly and their use of similar language is sometimes accompanied by quite different conceptions or differences of emphasis. Further, as later chapters will show, other interviewees strongly contest the government’s problematisations. Nevertheless, the analysis of the interview data suggests that the representations employed by the government enjoy a degree of general legitimacy, that is, that they operate as ‘forms of truth’ (Bacchi 2009: 212) and ‘persuasive policy stories’ (Stevens 2011) more broadly.
While the nature of this chapter has been descriptive, the following chapters develop a more critical analysis of the problematisations this chapter has identified, by applying the remaining, more analytical WPR questions. Chapter 5 begins this critical examination by using the second WPR question to explore the assumptions and governmental rationalities upon which the government’s problematisations are based.
CHAPTER 5. ASSUMPTIONS AND RATIONALITIES
5.1 Introduction
This chapter begins the critical analysis of the problematisations identified in Chapter 4. The focus in this chapter is on WPR question 2: What presuppositions or assumptions underlie this representation of the ‘problem’? This question enables me to make explicit the implicit assumptions that underlie the four problem representations identified, by exploring the conceptual logics and values that underpin them, and the binaries, concepts and categories on which they rely. Further, and consistent with the interest in governance that is central to the conceptual framework for the thesis, I also use this question to explore the particular governmental rationalities that underpin the government’s policy discourse.
This chapter is based primarily on my critical discourse analysis of the government texts, as it seeks specifically to identify the assumptions underlying the official policy discourse itself. However in order to do this, I also draw on the perspectives of a number of the interviewees, as well as on relevant critical literature. In this way, I continue to build a degree of multi-vocality into the thesis, demonstrating not only how the government policy texts produce meaning, but also how others respond to, interpret and interact with this official discourse.
5.2 Making meaning: discursive coherence
The first three problematisations described in Chapter 4 work together to create a dominant and conceptually consistent narrative in the government texts. The high level of discursive coherence created by the combination of these three problematisations is an effect of the complementary and mutually reinforcing assumptions and conceptual logics on which they rely. My analysis reveals these problematisations to be underpinned by two intersecting sets of assumptions and rationalities. Firstly they rely on generic neoliberal assumptions about the relationship between individuals, the state and the market, and the role of government in regulating individual behaviours through the use of incentives and sanctions aimed at ‘responsibilisation’. Secondly the texts employ more specific, racialised conceptual
logics, particularly assumptions about the failures or deficits of Aboriginal people, communities and culture, and the relationship of Indigneous people to the state. These assumptions underpin a governmental rationality that seeks to ‘normalise’ Indigenous communities, and that justifies the application of particular or exceptional forms of governance.
These two sets of assumptions and governmental rationalities intersect in complex but mutually reinforcing ways to give the texts a high level of internal coherence. This discursive and ideological consistency within and between the first three problematisations is explored in this section, and illustrated with extracts from the Intervention texts. However, consistent with a recognition that complex policy texts often contain elements of internal tension and contradiction (Bacchi 2009: 4, 20), the chapter later argues that the fourth problematisation – that of ‘disadvantage’ – introduces a degree of potential tension into the dominant narrative created by the first three problematisations discussed below.
5.2.1 Neoliberal assumptions and rationalities
My analysis identifies in the Intervention texts three central assumptions of neoliberalism. Firstly, as the literature on neoliberalism demonstrates, it is an ideological paradigm that holds the market to be ‘the organizing and regulative principle of the state and society’ (Brown 2003: 11), with the individual imagined as a rational ‘choice-making citizen-consumer’ (Newman and Tonkens 2011a: 12-13). This assumption underpins the Intervention texts; illustrated by the problematisation of Indigenous communities, as having no ‘real economy’ (MGPC1), ‘no natural social order of production and distribution’ (B8: 11), ‘little economic activity’ (B9: 1) and a lack of ‘economic opportunities’ (B7). Communal land titles are problematised because they cannot be used to secure capital for Indigenous people to ‘buy a house or start a business’ (D8: 13) and do not give investors any ‘incentive to invest’ (MS1). Private home ownership is valorised and assumed to contribute to the goal of building ‘communities with strong social norms that give families the incentives to take responsibility for their lives and build a better future’ (RS1). Conversely, dependence on welfare (or CDEP income) is problematised because it prevents people from ‘learning the discipline of what a full-time job means’ (MI10), and from aspiring to a ‘real job’ in the ‘real economy’ (MI10, B8: 11, B4: 2).
Secondly, neoliberal thought involves a conception of ‘active citizenship’ in which people are both held responsible for their own behaviour, and expected to take responsibility ‘for their own and each other’s welfare and for community well-being’ (Newman and Tonkens 2011a: 13). This conception informs a governmental rationality that sees those who fail to behave in responsible and economically rational ways as living a ‘mismanaged life’ (Brown 2003: 15) and as justifiable targets for policy based on behavioural incentives and sanctions. The Intervention texts are underpinned by similar assumptions. They constitute ‘problems’ primarily at the individual, behavioural level, problematising behaviour that is self-destructive, risky, dependent, harmful to others, and above all, irresponsible. They also construct responsible and irresponsible behaviours in binary terms. People who engage in ‘self- destructive behaviour’ are contrasted with those who ‘make sure their children go to school, pay rent, look for work’ (RS2). Parents who are ‘failing to fulfil their parental responsibilities’ (H5) are contrasted with those who accept ‘the parental responsibility that accompanies their right to welfare support’ (H5). ‘Responsible adults’ are represented as the victims of others who abuse alcohol and other drugs and engage in ‘humbugging’ (H5). Those who ‘us[e] welfare in socially irresponsible ways’ (B9: 5) are threatened with policy sanctions, while those who ‘use this money in a socially responsible way’ (D2: 10) are praised.
The third set of neoliberal assumptions that underpins the texts relates to welfare dependency – itself one of the most central problematisations in neoliberal discourse and a concept well established in Australian social policy. As Chapter 6 will demonstrate, the kind of neoliberal welfare theory that gained influence in the 1980s views welfare dependency as a condition caused less by structural, economic and labor-market conditions than by the behavioural, attitudinal and psychological characteristics of individuals. Because participation in the market economy is presupposed as a moral necessity, the provision of welfare is understood to produce perverse and harmful effects. These include both a failure of individual responsibility and the development of a damaging ‘culture’ of dependency in communities with a high proportion of people reliant on welfare incomes.
These neoliberal assumptions about welfare dependency underpin the government’s Intervention texts, which represent welfare as damaging to individuals and
communities precisely because it promotes idleness, creates dependency and prevents the exercise of individual responsibility. The construction of welfare and work in binary terms is also a central narrative in these texts, as Gillard’s contrasting of these terms demonstrates:
Of course passive welfare is corrosive. … You hear me speak frequently about the benefits and dignity of work … and the fact that being on passive welfare can lead to a corrosive aimlessness in life (GI1).
Parents’ reliance on welfare payments is frequently represented as incompatible with dignity (MI10, MI13, MO2) and as having a detrimental effect on children’s health and educational outcomes (MI13), and life aspirations (MO2). In places the texts also appear to imply that welfare dependency is inevitably linked to child abuse and neglect:
Unemployment and welfare dependency may not cause abuse, but a viable economy and real job prospects make education meaningful and point to a life beyond abuse and despair (B8: 11).
Elsewhere they infer a necessary connection between ‘passive welfare’ and people who know ‘nothing other than a drug filled, alcohol filled, gambling filled day’ (B6).
Just as they rely on neoliberal assumptions about individuals and communities, the Intervention texts also demonstrate a typical neoliberal governmental rationality, or form of rule. Four aspects of a neoliberal rationality are particularly evident. Firstly, because neoliberalism assumes that market principles should guide the organisation of society (Soss et al 2011: 2), and therefore social policy (Povinelli 2010: 21), it both seeks to impose market values in ever wider spheres and contexts (Hamann 2009: 54), and views non-market based communities as potentially threatening (Altman 2010: 268-9) and as targets for ‘marketisation’.
This logic is illustrated in the Intervention texts’ valorisation not simply of a ‘work ethic’ (MS6), but specifically of the kind of ‘work’ that involves paid employment in the market economy. Both the Howard and Labor governments propose ‘a policy framework that is unambiguously pro-work’ (H12), and that expects Indigenous people to ‘go to work each day’ and ‘bring home a pay cheque each fortnight (MS6).
Both are also explicit in their belief in paid employment as central to the operation of a meritocratic market society, in which ‘the virtues of work, of personal responsibility and of social mobility’ (H12) are interconnected and ‘individuals only achieve progress though work and effort’ (GS1, also H12). The market-based rationality of the Intervention discourse seeks, as Altman and Hinkson suggest, to produce ‘individualised Aboriginal citizens who will embrace the values of the free market’ (2010b: 185).
The second characteristic of neoliberal governance exhibited in these texts concerns the role of the state. In contrast to older forms of ‘laissez faire’ liberalism that sought to reduce the role of the state, neoliberalism involves a ‘much more aggressive’ role for the state (Povinelli 2010: 21). In particular it involves ‘the enlargement or extension of state concern with how personal lives are lived’ (Newman and Tonkens 2011b: 223). Neoliberal social policy conceives of the state as active and interventionist, assuming a need for closer involvement in and supervision of (some) people’s lives in order to regulate behaviour and maintain social norms. The assumption is that a ‘mismanaged life’ (Brown 2003: 15) requires external management, and therefore invites government intervention.
Howard uses precisely this conception to locate the Intervention within his government’s broader approach to ‘reform[ing] the welfare state’, arguing that:
For a small minority of people … governments need to contemplate a more activist and in some cases interventionist approach in order to break the vicious circle of poor parenting, low levels of education, unemployment and health problems (H12).
The Intervention is a clear example of this neoliberal mode of rule. Howard explicitly describes it as ‘not laissez-faire liberalism or light-touch government by any means’, but rather ‘a necessary assumption of responsibility’ that is ‘radical’, ‘highly prescriptive’ and ‘highly interventionist’ (H5). The Labor texts assume a similarly interventionist role for the state, based on a need to reform welfare policy in order to ‘foster individual responsibility’, ‘provide a platform for people to move up and out of welfare dependence’ (D4: 1), and to use laws and policy to ‘encourage Aboriginal people to live strong independent lives’ (D8: 1).
Thirdly, and consistent with the neoliberal assumption that the primary ‘problem’ is individual behaviour, a central goal of neoliberal governance is ‘behaviour change’. For the neoliberal state, policy is a means of disciplining the behaviour of targeted subjects (Soss et al 2011: 8). Citizens are ‘invited, cajoled and sometimes coerced’ to adopt particular behaviours (Newman and Tonkens 2011a: 9), and their personal lives are increasingly objects of scrutiny and behaviour change strategies that seek to ‘nudge’ them towards appropriate behaviours (Newman and Tonkens 2011b: 223). Further, the intersection of this behaviour change goal with the assumption discussed above, that economic rationality is the proper basis for human behaviour, means neoliberal social policy seeks to achieve behaviour change largely through systems of financial ‘incentives’ and ‘sanctions’.
This conception of ‘modern government’ as one that ‘creates many incentives for personal behaviour’ (GS1: 5) is explicit in the Intervention texts. They refer repeatedly to the need for ‘targeted policies and incentives to reinforce responsible behaviour and community standards’ (H12, also B3: 11, D4: 1, MMR1, MS3, MI13, GS1: 5), as well as to for ‘sanctions’ and ‘consequences’ for undesirable behaviours (MO3, GI1, H5, D10: 4). Further, the privileging of financial behavioural drivers is evident in the heavy reliance on income management as a policy tool – a measure that is, as Watson argues, ‘founded on the belief that undesirable behaviour can be modified by the regulation of personal income’ (Watson N 2011: 150). Hence, the texts frame income management policy as providing both behavioural sanctions and incentives. It is a sanction that will be compulsorily applied to those who ‘don’t do the right thing’ (GI1, B9: 4); one that ‘prevents [people] from using welfare in socially irresponsible ways’ (B9: 5). Suspension of the welfare payments of parents whose children’s school attendance is unsatisfactory similarly provides ‘consequences’ and ‘the ultimate sanction’ (GI1) for those who have ‘failed […] to exercise parental responsibility’ (D10: 4, MMR8). Simultaneously, the ability to ‘opt out’ of income management provides an ‘incentive’ (M113) (although this is more precisely an absence of sanction) for people who ‘show responsibility’ (MS3), ‘demonstrate proper care and education of their children’ (MR3: 6), and ‘do the right thing by their children’ (MI9).
The Intervention texts also clearly illustrate the specific form of behaviour change that neoliberal governance requires, namely an increase in individual responsibility. As such they draw heavily on ‘responsibilisation discourse’, a governmental rationality that, as discussed further in Chapter 6, ‘creates individuals as primarily responsible for their lives’ (Bacchi 2009: 7), in a new conception of ‘active citizenship’ (Newman and Tonkens 2011a). The government texts draw directly on this established political rationality of ‘responsibilisation’, containing numerous binary constructions of responsible and irresponsible behaviours,50 and repeatedly exhorting those who are subjected to the policy to, for example, ‘demonstrate personal responsibility’ (D4: 1, also MI11), ‘be responsible tenants’ (RS1), ‘take personal initiative through participation in education or training’ (D4:1) and ‘tak[e] responsibility for themselves, for their families and for their futures’ (MS5).
The fourth respect in which the texts demonstrate a neoliberal form of governmentality is in their use of the concept of ‘mutual obligation’, one that emphasises citizens’ responsibilities in return for state support. However, where the notion of mutual obligation in the Australian welfare system had previously referred largely to the expectation that people receiving unemployment benefits had an obligation to seek work or participate in training, both the Howard and Labor government Intervention texts explicitly ‘extend the principle of mutual obligation’ (B9: 7) such that welfare recipients now have a much broader range of behavioural obligations. In particular, exercising ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘spending payments appropriately’ are now required as part of the ‘two-way transaction’ of welfare (D4: 1). Further, with the introduction of the school attendance measures, certain parental responsibilities are formally added to these mutual obligations:
What we’re wanting to do is really put some obligation into our welfare payments to say to parents, you do the right [thing] by your kids, you get them to school, and this won’t apply to you (MI8).
50 While the responsibility/irresponsibility binary is the most consistent in the texts, the representation of responsibility is more complex than this. In an indication of the breadth and pervasiveness of responsibilisation discourse, the ‘responsibility’ in these texts is contrasted not only with irresponsibility, but also with ‘dependency’ (B7), ‘rights’ (H16: 110), passivity (D1: 15, MS3) and ‘victimhood’ (H16: 107). The origin of these kinds of binary constructions in both general welfare policy discourse, and debates about Indigenous policy is discussed in Chapter 6.
These features of the Intervention can be understood as an incidence of the broadening of citizen responsibilities under the neoliberal welfare state, whereby the concepts of mutual obligation and ‘active citizenship’ are no longer only a feature of labour market policies, but are applied to an increasingly extended range of social spheres (Newman and Tonkens 2011a).
In an illustration of the complex yet mutually reinforcing relationship between the different assumptions and rationalities in these texts, they articulate both a goal of ending welfare dependency, and a rationale for a new form of welfare administration. The discourse of ‘mutual obligation’ establishes a justification for increasing the conditionality of payments to existing recipients, and reducing their access to cash; measures that might otherwise seem curious because they do not obviously contribute to the reduction of dependency on government, and may well increase it.51
The reliance on the neoliberal rationality of mutual obligation can also be observed in the way the texts tend to represent individual and government responsibilities as equivalent. This can be seen in the above description of welfare as a ‘two-way transaction’ or in the repeated assertions that government and individuals need to begin ‘sharing responsibility’ (GS2). This sense of equivalency implied by the neoliberal discourse of mutual obligation underlies Gillard’s description of Indigenous policy as ‘government delivering what all Australians expect. Indigenous people doing the same’ (GS1: 6), and Rudd’s assertion that:
Governments, first, must take responsibility for addressing their past failures in Indigenous affairs. Second, Indigenous Australians must take greater responsibility for change – change begins in the lives of individuals and families, spreading across local communities (RS2).
The implication that accompanies the rationality of mutual obligation is that government is already upholding its responsibilities, so change is now dependent on individuals choosing to take greater responsibility.
51 For purchases using income managed funds that cannot be made electronically via the BasicsCard (such as bills and rent), people are dependent on Centrelink to approve and arrange payment on their behalf.
The Intervention is underpinned by neoliberal assumptions, and exhibits a typical neoliberal rationality of governance. It is a strong example of the shift towards blaming individuals and communities for social problems, individualising responsibility and risk, and encouraging self-reliance that has occurred in many western countries since the late twentieth century (Bacchi 2009: 62-3). However while this neoliberal framework is essential for understanding the Intervention, it is not sufficient, for the Intervention is also a racialised policy. The way in which it both expresses a specifically racialised form of neoliberalism and draws on a range of other longstanding racialised assumptions about Indigenous people, communities and culture is the subject of the following section.
5.2.2 Racialised assumptions
My analysis of the Intervention texts reveals not only that they involve neoliberal assumptions, but also that they are deeply racialised. The racialised conceptual logics of these texts are rarely explicit. This is particularly remarkable given that for its first two and a half years the Intervention required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act. However as Brigg (2007) points out, differential or exceptional governance of Indigenous people in Australia, while long-established and ongoing, is in the contemporary context of liberal governance, increasingly achieved without the explicit use of categories of ‘race’. Nevertheless, my discourse analysis of the government texts reveals a set of three implicit assumptions concerning firstly Indigenous people, secondly Indigenous communities and thirdly Indigenous culture. These three interlinked sets of assumptions, illustrated below, in turn inform the racialised forms of governance or governmental rationalities that are expressed in the government’s discourse as Indigenous responsibilisation and normalisation.
Assumptions about Indigenous people and communities
Firstly, the problematisation of individual behaviour, while typically neoliberal, also relies in this case on racialised assumptions about Indigenous people. Thus while the texts assume that contemporary problems are less the result of structural or historical factors, than of individual choice and behaviour, they also imply that ‘for Indigenous people, these behavioural choices are … racially aligned selection, with culture wound into the causality’ (Walter 2010: 131).
There are various illustrations of the way such racialised assumptions inform the representation of individual behaviour. Indigenous welfare recipients for example, are assumed to be especially irresponsible, dependent and passive. This can be inferred from the disparaging characterisation of welfare provided to Indigenous people as ‘sit down money’ (B7), a term that is not used in broader welfare debates. Similarly, repeated references to people harassing and threatening welfare recipients to obtain cash create a narrative that is unique to government discourse about Indigenous welfare policy.52 These racialised assumptions about Indigenous people’s behaviour also underpin Howard’s statement that while people in non-Aboriginal communities might also spend welfare irresponsibly, the ‘grosser’, ‘more concentrated’ and more ‘distressing’ examples, and ‘the worst examples in Australia’ are to be found in Aboriginal communities’ (H1, H2). Despite his claim that ‘this issue has got nothing to do with race’ (H5), and is ‘not about Indigenous Australia [but] about human beings’ (B7), Howard’s characterisation of Aboriginal communities as the ‘worst examples’ constitutes irresponsibility as a particular characteristic of Indigenous people, a representation that justifies the application of income quarantining exclusively to Indigenous communities.53
The texts are able to produce this racialised representation of Indigenous people while simultaneously disavowing their own racism because they are also based on a second, more explicit assumption: that remote Aboriginal communities are uniquely dysfunctional. The assumption that the problems under discussion are particular to Indigenous communities draws on a series of linked developments in public debate about Indigenous policy in recent decades. These are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6, however in broad terms they produced a narrative about the ‘failure’ of the Indigenous policy paradigm of the 1960s to the 1990s. This failure is commonly attributed to Indigenous people’s increased access to welfare payments,54 the establishment of institutions of community self-governance or self-determination, and
52 This narrative also appropriates the colloquial Indigenous terms ‘humbugging’ to describe this practice, and in doing so caricatures and pathologises Indigenous forms of reciprocity and ‘demand sharing’ (Altman 2008b). 53 Although the measure was later amended by the Labor government such that it no longer applied exclusively to Indigenous communities, the degree to which the policy is as ‘non-discriminatory’ as the government claims has been questioned. See footnote 11. 54 The Social Services Act 1959 enabled Aboriginal people who were not ‘nomadic or primitive’ to obtain welfare benefits. Prior to this, access had been dependent on exemptions from state and territory ‘protection’ laws (see Chesterman 2001).
the support provided for models of ‘separate development’ in remote Indigenous communities during this period. Together these arguments produced a narrative of community-level failure and dysfunction.
Three dimensions of this debate are particularly relevant here. The first is Noel Pearson’s (2000a, 2000b, 200c) influential analysis of ‘passive welfare’ in Aboriginal communities as devastating not only because it encourages passivity and dependency among individuals, but because, by corrupting social norms and relationships it has produced community-wide problems, that is, ‘social dysfunction’ or ‘social crisis’ (2000c: 141, 143, 150). This analysis informs the particularly racialised narrative of welfare dependency described above.
The second relevant dimension of this debate is a narrative about Indigenous people’s ‘assumed inability to govern themselves’ at a collective as well as a personal level (Lattas and Morris 2010b: 15), one that involves a critique of previous policies promoting Indigenous self-governance. The prevalence of anti-social and self- destructive behaviour, social pathologies and violence against women and children in remote Indigenous communities is commonly cited as evidence of the ‘failure’ of these policies (Rowse 2012: 23).55 Consistent with this broader narrative about Indigenous communities, the Intervention texts, particularly those of the Howard Government, imply that it is systems of Aboriginal community governance or self- management that have produced the current dysfunction. This assumption underlies a number of problematisations, including the implication that the permit system has created ‘closed’ or isolated communities in which people are not safe (B4, B5, B6, B7, B8: 11, H5), the suggestion that communal systems of land tenure are preventing economic development (B13, RS1), and the implication that people holding positions of authority within those communities are ‘part of the problem’ (B7, H1).
The third dimension of the broader public debate about Indigenous policy that is reflected in the texts is the critique of models of ‘separate development’ that emerged in the 1990s (see Austin-Broos 2011: 79-105). Mirroring this critique, the texts
55 This is not to imply that those making this argument necessarily blamed Indigenous communities for these failings. As Rowse (2012) notes, the argument was advanced by some Indigenous leaders; NT Aboriginal MP John Ah Kit for example, suggested that self-government in Indigenous communities, was being inhibited by broader factors including Aboriginal Community Councils being over-burdened with responsibility, underfunded and under-resourced (Ah Kit cited in Rowse 2012: 23).
assume that Indigenous communities are dysfunctional because of their ‘remote’ or ‘separate’ nature. Remote community living is assumed to involve ‘alienation from mainstream society’ (H5) and ‘closed communities’ that lack sufficient links ‘to the wider world’ and so ‘can, and do, hide problems from public scrutiny’ (B4, B13). The existence of remote Indigenous communities that are based on a perceived ‘philosophy of separateness’ (H16: 107) is assumed to be inherently problematic in the Howard texts. These texts require the ‘incorporation’ of Indigenous people into non-Indigenous society (H15) as necessary both for the achievement of ‘economic and social progress’ (H16: 107) and because ‘their future can only be as part of the mainstream of the Australian community’ (H14). While the language may be more subtle in the Labor texts, similar assumptions inform their call for Indigenous people in remote communities to ‘reach out to other Australians’ (GS1: 2) and their intention to encourage their greater ‘participation’ in ‘broader society’ (MS3).
The remoteness of Indigenous communities in relation to the mainstream (market) economy is also assumed to contribute to their dysfunction and to high levels of welfare dependency. The texts repeatedly refer to the absence of ‘economic activity’ (B9: 1) a ‘natural social order of production and distribution’ (B8: 11), ‘economic development’ (B5: 3), a ‘real economy’ (B4, MGPC1), ‘viable economies’ (B8: 11), and ‘real jobs’ or ‘proper jobs’ (B8: 11, B4: 2, RS1). Furthermore, the CDEP program, previously created specifically to respond to the unique economic circumstances of remote Indigenous communities,56 is now assumed to be contributing to community problems because it creates ‘pretend’ not ‘real’ jobs (B4: 2, MI10), reduces people’s employment aspirations, and prevents them from ‘learning the discipline of what a full-time job means’ (MI10). As such, CDEP is assumed to be simply a form of ‘passive welfare’ or ‘welfare dependency’ (B12, B9: 5) and to have become ‘a destination’ for too many people (B8: 11, B9: 5, B12, MI10).
Assumptions about Indigenous culture
The third set of racialised assumptions underpinning the texts concerns Indigenous culture. As well as attributing problems to individual Indigenous people’s behaviour and to the social and economic character of the communities in which they live, the
56 See footnote 7.
texts also implicate Indigenous culture, implying that it provides an explanation for community violence and dysfunction. Indeed, various critics, including a number of Indigenous people, interpret the Intervention discourse as an implicit denigration of Indigenous culture. To Yirrkala community leader Banduk Marika for example:
it seems that our whole culture is being blamed by government and media for the problems associated with grog, poor education, a lack of jobs, houses and health care … [and] child abuse (2007: 22).
Brown and Brown see the government’s Intervention discourse as one in which ‘the very foundational principles on which Aboriginal existence [is] built – community, culture and collective rights’ … [are] demonised’ (2007: 621), and Mansell interprets the government’s discourse as implying that Aboriginal culture is ‘a chain around our necks’ (2007: 83). Other critics also identify a ‘cultural determinist’ or ‘cultural reductionist’ logic in the Intervention discourse, which implies that Indigenous culture is the ‘true, hidden source of Indigenous problems’ (Lattas and Morris 2010b: 16). They suggest the texts imply the ‘failure’ of Aboriginal culture, either because it has proven unable to adapt to the modern (neoliberal) world (Lovell 2012, Altman 2007a: 6, Lattas and Morris 2010a: 72), or because traditional customs have become ‘broken’ and produced ‘unacceptable lawlessness’ (Altman 2007a: 6).
My own analysis supports these interpretations. The incompatibility of traditional culture with the modern world for example, is implied by the suggestion that Indigenous culture has failed to withstand ‘the worst excesses of modern Western culture’ and the forces of ‘dysfunction, alcohol, drugs and violence’ that are destroying it (B5: 3). Similarly, the implication that traditional culture is irreparably ‘broken’ informs references to a ‘crisis of Indigenous social and cultural disintegration’ (H16: 108) and a ‘breakdown of traditional customs and laws’ that has caused ‘a tragic deterioration in social norms and responsible behaviour’ (H5).
These negative assumptions about Indigenous culture are more obvious in the Howard Government texts, where they are part of the aforementioned narrative about the failure of the previous Indigenous policy paradigm. In these texts it is the cultural recognition and rights-based policies of this previous paradigm that are implicated in promoting ‘victimhood’ and ‘dependency’ among Indigenous people (H16: 107). The
texts also imply that it was previous misplaced concerns about whether measures are ‘culturally appropriate’ that delayed action on child abuse (H5), and that the protection of Indigenous culture may come at the expense of a child’s right to life (B6). Most notably, the Howard Government’s abolition of previous provisions that allowed culture to be taken into account in sentencing assumes that recognising Indigenous culture is akin to excusing violence, with customary law represented as compromising personal safety (B1, H15).
The assumptions about Indigenous culture that underpin the Labor texts are more mixed. There are for example, some positive references to Indigenous culture – or at least an acknowledgement that during consultations Indigenous people expressed a desire to ‘take pride in their culture’ (D9: 9) and that they ‘want their children to grow up as part of their strong culture’ (D9: 5). Nevertheless, the Labor texts also reproduce the Howard Government’s representation of Indigenous culture as part of the ‘problem’ and an impediment to progress. In particular, they endorse the notion that the recognition of traditional culture is perpetuating violence in the way they frame the decision to continue the NTER prohibition on taking customary law or cultural practice into account in sentencing decisions. The representation of this prohibition as a ‘community safety’ or ‘personal safety’ measure (D8: 17, D10: 8) that ‘help[s] protect women and children from violence and abuse’ (D10: 8) is underpinned by negative assumptions about Indigenous culture as violent, and dangerous for women and children.
In this sense, the Labor texts echo the criticisms of cultural recognition policies and the new framing of traditional culture as potentially pathological that were a part of the Howard Government’s policy framework. They demonstrate the tendency in contemporary debates towards ‘a causative conflation of cultural practices with the social, cultural, political and economic environments in which Aboriginal people live their lives’; a conflation that, as discussed below, privileges solutions that require Indigenous cultural change (Walter 2010: 133) or ‘normalisation’. The assumption that the maintenance of Indigenous culture is impeding development or progress also undermines any potential concerns about the need for policy measures to protect Indigenous culture, group rights and communal structures and practices, thereby reinforcing the focus on individual behaviour that forms the texts’ dominant narrative.
5.2.3 Racialised modes of rule
These various racialised assumptions that underpin the texts combine with the neoliberal rationalities discussed earlier to produce and justify the unique mode of rule for Indigenous communities that is represented by the Intervention. Thus, in common with much other contemporary social policy the Intervention is driven by market principles and assumes an interventionist role for the state in the name of producing behaviour change. It particularly seeks to ‘responsibilise’ those it targets, based on an expanded principle of ‘mutual obligation’ that requires citizens to demonstrate certain behaviours in return for the welfare payments they receive. However, because the Intervention is also based on the various racialised assumptions described above, its mode of rule is also racialised. It is a form of racial governance that, while having some new neoliberal features, also has much in common with previous eras of colonial policy, in that it involves ‘Indigenous people being governed through exceptional regimes of power that would be difficult or impossible to apply to non-Indigenous citizens’ (Lattas and Morris 2010b: 15).
One way in which the Intervention establishes an exceptional, racialised mode of rule without the explicit use of racial categories, is by using spatial rather than racial categories to designate Indigenous communities as ‘exceptional spaces’ or ‘zones of crisis’ where exceptional measures are needed (Brigg 2007: 414). As well as constructing these ‘crisis areas’ (B1, B2) at a discursive level, the Intervention enshrines them in law. The most obvious of these racialised spatial categories are the ‘prescribed communities’ created by the original legislation, an ‘entirely new category in Australian public policy’ that involves the ‘lumping together’ of hundreds of diverse Indigenous communities (Goodwin 2011: 176). This racialised use of spatial categories can also be seen in the more recent creation of ‘alcohol protected areas’, ‘food security areas’ and ‘declared income management areas’ under the Stronger Futures legislation (D11, D12), none of which are racially defined, but all of which have to date been applied either exclusively or primarily to Indigenous communities.57
57 While the majority of declared ‘income management areas’ remain Indigenous communities, the measure in its compulsory form has been extended to six other areas in NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. See Department of Human Services (2014).
In addition to this spatial strategy, the texts also use a temporal discourse to enable exceptional or racial governance (Cowlishaw 2012: 412, Lattas & Morris 2010a: 62, Moreton-Robinson 2009: 61). This is exemplified by references to the ‘temporary’ (B9: 5), ‘time-limited’ (MS3), or ‘transitional’ (H12, MI4) nature of the measures that must be applied to Indigenous communities, because they are in an ‘acute’ (MMR7, MR1), ‘emergency period’ (B20, B8: 11), or state of ‘crisis’ (B1), and require a ‘stabilisation’ (MI4, MMR7) or ‘normalis[ation]’ phase (B8: 15, B9: 5). More recently, as the discussion later in this chapter will demonstrate, a discourse of ‘disadvantage’ is increasingly used to render Aboriginal communities exceptional and to justify the application of such measures over a greatly extended period.
The Intervention can therefore be understood as involving forms of governmentality that are exceptional and racialised but that simultaneously ‘deny their racist character’ by representing their measures as necessary, practical forms of ‘care’ or ‘humanitarianism’ (Lattas and Morris 2010a: 62). Importantly, consultation evidence suggests that the approach is nevertheless experienced by many Indigenous people as racist (Department of FaHCSIA 2011: 43, Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia (CIRCA) 2008: 14-16). Affected communities report ‘intense hurt and anger at being isolated on the basis of race and subjected to collective measures that would never be applied to other Australians’ (NTER Review Board 2008: 8). A number of Indigenous and human rights organisations also continue to consider the Intervention to be racially discriminatory in effect, despite the reinstatement of the RDA in 2010 (Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (CAALAS) 2010: 3, National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples 2012: 3, Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) 2012: 31).
The texts analysed here suggest that the rationality of the Intervention, as a form of racial governance, has three dimensions. Firstly, the neoliberal goal of ‘responsibilisation’ is expressed in a uniquely racialised way as ‘Indigenous responsibilisation’. Secondly, the policy adopts the racialised rationality of ‘normalisation’. Thirdly it involves a particularly colonial form of paternalism.
Indigenous responsibilisation
The emergence of a particular narrative about Indigenous responsibility was observable in Indigenous policy well before the launch of the Intervention, and draws particularly on the work of Pearson (2000a 2000b, 2000c) mentioned above. This genealogy is discussed in detail in Chapter 6, however in short, Indigenous responsibilisation is proposed as an antidote to the perceived failure of the previous policy paradigm, which is seen to have over-emphasised rights at the expense of responsibility. What Howard describes as ‘the Indigenous responsibility agenda’, is one that requires Indigenous peopl to reject the previous ‘culture of victimhood’ in favour of greater personal responsibility (H16: 107). This desire to increase ‘Indigenous responsibility’ is equally evident in the Labor texts. It underpins Gillard’s implication that when it comes to their individual behaviour, Indigenous people need to start ‘delivering what all Australians expect’ (GS1: 6). It similarly informs Macklin’s statement that the government has an increased expectation that Indigenous people will ‘take responsibility’ (MS5). The ‘growing movement [for Indigenous people] to take responsibility for change’ is also endorsed by Rudd who argues that ‘Indigenous Australians must take greater responsibility for change [because] change begins in the lives of individuals and families, spreading across local communities’ (RS2).
While central to a generic neoliberal framework, the governmentality of responsibilisation is applied in the Intervention texts in uniquely racialised ways. This can be seen in the previously noted tendency for the texts to problematise entire Indigenous communities (as well as individuals) as unable to govern themselves. By representing Aboriginal communities as incapable of being responsible for themselves, the texts justify the imposition of new and exceptional forms of ‘government control and responsibilisation’ to whole communities (Goodwin 2011: 177); where those communities are implicitly defined in racial terms.
The texts also imply that problems in remote Indigenous communities are entrenched partly because for too long those communities have looked to governments to fix them, rather than taking responsibility for change themselves. Thus there are numerous statements that suggest a need for Indigenous communities to take greater
responsibility for addressing problems rather than (as is implied) continuing to call for additional government resources and assistance. As Howard puts it:
This [the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children] is fundamentally not a financial issue. It is a responsibility, law and order issue. And, sure, you always need resources but if people say all you've got to do is give us more resources and the problem will be fixed, that is nonsense (H2).
Macklin similarly describes her government’s approach to Indigenous policy as one that challenges the overreliance of Indigenous communities on government:
It's the responsibility of government to make reforms to shape a society which protects and nurtures our people, especially the most vulnerable … But governments can't and shouldn't be responsible for everything. There must be individual responsibility. And people must look out for each other (MS2).
In implying that individual and community responsibility needs to be emphasised because there is a default expectation in Indigenous communities that governments should be ‘responsible for everything’, the conceptual logic in this text is similar to Howard’s distinction between ‘Indigenous responsibility’ and ‘victimhood’ (H16: 110, 107) described above.
Repeatedly in these texts a lack of Indigenous responsibility is represented to be a significant barrier to change. This is demonstrated for example, by Macklin’s assertion that:
if children don’t go to school, the best teachers and the best classrooms can’t give them a good education … If people can’t get sober, they can’t set the best example for their children – a parent who goes to work each day and brings home a pay cheque each fortnight (MS6).
By representing Indigenous peoples’ irresponsible behaviour as threatening to undermine government efforts, the texts can justify exceptional forms of governance, such as linking welfare to school attendance, or imposing place-based alcohol restrictions.
The texts repeatedly suggest that achieving Indigenous responsibilisation requires
government to raise its expectations of Indigenous people. For example:
There will be more expectations of us as government. There will be many more expectations we have for others. Parents and families must take responsibility for ensuring their children go to school. People must take responsibility for getting and keeping a job (MS5, emphasis added).
Indeed, the texts are quite paradoxical in the way they describe the responsibility of governments as being to expect more Indigenous responsibility. Thus they assert that it is government’s role to ensure individuals have ‘clear expectations placed on them’ (MS5) and to make sure that Indigenous people ‘feel respected to take responsibility for their own lives’ (MO3, also D8: 1). This characterisation of individual responsibilisation as government effort is also evident in the way the texts describe government tasks as ‘support[ing] people to be responsible parents, tenants, students and employees’ (RS1); ‘help[ing] … disadvantaged Australians … to take on more individual responsibility and move beyond welfare dependence’ (RS2); ‘encourag[ing] [individuals] to take more responsibility’ (B9: 4); and ‘working with individuals to change behaviour’ (G in MGPC1). They assert that ‘[change] can't happen without government setting clear expectations of individuals’ (MS5), and that while government must ‘do more’ it ‘must also expect more’ of Indigenous people (MS6). Thus the apparent juxtaposition of individual and government responsibilities seems, on closer inspection, more like two ways of describing individual responsibilities.
Macklin illustrates particularly clearly this discursive emphasis on the individual responsibilities of Indigenous people, and by extension, Indigenous communities:
The provision of services by Government alone won’t lift people from poverty. People will lift themselves from poverty, with assistance and with clear expectations placed on them. Social and community norms are the most powerful drivers of change. While I can support change through investment and assistance, I can't make that change happen. Individuals have to do that for themselves. I have the clear expectation that they will do just that (MS5).
The ‘expectation’ here then, is that it is Indigenous people and communities who will drive the necessary change themselves, with government’s role being secondary. This
logic of Indigenous responsibilisation is also consistent with the Labor Government’s broader approach to Indigenous policy, as illustrated in Gillard’s first Closing the Gap speech (GS1), which as Moore’s (2012) detailed discursive analysis argues, privileges the effort and agency of Indigenous people over structural change, positions government expectations of Indigenous people as ‘reasonable’, and emphasises Indigenous rather than governmental responsibilities for change.
Thus in both Howards’s assertions of an ‘Indigenous responsibilisation agenda’ and Labor’s assertion that it ‘expect[s] more’ of Indigenous people, the texts demonstrate not only the neoliberal governmentality of responsibilisation, but also its specific racialised expression and application.
Normalisation of Indigenous communities
While Indigenous responsibilisation is one racialised form of governance invoked by the Intervention, ‘normalisation’ is another. In Foucauldian terms, normalisation is a form of disciplinary power – a means of exerting social control by regulating the conduct of subjects and correcting behaviour that deviates from social norms (Foucault 1977). Attempts to normalise Aboriginal people have a long history in Australian Aboriginal affairs policy (Sullivan 2013: 354), and the rationality of normalisation is undeniably racialised, requiring the imposition on Indigenous people of the specific norms, values and behaviours valued by the non-Indigenous majority culture.
The language of normalisation is explicit in the Howard texts, which describe the Intervention as comprising three phases: ‘stabilising; normalising and then exiting’ (B13). The Labor texts convey similar meaning through the repeatedly stated goal of rebuilding or restoring social norms in Indigenous communities. The racialised logic of this discourse is not explicit however, as the ideas of ‘normalisation’ or ‘mainstreaming’ are rarely defined by the government (Altman 2007a: 9). Further, as Chapter 7 argues, the texts are silent on the question of whose norms are applied in the process of normalising Indigenous communities. The implication though, is clear; it is settler colonial cultural and social norms that are the ‘benchmark’ against which Indigenous communities are compared, and to which they must be raised (Lovell 2012: 217).
While some of these imposed norms, values and behavioural standards may also accord with Indigenous values and community aspirations, others may be in direct conflict with them. At the very least, it is difficult to determine the degree of alignment between the government’s normalisation agenda, and the values and priorities of the various communities on which it is imposed, given the lack of consultation carried out prior to the Intervention’s launch, and the significant criticisms of later consultation processes.58 Notwithstanding this, the assumption that the goals of ‘mainstreaming’ and ‘normalisation’ are widely shared by Indigenous communities and individuals, or compatible with bottom-up, participatory models of Indigenous development is certainly questionable (Altman 2007a: 9-10). It is also probable that given the diversity of Indigenous communities and cultures, the government’s imposed norms and policy goals may be supported in some communities and rejected or questioned by others, as the many critics of the Intervention’s ‘one-size fits all’ or ‘blanket’ approach argue (Brown and Brown 2007, Australian Indigenous Doctors Association 2008, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2011, Pounder 2008, Lattas and Morris 2010a, Major 2010, Altman 2007a). Furthermore, it is clear that at least some Indigenous people explicitly wish to create or maintain ‘alternative spaces’ in which to live, based on aspirations and values that differ to those of the neoliberal settler state (Arabena 2007: 29) and that prioritise the preservation of a distinct ‘cultural way of life’ based on ‘our own languages, kinship system, religious beliefs, and traditional ways of controlling access to country’ (Marika 2007: 22).
At worst then, because it is based on ‘cultural difference denialism’ (Altman 2007b: 318), the imposition of ‘mainstreaming’ and ‘normalisation’ agendas poses direct social, cultural and economic risks for Indigenous people (Altman and Hinkson 2010c). The failure to appreciate that non-Indigenous and Indigenous perspectives may be so different as to resemble ‘two worlds’, means policy that changes ‘the very ways in which [Indigenous] people live their daily lives’ is imposed ‘without consulting in the proper sense, without regard for local consequences and without regard for local ways’ (Musharbash 2010b: 223). As a result it may have negative
58 See for example Partridge et al (2012), Manderson (2012), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (2010: 28-31), Nicholson et al (2009), Harris (2010), Concerned Australians (2012), Harris and McKenna (2011), Australian Human Rights Commission (2012), Schokman (2012).
consequences, including undermining or destroying existing locally managed and successful initiatives in some communities (Fogarty and Ryan 2007, Brady 2007a, Ray 2007). The government’s approach also neglects to address a number of issues that appear to be at least as important to Indigenous people as those it does address. These, as suggested by various Indigenous individuals and organisations, include healing, mental health and support for Indigenous youth (Brown and Brown 2007: 622), the impact of trauma (Atkinson 2007: 159), and perhaps most significantly, ‘our relationship to our land … [which] is the foundation of our spirit and identity [and] connects our families’ (Marika 2007: 22).
In any case, the compatibility of this ‘normalisation’ or mainstreaming’ agenda with Indigenous community aspirations and/or cultural norms and values is rendered irrelevant by the government’s discourse. What Marika et al call ‘Indigenous counter- knowledge’ about the communities in question is ignored (2009: 405). As Indigenous doctors and health researchers Brown and Brown argue, ‘Aboriginal Australia’s aspirations for its own future’ are left unconsidered, because the Intervention concerns ‘what mainstream Australia sees as Aboriginal people’s place within contemporary Australia’ (2007: 622). As such, the policy expresses a form of governmental rationality that assumes and reinforces a settler colonial relationship between Indigenous people and the state, one that either ignores Indigenous difference or treats it as invalid or problematic. Rather than responding to Indigenous aspirations, it looks to ‘reshape those Aboriginal values, beliefs, social relations and practices that remain distinct from mainstream norms’ (Altman 2010: 277).
The texts demonstrate that this unilaterally determined normalisation agenda presupposes a ‘mainstream’ or settler Australian concept of ‘normality’. Indeed, as Marika et al point out, even the conception of the communities in question as ‘remote’, or ‘remote from the mainstream’, presupposes a government perspective, because from the authors’ perspective ‘we are not remote, but at home on our country’ (2009: 405). While the particularity of these ‘mainstream’ values is not acknowledged, the Intervention ‘impos[es] settler societies’ socio-material systems over Indigenous peoples and landscapes’ (Arabena 2007: 31). In this respect it continues the process of what Rose (1999: 182) calls ‘deep colonising’; the ongoing practice of colonisation that is so embedded in existing political institutions that it
goes almost unnoticed. It also demonstrates what Hinkson calls ‘naïve unknowing’, an apparent ‘innocence’ or lack of understanding on the part of settlers, about how our own cultural traditions and assumptions shape us and constitute our own subjectivities, which in turn produces a failure to appreciate the trauma that imposing them on others can cause (Hinkson J 2007: 289-90). Thus the Intervention may well be described by the government as well-intentioned, but ‘because [government policymakers] approach issues within their own cultural lenses, they can only see through their own ideas’, with the result that, while it may be unintentional, ‘colonisation is reimposed onto people and communities’ (Marika et al 2009: 412).
As an example of this imposition of a particular ‘cultural lens’ in operation in the government texts, Gillard describes the project of normalising Indigenous communities as one that makes them ‘look like a suburb of Alice Springs [with] the things that people view as normal in communities: roads, guttering, garbage collection, street lighting … the sense of participation, kids going to school, people in jobs’ (MGPC1). She envisages:
the transformation of those places into something we would recognise as suburbs – you know, all the things we take for granted – that we just expect to see when we walk the streets of where we live, will also be in those town camps (MGPC2).
In a clear example of how meaning is created through particular techniques of language use (Bacchi 2009: 7), the repeated ‘we’ in this statement ensures that it is non-Indigenous Australians who are being interpolated, reassuring ‘us’ that the government is transforming these communities into places ‘we’ will ‘view as normal’.
The texts also use this normalising discourse in relation to the leasing and housing measures, arguing that they will enable housing in remote Indigenous communities ‘to be run as normal public housing’ (B8: 13), with Indigenous tenants signing ‘normal tenancy agreements’ (MS2), and would mean that Indigenous ‘town camps can become normal suburbs’ (B13, also B8: 13) that are ‘just like anywhere else in Australia’ (MI15). Recalling the analysis of the Intervention as typical of racial governmentalities that ‘deny their racist character’ (Lattas and Morris 2010: 62), it is possible to see that while this normalisation narrative presents the Intervention as
simply a sensible, rational means of improving living conditions in Indigenous communities it nevertheless constitutes a form of racialised governance.
As the then Executive Director of Tangentyere Council59 points out, ‘the push to ‘normalise’ the eighteen town camps in Alice Springs began long before the Northern Territory’s national emergency was declared’, and the accompanying demand that these communities give up their leasehold rights in return for services and infrastructure funding was strongly resisted (Tilmouth 2007: 231). While collective responsibility for land was being clearly expressed by these communities as an important principle that they wished to maintain (Tilmouth 2007: 234), the leasing measures in the Intervention render this community-expressed principle ‘abnormal’ and incompatible with the transformation of these communities into ‘normal suburbs’. The approach is also typical of the settler colonial approach to governing Indigenous people described by Arabena (2008), one that privileges Eurocentric concepts of ‘modernisation’, and ignores or excludes Indigenous epistemologies and modes of living, including the communitarian traditions of Indigenous societies.
Consistent with the assumption that Aboriginal communities are dysfunctional because they lack a ‘real’ (market) economy, the rationality of normalisation also involves the ‘marketisation’ of these communities. The assumption that normalisation and economic growth are interlinked can be seen in Howard’s policy rationale:
The first thing to do is to establish some semblance of law and order, to clean up many of these communities in a physical sense. You then have to look at the educational and health considerations and when you start to get a community functioning in a more normal fashion, it is possible, even in the more remote communities, for there to be the growth of some elements of economic activity (H3).
These assumptions ensure that a goal of the Intervention is to ‘marketize the non- market’ by applying ‘market-driven mechanisms and principles’ to Indigenous
59 Tangentyere Council is the service delivery agency for the 15 Housing Associations that, at the time of the NTER’s launch, held the head leases for the Aboriginal ‘town camps’ around Alice Springs (all of which became ‘prescribed communities’ under the NTER). In December 2009 all but one of the Associations signed 40 year subleases of their land to the Commonwealth Government in return for housing and infrastructure funding of $100 million over 5 years.
communities (Howard-Wagner 2012: 223 fn14). Hence Howard’s assertion of ‘the need for Aboriginal Australia to join the mainstream economy as the foundation of economic and social progress’ (H16: 107) and Brough’s description of reforms to the CDEP program and moves towards ‘mainstream employment services’ (B9: 5, also B12) as ‘a key part of normalising Indigenous communities, providing opportunities to create real economies and job opportunities in Aboriginal townships’ (B12). The unspoken assumption is that this ‘mainstream’ or ‘real’ economy is a market driven one. Likewise when the Labor texts point to the necessity of ‘economic development’ in these communities (D1: 19, D8: 13, D10: 2, D8: 9) the assumption is that this requires the development of a market economy, one based on ‘business activity’ (D11: 2) and private home ownership (RS1, D8: 13, D10: 9, D11: 2), and in which ‘businesses can develop and grow’ (MS2, also D8: 13, 23).60
While ‘marketisation’ is a neoliberal rationality, it is also expressed in specifically racialised ways in the Intervention texts, because the lack of a market economy is represented to be a particular deficit of remote Indigenous communities, and by extension, of Indigenous cultures. The promotion of ‘economic development’ (B5: 3, B16, MS1, MMR1, D1: 19, D8: 13) ‘economic participation’ (GS1: 3, MR2:5, MR3:5, D2:4, MS1) and ‘economic opportunity’ (H16: 107) relies on particular (rather than universal) cultural values about valid forms of employment and economic participation. Underpinned by racialised assumptions about the particular kind of ‘economic activity’ that is desirable, the texts assume that economic development based on private home ownership, and ‘participation in the labour market’ represents the only ‘viable’ future for Indigenous communities (MS1). In this context, ‘marketisation’ becomes a racialised mode of rule because it seeks to replace culturally determined, kinship-based relationships with market-based ones (Hinkson J 2007, Hinkson M 2007, Altman 2007b).
Because it relies on a singular, and culturally specific conception of what constitutes a ‘real’ or ‘viable’ economy’ (B4, MGPC1, B8: 11), this policy discourse does not contemplate possible alternative economic forms. As critics point out, this conception
60 Economic development was not originally stated as a goal of the NTER, nor was it mentioned in the Rudd Government’s first significant statement on the Intervention, the 2009 Future Directions discussion paper 2009 (D2). However in the 2011 Stronger Futures discussion paper, ‘economic development and employment’ has become one of eight ‘priority areas for action’ (D8: 9) and the subsequent Stronger Futures legislation describes ‘economic development’ as one of its aims (D10:2).
assumes that Indigenous communities should swap their own economic norms for those of ‘mainstream’ Australia (Altman 2007a: 9-10), and ignores the possibility that Indigneous people may not see ‘mainstream’ jobs as culturally compatible with their own values and aspirations (Guenther 2013). It ignores the existence of and potential ongoing value to Indigenous people of other economic forms and relationships that enable them to live ‘beyond the mainstream’ (Altman 2010: 276), including in particular the customary economy and/or a ‘hybrid economy’ that combines engagement with the market, customary sector and forms of state support (Altman 2006b). Hence the policy is interpreted by some Indigenous critics as aiming to ‘remodel’ Indigenous people living on traditional country into ‘mine labourers, small business people and private entrepreneurs’ and replace the values of communal ownership and collective decision-making with ‘a new mobile Indigenous individualism that will seek employment opportunities dictated by market forces at distant locations’ (Dodson P 2007a: 22-23). For Arabena the Intervention is part of ‘the neoliberal project’ that ‘ensnare[s] Indigenous people across the world in the ongoing globalisation of capital’ by exploiting their lands (2007: 30).
The implication then, is that to normalise Indigenous communities is to make them more like ‘mainstream’ communities in a social, cultural and economic sense. As such, the rationality of normalisation (or ‘mainstreaming’) overrides the existing social, cultural and economic formations of Indigenous communities. Many criticise the notion of normalisation on this ground, as a coercive attempt to replace Indigenous cultural norms, social structures and community governance arrangements with ‘mainstream’ values (for example Fogarty and Ryan 2007, Hinkson 2007, Altman 2007a), to ‘erase collective identities’ (Gulson and Parkes 201: 311), and to end the culturally distinctive ways of life pursued by Indigenous people in remote communities (Hinkson M 2007). Dodson suggests that while the language of ‘mainstreaming’ or ‘participation in the real economy’ appears benign, it obscures the more ‘sinister’ aim of the ‘extinguishing of Indigenous culture by attrition’ (Dodson P 2007a: 23). To many then, the Intervention’s goals of ‘normalisation’ or ‘mainstreaming’ reveal that as a racialised form of rule it is similar to the former failed and discredited policy of assimilation (Altman 2007a, Gulson and Parkes 2010), because it insists that ‘the way forward is for Aboriginal people to abandon their identity and be absorbed into European settler society’ (Dodson P 2007a: 22).
This tendency can be seen in the way the texts consistently stress the sameness of Indigenous people’s aspirations to those of other Australians, stating for example, that Indigenous people ‘of course want very similar things, similar to most Australians’ (MI15) and asserting that ‘many Indigenous Australians aspire to home ownership, as other Australians do’ (RS1) and that they ‘want for their children what each of us, right across the country, want for our children’ (MS6). By expressing Indigenous people’s aspirations in a universal language that stresses sameness, the texts leave little room for questions of difference, that is, for a consideration of how cultural values might influence Indigenous people’s aspirations, or the kind of future they want for their children. They do not consider the ways in which residents of remote Indigenous communities might want to live differently to ‘most Australians’.
Further the texts sometimes take on an explicitly moral tone, arguing that ‘Indigenous people should expect of themselves the same things all Australians expect (GS1: 2, emphasis added) and that ‘Indigenous people must have the same expectations of their Government that other Australians do (MS5, emphasis added). Because they stress sameness and mainstream ‘Australian’ aspirations at the expense of difference, the Intervention texts demonstrate a more obvious link to the earlier philosophy of cultural assimilation than to the principles of cultural recognition that informed the more recent Indigenous policy paradigm. Assimilation may no longer be explicitly expressed as a policy goal, but it remains a strong underlying rationality in these texts, and one that is presented as unproblematic.
A number of interviewees also identify the racialised dimensions of the rationalities of ‘normalisation’ and ‘mainstreaming’. Like many critics, interviewee N4 finds the normalisation approach of the Intervention assimilationist:
Normalisation has a moral element to it and that is what the person who's talking about normalisation perceives as normal … For example, they're talking about street signs in the town camps and people having letter boxes and newly painted houses and so on. That’s trying to replicate things that the Minister sees in her own suburbs. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but certainly there's an assimilationist element to it.
Other interviewees point to the assimilationist character of the Intervention, with interviewee I6 suggesting it is ‘regurgitating assimilation policies’ and interviewee N6 likening it to past approaches to Indigenous policy that suggested ‘people needed to assimilate into [a non-Indigenous] lifestyle’. Interviewee N10 suggests it is based on an ‘embedded institutionalised racism’ that produces:
a view that Aboriginal culture has failed, Aboriginal culture has not worked, and, therefore, the only hope for Aboriginal people is for them to become mainstreamed, and stop living the way that they want to live.
A similar interpretation is offered by interviewee I4, who suggests the Intervention’s message to Indigenous people is ‘your race is wrong … it's doing the wrong thing, it's not modern, it's not living to our standards so we're going to punish you until you assimilate yourself to our standards’.
Even one of the interviewees who works in a government role has concerns about the use of the rationality of ‘mainstreaming’, suggesting that the argument that there should be ‘no special policies’ for Indigenous people, only ‘mainstream policy’, has meant that ‘too often there's a Canberra view that we’ll just […] hammer the community in to fit, because that's the mainstream appropriate thing to do’. In reality however, mainstream policy is often not appropriate for the particular circumstances that shape Indigenous communities:
Some of those mainstream policies make no sense at all if you're standing in Kintore [for example]. So are special policies appropriate? Of course they are […]. Those policies should be shaped and targeted at the problems that exist for that group of people in that place’.
Other interviewees point to the way the government assumes particular economic and employment norms that may not be shared by some Indigenous people. Interviewee I5 for example, feels that the government’s approach of ‘pushing Aboriginal people in communities to get into business’ is ‘flawed’ because few people in remote communities currently aspire to ‘go to work and work 38 hours a week for the rest of [their] life’. The attempted imposition of this particular cultural norm of employment is evidence to this interviewee that:
[The government] simply does not understand that Aboriginal family life is not about capitalism in the sense of, if you go to work, you'll be able to buy a TV and a lounge for your house. We don't think like that.
Similarly interviewee N2 points to the need to recognise that for some Aboriginal people, living on their land and maintaining their culture are higher priorities than accessing paid employment, meaning that while they may travel ‘to take advantage of [an employment opportunity] for a short period of time … they will not ultimately move off the land, and they will not engage in the real economy at the expense of their culture’.
Because the government texts rely on a range of implicit assumptions about non- Indigenous society as the ‘normal’ standard to which Indigenous communities should be raised, they have the effect of rendering Indigenous social and cultural norms deficient. Yet the above comments suggest that, while the government texts presuppose engagement in the ‘mainstream’ society and economy as a universal norm and aspiration, Indigenous communities may have a range of other, different or competing cultural norms and values. As a result, the simplistic application of ‘mainstream’ norms may be at best impractical and at worst coercive and assimilationist. This is not to argue that these norms are necessarily or in all cases irrelevant to Indigenous communities, nor to deny that some Indigenous communities or individuals aspire to (or have already adopted) these very same norms. Rather it is to point out that the social norms assumed by these texts to be universal and beyond question, are in fact specific and highly contestable.
Colonial paternalism
The form of paternalism adopted in these texts incorporates but goes beyond the ‘new paternalism’ of neoliberal welfare theory discussed earlier. Specifically it constitutes a distinctly colonial rationality, in which the settler state is positioned as providing special forms of protection to Indigenous people because they are especially vulnerable. Thus the Intervention measures are described as ‘in the best interests of Australia’s most vulnerable children’ (MO2), and as necessary to ‘protect Aboriginal children’ (B2, B5: 3, B9: 4, D1: 1, D2: 3, D8: 17) and ensure the ‘safety’ and
‘welfare’ (H1, B8: 10), and also to protect and ensure the safety of women, who are also particularly vulnerable (D2: 4, D3: 11, D3: 5, D10: 8).
Some degree or form of paternalism is an inherent and accepted feature of modern government, given the assumed responsibilities of all governments to protect vulnerable citizens. Further, many Indigenous commentators strongly affirm that the Australian state ‘absolutely has a role to intervene to protect children’ in Indigenous communities (Anderson P 2007: 8), and point out that Indigenous communities, organisations and reports have actively been calling for increased government action on this and related issues for decades (Anderson P 2007: 9, Arabena 2007: 30, Dodson M 2007, Davis 2007b: 105, Watson N 2011), and that Indigenous communities already make strategic use of the regulatory powers of the state (for example by negotiating alcohol restrictions) (Brady 2007a).
However, what makes the rationality of the Intervention a colonial form of paternalism is its particular form and exceptional nature. Hence protection of Indigenous people as ‘the most vulnerable citizens’ (H5, MS2) is a rationale used to justify the kinds of government intervention that might otherwise seem excessive or illegitimate, as Macklin’s statement suggests:
The most vulnerable people in the Australian community, Indigenous women and children, are the central focus ... This sometimes requires hard choices. It often involves robust policy measures. It may not be popular or unanimously acclaimed. But it is the right thing to do (MS2).
Similarly Rudd justifies what he admits is the ‘controversial’ policy of income management because ‘it helps to protect vulnerable groups such as women, children and the elderly’ (RS1). Thus, this racialised form of paternalism, or ‘protection’, is a central rationality in the Intervention texts, which repeatedly assert the ‘obligations of national governments’ to protect vulnerable community members (H5), and to ‘take decisive action when it is necessary’ (D4:3), particularly in the interests of women and children. It is because it protects the ‘freedoms and rights’ of women and children that the Intervention is described as a form of ‘social order imposed by legitimate authority’ (H5).
The texts do not however, address the question of why such unprecedented and exceptionalist forms of government intervention are appropriate and justifiable in Indigenous people’s lives as opposed to those of any other vulnerable citizens. For many Indigenous critics, it is not the need for (some kind of) action that is questionable, but the failure to justify the particular ‘coercive instruments’ in the Intervention that is problematic (Watson N 2011: 153). In other words, ‘it is not the fact of the intervention, but the kind of intervention that is contentious’ (Anderson P 2007: 7); not its content but its form and methods, and the motives behind it (Arabena 2007: 30, ATSISJC 2008b: 4). As these critics suggest, it is the nature of the settler colonial relationship that makes this particular kind of intervention in Indigenous communities possible. The exceptional and ‘aggressive’ (Atkinson et al 2010) nature of the paternalism in the Intervention marks it as a racialised mode of rule.
The paternalism inherent in the Intervention is not only exceptional, it is also imposed, non-negotiable, and highly authoritative. In this sense, it is a form of paternalistic rationality that, while it is applied specifically to Indigenous communities,61 ignores the recommendations of the very report that investigated the particular conditions and issues in those precise communities. As many commentators (including the report’s authors) point out, the Intervention measures bear little resemblance to the approach recommended by the Little Children are Sacred report (Wild 2008: 85, Anderson P 2009: 17, Anderson I 2007: 135, Behrendt 2007b). Interviewee I2 also points to the government’s failure to heed the very similar recommendations made by the NTER Review Board’s report (2008), expressing her disappointment that the government has not adopted an approach that involves ‘negotiating at a local level [and] empowering local communities and groups to drive their own future’ but instead has continued to impose its own solutions. The particularly colonial form of paternalism imposed by the Intervention is an enduring characteristic of the settler state’s approach to, and rationality for, the governance of Indigenous people, as Chapter 6 will show.
61 While income management and SEAM are now applied more broadly, it is Indigenous communities that remain the primary target of these measures, as previously noted.
5.2.4 Complementary and mutually reinforcing discourses
This chapter has so far demonstrated that the first three problematisations identified in Chapter 4, those of dysfunction or a lack of social norms, welfare dependency and individual responsibility, share a number of similar assumptions and complementary rationalities. The Intervention texts are underpinned by both neoliberal and racialised assumptions, which combine to emphasise the responsibility of individuals for their own behaviour and circumstances, as well as the deficits and failures of Indigenous communities and culture. The combination of these neoliberal and racialised narratives gives the texts a high level of discursive coherence.
Further, because they share complementary and mutually reinforcing assumptions about the ‘problems’, the neoliberal and racialised narratives also share complementary rationalities, or conceptions about the proper role of governments and the appropriate goals of government policy. Firstly they assume a need for change at the level of people’s individual behaviour, invoking a neoliberal rationality of ‘responsibilisation’ that is specifically racialised as the ‘Indigenous responsibilisation agenda’ (H16: 107). The role of government is assumed to be to expect, encourage and trigger behaviour change, with policy is imagined as a mix of incentives for responsible behaviour and sanctions for irresponsible behaviour. Secondly the texts involve a racialised rationality of ‘normalisation’, a mode of rule that imposes settler colonial norms and values and ignores or invalidates alternative Indigenous perspectives and aspirations.
Because the three problematisations discussed thus far share both similar forms of explanation and similar rationalities, there is a high degree of conceptual consistency in the Intervention texts, and a narrative coherence that greatly increases the persuasiveness of the government’s discourse. Further, the likelihood that the problematisations and rationalities in these texts will be accepted and made to ‘function as true’ (Foucault 1980: 131) is increased, not only because official policy texts are institutionally sanctioned ‘discourses of status’ (Bacchi 2009: 36), but also because the policy combines both a neoliberal form of rule that is one of the dominant ‘govern-mentalities’ of our time (Bacchi 2009: 155) and forms of racialised governance that are (as Chapter 6 will demonstrate), long-established in Australian Indigenous policy.
5.4 The discursive tension created by ‘disadvantage’
I now turn to a consideration of the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’, which I suggest rests on somewhat different assumptions and implies a different governmental rationality to the first three problematisations discussed above. As a result the problematisation of disadvantage introduces a degree of potential tension to the government’s otherwise coherent policy narrative. This feature of the government’s discourse is highlighted and explored here. However I call it potential tension because I will return to this point in Chapter 7, where I discuss the discursive limits of this conception.
Underlying assumptions of ‘disadvantage’
As discussed in Chapter 4, the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ in the (Labor) government texts62 refers to a range of material and socioeconomic issues relating to the poor living conditions and life circumstances of Indigenous people in remote communities. These are the circumstances the government seeks to improve as part of its Closing the Gap strategy. My analysis suggests that this problematisation of disadvantage involves two sets of assumptions, which are illustrated below. Firstly it assumes that these material circumstances contribute to the other ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities, and secondly that they are the result of past government neglect and underfunding of these communities. Because these assumptions acknowledge the material and structural dimensions of the situation, and the failings of government, they contrast with those that underpin the other three problematisations, which emphasise the irresponsible behaviour of individuals and the failings of Aboriginal communities and culture.
Firstly the texts assume, or implicitly understand, that the extremely poor living conditions in remote Indigenous communities produce (or at least contribute to) the kinds of family and community ‘dysfunction’ that are so heavily problematised
62 As previously noted, the Howard Government texts do not use this specific term, although they do acknowledge the poverty, poor physical conditions and insufficient housing and services in remote Indigenous communities – many of which are issues the Labor texts include within their conceptualisation of disadvantage. Thus the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ is arguably implicit in the Howard Government texts, as well as in some of the original NTER measures that sought to improve various aspects of living conditions, infrastructure and services in Indigenous communities. While the analysis of ‘disadvantage’ presented here is therefore most obviously applicable to the Labor texts, it is arguably also relevant to the Howard Government texts.
elsewhere in the texts. For example, while the texts repeatedly problematise the behaviour of individual parents, and demand greater parental responsibility, the representation of disadvantage simultaneously acknowledges that physical circumstances, particularly poor housing, can make it difficult, even impossible for parents to provide even basic levels of safety and wellbeing for their children:
It's impossible for a child to be safe if they're living in a home that's shockingly overcrowded and we know that far, far too many children … in remote communities are living in very overcrowded homes, where it is just not possible for them to be able to get a good sleep at night and it makes it very hard for them to live the sort of happy and healthy life that we expect for all Australian children (MI3, emphasis added).
Similarly, while the dominant narrative blames irresponsible parents for children’s poor school attendance, and therefore for poor educational outcomes, the problematisation of disadvantage acknowledges other factors beyond parents’ control. These include for example, poor housing and overcrowding meaning that children do not live in the kind of physical environment that would prepare them for school and support their learning:
Houses where you cannot cook a meal, bathrooms where you cannot bathe a child, taps and toilets that don't work. No child can do homework or even get a good night’s sleep in such conditions (RS1, emphasis added).
This is a recognition that conditions of disadvantage ‘have been hindering children’s ability to get an education’ (D8: 10). The recognition that these conditions have a significant impact on children’s educational outcomes and broader life chances is also apparent in the statement that improving housing is ‘critical to children’s health, education and wellbeing and to functioning communities’ (D1: 27 emphasis added. Also D8: 22, MS1, MI3).
This tension between the dominant problematisations in these texts, and the different assumptions that underlie the recognition of disadvantage can also be observed in relation to the issue of unemployment. While the problematisations of welfare dependency and individual irresponsibility produce simplistic-sounding calls for Indigenous people to ‘find a job and keep it’ (MS6, also MS5, D8: 13, MO3), and
‘take advantage of job opportunities already available’ (B2), the assumptions underlying the problematisation of disadvantage are that poor living conditions are compromising people’s capacity to work:
There are appalling levels of overcrowding – fifteen people crammed into a house … toilets that don’t work, kitchens you can’t cook in. No family can function in these conditions. You and I couldn’t. No one can hold down a job if they don’t get a good night’s sleep (MS1, emphasis added).
Again, by acknowledging that housing and living conditions are such that ‘no adult can properly hold down a job’ (RS1), the narrative of disadvantage creates a degree of tension with the assumptions that elsewhere dominate the texts, that people in Indigenous communities do not ‘realise the benefits of having a job’ (MO3), lack a sufficient ‘work ethic’ (MS6), or do not look for employment because ‘passive dependence on welfare undermines individual responsibility’ (D1: 15).
Finally, while the dominant narrative of the texts problematises a lack of ‘social norms’ and appears to attribute this to the anti-social behaviour of irresponsible individuals, as well as to poor community governance, and sometimes to Indigenous culture, the narrative of disadvantage attributes it to a lack of appropriate housing and infrastructure:
Getting housing right is critical to restoring positive social norms. No family can function normally in an overcrowded, dilapidated house where you can’t cook a meal or have a shower (MS2 emphasis added).
This representation of adequate housing as a necessity for families to function ‘normally’, suggests a causative relationship between conditions of disadvantage and the deterioration of social norms that is so prominently problematised elsewhere in the texts. The statement that ‘a decent house to live in supports everyday social norms like having a job and going to work each day’ (D8: 22), has a similar effect.
In these various ways, the problematisation of disadvantage introduces an element of discursive tension into the texts. As the first part of this chapter argued, the dominant problematisations in the texts rest on complementary assumptions and conceptual logics, working together to suggest that the sources of problems in Indigenous
communities are irresponsible behaviour, the ‘passive’ attitudes associated with welfare dependency, and the various ‘failures’ and ‘deficits’ of Aboriginal people, communities and culture. While these dominant problematisations display a relative silence about the material and socioeconomic context in which individuals are living, the discourse of disadvantage both acknowledges this context as a problem in its own right and assumes it to be a significant contributor to other problems. As such it can be read as creating a tension with the otherwise consistent and mutually reinforcing problematisations that dominate the government’s discourse.
The second assumption that underlies the problematisation of disadvantage is that the impoverished conditions in remote Indigenous communities are at least partly the result of past government neglect and underfunding. The longstanding and ‘cumulative neglect’ of these communities by governments (H1, also MS2), is acknowledged, with the texts referring to ‘decades of under-investment’ in housing, essential infrastructure, and government services (D4: 2, also GS1: 3, MS2, MS5, MGPC1, GS2), including policing (B6, MI15), schools and aged care services (MI5).
This neglect and underinvestment is assumed to have produced significant negative impacts. The failure to provide adequate policing has meant citizens have not been appropriately protected (B6) and ‘serious violence has often gone unreported’ (D1: 11), ‘Under-investment in remote Indigenous education’ has caused ‘classroom pressures’ (D1: 23), and decades of undersupply and underinvestment in housing by ‘governments of all persuasions’ (MGPC2) has caused ‘overcrowding’, and ‘squalor’ (MGPC1). The texts are therefore based on the assumption that past government neglect and historical underfunding of infrastructure and services is ‘unquestionably a major cause of disadvantage’ in remote communities (GS2).
Again, this conceptual logic creates a degree of potential tension with the other problematisations in the texts, because the acknowledgement of government failure contrasts with the otherwise consistent emphasis on the failings of Indigenous people, communities and culture, and the problematisation of individual behaviour as the ‘cause’ of various problems.
The governmental rationality of ‘tackling disadvantage’
Just as the problematisation of disadvantage rests on contrasting assumptions to the other problematisations, so too does it involve a different governmental rationality. Most notably, it contrasts with the neoliberal rationality of ‘responsibilisation’ that otherwise dominates the texts. Whereas ‘responsibilisation’ places the onus for change on individuals, the government’s intention to ‘strengthen the way we tackle the disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal people and communities’ (D8: 3) clearly assumes a level of government responsibility for change. It is because it understands the severity of the disadvantage facing Aboriginal people that the government is ‘investing significantly’ (MI18), and assuming a ‘responsibility for delivering much needed investments’ in infrastructure and services (D8: 1, also D4: 2). Even the Howard Government, despite not explicitly referring to ‘disadvantage’ nevertheless acknowledges the need for increased government investment in Indigenous communities in order to ‘change the circumstances’ in which people live (B4:2).
In the Labor texts in particular, addressing disadvantage is consistently offered as a central part of the government’s rationale for the Intervention, and is the stated reason for continuing the NTER measures following the 2008 Review (MI6) and for introducing the Stronger Futures package (MGPC2, D10: 1, MMR28). Further, the broader Closing the Gap strategy, within which the Labor texts attempt to reframe the Intervention, is a conceptual framework that specifically assumes the need for government action and investment to address ‘Indigenous disadvantage’. Closing the Gap is based on the assumption that people need certain physical and environmental conditions and certain services and infrastructure in place in order to be able to realise the opportunities that the government wishes them to take up, with government investments in services and infrastructure represented as ‘building blocks’63 that provide the ‘necessary conditions of opportunity’ (GS1: 3).
Thus while the texts generally tend to express the government’s wish to reduce people’s ‘dependency’ on government, and often appear to be shifting the greatest responsibility for change away from government and onto individuals, the political rationality of ‘tackling disadvantage’ means they also acknowledge the need for
63 These ‘building blocks’ include early childhood, school and health services and infrastructure. See Department of Social Services 2014.
increased government responsibility. This is evident both in the significantly increased funding for services and infrastructure associated with the Intervention and, as described above, at a discursive level. Indeed, in relation to the goals of the Intervention, there are occasions when these texts imply – against their own prioritisation of individual responsibility and behaviour change – that positive improvements in outcomes in remote communities are not possible without government-delivered material improvements. For example when Macklin states that ‘without decent housing we will never improve Indigenous health and education or boost participation in the labour market (MS1) she represents the delivery by government of better housing as a prerequisite for other changes.
In these ways then, the governmental rationality associated with addressing disadvantage sits in a degree of tension with the narrative of ‘responsibilisation’ that otherwise dominates the government’s discourse. Where the dominant ‘mode of rule’ attributes primary responsibility to individuals, the problematisation of disadvantage attributes (at least some) responsibility to governments for improving the material conditions in which people live, and the infrastructure and services they receive. The significant increase in government investment that accompanies the Intervention suggests that the texts do not only assume that the source of problems lies with Indigenous people and communities. Rather, a policy that injects large amounts of new funding into infrastructure and service provision implies that previous levels of provision and funding were inadequate. A policy that changes the arrangements by which government services are provided implies that previous approaches to service provision were also problematic. And a policy that pledges to invest in various ‘building blocks’ as ‘necessary conditions of opportunity’ (GS1:3) implies that some of these ‘building blocks’ were previously missing.
5.5 Conclusion
This chapter has provided a critical analysis of the problematisations that Chapter 4 identified in the government texts. A close reading of the government texts, that also drew on the interviews and some of the relevant scholarship on the Intervention, identified the core assumptions that each of these problematisations relies on, and explored the conceptual logics and cultural values upon which they are based. It argued that the problematisations of dysfunction, or a lack of social norms, welfare
dependency and a lack of individual responsibility, share similar conceptual logics. These include the assumptions inherent in a neoliberal framework, namely an individualistic analysis of ‘problems’, a binary construction of responsibility/irresponsibility and a ‘behaviour change’ policy orientation, together with a series of racialised assumptions about the ‘failures’ of Indigenous people, communities and culture, and the flaws of the previous Indigenous policy paradigm.
The chapter also argued that these assumptions inform the political rationality of the proposed policy approach. On the one hand, the Intervention strongly reflects the currently dominant neoliberal rationality of ‘responsibilisation’; one that attributes the responsibility for change primarily to individuals and communities, with the role of government assumed to be one that primarily involves designing sanctions and incentives for behaviour change, promoting and enforcing ‘social norms’ and increasing ‘expectations’ of individuals. On the other hand, as a piece of Indigenous policy, the Intervention combines this neoliberal orientation with the racialised goal of ‘normalisation’. This creates a narrative about the role of government and government policy that is both familiar as a neoliberal policy approach and yet exceptional in its application to Indigenous communities. This analysis suggests that the Intervention is an example of ‘the simultaneous coexistence of various forms of rule, which are often hybrid’ (Bacchi 2009: 7).
The chapter argued that for the most part, and certainly in relation to the first three problematisations, these assumptions and underlying political rationalities are complementary and mutually reinforcing. As such they create a largely coherent narrative, which gives the government texts considerable discursive power. The government’s narrative tends to favour explanations that focus on individual attitudes and behaviour, and the social, economic and cultural failures and deficits of Indigenous communities. Hence it proposes policy responses that seek to responsibilise Indigenous people and normalise and marketise Indigenous communities.
The final part of the chapter argued that, notwithstanding this general discursive consistency, the fourth problematisation – that of ‘disadvantage’ – introduces a degree of potential tension into the policy narrative because it rests on somewhat different assumptions. Specifically the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ highlights the
impoverished physical and environmental conditions and deprived circumstances in many remote Indigenous communities, both as problems in their own right, but also as contributors to other problems, and barriers to individual attitudinal and behaviour change, and to the normalisation and marketisation of these communities. The mode of rule implied by the problematisation of disadvantage is also in a degree of tension with the neoliberal rationality of individual ‘responsibilisation’ that dominates the texts, for it assumes a need for significantly increased government efforts and investment in order to enable other changes. As part of the exploration of what is left unproblematic in these texts, Chapter 7 will return to the narrative of disadvantage, arguing that, on closer consideration, and within the overall the government’s overall discourse, the potential tension introduced by the problematisation of disadvantage is largely contained. It will argue that the problem of ‘disadvantage’ is invoked in such a way that it ultimately supports the dominant neoliberal and racialised rationalities of the Intervention, and closes off the more radical interpretation that would understand disadvantage as a legacy of colonialism.
CHAPTER 6. GENEALOGY
6.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a genealogy for the problematisations identified in Chapter 4 and explored in more detail in Chapter 5. A genealogy considers the social and historical context of a given idea, with the aim being to trace the history that has led to its ‘emergence’ (Foucault 1984: 76, 80). It identifies the historical processes that, by enabling particular ideas to gain dominance and status, effectively ‘gave birth to … what we know’ (Foucault 1984: 81).
Within the WPR method, the task of tracing a policy genealogy aims to answer WPR question 3, namely: How has this representation of the problem come about? This question involves identifying the practices and processes that led to the dominance of particular problematisations within contemporary policy discourse (Bacchi 2009: 48). In the process, the task of tracing a genealogy also identifies competing representations and different ways of thinking about the issue, thereby helping to ‘historicize claims to knowledge’ (Bacchi 1999: 40), and revealing particular problem representations to be historically contingent. As a result, tracing the genealogy of an idea has the effect of destabilising it, putting into question its status as inevitable or taken for granted (Bacchi 2009: 10-11). For the purposes of this thesis the genealogial task is to identify the history of ideas, debates and past policy practices that can help explain how and why the discourse of the Intervention has taken its particular shape and form.
My analysis identifies two strands to this genealogy, one being the rise of neoliberal approaches to welfare policy, and the other being the longer history of racialised governance that has defined Indigenous policy in Australia. These two genealogical strands are woven together in the Intervention, informing the neoliberal and racialised assumptions and rationalities discussed in the previous chapter. The relevant ideas associated with welfare policy history and Australian Indigenous policy history are outlined below, together with extracts from the Intervention texts to illustrate how they draw on these ideas. While these two genealogical strands are described in turn,
they are woven together in unique ways by the Intervention, as this chapter will conclude.
6.2 Genealogical strand 1: welfare policy
Since the 1980s there has been a significant shift in the direction of welfare debates and policy in Australia and comparable countries like the United States and United Kingdom, which can broadly be understood as a neoliberal turn. For much of the twentieth century, unemployment was conceptualised as a social problem, to be tackled not at the level of individuals, but through state intervention at the level of ‘the social’ (Walters 2001: 62-3). The welfare state was viewed as ‘a benevolent guarantor of security from poverty and illness’ (Newman 2011: 108) and welfare as a form of ‘social insurance’; a universal entitlement that would also increase social equity (MacGregor 1999: 93). These established conceptions began to be challenged by rising concerns about the rapidly increasing cost of welfare provision that fuelled the ‘welfare state crisis’ of the 1970s (MacGregor 1999: 102-3, Green 2002: 18, Mendes 2009: 102). More significant however, was the emergence of a moral critique of welfare (Saunders 2000, Shaver 2002, Marston and McDonald 2007: 239), which came to be shared by both ‘new right’ or neoliberal critics and ‘Third Way’ social democrats, and which engendered a significant shift in policy direction.
Reflecting the broader neoliberal emphasis on ‘self-responsibility’ or ‘responsibilisation’ (Dean H 2007: 573, Burchell 1996, Rose 2000), this new perspective theorised individuals as responsible for their own welfare, and focused on their obligations to the state (and to society), rather than vice versa (McDonald and Marston 2005: 375-6). The new assertion was that:
‘welfare, and the welfare state, cannot only be about rights and claims. Those who claim rights must also have obligations’ (Mead 2000: 60).
Also central to the moral critique of welfare was the new concept of ‘welfare dependency’, developed by Murray (1984) and particularly Mead (1986, 1992, 1997a, 2000). This idea is based on the belief the receipt of ‘passive’ welfare undermines people’s work ethic, promotes a ‘culture of dependency’, or ‘culture of defeat’ and leaves people without personal or employment-related skills (Mead 2000: 48-9).
Increasingly this view became widely accepted; that is, that rather than benefiting recipients, welfare has perverse and harmful effects, creating the problematic cultural and psychological phenomenon of ‘welfare dependency’.
As proponents of this new critique of welfare became more influential during the 1980s and 1990s, so too did their proposals for a ‘new paternalism’ in welfare policy (Mead 1997a). Where previous versions of liberalism promoted ‘laissez faire’ government and advocated shrinking the state, new paternalist welfare theory proposes a highly interventionist or ‘supervisory’ case management approach that uses a combination of ‘help and hassle’ to push people out of welfare dependency and into employment (Mead 1997b: 62). The aim is explicitly to get people off ‘the social’ (Rose N 1999: 100). New paternalist welfare seeks to do this by changing people’s behavior, and to this end it explicitly seeks ‘to set norms for the public functioning of citizens’ (Mead 1986: 2, 4). It assumes that it is both legitimate and desirable for the state to ‘tell its dependents how to live’, because ‘enforcing society’s interest in good behaviour is deemed to serve the individual’s interest as well’ (Mead 1997a: 4). Thus welfare policy is ‘recast to emphasize behavioral expectations and monitoring, incentives for right behavior, and penalties for noncompliance’ (Soss et al 2011: 2).
The influence of this new policy thinking disrupted former distinctions between ‘right’ and ‘left’ analyses of the welfare state (Buckingham 2000: 72-3, MacGregor 1999). From the 1980s onwards, an increasing convergence of perspectives in the policy literature64 was accompanied by a growing policy consensus among governments and political parties of different persuasions across various Anglo countries (Yeatman: 2000, Saunders 2000, Standing 2002). In line with international trends, Australia began a process of welfare system reform in the 1990s, developing a new framework of ‘mutual obligation’ (Green 2002: 16, Marston and McDonald 2007) and making welfare ‘conditional’ upon certain behaviours (Yeatman 2000: 1). Recipients were now subject to close supervision and case management, and required to undertake various forms of ‘activity’, as a means of breaking the ‘cycle of
64 Despite this degree of convergence, and notwithstanding its influence in policy terms, this neoliberal perspective has strong critics in the policy literature. For criticisms of the theory and language of ‘welfare dependency’, see Wilson 1987 in the US, Field 2000 in the UK, and Raper 2000, Engels 2006 and MacDonald and Siemon 2000 in Australia. For critical analyses of various neoliberal welfare policy regimes, see Soss et al 2011, Green 2002, MacGregor 1999, Cowling 2004, Kilty and Segal 2006, Bessant 2000, Tomlinson 2008, Dean H 2007.
dependency’ (Bessant 2002: 13). New forms of compulsion were applied to welfare recipients, together with ‘breaches’ for non-compliance with their new ‘obligations’ and ‘activity agreements’ (Jamrozik 2005: 175, Marston and McDonald 2007: 237).
While the beginnings of this ‘neoliberal turn’ were evident under the Hawke and Keating governments (Bessant 2002, Buckingham 2000: 73, Stilwell 2000: 32, Saunders 1999), the change in policy direction was accelerated under the Howard government, which instituted a ‘welfare reform’ process to tackle ‘the challenge of welfare dependency’ (see Newman 1999).65 In Howard’s own words, his government ‘put the principle of mutual obligation at the heart of Australia's social security system’ (H12). This broad approach has been continued under the subsequent Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments,66 and there is now agreement across both major political parties on the continuing need for active and paternalist government intervention in the lives of Australian welfare recipients (Buckmaster 2010, Thomas and Buckmaster 2010).
Since the 1990s then, the moral and legal basis of the Australian welfare system has been transformed (Marston and McDonald 2007: 239), such that it now treats welfare less as a right than as a form of conditional support (Shaver 2002) provided as part of a ‘contract’ of ‘mutual obligation’ between citizens and the state (Yeatman 2000). As a result, ‘behaviour change’ is now an explicit goal of Australian welfare policy. This is consistent with liberal and neoliberal governance strategies that demonstrate a ‘will to govern in terms of, and through the regulated autonomy of their subjects’ (Walters: 2001: 61). This shift has been described in Foucauldian terms as a ‘disciplinary turn in poverty governance’ because the combination of neoliberal and paternalist agendas sees the state focus on disciplining the behaviour of targeted subjects, both through punitive and coercive measures, and through measures that ‘support and incentivize the poor’ (Soss et al 2011: 8-9). Contemporary Australian welfare governance then, is about ‘governing with the unemployed, through enlisting their agency to reform behaviour, attitudes and practices’ (McDonald and Marston 2005: 382).
65 For analyses of welfare policy under the Howard Government, see Marston and McDonald 2007, Mendes 2008, 2009, Shaver 2002. 66 As an illustration, the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) 2010 welfare policy aims to ‘end the corrosive aimlessness of welfare’ and ‘strengthen’ the principle of ‘mutual obligation’, including by increasing sanctions for welfare recipients who refuse to comply with conditions (2010: 5, 13-14) and ‘reward[ing] positive behavioural change’ (2010: 7).
This broad shift in welfare policy represents one strand of the genealogy of the Intervention. Indeed the Intervention texts explicitly locate the approach within this broader welfare policy context. Howard for example, describes it as a continuation of the ‘quiet revolution in Australia's welfare system in the last decade’ that ‘overturned much of the thinking that had become encrusted around our welfare system’ (H12). It is, he states, part of a broader agenda that seeks to ‘tackle the scourge of passive welfare and to reinforce responsible behaviour’ by applying ‘the principle of mutual obligation’ (H12). A similar framing, which locates the Intervention within the broader neoliberal reforms to welfare policy, is used by Brough (B6). The Labor texts also describe the Intervention’s welfare measures as ‘part of a wider agenda, recognising that passive dependence on welfare undermines individual responsibility and community cohesion’ (D1: 15), and as consistent with the government’s ‘national reform agenda in relation to welfare recipients in disadvantaged regions and dysfunctional families and communities’ (D4: 5-6). Notably, Gillard also describes her government’s broader Indigenous policy approach in similar language, as ‘a call for changes in behaviour’ on the part of Indigenous people (GS1: 6).
The problematisation of welfare dependency and passive welfare in the government Intervention texts draws directly on the conceptual and policy shifts described above, and forms one of the central narratives of the Intervention. The moral critique of welfare is explicitly reflected in a policy that assumes that contrary to the intentions of the welfare state (B9: 4, H12), welfare has become ‘a substitute for work’, has allowed the ‘social evil’ of ‘idleness’ (H12), and caused recipients to become ‘trapped in a cycle of hopelessness’ (MS5). Further, the focus on welfare recipients’ lack of money management, financial literacy and budgeting skills (H12, D1: 14, MS3, D5: 14), ‘the skills to get and keep a job’ (MS2, MO2) or the ‘capabilities to engage in productive and social activities as parents, students or employees’ (D5: 14), all reflect the idea that long-term dependency on welfare erodes people’s skills, leaving them incapable of functioning as part of the economy and society. The repeated problematisation of Indigenous people’s behaviour as ‘irresponsible’, ‘self- destructive’, ‘risky’, and contrary to ‘social norms’ (H12, RS2, MS3, D4: 6, D5: 3, RS1, H5), also echoes neoliberal criticisms of welfare as allowing people to ‘evade their personal or social responsibilities’ (H12). In particular, the texts reflect the view that welfare dependency is a cultural phenomenon, that is, that attitudes of
dependency and defeatism have become a way of life for recipients (MO2, MI10, B6). This cultural analysis also reflects Pearson’s assessment of the particular impacts of welfare dependency on Indigenous communities; a specific application of neoliberal theory that is discussed later in this chapter.
The Intervention texts are clearly underpinned by neoliberal, new paternalist thinking about the goals of welfare policy. This is evidenced by the intention to ‘transition’ people from welfare to employment (MGPC2, D1: 19), by taking an increasingly interventionist approach to welfare administration. The texts refer to the role of government and its agencies as being to ‘assist’, ‘help’, ‘support’ and ‘encourage’ people (B12, D2: 5, D8: 11, D2: 5) ‘to take responsibility for getting and keeping a job’ (D8: 13, MS5, MO3) in order to move out of welfare dependency. They point to a ‘renewed focus on helping Indigenous people to become work ready, assisting them find jobs … and improving their work related skills through education, training and work experience’ (B12, also D2: 5), and an intention to reform employment programs as a means of ‘encouraging broader participation’ (D8: 14). These forms of ‘help’ are combined with forms of ‘hassle’, such as the imposition of compulsory income management, ‘work for the dole’, and other ‘participation requirements’ (D1: 19, B12), and the application under SEAM of new requirements for parents to comply with closely monitored ‘school attendance plans’ (MMR8, MI19). All these measures involve penalties for non-compliance.
The Intervention texts also reflect the recent reorientation of Australian welfare policy in their adoption of ‘responsibilisation’ and ‘marketisation’ as fundamental rationalities for the policy, as demonstrated in Chapter 5. They also clearly exhibit the specific new policy imperative of ‘behaviour change’, proposing ‘targeted policies and incentives to reinforce responsible behaviour and community standards’ (H12, also B9: 1), and promising to use welfare policy to mitigate ‘harmful’ and ‘risky’ behaviours (MMR13, MR3: 5). Furthermore, the texts demonstrate the broad left/right political consensus about welfare policy, with the Labor texts containing as strong a focus on ‘welfare dependency’, ‘mutual obligation’,67 ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘behaviour change’ as the Howard Government texts, and a much increased emphasis
67 There is a slight difference in language use, with the Labor texts commonly using the term ‘mutual responsibility’ rather than ‘mutual obligation’, which is more common in the Howard texts. Read in context however, the meaning of both terms is the same.
on ‘participation’, both in the labour market (MS1, D8: 14, MS3), and ‘economic and social participation’ (D2: 4, D4: 1, 5-6, D5: 12, GS1: 3, MS3).68 However, because the Labor texts draw more specifically on ‘Third Way’ thinking, they also incorporate a concern for disadvantage into this broader neoliberal policy framework, as will be discussed at the end of this chapter.
Significantly, the Intervention texts not only apply the principles of ‘conditionality’ and ‘mutual obligation’ that are now entrenched in the Australian welfare system, but express an explicit intent to extend them (H1, B9: 7, B9: 1, M18, G in MGPC2). Under the Intervention, conditions applied to welfare recipients are no longer restricted to employment or training-related activities, but include ‘a range of behaviours’ deemed relevant by the government and (usually) justified as impacting on children’s wellbeing or education (see B9: 7, B9: 1, H1, RS1, M18). Thus while increasing conditionality is a shift that both preceded the Intervention and is reflected in it, the Intervention has also played a significant role in deepening and accelerating this transformation of welfare policy in the Australian context.69 Indeed, the Intervention has been described by welfare policy analysts as ‘perhaps the most dramatic development in Australian welfare policy in recent years’ (Wilson et al: 2013: 631).
6.3 Genealogical strand 2: Australian Indigenous policy
In the sense that the Intervention draws on established neoliberal conceptions of, and international trends in, welfare policy, it might be seen as simply characteristic of its time. However, its genealogy is also particular to the domestic policy context in which it emerged, for it draws simultaneously on a range of ideas and practices that have characterised the field of Australian Indigenous policy over more than two centuries.
68 The emphasis on participation partly reflects the realignment of many Intervention initiatives with the Closing the Gap ‘building blocks’, one of which is economic participation (see MR2: 5, MR3: 5). 69 In addition to setting a precedent for the introduction of new kinds of behavioural conditions not related to employment, it also accelerated the development of administrative systems that enable a more conditional approach, with the introduction of the BasicsCard in Indigenous communities functioning as a trial of new monitoring and enforcement technology.
It is not my intention here to describe in detail, much less analyse, the complex history of Indigenous policy in Australia; one that is extensively documented elsewhere.70 Rather the aim is to outline a number of salient features for the purpose of showing how past policy ideas, practices and discursive frameworks inform the contemporary problem representations and policy narratives in the Intervention texts. In doing this, I draw attention not only to ‘official’ government policy frameworks,71 but also to other ideas and narratives – such as those promoted by Indigenous activists, political think tanks, academics and media commentators – that variously challenged or influenced government policy in different eras. Given the jurisdictional dynamics of the Intervention, the focus is on those ideas and practices that had salience at the national or Commonwealth level, with some references to specific NT policy history where useful.
For the purpose of understanding this strand of the Intervention’s genealogy, I consider the policy in relation to three loosely defined periods of Australian Indigenous policy history. The first is the period from the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1960s, in which the ideas of ‘protection, ‘welfare’ and ‘assimilation’ were central. The second is the roughly thirty-year period between the mid 1960s and the mid 1990s, characterised by an increasing recognition of the special status and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the positive value of cultural difference, and by the idea of self-determination. The third is the decade of the Howard Government, from 1996 to the launch of the Intervention in 2007, which saw the ideas of the previous era criticised and displaced by new
70 For summaries of the different eras of Australian Indigenous policy, see Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) (2005: question 7) and Behrendt (2012: 378-380). For timelines and descriptions of significant events and policy changes, see Economou (2004), Gardiner-Garden (1999) and Tickner (2001). For a history of the incremental legislative changes that granted Indigenous people formal equality, see Chesterman (2005). For a documentary history of the vast and elaborate system of government regulations that has governed Aboriginal lives in Australia, see Chesterman and Galligan (1997). For a political history of the relationship between ‘the Aboriginal interest’ and Australian governments, see Bennett (1989). For a history and analysis of the relationship between Indigenous people and the Australian state, with a particular focus on the question of Indigenous people’s ‘inclusion’ in the nation between the 1930s and 1970s, see McGregor (2011). For a reflection on the policy period 1960-2012, with a focus on approaches to service delivery, see Chaney (2013). 71 While this overview refers to the ideas associated with particular policy frameworks, it does not assume that the expression and implementation of policy are necessarily consistent. The frequent and significant gaps between policy language and actual policy practice in this particular field (Aitken 2009, Bennett 1989: 42, Morrissey 2006) are acknowledged.
narratives of ‘Indigenous responsibility’, ‘mainstreaming’ and ‘practical reconciliation’.
The Intervention draws on a number of ideas and approaches from the first and third of these periods, and in many ways defines itself against the ideas that characterised the second. However, there are some additional features of the Labor Intervention texts that complicate this assessment slightly, which will be given brief consideration towards the end of the chapter.
Pre-1960s: an era concerned with ‘protection’, ‘welfare’ and ‘assimilation’
In the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, the various colonies (and following federation, the states and territories) established and extended laws that purported to be for the ‘protection’ or ‘welfare’ of Aboriginal people. At least initially, this approach was based on the assumption – grounded in the scientific racism of the time – that Aboriginal people were a ‘doomed race’ that would soon die out (McGregor 1997) and should in the meantime receive ‘protection’,72 although over time and across the country, protectionist Acts served a range of often contradictory purposes.73 Two features of this period are of particular relevance to the policy genealogy under examination here.
The first is the altruistic and paternalistic way in which the notion of ‘protection’ was expressed, as necessary to ensure the ‘welfare’ of a people deemed to be incapable of determining their own best interests or exercising responsibility for themselves. Hence the imposition of paternalistic controls was justified as being ‘for their own good’ (Haebich 1992). This notion of ‘protection’ involved both a construction of Indigenous people as an inferior, and therefore vulnerable, civilisation (Altman and Rowse 2005: 160) and a representation of colonial governments as their benign and paternalistic protectors.
72 For discussion of the ideas and ‘experts’ behind the policy of ‘protection’ see Altman and Rowse (2005: 159-162). 73 It has been noted that these Acts were used ‘as a means of implementing policies of protection, separation, absorption and assimilation of Indigenous populations, depending on the prevailing philosophy of governments at the time’ (Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs 2006: 7).
The second feature of the protection era (and one that continued to characterise later assimilation policies) is the extraordinary level of control that governments exercised over Indigenous people’s lives, via an elaborate network of legislation and administration (Moran 2005: 173). Under protectionist laws and policy, Indigenous people had the status of wards of the state.74 Collectively, government-appointed reserve or mission managers, protectors, police officers, protection boards and native affairs departments had almost complete control over every aspect of Indigenous people’s lives (Behrendt 2012: 154, HREOC 2005: 7). In particular, throughout this period, governments exerted almost total control over Indigenous peoples’ personal finances, including wages (if they were entitled to them75), savings, and the limited social security payments they were entitled to.76 All these monies were generally paid to a white authority ‘on their behalf’ (Beckett 1988: 10-11), or held in so-called trust funds to which they had little or no access. Many Indigenous people were grossly underpaid for decades, or received no wages or benefits at all.77
While the legal context and policy provisions are different, the Intervention echoes these two features in several ways, suggesting a genealogical connection to protectionism. Firstly, just as the paternalist policies of the protection era were represented as altruistic and necessary to protect vulnerable Indigenous people, so the Intervention is represented in the same way. As Chapter 5 demonstrated, colonial paternalism is a central rationality of the Intervention texts. Thus, the texts construct Indigenous women and children as ‘the most vulnerable people in the Australian community’ (MS2). By doing so, they justify the application of extraordinary forms of state intervention exclusively in Indigenous communities. In this sense, the Intervention is a historically familiar form of gendered protectionism, one that uses a
74 The coverage of these laws across the Aboriginal population was extensive. For example, by 1961, all but 89 of the 17,000 Indigenous people in the Northern Territory were state wards (Chesterman and Galligan 1997: 175). 75 Relevant NT legislation in this period did not require that wages actually be paid to Indigenous workers – in some cases they could be placed in trust with the government, and in other cases employers were legally permitted to provide food and rations in place of wages (Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs 2006: 20-1). 76 Indigenous people were legally excluded from unemployment benefits until 1959, and in practice many were prevented from receiving these benefits well into the 1960s (Sanders 1985). For a history of the conditions governing Aboriginal people’s access to welfare see Murphy (2013). 77 Much of the money in these accounts was subject to misappropriation and fraud. These ‘stolen wages’ were the subject of a 2006 Senate Inquiry (Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs 2006). On the implications of this practice in the NT see Anthony (2007).
colonial discourse about the need to protect Indigenous women and children to justify an expansion of state power and control (Osuri, Dreher and Lafortenza 2009, Watson N 2007, Sentas and Whyte 2009, Watson I 2009a). Notably however, while the discourse of protectionism is familiar from previous eras of Indigenous policy, the difference in the Intervention texts is that the government represents its role as protecting Indigenous women and children not from exploitation by non-Indigenous people (as protectionist discourse had done), but from violence and abuse inflicted by other Indigenous people (implicitly Indigenous men) within their own communities (Watson I 2009a: 47).
The Intervention also echoes the protectionist era rationale in the way its paternalistic approach is justified as necessary because Indigenous people are incapable of taking responsibility for themselves. As discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, a lack of ‘individual responsibility’ among Indigenous people is one of the central problematisations in the texts. In particular, Indigenous people are repeatedly represented as lacking in financial responsibility, and incapable of spending money in their own and their children’s interests, as evidenced by their use of welfare payments for alcohol, drugs and gambling. Thus the increase in government control over Indigenous people’s finances under the Intervention is justified as being in their own (or their children’s) interests. Income management is ‘good for women and children’ (MI4) because it will ‘make sure money is spent … in the best interests of children’ (D4: 1) and will ‘stabilise household budgeting’, ‘help people save money’ (D4: 5) and assist Indigenous people to ‘better manage their money’ (MI22).
This justification of income management provides clear parallels with the rationale for nineteenth and early twentieth century controls over Indigenous people’s finances, including their welfare payments, controls that were ‘justified on the basis that Indigenous people as a whole were unable to manage their own money, or affairs’ (Anthony 2009: 40). Just as the 1953 NT Welfare Ordinance had deemed Indigenous people unable to manage their own affairs and behaviour and so in need of special forms of state ‘care' (see AHRC 2010a: 85-6, Ling 2011: 139), so income management is represented as a necessary form of government control over the finances of people who are incapable of managing household budgets (D4: 5, D5: 12) and so need special assistance to establish ‘financial structure in their lives’ (MI10).
Critically, like that provided in earlier periods, the ‘assistance’ provided is compulsory; the Intervention’s BasicsCard can be seen as a contemporary means of holding Indigenous people’s monies ‘in trust’ without their consent.
The way in which conditions are attached to payments based on perceived irresponsibility is also reminiscent of early twentieth century welfare policy that used moral judgements about which Aboriginal people were ‘civilised’ enough to be considered eligible for welfare payments in the first place (Murphy 2013: 207). As such, the justification of the Intervention on the basis that ‘government knows best’ marks it as a familiar form of paternalism towards Aboriginal communities (Martin 2011: 6-7). As in the protection era, it is government that is represented as best placed to determine Indigenous people’s interests and hence to take protective actions on their behalf. Macklin’s defence of compulsory income management as being in recipients’ own interests for example, resurrects what Sanders calls the ‘guardianship’ principle that underpinned protection era policies, by again subjecting those who are targeted by the policy to an ‘external definition of their interests’ (Sanders 2009a: 21). As McMullen puts it, the Intervention echoes the policies of the protection era in its assumption that ‘if whites manage the lives of Aboriginal people, somehow the problems will be over’ (2008: 15).
The second way in which the Intervention demonstrates genealogical links to the protection era is the way it increases (and multiplies the forms of), government control over Indigenous people and communities. While the Intervention does not reintroduce the kind of totalising, institutionalised government controls that characterised that era, it does significantly increase the reach of the Commonwealth Government and its agencies, both into remote Indigenous communities and into the individual lives of their residents. The texts explicitly assert the need for ‘a sweeping assumption of power’ (H5) to enable more ‘intensive Commonwealth oversight’ of Indigenous communities (B8: 13), and state the government’s intention to ‘take control’ and impose ‘authority from the top’ (H2).
The authoritative orientation of the Intervention has led many to characterise it as a new iteration of the longstanding practice of surveillance and control of Aboriginal people (Manderson 2012:8, Lattas and Morris 2010b). It is an approach that assumes, like protectionist policy did, that Aboriginal people ‘still need to be restrained and
guided’ (Beckett 2010: 38), and must be subjected to ‘special’ forms of behaviour control, both ‘through and beyond the law’ (Moreton-Robinson 2009: 61). In particular the GBMs that were installed in Indigenous communities are at least reminiscent of the mission managers that regulated and controlled so many aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives in the protectionist era (Libesman 2012: 198). Income management has also given individual Centrelink staff members an ability to exercise very close control over Indigenous people’s finances and purchasing decisions, affecting numerous aspects of their daily lives.78
Many of those interviewed for this thesis characterise the Intervention in similar terms. They liken it to protection era policies and suggest it is a case of the Federal Government telling Indigenous people ‘we know what’s best for you’ (interviewee N9), and ‘you can’t be trusted to take care of your own affairs so we’re going to take charge of them, we’re going to tell you what you can and can’t do and micromanage your life’ (interviewee N4). Interviewee N10 sees the policy as fundamentally about ‘taking control away from people on an individual, and a community level’, and imposing new government controls from above. Interviewee I7 suggests that the significant increase in the individual power of the Minister that is provided under the Intervention legislation is particularly reminiscent of protectionist era policies. Several interviewees reported a perception of distrust in relation to the GBMs.79 For example, interviewee I8 reflects that while some GBMs do a good job of ‘getting out into communities’ and talking to residents, there remains deep suspicion about their role:
you wonder well, what are they passing on to the government? Because they are the middle man in those remote communities and so people in those communities say they’re just spies – they don’t trust them.
78 For examples of how these interactions with Centrelink play out at a personal level and on a daily basis, see the participant observation research conducted by Gibson (2009). 79 The increase in Commonwealth Government control represented by GBMs also needs to be understood in the context of the NT Government’s abolition of community councils. In 2008, the 60 local Aboriginal community councils were replaced with a new system comprising six regionalised Shire Councils. This change was experienced by many Indigenous people as one that removed their ability to control or participate in local decision-making – a perception I observed among many of those interviewed for this project. For an analysis of this shift, and the impacts on Indigenous communities in the Barkly region, see Elvin 2009.
This suggests that some community residents view these new measures as historically familiar forms of paternalistic government control over their lives.
The way in which the Intervention increases and justifies unusual levels of state control over Indigenous people is a source of many critics’ objections to the policy. For many Indigenous people, this mode of rule makes it reminiscent of past modes of paternalistic racialised governance:
[The Intervention has] stirred up memories, memories not that deeply buried, of times when the State believed it had a role in the personal lives of all Aboriginal people, and exercised control over them in a way that it never attempted to do for non-Aboriginal citizens. This is part of my family history – a history shared by many, many Aboriginal families – when it was taken for granted that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal families should be treated differently, and that the state and its institutions had a right to be present, as it were, around the kitchen table (Anderson P 2009: 26).
Other sources also report that for many Indigenous people subjected to the policy, the historical familiarity of this kind of intensive government control provokes a feeling of being ‘flogged by distant, ideologically driven politicians and bureaucrats remote from the realities of our every day lives’ (Scrymgour 2007: 11). Anthropologists observe it reinforcing ‘an old and familiar sense of being governed by external and somewhat alien powers whose reasons and purposes are not well understood’ (Cowlishaw 2010: 50), which increases the already significant levels of fear and distrust of non-Indigenous people (Musharbash 2010a, 2010b) and echoes Indigenous people’s ‘previous experiences of external [government] control’ (Puszka et al 2013: 66).
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the foundation of protectionism – the belief that Aboriginal people would inevitably ‘die out’ – was gradually undermined. Now their very survival was viewed as a ‘continuing, visible “problem”’ and a source of popular angst and governmental concern (Moran 2005: 173, Beckett 1988: 9). Concerns ranged from objections to their neglect and suffering, and a perception that they were becoming a welfare burden (Moran 2005: 174), to racist fears about the threat that so-called ‘half-castes’ posed to racial and/or cultural purity (Altman and
Rowse 2005: 160). Gradually, the official and expressed policy goal across the country shifted from ‘protection’ (which in practice had amounted to segregation), to ‘absorption’ or ‘assimilation’, to be achieved through a process of training and moral ‘uplift’ that would enable Aboriginal people’s ‘advancement’ (Gray 1998: 58).
It is difficult to date precisely when the ‘era’ of assimilation began, and the term itself is a confused and contradictory one that has had many meanings in the Australian policy context.80 In a broad sense however, the goal of the assimilation era was to absorb Indigenous people into ‘white’ society. This was a goal that was increasingly described in cultural rather than biological terms; as a requirement that Aboriginal people ‘attain the same manner of living as other Australians’ (Native Welfare Conference 1961), with policy focused on economic and social assimilation through education and employment. As the ideology of liberalism became increasingly dominant in Indigenous policy debates, this kind of cultural rationale was used to legitimise assimilation as a more positive and progressive policy than the practices of segregation that preceded it (Morris 1988).
Nevertheless, the goal of assimilation can be understood as similar to that of protectionist policies, in the sense that ‘governments intended that Indigenous culture would disappear’ (Dodson P 2007a: 25). While framed as a liberal critique of previous discriminatory policies, assimilation ‘continued racism in a different mode’, because it required Aboriginal people to surrender cultural, social and political autonomy in order to be ‘uplifted’ into a superior culture and society (Morris 1998: 34). As such, it brought a change in form rather than an abandonment of protectionist era government controls over Indigenous people. Further, however benignly the policy was expressed, forced child removal was the primary means of achieving assimilation81 and the institutions in which Indigenous children were placed practiced forms of disciplinary power that sought to ‘reform’ and ‘transform’ them, inculcating them with what were regarded as ‘the superior values of a dominant society’ (Morris 1998: 33). As Buchan points out, the translation of such positive-sounding principles as welfare, care and protection into such devastating policies is possible because
80 See Moran (2005), Peterson and Sanders (1998), McGregor (2011: 76-118). 81 See HREOC (1997). On the practice of child removal as part of Indigenous policy in the NT, see AHRC (2010a: 85-6), Ling (2011: 131-153).
colonial governments are based on a complete denial of Indigenous people’s political or collective sovereignty (Buchan 2002/2003: 115-116).
Many of the ideas and narratives that characterised the assimilation era are found in the Intervention, as numerous critics have pointed out (Gulson and Parkes 2010, Watson and Venne 2010, Altman 2007a, Scrymgour 2007, Gaita 2007b, Cowlishaw 2012: 397, Pitty 2009: 36, Gibson 2009: 8, Shaw 2013). In particular, the Intervention’s racialised governmental rationalities of ‘normalisation’ and ‘mainstreaming’ recall the philosophy of assimilation. They stress the need for Indigenous communities to be incorporated into the mainstream economy and society as a means of progress, and assert the need for Indigenous people to adopt mainstream social norms as the remedy for ‘problems’ in their communities. Thus, like assimilation, both concepts are based on the assumption that Indigenous communities and/or culture are deficient and inferior, and as Chapter 5 demonstrated, the texts assume ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities are caused by the failures and deficits of Indigenous people, communities and culture, and the separateness of these communities from broader Australian society. As Chapter 7 will discuss, the Intervention texts also recall the assimilation era in their relative silence about Indigenous culture and cultural difference, and in the way they leave unproblematic the assumption that the aspirations of remote-living Indigenous people are the same as those of ‘mainstream’ Australians.
1960s to 1990s: rights, recognition and self-determination
Both protectionism and assimilation involved a gross denial of rights. By the 1960s however, in response to the growing Aboriginal rights movement,82 government legislation and policy had gradually (if unevenly) begun to embody various notions of legal equality or ‘equal rights’ for Indigenous people.83
Following the successful 1967 referendum to change the Australian Constitution, the Commonwealth gained the power to make laws in relation to Indigenous people. While this heralded the beginning of an era in which Indigenous affairs became a
82 See Chesterman (2005), Maynard (2007), Attwood (2003), Attwood and Markus (1999) Chappell et al (2009). 83 For example by guaranteeing federal voting rights in 1962, and introducing equal award wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers in 1968.
national project (Beckett 2010: 36),84 it did not address many of the substantial concerns of the Aboriginal rights movement, which was increasingly seeking to refocus attention from narrow ‘equal rights’ or ‘social welfare’ issues to a more specific concern for ‘the loss of Aboriginal identity’ resulting from ‘so many years of white depredation and paternalism’ (Bennett 1989: 7). Increasingly the movement’s call was for the formal recognition of the special status of Indigenous people, and specific Indigenous rights, particularly self-determination, land rights and sovereignty.
These issues were to receive greatly increased attention following the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, which brought a ‘sea change’ in Indigenous policy (Altman et al 2005: 274). The government formally abolished the policy and language of assimilation and introduced ‘self-determination’ as the new Indigenous policy framework.85 Described as enabling Aboriginal people to ‘decide the pace and nature of their future development’ and ‘take a real and effective responsibility for their own affairs’ (Cavanagh 1974 in Bennett 1989), self-determination in practice centred on the incorporation of government funded Indigenous community organisations that delivered their own services. Indigenous affairs was given new impetus at the Commonwealth level, with its own department and minister, and a number of Indigenous-specific programs, services and funding streams. Various significant policy changes were made by this and subsequent Commonwealth governments until the mid-1990s that (at least to some extent) embodied the principles of self- determination and separate representation86 and recognised Indigenous-specific rights, including land rights.87
It is common to refer to this period between the mid 1960s and the election of the Howard Government in 1996 as the ‘the rights era’, ‘the recognition era’ (Cowlishaw 2010: 54, also Chappell 2009) or the ‘self-determination era’ (Kowal 2008). However
84 Although not exclusively – many matters remained (and remain) under the jurisdiction of the states and territories. 85 For descriptions of the main features of self-determination policy under Whitlam, see Gardiner- Garden 1999, Ticker 2001: 12-16. 86 Of particular significance, the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 1990 created a form of national political representation for Indigenous people. 87 This period saw the introduction of various land rights legislation in the states and territories (see Behrendt 2012: 191-2 for a summary), and the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993.
there is reason for caution about such assessments. This period certainly marked a significant change in the relationship between governments and Aboriginal people (Bennett 1989: 14-15) and an important change in the language of Indigenous policy. However the gap between rhetoric and policy implementation in this period is noted by many (Morrissey 2006: 348, Maddison 2009: 25, Aitken 2009), who suggest that the policy framework adopted by governments meant that self-determination was never expressed or interpreted as it is defined under international law (Davis 2007c, Behrendt 2003: 105), let alone properly implemented (Dodson M 1996: 12, Hunter E 2008: 209, Attwood and Markus 2007: 85, Beckett 2010: 38, Cowlishaw 2010: 53). Dodson suggests that the post-referendum era continued to deliver policies and programs determined by government, constituting not self-determination but a kind of ‘assimilation with consultation’ (Dodson P 2000: 11). Ultimately while the policy framework may have changed, the necessary ‘attendant shift in the conceptualisation of the problem being addressed’ failed to occur, meaning that the ‘basic premise’ that had always guided Indigenous policy – namely ‘that Aboriginal interests are in direct opposition to those of the dominant society’ – remained (Aitken 2009: 15, 22).
While there were serious practical limitations to this policy framework, the period between 1972 and 1996 was a window in which the principles that underpinned Indigenous policy were at least understood by many in government and policymaking circles to include a recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s unique status as Indigenous peoples, support for various rights and forms of self- determination (or at least ‘self-management’), and a respect for the positive value of Indigenous culture and identity. From 1991 to 1996, there was also wide support for a formal process of ‘reconciliation’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.88
This policy period, from the 1960s to the mid 1990s, is important to an understanding of the genealogy of the Intervention, not because the Intervention texts reflect the ideas of this period, but on the contrary because (with some weak exceptions discussed at 6.4 below) these principles are largely absent from those texts, or are
88 Although the bipartisan support for ‘reconciliation’ is more accurately described as support for the process rather than for a particular outcome, as the heated debates about whether this should include some form of treaty attest. For the official report on the formal reconciliation process, see Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) (2000). For accounts and analyses see Gunstone (2009), Tickner (2001: Chapter 2), Gardiner-Garden (1999), Behrendt (2012: Chapter 13), Short (2008).
explicitly repudiated by them.89 Indeed the Intervention texts often represent the ideas and approaches of this policy era to be part of the ‘problem’. In doing so, they draw on arguments that gained prominence during the decade of policy and debate leading up to the launch of the Intervention, and described in the following section.
Shifts in debate and policy from the 1990s: the rejection of the previous paradigm
The third period of Indigenous policy of relevance to the genealogy of the Intervention is the decade and a half that immediately preceeded its launch. From the 1990s, debates about Indigenous policy were increasingly influenced by a range of thinkers and commentators who, while varied in their arguments, share a highly critical perspective on the policy paradigm of the previous thirty years. This influential combination of actors includes Cape York leader Noel Pearson whose application of neoliberal theory to Aboriginal communities (see Pearson 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2007a) became the dominant perspective on Aboriginal policy, and anthropologist Peter Sutton, whose thesis about ‘the politics of suffering’ in remote Indigenous communities (2001, 2008, 2009) has also been influential. Particularly harsh critics of the former policy paradigm are the more extreme conservative writers associated with private think tanks the Centre for Independent Studies, the Institute of Public Affairs and the Bennelong Society (particularly Hughes 2005, 2007, Hughes and Warin 2005 and Johns 2001a, 2001b, 2003). Various media outlets, particularly the conservative magazine Quadrant and The Australian newspaper also played a significant role in disseminating and popularising this perspective in the years leading up to the Intervention (McCallum and Reid 2012, Austin-Broos 2011: 15, Altman 2007a: 12).90 This discursive shift in the public debate about Indigenous affairs was accompanied by a similar shift in the direction of Commonwealth Indigenous policy,
89 Thus Watson suggests that both the Howard and Labor Governments’ approach to the Intervention demonstrate that the ‘symbolic shift to ‘recognition’ of Aboriginal lands, laws and cultures’ that occurred during the 1970s was ‘never based on firm ground’ (Watson I 2009a: 49). 90 Many authors also point to a specific increase in media coverage of violence in Central Australian Indigenous communities from the mid 2000s. While interpretations of this coverage vary significantly, there is wide agreement that it had a significant impact on public and political perceptions of the issues in Indigenous communities, and subsequently helped to position the NTER as a legitimate. See Sutton (2009: 34-37), Thill (2009: 545), McAllan (2007: 49-50), Hinkson M (2010b) Watson I (2009: 54) Watson N (2009a: 2, 5) Langton (2007a), Graham (2012), Barnard (2010), Dodson P (2007a: 23), Baird (2008: 296), Due and Rigg (2011), Manne (2011: 7), Proudfoot and Habibis (2013), Konishi (2011).
as the Howard Government introduced a new policy paradigm that constituted a ‘generational revolution’ in Indigenous affairs (Sanders 2008c: 187).
Increasingly, the period from the 1990s onwards saw the rejection of the previous policy paradigm that had developed since the 1960s. It became common in public and political discourse to represent this approach as a failure and to reject its concern with so-called ‘symbolic’ agendas like rights, self-determination and reconciliation in favour of a focus on responsibility and ‘practical’ issues. The influence of these criticisms leads some to characterise this period as an ‘anti-rights’ era (Chappell et al 2009: 119) in which the very notion of collective Indigenous rights was undermined (Nicoll 2009).91
The most extreme critics of the former policy paradigm, particularly those based in conservative think tanks, rejected the very possibility of self-determination for Aboriginal people as a group and blamed the ‘separatist’ previous policy paradigm for current conditions in remote communities (Johns 2001, 2003, Howson 2001, Hughes 2005, 2007, Hughes and Warin 2005). More moderate critics saw the ideas of rights and self-determination not as illegitimate, but as over-emphasised by a cultural relativist ‘liberal consensus’ that had obscured endemic violence, abuse, poverty and corruption in remote communities (Sutton 2001, 2008, 2009), and wrongly elevated group rights over the individual rights of vulnerable women and children (Jarrett 2001). They blamed the previous policy framework for the ‘downward spiral’ in Aboriginal communities, because while it ended older forms of repression and external control, it replaced them only with rights and freedoms, rather than any new form of control or discipline (Sutton 2001: 128-9), and so undermined the need for individual responsibility among Indigenous people (Pearson 2000).
This shift in public debate, which saw the previous policy framework not only rejected as a failure, but actively blamed for Indigenous ‘dysfunction’ and suffering, was mirrored by the Howard Government’s changes to the discursive framework for Indigenous policy. Howard explicitly rejected ‘the old paradigm’ of Indigenous affairs, specifically its approach to self-determination, rights and reconciliation (H16:
91 It should be acknowledged however that the positions that the various critics mentioned here take on specific kinds of rights are varied. While all contest the ‘right’ to welfare without reciprocal obligations, some are also opposed to land rights (for example Hughes 2007), while others (notably Sutton and Pearson) expressly support land rights.
107). His government ceased using the language of social justice and self- determination that had been common during the previous decade (Gardiner-Garden 1999: 19). It displayed a hostility to ‘the rights agenda’ (H16), and rejected the notions of Indigenous group rights, land rights and the specific human rights of Indigenous peoples (Behrendt 2003: 45-50, Chappell et al 2009, Tickner 2001: 306- 12), as well as the established definition of reconciliation (Jamrozik 2005).
Under Howard, self-determination and other principles associated with the previous Indigenous policy paradigm ‘became the problem not the solution’ (Wootten 2002), with the implication being that the ideological basis of this particular paradigm (rather than the accumulated effects of generations of past policy) was to blame for contemporary problems in Indigenous communities. Arguing that what were merely ‘symbolic’ issues had previously been given excessive attention, the Howard Government called instead for a focus on ‘the real practical dimensions of Indigenous misery’ (H16) and a ‘shift from the theoretical and ideological to the real and the practical’ (Vanstone 2005b).92 Under Howard, the recognition of Indigenous groups as social and political entities was rejected and denigrated as ‘symbolic’, and replaced with ‘a singular, practical focus on the comparative socio-economic status of Indigenous individuals’ (Sanders 2008b: 313).
As well as rejecting the previous discursive framework for Indigenous policy, the Howard government repudiated many of the policy measures that had been developed by successive Australian governments from Whitlam onwards. The government was explicit about the change of policy direction it sought, describing its agenda as a ‘quiet revolution’ in Indigenous affairs (Vanstone 2005a). Among many significant shifts in policy,93 the Howard Government rejected the need for ‘special’ Indigenous programs and transferred administrative responsibility for such programs to ‘mainstream’ government agencies.94 This reflected Howard’s ‘new paradigm’ for
92 Howard’s concept of ‘practical reconciliation’ has been widely criticised (Dodson P 2000: 12, Attwood and Markus 2007: 78-9, ATSISJC 2005: 55-6, Behrendt 2003: 9, Behrendt 2008: 245). 93 Significant Howard Government policy developments not discussed here include the hostile response to the Wik High Court decision, the introduction of the Native Title Amendment Act 1998, amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory Act 1976), the rejection of the CAR final report (2000), the hostile response to the Bringing them home report (HREOC 1997) and the abolition of ATSIC. 94 For a summary of ‘new arrangements’ announced in 2004, see HREOC (2005). On the implementation of a new ‘mainstreaming’ approach to Indigenous service delivery following the
Indigenous affairs, which required Indigenous people to reject the ‘fundamentally flawed’ idea of ‘two separate nations’ (H16: 107), because ‘their future can only be as part of the mainstream of the Australian community’ (H14). Academic assessments of the Howard Government’s policy ‘revolution’ are overwhelmingly negative, with many viewing this period as one in which previous policy gains for Indigenous people were undone, hard-won rights wound back, and ongoing demands for recognition, reconciliation and social justice ignored or radically suppressed, (Maddison 2006, 2009: 7, Behrendt 2012: 223-6, Chappell et al 2009, Walter 2010, Robbins 2007, Gunstone 2010, Sanders 2008a, Morrissey 2006).
The political rejection of the previous policy paradigm during the 1990s and 2000s provides the most immediate genealogical foundation for the Intervention. While Howard described the Intervention as ‘a watershed in Indigenous affairs’ that ‘overturned 30 years of attitudes and thinking on Indigenous policy’ (H16: 106), in fact it was this previous discursive and policy shift that enabled the Intervention to reference the ‘failure’ of past policy and the breakdown of ‘the old approach’ (H7) or the ‘old way’ (H9) and to characterise policies of self-determination and land rights as placing ‘constitutional niceties’ above the ‘care and protection of young children’ (H1). The continuation of this narrative of the previous policy paradigm as a ‘failed approach’ (H7) was integral to the Howard Government’s explanation of the Intervention as ‘a radical overhaul of the way we do business’ (B5: 2), its assertion of the need to ‘change course’ (H5), and its justification of the ‘sweeping’, ‘breathtaking’ and ‘bold’ policy changes contained in the NTER (B6). In short it enabled Howard to claim that ‘the old way has failed and that is why we are intervening’ (H9).
The rejection of the previous policy paradigm is also suggested by the representation of Indigenous communities as having failed to protect their own vulnerable members. This is a problematisation that implies that it is the model of community governance – introduced within the broad framework of ‘self-management’ or ‘self-determination’ – that has resulted in dysfunctional communities in which there is social breakdown and a lack of law and order. The supposed failure of the previous paradigm is also abolition of ATSIC in 2004 and the development of this broad approach into a set of governance arrangements for the current Closing the Gap strategy, see Marsh (2012). For a (largely unfavourable) assessment of the effectiveness of these ‘reforms’, see Marks (2008: 10-12).
implied by the texts’ assertion that what is needed is ‘extra authority from the top’ (H2), and a more ‘interventionist’ and ‘prescriptive’ approach that involves ‘a sweeping assumption of power and a necessary assumption of responsibility’ by the Commonwealth Government (H5). This governmental rationality is in direct contrast to the principle of self-determination that informed the previous paradigm. Further, in launching the Intervention, Howard had confirmed his hostility towards the more consultative approaches that characterised the previous policy era. He made a virtue of not consulting on the Intervention, rejecting the need for ‘another endless debate or … more meetings’ (H7) and stating that ‘the time for talking is over’ (H3), and that demands for ‘more consultation’ were made only by those who failed to admit that ‘the old approach has not worked’ (H7).
This discursive and policy shift has outlasted the Howard Government, for, as discussed in Chapter 4, the Labor Intervention texts also imply the failure of the previous policy paradigm. Their rejection of this paradigm is slightly less explicit,95 and sometimes they imply that policy failure is longer-term in nature, pointing for example, to ‘generations of failed policy’ and the failure of ‘successive governments, at all levels and across all jurisdictions’ (MS5). They are also ambiguous about the reasons for policy failure, pointing for example to ‘disjointed, ad hoc’ service delivery that needs ‘overhauling’ (MS2), and arguing that ‘too many government initiatives have failed in remote communities because essential preconditions have not been put in place, and planning has not been undertaken’ (RS1). Furthermore, they do affirm some of the principles that defined the rights and recognition paradigm. For example, they include some (albeit weak) recognition of human rights principles,96 and they
95 One probable reason is that this rights and recognition paradigm was most closely associated with Labor governments of the 1970s-1990s. Similarly there are obvious party political dimensions to the way the texts refer to other governments. The Labor texts for example point more directly to past Commonwealth Government failure (as this implicates the Howard Government, which had been in power for over a decade), whereas the Howard Government texts point directly to the failures of the NT (Labor) Government. The Labor texts are less critical of the NT Government, tending to stress the need for the Commonwealth to support or work in partnership with the NT Government, rather than step in to correct its failings as the Howard Government had argued. 96 It is outside the scope of this thesis to engage with the extensive debate about the Intervention and human rights. However I find the discursive commitment to human rights in the Labor Intervention texts to be weaker than some (for example Lovell 2012b) argue. While the Labor texts do acknowledge the principle of human rights, their emphasis is on the individual rights of women and children rather than the group rights of Indigenous people. There are also few instances where the narrative goes beyond an abstract affirmation of ‘Australia’s human rights obligations’ and ‘non-discrimination’ to consider the specific and practical implications of these principles for the government’s approach to the Intervention. This is illustrated by the Rudd Government’s decision to leave the RDA suspended for
reintroduce a narrative of ‘consultation’ (albeit one that continues to assume that the state sets the consultation agenda).
In general however, the Labor texts continue the narrative established by Howard, representing previous policy approaches as problematic and pointing to ‘decades of failure’ (MS1, also D4: 2, D8: 22, G in MGPC1, GS1: 3, GS2) that have ‘left a legacy of intergenerational poverty, despair and hopelessness’ (MS2). They imply that this ‘failure’ justifies the Intervention, concluding that ‘we must find new ways of doing things because the old ways have so comprehensively failed’ (MS1), and ‘we must get it right this time; we can't afford any more mistakes’ (M in MGPC2). In this sense, the Labor texts can be seen as implicitly advocating a shift away from the previous policy paradigm. Further, a number of silences in these texts are telling. The absence of the terms ‘self-determination’, ‘land rights’ or ‘social justice’, and the fact that the only references to the communal nature of land titles are to point out its shortcomings (RS1, D8: 13), suggest a deliberate distancing from the narratives that were central to the policy framework of Labor governments from the 1960s to 1990s. Further, while the Labor texts do not explicitly reject the rights-based narratives of the previous policy era, they imply that they are not always relevant to ‘the shocking reality of life’ in remote Indigenous communities (MS2), and suggest that Indigenous group rights are too often emphasised at the expense of the individual rights of vulnerable women and children. Where rights are mentioned it is the ‘most basic of human rights – the right of vulnerable people, in particular women and children, to live free of violence, abuse and neglect’ (MS2, also D2: 1, MI5, MI7), rather than the particular (group) rights that accrue to Indigenous people under international human rights frameworks.
The emergence of a new paradigm
Just as this period saw the previous Indigenous policy paradigm increasingly criticised, so too did it see the emergence of a new paradigm; one that provides the most immediate genealogy for the Intervention and is strongly reflected in the problem representations, ideas and narratives found in the government Intervention
two and a half years after taking office because it did not wish to ‘disrupt current beneficial measures’ enabled by its suspension (MMR7). Further as I argue elsewhere (Partridge et al 2012), both the discursive framing and the actual conduct of the Labor government’s consultation processes fails to incorporate a formal rights-based understanding of consent, consultation or participation in decision- making.
texts. There are four interlinked concepts or narratives that came to dominate this new Indigenous policy paradigm. Described below, these are: a new perspective on Indigenous culture, Indigenous welfare dependency, the application of market principles to Indigenous communities, and the behavioural solutions that define the Indigenous responsibility agenda.
The first characteristic of this new paradigm is a new and more critical perspective on issues of culture. Increasingly in this period, it was suggested that the affirmation of, and support for, Indigenous identity and culture that had been part of the previous policy period, had obscured the level of violence and suffering in Indigenous communities and had been at the expense of the protection of vulnerable community members. This particular strand of thought, which in academic circles originated in anthropology (particularly Sandall 2001, Sutton 2001, 2009), but that also involved members of the conservative think tanks mentioned earlier, triggered a significant debate about issues of Indigenous culture, one that has been referred to as ‘the culture wars’ (Hinkson 2010a: 1).
Proponents of this critical perspective on Indigenous culture argue that government valorisation of traditional culture and support for remote communities has prevented economic development, creating ‘living museums’ characterised only by deprivation, misery and shame (Hughes and Warin 2005, Hughes 2007). They suggest that:
having recognised for decades the impediment that Aboriginal culture poses to success, policy-makers nevertheless chose cultural observance over success. … The consequence is that if people are maladapted to modern society they are, in fact, trapped in a culture of bad behaviour, a ‘sick society’ (Johns 2007: 68)
These writers, while varied in other aspects of their views, tend to share a conviction that the practice of traditional culture contributes to current pathologies in remote communities, particularly violence and abuse (Sutton 2001, 2009). They suggest that outdated, romanticised ideas about Aboriginal culture and communities cause many to deny the violent nature of some traditions and customs, or normalise contemporary levels of violence in these communities (Langton 2010: 101). For many, hostility towards policies recognising cultural rights or customary law is fuelled by a belief
that the origins of contemporary violence lie in traditional Aboriginal culture (Jarrett 2001, 2006, see also Nowra 2007), and that ‘too frequently ‘culture’ has been used to veil or excuse bad behaviour’ (Johns 2008: 68).
Thus where the previous policy paradigm of the 1970s and 1980s tended to invoke a positive stereotype of remote communities as people living in traditional ways on ancestral land, with strong culture and community self-determination, the 1990s and 2000s saw an ascendance in media and public debate of the opposite, negative stereotype. These communities were now described through ‘a discourse of failure, suffering, violence’ (Hinkson 2010b: 229-30) and a series of pathologising accounts (Austin-Broos 2011), which saw ‘cultural dysfunction’ become ‘accepted as a public truth’ (Cowlishaw 2012: 412). This shift in the public debate was mirrored in policy shifts during this period, including the aforementioned preference for ‘mainstream’ rather than culturally specific programs and services, and a reluctance to continue funding small homeland communities, whose ‘viability’ was now questioned (see for example Vanstone 2005c).97
These shifts in the debate about Indigenous culture in remote communities are a clear component of the genealogy of the Intervention. While the problematisation of Indigenous culture in the texts is not often explicit, it nevertheless informs the racialised assumptions discussed in Chapter 5 about ‘broken’ and ‘failed’ Aboriginal communities (H2, B8: 10) that have a ‘dysfunctional culture of violence’ (RS1) and lack the ‘basic elements of a civilised society’ (H2). It also enables the argument that one reason for the ‘dysfunctional’ state of Indigenous communities is their remoteness or ‘alienation’ from, and lack of interaction with, ‘mainstream’ society, economy and culture (H5). Further, in seeking to impose ‘mainstream’ cultural norms, the texts create a silence about the positive dimensions of Indigenous culture (an issue that is further explored in Chapter 7).
The view that it is previous policies of cultural recognition that have perpetuated certain ‘problems’ also underlies the assertion in the government texts that ‘action
97 While it may seem paradoxical, the Howard Government simultaneously oversaw a concentration of national Indigenous policy focus and funding in remote areas, especially the NT and Cape York (Altman 2007a: 2-4). This did not however include an extension of support to very remote small homeland communities, because the government’s preference was for funding to be concentrated in regional centres.
cannot be delayed by concerns that it's not ‘culturally appropriate’’ (H5). Opposition to a culturally based model of development also explains why the texts problematise the permit system, communal systems of land tenure, and community leadership structures. Most notably, the arguments of those who implicate traditional culture in the perpetuation of violence provide the rationale for the removal of customary law considerations from sentencing decisions. The claim that this provision ‘help[s] protect women and children from violence and abuse’ (D10:8, also D8: 17) implicitly frames customary law as pathological, creating ‘a legal environment in which Aboriginal culture is understood as contributing to, or excusing, violent behaviour’ (Lovell 2012b: 207).
The three further concepts or narratives that came to dominate this policy era and define the new paradigm for Indigenous policy are Indigenous welfare dependency, the application of market principles to Indigenous communities, and the behavioural solutions that define the Indigenous responsibility agenda. These three interlinked concepts are derived from an application and adaption of neoliberal ideas to Indigenous communities. Thus while the Intervention has some genealogical roots in older protectionist and assimilationist iterations of Indigenous governance, it also represents the intersection of this Indigenous policy history with the neoliberal genealogical strand discussed earlier in this chapter.
This neoliberal perspective on Indigenous policy was popularised by Pearson (2000a, 2000b, 2000c), whose ideas have been both highly influential in public debate, and incorporated into Indigenous policy since the 1990s (Behrendt and McCausland 2008: 8, Maddison 2009: 29, Sanders 2009: 10, Moore 2010).98 While Pearson’s personal and political influence has been significant,99 I suggest that the influence of his ideas is largely attributable to their compatibility with the prevailing neoliberal policy paradigm. Notwithstanding this, his work is central to the genealogy of the
98 The most notable example is the Howard Government’s introduction of Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs) that placed new conditions on the provision of services and funding to targetted Indigenous communities. With their subtle shifting of responsibility from governments to Indigenous people (McCausland and Levy 2006), SRAs can be seen as a bridge between previous less conditional approaches to Indigenous welfare and the coercive approach of the Intervention (Strakosch and Macoun 2012: 57). For a discussion of the uses and interpretations of Pearson’s work, see Martin 2001. 99 See Cowie (2012), Grieves (2012), Cadzow (2012), Moore (2010), Behrendt and McCausland (2008: 18, 8).
Intervention and many of the Intervention texts explicitly credit Pearson, or claim his support for the policy (B7, H5, H8, H10, GS1: 2). The previously established dominance of Pearson’s ideas in political and public debate functions to legitimise the current direction of government policy, including the Intervention (Thill 2009: 543).100
The first of the three interlinked concepts that define this new paradigm for Indigenous affairs is a critique of Indigenous welfare dependency. This critique sees ‘passive welfare’ as a major reason for the ‘crisis’ and ‘dysfunction’ in Indigenous communities (Pearson 2000a, 2000b, 2000c). Pearson extends the individual analysis common to neoliberal welfare theory to consider the social and cultural effects of welfare, and its impact on community dynamics in the unique case of remote Indigenous communities. In doing so, he draws attention to the way in which passive welfare is experienced differently in remote communities:
The immersion of a whole region like Aboriginal Cape York Peninsula into dependence on passive welfare is different from the mainstream experience of welfare. What is the exception among whitefellas – almost complete dependence on cash handouts from the government – is the rule for us. Rather than the income support safety net being a temporary solution for our people (as it was for the whitefellas who were moving between jobs when unemployment support was first devised) this safety net became a permanent destination for our people once we joined the passive welfare rolls (Pearson 2000b).
Pearson argues that the provision of welfare payments without reciprocal obligations has had particularly devastating effects on Aboriginal communities because it has undermined social norms, and ‘corrupted’ or ‘distorted’ Aboriginal social relationships, particularly traditional notions of reciprocity and responsibility (2000c: 141-143). In their place, ‘passive welfare’ has created ‘institutionalised dependency’ (2007a: 38), as people adopt a ‘welfare mentality’ and see themselves as ‘victimised and incapable’ (2000c: 142). As a consequence, he argues, Aboriginal communities
100 This is despite the strong contestation of his views by many other Indigenous writers, leaders and commentators (for example Davis M 2005, Ridgeway 2001, Watson S 2009, Watson N cited in Benedek 2009, O’Donoghue cited in Jopson et al 2007).
have become dysfunctional, experiencing ‘recent, rapid and almost total social breakdown’ since the 1970s (2000c: 151).101
The government Intervention texts echo this specific social and cultural analysis of welfare dependency in Indigenous communities, pointing to the breakdown in social norms that is seen to be the consequence. Pearson’s contrasting of welfare dependency in ‘mainstream’ and Indigenous communities in the extract above for example, is mirrored by Brough who describes ‘two very different situations’; one being ‘most of the country’ in which poor parenting is ‘infrequent’, and the other being remote Indigenous communities in which ‘normal community standards, social norms and parenting behaviours have broken down’, largely because welfare dependency is so common (B9: 1, 4). Elsewhere, the texts repeatedly problematise dependency on welfare because it has become ‘a destination’ or ‘way of life’ for too many people in Indigenous communities (D4: 1, MS3, MO2, B8: 11, MI10), suggesting that welfare dependency is not only widespread but normalised in these communities. Too many people they argue, ‘[know] nothing other than passive welfare’ (B6), or are just ‘waiting for the next welfare payment – as their parents and grandparents had done, trapped in a cycle of hopelessness and dependency’ (MS5), and too many young people have a ‘lifetime on CDEP’ as their only ‘aspiration’ (MI10). In this way, the government texts draw on Pearson’s argument that welfare has particularly devastating effects in Indigenous communities, where it has become ‘a destructive, intergenerational cycle’ that is ‘destroying’ not only ‘vulnerable people’ (D4: 1) but social norms (B9: 4), and therefore whole communities (D4: 1).
The second feature of this new policy paradigm is the way in which it prescribes (market) economic solutions for remote communities – specifically participation in the ‘mainstream’ economy. This is a corollary to the above argument that passive welfare prevents the development of a ‘real’ economy. Again, this idea draws both on generic neoliberal market principles and specific economic analyses of Indigenous communities developed by both Pearson and the conservative think tanks.
101 While Pearson acknowledges the cumulative effects of racism, dispossession and trauma as the ‘ultimate historical cause’ (2000c: 140) of the current social crisis in many Aboriginal communities, he finds these explanations insufficient and points to the greater and more recent impact of welfare, reinforced by an ‘epidemic’ of alcohol and drug dependence (2000c: 146).
As the ‘separateness’ of remote communities from the mainstream economy has been increasingly problematised, radical free market solutions have been increasingly proposed (Austin-Broos 2011: 100). These centre on liberal entrepreneurialism and economic development, with the aim of incorporating remote communities into the mainstream market economy. Proponents (for example, Hughes 2005, 2007, Hughes and Warin 2005, Howson 2001) argue that ensuring Indigenous people’s participation in mainstream employment and the mainstream economy should be the policy priority – over and above the maintenance of remote Indigenous communities. To this end they argue that governments should reduce welfare support, introduce private property rights and encourage remote-living Indigenous people to participate in the market economy, including if necessary by migrating to other locations where jobs are available. These arguments became increasingly prominent in the 1990s and 2000s, such that the free market ideals of neoliberalism have been described as ‘the pervasive force in the relationship between the nation-state and Australian Indigenous peoples’ during this period (Walter 2010: 121).
Again, the influence of Pearson’s work in these debates about the economic dynamics of Indigenous communities is significant – although the kind of economic development he proposes has other influential Indigenous supporters, notably former ALP President Warren Mundine (see Bagnall 2005), Indigenous magistrate and chair of the NTER Taskforce, Sue Gordon (2008), and Indigenous academic Marcia Langton (2008a: 36-7). Central to this economic argument is the claim that welfare payments create an ‘artificial economy’ in Indigenous communities that excludes Indigenous people from the real ‘market economy of white Australia’ (Pearson 2000c: 140-1). Further, because it is based on ‘an irrational economic relationship’ and controlled by government, this ‘passive welfare economy’ is seen to have destroyed the complex social and cultural arrangements and the balance between rights and responsibilities that derived from traditional Aboriginal economies (Pearson 2000c: 141-2). From this perspective, ‘the economic is the social’, meaning that social policy initiatives must be accompanied by a simultaneous shift in the economies of Indigenous communities (Pearson 2000c: 143), and that the assumption of a right to welfare must be replaced with a new assertion of Indigenous peoples’ right to a ‘real economy’ (Pearson 2000c: 154-5).
The dominance of market solutions in contemporary neoliberal social policy more broadly has been widely acknowledged, and their promotion in the Intervention texts demonstrates the neoliberal strand of the policy’s genealogy, as discussed earlier. It is of particular significance however, that such solutions, based on what Nicoll identifies as ‘a vision of society as the sum of market-based relations between its members’ (2009: 50), became the new orthodoxy for remote Indigenous communities (Walter 2010: 123), because many of these communities had long operated outside or on the fringes of the market economy. While the previous policy era had at least contemplated the possibility of different models of development for remote Indigenous communities, the Intervention reflects the contemporary resurrection of the settler colonial assumption that ‘there is a single pathway to development’ (Lovell 2012). In an example of the intersection of racialised and neoliberal thought, it combines the negative perception of Indigenous culture discussed above with a neoliberal belief in market solutions to suggest that inclusion and participation in the mainstream economy is the only way to solve the ‘problems’ in these communities (Austin-Broos 2011: 16-17). The influence of these market-centric ideas in Indigenous policy circles has outlasted the Howard Government, with subsequent Labor Governments continuing to favour what critics have called ‘market-based technical solutions to complex, deeply entrenched and diverse development problems’ (Altman 2010: 268).
The third notable feature of the new paradigm for Indigenous policy is its promotion of individualistic behavioural solutions, as part of an ‘Indigenous responsibility agenda’ (Pearson 2007a: 66). Just as the broader shifts in public debate about general welfare policy have prioritised the need for individual behaviour change and increased personal responsibility, so too has the new Indigenous policy paradigm. This paradigm has been increasingly dominated by the idea of responsibilisation since the publication of Pearson’s Our right to take responsibility (2000a). The legitimacy of this ‘responsibility agenda’ continues to be increased by the support of others such as Mundine (cited in Bagnall 2005), Langton (2010, 2008a) and NT MLA Bess Price (2013).102
102 Although it is also widely contested by other Indigenous people, as noted in footnote 100.
This agenda is one that, while it does not necessarily dismiss the need for structural change, nevertheless firmly prioritises and emphasises the need to ‘deal with behaviour’, because, as Pearson puts it:
at the end of the day it is through individual agency that structures can be challenged and reformed. Behaviour is ultimately about agency – first personal and then social (2007a: 64-5).
As such, this is a paradigm that rejects what it sees as the damaging reliance on ‘social determinism’ that previously absolved individuals from responsibility and created passivity and dependence. Instead it promotes an approach that increases the expectations of individuals to exercise agency and take responsibility for change (Pearson 2007a: 65, 2000c: 155).
This focus on the need for Aboriginal people to change their behaviour, and for the welfare system to be transformed in order to encourage greater individual responsibility is a central narrative in the Intervention texts, as extensively demonstrated in Chapter 5. It is notable that Howard, Rudd and Gillard all describe their approaches as aligned with the ‘Indigenous responsibility agenda’ (H16: 107, also GS1), or the ‘growing movement to take responsibility for change’ (RS2), a phenomenon that they frame not only as preceding the Intervention, but also as developed by Indigenous people themselves. Pearson’s assertion that there should be increased ‘expectations’ on individual Indigenous people is particularly clearly reflected in the Labor texts, as also previously demonstrated.
In a genealogical sense then, the new Indigenous policy paradigm that developed during the 1990s and early 2000s established the discursive and policy framework within which the Intervention is located – although as earlier parts of this chapter show, the policy also draws on much older policy ideas. In this period, both public debate and the Commonwealth Government policy framework that had gradually been established during the previous three decades, were transformed. The newly dominant paradigm replaced previous concerns about self-determination, cultural recognition and Indigenous rights with a focus on addressing welfare dependency, economic development and responsibilisation. It replaced structural explanations for inequality and disadvantage with neoliberal and racialised arguments that implied
dependency and poverty to be the result of welfare payments, cultural traditions, poor behavioural choices and a lack of social and economic norms. As a result, this new paradigm for Indigenous policy had ‘rationalized Indigenous-specific behavioural change policy instruments’ well before the launch of the Intervention (Walter 2010: 131-2). Indeed, the combination of behavioural and market economic solutions had become so dominant in policy circles that they were ‘no longer debated’ and were ‘used in everyday parlance as if completely unproblematic’ (Altman 2007b: 307). Thus, the Intervention is a continuation of this established discursive and policy shift, with the texts consistently demonstrating these three characteristics of the new paradigm as part of their genealogy.
6.4 The Labor texts: discursive and genealogical tensions
My analysis of the government texts revealed a high degree of discursive coherence, both over time and between the Howard and Labor Government texts, as this chapter has so far demonstrated. Taken as a whole, this set of texts has a common genealogy in both neoliberal welfare policy and the particular aspects of Australian Indigenous policy described above. However, the texts produced following the 2007 transition to a Labor government also demonstrate a degree of discursive tension with the others, which, as noted in Chapter 5, relates to their use of the concept of ‘disadvantage’. This suggests an additional and slightly different strand to the genealogy of these texts, which is explored below.
Tracing the genealogy of ‘disadvantage’ comprises two tasks, because the idea has a history both in general welfare policy debates and in the specific context of Australian Indigenous policy. Firstly, the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ that is added to the neoliberal welfare framework under the Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments, demonstrates the persistence (albeit in a very weakened form) of a residual idea from earlier theories of the welfare state. As previously noted, prior to the neoliberal turn, the dominant conception of the welfare state was a social democratic one that saw it as a means of tempering the market system in the name of social justice or equity (Saunders 2000: 6, MacGregor 1999: 93). This view of welfare as addressing ‘capitalism’s structural inability to provide for the lower classes of society’ was fundamentally reconceptualised by the neoliberal turn (Green 2002). However, traces of a state ambition to tackle inequalities and provide for those who are
‘disadvantaged’ by the market system nevertheless remained in some of the new approaches to welfare policy that emerged in the 1990s, most notably some iterations of ‘Third Way’ politics (for example Giddens 1998, 2000).
Such traces can be seen in the Labor Intervention texts, for example in the assertion that ‘we have responsibilities as a Government to make sure that welfare payments are there when people need them, when people fall on hard times, they lose their jobs, we know we need to look out for people’ (MI11, also D4: 1). The texts also imply that, rather than only relying on market forces, governments must play a role in creating employment in remote communities. Macklin for example states that ‘the strongest work ethic and the most driving ambitions will be wasted if there are no jobs’ (MS6), and that ‘creating sustainable employment in communities, as well as opportunities for traineeships and skills development is critical to building strong futures’ (MMR22). Further, the Labor texts pledge to convert CDEP positions into ‘properly paid jobs’ with award wages (MS6, MGPC2), make existing jobs available to local Indigenous people, and create and fund new jobs and traineeships (D1: 29, MMR22, MS1, MI22).103 The inclusion of such strategies implies that some of the barriers to employment in Indigenous communities (and therefore the reasons for high levels of dependence on welfare) are structural rather than behavioural, as the earlier ‘social’ approach to welfare policy had assumed.104 It also implicitly assumes a need for the state to intervene in the market in order to address this disadvantage.
The second dimension to the genealogy of ‘disadvantage’ in the Labor texts lies in the particular application of this concept to Indigenous people, for these texts draw on specific notions of and approaches to Indigenous disadvantage that preceded the shifts in Indigenous policy in the 1990s. As previously noted, the problematisation of disadvantage in the Labor texts is used to align the Intervention with the national Closing the Gap strategy, the purpose of which is to address Indigenous socio- economic disadvantage. While the term ‘closing the gap’ may be new, the policy
103 I make no judgement about whether these strategies necessarily achieved these goals; my point is merely to highlight the underlying assumptions of, and genealogical precedents for, such market interventionist policy measures. 104 A further indication that the concept of ‘disadvantage’ draws on these previous structural analyses is that, in extending income management nationally, the government uses the category of ‘disadvantaged regions’ to refer to its targeting of areas with ‘very high unemployment and long term unemployment, serious disadvantage’ (MI22), again suggesting that unemployment has structural (and geographical) drivers.
approach, and the government-defined, relative conception of ‘Indigenous disadvantage’ is not. Rather it draws on many decades of Indigenous policy in which the core goal has been to deliver statistical equality between Indigenous and non- Indigenous people (Pholi et al 2009, Altman 2009, Altman et al 2005: 294).
This goal has been increasingly articulated in the period since the 1967 Referendum, when Indigenous people began to be counted in the Census, and the newly available national statistical data enabled the emergence of a field of ‘Indigenous demography’ (Taylor 2009). Henceforth, the socio-economic characteristics of the Indigenous population have been regularly analysed and compared to the Australian population as a whole, with social indicators used to track ‘Indigenous disadvantage’ (Altman and Rowse 2005: 167). Thus the problematisation of Indigenous disadvantage that forms a central part of the (Labor) Intervention narrative has its genealogy in the 1960s, as does the policy goal of statistical equality or parity between Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians. The corresponding political rationality that assumes governments have a responsibility to ‘close the gap’ therefore marks the Labor texts as somewhat different in a genealogical sense from the Howard Government texts. Most significantly, this narrative involves a stronger socio-economic and demographic analysis of the contemporary ‘problems’ faced by Indigenous people. Rather than only emphasising individual behaviour and the deficits and failures of Indigenous people and communities as contributors to contemporary problems, it imagines these problems as (at least partly) attributable to broader social determinants.
It is important to recognise these kinds of internal tensions – for example between individualistic and social accounts of ‘problems’ – as typical in complex policy texts (Bacchi 2009: 4, 20). Such tensions reflect discursive histories that, while they lead to the dominance of particular ideas, are often ‘tangled and confused’ rather than linear (Foucault 1984: 76). Nevertheless, on balance, the discursive tension created by the slight difference in genealogy that is apparent in the Labor texts is relatively minor. While the Labor texts demonstrate traces of older conceptions of the role of the welfare state and previous structural explanations for unemployment, these are relatively uncommon, weak, and discursively far less prominent than the repeatedly asserted neoliberal welfare discourse. Further, the narrative of Indigenous
disadvantage, while prominent in the Labor texts, is largely a means of validating the existing strategy of ‘closing the gap’. This strategy, which compares Indigenous data to mainstream categories and seeks to improve Indigenous people’s lives so they can achieve parity with non-Indigenous people, is actually highly compatible with the discourses of ‘normalisation’ and ‘mainstreaming’. The limitations of this narrative of disadvantage, and the ideological traditions in which it has its genealogy will be demonstrated in Chapters 7 and 8 through an exploration of what it leaves unproblematic and what kinds of effects it produces.
6.5 Conclusion
This chapter has argued that there are two strands to the genealogy of the Intervention, namely welfare policy and Indigenous policy. The Intervention weaves together ideas from both these domains. It combines a typical neoliberal approach to social and welfare policy, with a set of specific ideas about Indigenous policy. These reflect both recent shifts in the associated public debate as well as ideas about the settler state’s governance of Indigenous people that are much longer established and that are in fact constitutive of the settler colonial relationship. This genealogical orientation characterises both the Howard and Labor Government texts, although the latter also demonstrate the persistence of some residual ideas from earlier conceptions of the welfare state and previous periods of Indigenous policy.
Considered together, these two genealogical strands provide an interesting point of reflection on how the Intervention is a form of governance both consistent with trends in broader welfare policy and specifically racialised. The Intervention’s introduction of new levels of welfare conditionality, and controls over people’s finances, together with its increased focus on individual behaviour, certainly represents a significant shift for Australian welfare policy. Yet as the discussion of earlier eras of Indigenous policy in this chapter indicates, Indigenous people have long been subjected to more intense levels of government control over their lives, behaviour and finances than other citizens. Specifically there is a long history of conditionality in Indigenous welfare policy, with access to benefits often denied or restricted, and management of these funds externally controlled.
In a genealogical sense then, the Intervention brings together new welfare policy ideas with old ways of governing Indigenous people. Further, while Indigenous policy in Australia has always occurred within the framework of settler colonialism, the Intervention’s emphatic rejection of the values of decolonization that had been gaining ground in previous decades (Sanders 2008b: 301, Morrissey 2006: 350) has further entrenched the ‘deep colonizing’ processes (Rose 1999) of the Australian settler state, and the ‘settler colonial mentality’ (Lovell 2012: 216) that underpins government policy towards Indigenous people. The way in which this settler colonial context is left unproblematic in the Intervention texts is demonstrated and explored in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 7. WHAT IS LEFT UNPROBLEMATIC?
7.1 Introduction
This chapter applies the fourth WPR question to the Intervention texts, namely: What is left unproblematic in these problem representations? Where are the silences? This question considers the limits of the problematisations that have been identified and explored in previous chapters – the things that are not problematised, or the issues and perspectives that are effectively silenced. Uncovering these silences, and highlighting simplifications, distortions and contradictions in the texts demonstrates that ‘specific policies are constrained by the ways in which they represent the ‘problem’’ (Bacchi 2009: 13). Crucially, because it makes other representations of the problem possible, it is also a form of contestation, as the sub-question: ‘can the ‘problem’ be thought about differently?’ (Bacchi 2009: 48) suggests.
The chapter argues that the fundamental issue that is left unproblematic in the Intervention texts is that of colonialism, and explores the various discursive silences and limits created by the avoidance of this issue. In doing so, it suggests that the problems might indeed by ‘thought about differently’ if the political status of Indigenous people and the unresolved nature of the relationship between Indigenous people and the Australian state were taken into account.
7.2 The settler colonial context is unproblematised
The fundamental issue that is left unproblematic in the Intervention texts is that of colonialism. The Intervention’s status as part of the ongoing colonial governance of Indigenous people is unspoken in the texts. The representation of the policy as a series of practical measures to correct individual behaviour, protect vulnerable people, or address disadvantage involves a disavowal of the role that Indigenous policy plays in the ongoing exceptional governance of Indigenous people by the settler state. As Chapter 5 demonstrated, the Intervention texts rely on a series of racialised assumptions about the ‘failures’ of Indigenous people, communities and culture, and are underpinned by the racialised governmentalities of responsibilisation, normalisation and an authoritative, colonial form of paternalism. This makes the
Intervention a continuation of ‘racial government’ that subjects Indigenous people to special or different modes of administration, law making or treatment (Bessant et al 2006: 237). The racialised character of the texts’ assumptions and rationalities is implicit rather than explicit because the settler colonial context in which the policy is located remains unspoken and unproblematised. This context is nevertheless fundamental to understanding the limits of the government’s Intervention discourse, and the ways in which the policy is constrained by its representation of the ‘problem’.
There are four dimensions to the way in which colonialism is silenced in the texts. Firstly there is no acknowledgement of the past colonial practices of the Australian state, the impact of this colonial history on Indigenous people and communities, or its role in contributing to contemporary ‘problems’ or creating conditions of ‘disadvantage’. Secondly the texts are silent about the cultural specificity of the settler norms and values on which the Intervention measures are based. Thirdly, they fail to contemplate the contemporary relevance of Indigenous culture. Finally the texts not only leave the nature of the relationship between Indigenous people and the settler state unproblematised, they reinforce settler authority over Indigenous people and legitimise an ongoing regime of racial governance.
7.2.1 Past practices of colonialism are erased
In settler colonial states, the result of historical processes of colonial conquest and subsequent settler state development has been to position Indigenous people as marginalized minorities in the newly constituted nation state, such that this history continues to frame ‘the social, political, and economic framework of indigenous collectivities’ (Maaka and Andersen 2006: 10-11). The devastating impacts on Indigenous people of Australia’s colonial history, from frontier violence and dispossession to later government and bureaucratic policies and practices, are widely documented (for example, Elder 2003, Haebich 2000, Perkins and Langton 2008, Reynolds 2000). Time and again, myriad dimensions of the contemporary disadvantage, suffering and poor health and socio-economic status of Indigenous people have been found to be the direct consequence of this colonial history. Dispossession, disempowerment, enforced dependency, racism and practices of forced child removal and institutionalisation have been documented as having direct and intergenerational effects on Indigenous people, families and communities. This
‘legacy of history’ is cited as a major part of the explanation for widespread social and psychological problems, ‘dysfunction’ and violence in Indigenous communities (HREOC 1997, MacRae et al 2013, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) 1991, Memmott et al 2001).
Despite this well documented link however, the government Intervention texts are largely silent both about Australia’s colonial history, and about the relationship between past colonial practices of the Australian state and contemporary ‘problems’ in remote Indigenous communities. They frame the Intervention debate in such a way that it ‘disallows a deeper look into the impact colonialism has had upon the lives of Aboriginal people (Watson I 2007: 4). Even the narrative of disadvantage, which does introduce the potential for an investigation of the link between past experiences and present conditions, is invoked in such a limited way that it closes off the more radical interpretation that would understand disadvantage as the result of colonialism. While the government texts acknowledge that past government ‘failure’ or ‘neglect’ is a contributor to contemporary disadvantage, this history is conceived in very narrow terms as a failure to adequately fund housing and infrastructure or to meet service delivery needs in remote communities. This narrow construction of past government failure or neglect involves significant silences, and works to contain the potential tension introduced by the problematisation of disadvantage.
In reducing the historical role of the state in relation to Indigenous communities to that of a provider (or under-provider) of infrastructure and services, the texts obscure the many other ways in which the state has intervened in the lives of Indigenous people. What is silenced in this representation is the history of the colonial relationship in its entirety, one that has seen Indigenous people subjected to a wide range of oppressive state (or state-sanctioned) actions, from massacre, to dispossession and forced removal from traditional lands, to incarceration in missions and reserves, child removal and restrictions on movement, association and the practice of language and culture. Nowhere do the texts acknowledge what Yirrkala community leader Banduk Marika calls ‘the problems created by our contact with non-indigenous society’ (Marika 2007: 22). Rather their narrow construction of neglect or under-servicing draws attention to what governments have not done in
Indigenous communities, obscuring what they have done, deliberately and consistently as part of the long process of colonisation and settler state development.
The effect of this silence is twofold. Firstly it erases the culpability of the settler state in producing ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities, thereby sidelining discussion of the contemporary implications of this history. The complex political questions raised by the historical injustice of colonization, the role of the state in producing and perpetuating ongoing suffering, inequality and marginalisation, and the implications of these historical factors for current policy105 are absent from the texts. Secondly, the construction of past government treatment of Indigenous people as a problem of ‘neglect’ (MS1, H1, D8: 22, MS2), and ‘inaction’ (H1), that is, as one of insufficient involvement, legitimises a new level of government intervention in Indigenous communities. Because the history of harmful state action is absent from the texts, contemporary state intervention can be represented as necessarily benign and beneficial, or even as a ‘heroic solution to an Indigenous problem’ (Macoun 2012: 135). The question of what kind of government intervention might be appropriate given the history of harmful state actions is not considered, nor is the possibility, raised by the NTER Review Board that the kind of intervention involved in the NTER may be having negative and damaging impacts on Aboriginal communities (2008: 37).
The silence in the government’s Intervention discourse about the role of the state in contributing to the specific problem of child abuse is particularly notable. Indeed both the authors of the Little Children are Sacred report object to the way the government ignores the link their report articulates between past state policies and the contemporary incidence of child abuse. Wild reiterates that while the report points to range of factors that contribute to child abuse, and notes that these include the behaviour of individuals, it identifies many of the ‘underlying root causes’ to be consequences of colonisation (Wild 2007: 113-6). Similarly Anderson reflects that many who gave evidence to the Inquiry ‘had suffered much as a result of the historical processes in this country’ and in describing current abuse in their families
105 For a legal perspective on Australia’s belated, limited and ‘lukewarm’ confrontation of the historical injustices borne by its Indigenous population see Hocking and Stephenson 2008. On the questions for political theory and contemporary policy that are raised by the notion of historical injustice more generally, see Ivison (2008).
and communities also revealed the violence and abuse they themselves had suffered (Anderson P 2009: 9). She suggests that while many Indigenous people experience the Intervention as reminiscent of past practices of state control over Indigenous families, the government itself demonstrates an ongoing ‘ignorance’ of this history (Anderson P 2009: 22).
Others similarly point to evidence that past trauma, ‘arising in social, cultural and political relations’ has a significant impact on Indigenous communities, and plays a role in creating the conditions in which child abuse occurs (Atkinson 2007: 159). In particular, state policies of child removal and the systematic abuse of these children while under state care, are repeatedly implicated as a significant source of multiple and continuing traumas (HREOC 1997, McGlade 2007), and as having created a ‘scarred’ and ‘disabled generation’, with high levels of interpersonal dysfunction, who became parents who are more likely to abuse their own children (Dodson M 2007: 87-88). While the texts may be silent about the role of the state in contributing to contemporary problems, including specifically child abuse, many others emphasise the significance of state actions as contributors to ‘the core determinants and historical circumstances’ of these problems (Dodson, M 2007a: 89).
Because they obscure the role of the state in contributing to the problem of child abuse, while simultaneously problematising individual behaviour and ‘dysfunctional’ communities, the texts actively locate the source of and the blame for the problem in Indigenous communities. They suggest that it is ‘manifest failures on the part of [Indigenous] individuals and communities’ that place children and other vulnerable community members ‘at risk of harm’ (RS1), and that the situation is so dire because people in these communities have an insufficient ‘sense of responsibility and care for each other’ (D2: 1) and because in many Indigenous communities child abuse is ‘seen to be normal’ (B7). The problem is represented as one that is contained within Indigenous communities, a framing that ignores specific evidence in the Little Children are Sacred report of non-Indigenous perpetrators (Behrendt 2007b: 17). More significantly, it ignores the longstanding evidence both that the phenomenon of child abuse in Indigenous communities has numerous external causes, and that a high proportion of Indigenous children removed from Aboriginal communities were abused while under state care (Dodson, M 2007a: 86). This representation of the
problem prevents a contextual, historical understanding of sexual violence against Indigenous children as part of a continuity of colonial sexual violence, and as one of the traumatic intergenerational effects of colonisation (for such an analysis see McGlade 2012: esp. 33-65).
The texts also represent the state not only as uninvolved or unconnected to the abuse occurring in Indigenous communities, but unaware of it, because it has occurred in ‘another country hidden within our borders’ (MS1). Child abuse is represented as a problem only recently discovered, which has the effect of ‘severing the issue of child sexual abuse from any consideration of the quagmire of past governmental neglect’ (Hinkson M 2007: 7). Further the texts suggest the problem has been actively ‘hidden from the public’ (H5, also B8: 11, B4), in part by the permit system that has created ‘closed communities which can, and do, hide problems from public scrutiny’ (B13, also B4, B5). Indigenous community leaders are specifically implicated, either as perpetrators of abuse (B6, B7), or as creating a ‘climate of fear and intimidation’ (B4, also D4: 13) that keeps evidence of abuse hidden (H1, H3, H7).
This representation of child abuse as a previously ‘hidden’ problem again ignores the very public evidence in numerous previous reports and inquiries (Dodson M 2007), as well as the state’s ‘inertia’ in ‘fail[ing] to address Indigenous people’s own concerns about violence and sexual abuse over decades’ (Davis 2007b: 105). Indeed, it characterises the state in quite the opposite way, establishing a sense of ‘settler innocence’ (Macoun 2012: 91). By representing Indigenous communities as the source of abuse and implicating those communities in its concealment, the state is positioned as innocent and unaware, and ‘there is no implication that the state and its agents have been involved in causing or exacerbating harm’ (Macoun 2012: 92).
The texts also obscure the history of colonialism and the role of the settler state in relation to other contemporary problems. As Arabena points out, for example, while the Intervention discourse focuses on interpersonal violence, it is largely silent about the many forms of institutional and societal violence that have played a part in creating the contemporary situation (Arabena 2007: 29). The representations of alcohol abuse as a form of irresponsible behaviour is a further example of the way contemporary behaviours are viewed in isolation from the historical context from which they have emerged. The texts also repeatedly construct alcohol abuse as the
cause of other problems, claiming that it is ‘destroying Aboriginal communities and putting children at risk’ (B17), that it ‘leads to much of the violence and much of the abuse’ (B23: 37), causes ‘extreme damage’, (D8: 15) and ‘tremendous social problems and pressures’ (MGPC1), and contributes to family violence, incarceration and damage to health (D2: 13). Alcohol is described as a ‘problem [that] lies at the heart’ of the ‘dysfunction’ in Indigenous communities’ (D8: 15), and as ‘the reason’ not only for violence but also for poverty in those communities (MS5).
Yet while the texts represent alcohol as the cause of other problems, they say very little about the causes of alcohol abuse itself. In this respect they conform to a pattern of ‘simplistic’ responses to Indigenous violence that ‘tend to isolate and blame one causal factor such as alcohol’ and ‘overlook the underlying or historical factors contributing to the excessive alcohol consumption in the first place’ (O’Brien 2008: 20). While alcohol is often blamed for Indigenous violence, the literature suggests it ‘should be more correctly viewed as an exacerbating or situational factor’, with increased attention paid to the ‘underlying issues, that constitute a historical pattern of disruption’ of Indigenous culture and communities and have long lasting social and psychological effects (Memmott et al 2001: 2). In the Intervention texts, the representation of alcohol abuse as both a problem of individual behaviour and the cause of other problems closes off precisely these alternative ways of thinking. Most significantly, it precludes consideration of how individual behaviour might in part result from historical factors, particularly colonialism.
Welfare dependency is another problematisation that is produced without reference to the settler colonial context in which it has developed. Indeed it is notable that, while the government Intervention texts rely heavily on Pearson’s analysis of the way behaviours and attitudes in Indigenous communities contribute to the maintenance of welfare dependency, they are silent about the effects of ‘racism, dispossession and trauma’ that he also mentions (Pearson 2000c: 146-9). While the point of Pearson’s argument is to challenge the reliance on explanations of racism, dispossession and trauma, and to emphasise the greater significance of other, economic and behavioural explanations for current problems in Indigenous communities, he does not ignore or dismiss historical explanations. Indeed he affirms the ‘debilitating’ and ‘incapacitating’ effects of dispossession, racism, institutionalised discrimination and
trauma on Indigenous people and communities (Pearson 2000c: 149). The Intervention texts however are silent on these issues, and so obscure the influence of historical factors and the role of the state in the creation of current conditions of dependency in Indigenous communities. As a result, welfare dependency among Indigenous people is ‘recast from indicating ongoing poverty, marginalization and exclusion to indicating social and cultural dysfunction’ (Walter 2010: 131). The problematisation of individual behaviour as such a major ‘cause’ of problems like alcohol abuse and welfare dependency in Indigenous communities, can thus be understood as an example of the kind of simplification made possible by textual silences (Bacchi 2009: 13), in this case by the silence about colonialism and its continuing impact on Indigenous people and communities.
It is unsurprising that the texts’ emphasis on individual behaviours, welfare dependency and community dysfunction displaces historical factors and obscures the role of the settler colonial state in contributing to these current ‘problems’. However, the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ also has this effect. This is not immediately obvious because, as Chapters 5 and 6 suggest, the discourse of ‘disadvantage’ is somewhat different to the other more dominant problematisations. Specifically its acknowledgement of material and environmental factors such as poor living conditions, infrastructure and services contrasts with the texts’ general emphasis on individual behaviour and the deficiencies of Indigenous communities and culture. However, a closer examination of the discourse of disadvantage in these texts shows that this acknowledgement is made within strict limits. Most significantly, the texts fail to conceptualise Indigenous disadvantage as a specific legacy of colonialism.
The causative link between Australia’s colonial history and the systemic nature of contemporary Indigenous disadvantage, marginalisation and disempowerment is widely acknowledged, and has been extensively documented in official reports across recent decades (for example CAR 2000: Chapter 1, ATSISJC 2002: 90, RCIADIC 1991). Despite this well-established understanding of the historical determinants of Indigenous disadvantage, its problematisation in the Intervention texts involves a notable silence about the history of the colonial relationship between Indigenous people and the state in Australia. The discourse of disadvantage does imply a community or group level analysis, and so introduces the idea that the experiences of
remote living Indigenous people are at least partly the result of their membership of a disadvantaged social group. However, the possibility that they occupy this disadvantaged social position as a result of colonisation, dispossession and the ongoing practices of the settler colonial state is not explored. The texts represent disadvantage not as the result of historical determinants, but as previously discussed, as a consequence of geographical and material factors such as remote location, lack of infrastructure and services and substandard living conditions, as well as economic and cultural factors and personal factors such as self-defeating attitudes and behaviours.
This representation of disadvantage as ‘a quality or attribute of Aboriginality’, as something that results from ‘underdevelopment’, is one that precludes a relational understanding of Aboriginal disadvantage and white advantage as resulting from colonialism (Macoun 2012: 162). It also obscures the role, well documented by historians (for example Lloyd 2010), that the emergence of ‘Australian settler capitalism’ in the nineteenth century played in the marginalisation, impoverishment and decimation of Aboriginal people, as their land was ‘cleared’ to enable settler development. Colonial history has seen state (or state-sanctioned) actions impact on Indigenous people’s lives in ways that far exceed the narrow conception of disadvantage found in these texts. The failure to place the contemporary problem of Indigenous disadvantage in its full social and historical context obscures the historical responsibility of the state (Pitty 2009), maintaining the sense of ‘settler innocence’ described above, and closing off a more radical understanding of Indigenous disadvantage as a legacy of colonialism.
This ahistorical discursive framework works to limit and contain the potential tension that might otherwise be introduced by the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’, which as a result, ultimately supports the neoliberal and racialised rationalities that dominate the Intervention texts. The focus on individual behaviour and ‘personal deficits’ is an individualised understanding of disadvantage, one that fails to consider the broader structural and communal context in which it is experienced (Mendes et al 2013: 29). The concept of ‘disadvantage’ in the Intervention texts is also a rather generic one, its use not dissimilar to the way in which various other groups in Australian society might be described as ‘disadvantaged groups’. What is missing is an understanding of Indigenous disadvantage that is firstly, a specific – indeed unique – phenomenon, and
secondly an attribute not of Aboriginality, but of colonialism. As a consequence of this failure to articulate the specificity of the Indigenous experience of ‘disadvantage’, the possibility that it might help explain the specific nature of contemporary behaviours, dysfunction or dependencies in Indigenous communities is also not considered.
Also closed off is the possibility that the unique kind of disadvantage that Indigenous people experience might constrain individual capacity for, or willingness to embrace, the kinds of ‘behaviour change’ now mandated by the settler state. Indeed, Prime Minister Gillard acknowledges that previous government underinvestment has contributed to the current poor conditions in Aboriginal communities, yet explicitly rebuts the argument that these circumstances might constrain individuals’ capacity to change their behaviour; stating instead that ‘the failures of Government are never an excuse for bad behaviour by individuals’ (GS1: 2). Again, the emphasis on the primacy of individual agency, choice and responsibility undermines social, historical and structural perspectives on Indigenous disadvantage by implying that those who propose such arguments are attempting to justify ‘bad behaviour’. This constrains the policy discourse, closing off the possibility that the historical legacies of colonialism are part of the explanation for such behaviours, not to mention a practical barrier to behaviour change.
It is true that the discourse of disadvantage attributes some responsibility to past governments for their ‘neglect’ of Indigenous communities, and to current governments for improving infrastructure and services. Thus the texts do assume that one of the goals of government policy is to address the material conditions of disadvantage, and this is reflected in the greatly increased resources the Intervention allocates to address gaps in infrastructure and service provision in remote Indigenous communities. Improvements in housing, infrastructure, policing and health services, and funding to create new jobs are all measures that acknowledge government responsibility for addressing disadvantage.106 However the provision of such essential infrastructure and services to citizens is a basic government responsibility. The
106 This is not to suggest that these measures are necessarily sufficient, well designed or effective. Indeed many have been strongly criticised and the various evaluations conducted appear mixed. However I do not intend to evaluate these various policy measures against their stated objectives. Rather my point is simply that in addition to measures targeting individual behaviour, the Intervention also includes measures relating to service and infrastructure provision.
assumption is simply that previous underinvestment has created a ‘shortage’ of infrastructure and services (MMR21, D8: 22) and a ‘backlog’ of need (MI14, also B18, M in MGPC2) and that additional investment is now needed to redress this and bring provision up to the expected standard. This is a minimal interpretation of government responsibility for disadvantage that might be better understood as addressing shortfalls in funding in other policy areas – such as health, housing, education or policing – rather than as tailored to the specific dimensions and historical determinants of Indigenous disadvantage.107 This constrained understanding of Indigenous disadvantage as something that government can ‘fix’ simply by providing basic services and infrastructure is one that avoids addressing the specific dimensions of the disadvantage experienced by Indigenous people within the settler colonial context.
These silences in the government texts mean that the problematisation of disadvantage ultimately does little to challenge the dominant narrative of the texts that attributes responsibility for problems (and for addressing them) to individuals and communities, and that obscures the relevance of past colonial practices. The texts frame the relationship between Indigenous people and the state within the standard terms of the democratic contract – namely that governments provide basic infrastructure and services and it is up to individuals to use those resources in a responsible way to better their lives. The implication that Indigenous disadvantage will simply be addressed within a standard governmental framework reflects an attitude to history ‘that constrains rather than enables effective public policy in Aboriginal affairs’ (Pitty 2009: 36). Because the texts are silent about past practices of colonialism, they fail to consider how contemporary policy frameworks might address the legacies of this specific history. This illustrates the way in which a focus on ‘what fails to be problematised’ can help to reveal the limits of a problematisation and to demonstrate that ‘policies are constrained by the ways in which they represent the ‘problem’’ (Bacchi 2009: 12, 13).
107 Further evidence of this is that the Howard government also included these kinds of measures without specifically problematising Indigenous disadvantage.
7.2.2 The cultural specificity of settler norms
The second way in which the texts leave the settler colonial context of the Intervention unproblematised is in their silence about the cultural specificity of the settler norms and values that underpin the policy. As argued in Chapter 5, the policy goal of normalisation relies on a set of presupposed norms and values. In these texts, settler colonial culture has an unacknowledged normative status, such that the question of which, or whose, norms and values are endorsed by the policy is never raised, and is left largely unproblematic. Consequently, the legitimacy of imposing so-called ‘mainstream’ social, cultural and economic norms and values on Indigenous communities is not questioned.
Policy texts typically rely on a set of ‘deep-seated cultural values’ (Bacchi 2009: 5) and the government Intervention texts demonstrate this particularly clearly. For example, while presented as a universal aspiration, the desire to develop a ‘real economy’ relies on culturally specific conceptions of work and economic activity. Similarly the representation of private home ownership as essential to building ‘communities with strong social norms’ (RS1) rests on a particular (and contestable) set of cultural values about private property. Thus the norms that the policy seeks to ‘put in’ to (B7) ‘rebuild’ (MMR7, D3: 5) ‘restore’ (MS2, RS2), or ‘support’ (D8: 22) in Indigenous communities are particular; they are settler cultural norms. Private property, individualism, market-based employment and private enterprise, while presumed in the texts to be universal, are in fact culturally specific values. While these norms are so dominant in the institutions of the settler state as to be taken for granted in the texts, they may or may not have the same relevance, value or status in remote Indigenous communities.
It is for this reason that critics see the Intervention’s focus on altering land ownership systems and regulating people’s behaviour, as evidence that the policy entails the aim of ‘altering people’s values’ to conform with those of mainstream Australia (Altman 2007c: 10). Viewed in the settler colonial context, measures such as income management and compulsory land acquisition can be seen as ‘techniques of assimilation’ for they ‘enforce “civilized” conduct’ in order to integrate Indigenous people into the mainstream economy (Thill 2009: 544) as ‘good citizen[s] of the free market’ (Walter 2010: 128). Further, by asserting a need to ‘bring Aboriginal land
ownership into line with the social and economic norms of white-settler society’ the discourse of ‘normalisation’ has the effect of justifying ongoing dispossession (Gulson and Parkes 2010: 308).
The problematisation of a ‘lack of social norms’ in these texts encourages the conclusion that norms are universal, and that ‘normalisation’ is the only possible governmental response to the perceived ‘dysfunctionality’ of remote Indigenous communities in which norms are broken down. This both closes off discussion about the cultural specificity of ‘social norms’, and makes it more difficult to think differently – to consider for example, whether non-Indigenous, or so-called ‘mainstream’ norms are appropriate for, or supported by, remote Indigenous communities, or what impact their imposition might have on Indigenous culture(s). For example, while engagement with the ‘mainstream’ economy is asserted as a normative goal, there is little consideration of the impact this might have on Indigenous people’s capacity to maintain relationships with kin, culture and country should it require them to spend significant time away from their community. Further, because the texts do not contemplate the cultural differences between Indigenous communities, they are unable to acknowledge that participation in ‘mainstream’ employment may be an aspiration for some people in some Indigenous communities and not for others, or may be practical in Indigenous communities in some geographic locations and not in others.
Because culturally specific norms and desired behaviours are presented as universal, there is also a failure to consider how various norms might be differently interpreted according to Indigenous culture. The concept of ‘responsibility’ is a notable example. While the Intervention discourse repeatedly asserts the need to generate responsibility among Indigenous people, one Indigenous elder speaks of her fear that the government’s approach will remove her existing responsibilities:
take away from me my responsibilities for the land, take away from me my land and I am a nothing. I will become a carbon copy of a different culture (Kunoth-Monks et al 2010: np).
Similarly, in their study of the homeland community of Mäpuru, Puszka et al found that the ‘responsibilities agenda’ that defines government policy objectives ‘bore little
resemblance to the issues and aspirations discussed by Mäpuru residents’, namely development on their homeland, autonomy and identity and greater self-sufficiency and community control over local projects (Puszka et al 2013: 65). These examples demonstrate the narrow and culturally specific way in which ‘responsibility’ is conceived in the Intervention texts, where it is used largely to refer to the kind of financial responsibility and self-reliance associated with paid employment, or to the responsibilities that parents have to their children. This conception ignores other kinds of responsibilities that may be more important to Indigenous people or valued more highly within a particular Indigenous community, such as caring for extended family members, playing a community leadership role, caring for country, undertaking cultural and ceremonial responsibilities, or taking local control of community development projects.
The insistence that Indigenous people join the ‘mainstream economy’ in order to end welfare dependency is another example of the texts’ silence about the cultural specificity of the policy’s values. While this aspiration is represented as normative, it is in fact culturally specific. Interviewee I4 illustrates this when she describes government and residents of her community as having ‘different perspectives on life’. As she puts it, not only is being ‘near our home and on our country’ important, but many view it as positive that their communities are ‘away from the mainstream cities and towns’. When the government judges the ‘viability’ of a community, it does so only in narrow economic terms this interviewee argues, while the residents of that community have a range of different cultural considerations and priorities:
It’s a different perspective of life. For us it’s about being able to hunt, to sit on your own country, your own birthright, your own places, and live there. That’s what’s viable for us. But for the government it’s all in economic terms, they look at these communities and think, well they’re not really making much money, there’s no jobs and so on. … The government seems to be pushing this mainstream perspective of life, where everybody’s got to work 9 to 5 and live a certain way. And that’s just not what a lot of our communities and people are about.
This contestation of the notion of ‘viability’ demonstrates that the norms assumed by the Intervention are particular rather than universal, and are therefore open to
contestation by Indigenous people who see them as incompatible with their own cultural norms, values and worldviews.
As demonstrated in previous chapters, the valorisation of market economics is a particular norm that is certainly evident in the government texts, something that not only leaves many unanswered practical questions about how a market economy would operate in remote communities on Aboriginal land (Martin 2011: 8), but that fails to contemplate situations in which this economic model may not coincide with Indigenous aspirations. This is a source of significant concern for many critics who find the attempts to ‘insert mainstream economic thinking about development into diverse Indigenous community contexts, regardless of the cultural fit’ to be ‘inherently problematic’ (Maddison 2009: 63). As Walter suggests, while attempts to promote greater economic participation have potential benefits if they can increase employment options in remote communities, the imposition of a market economy model has instead become a culturally coercive orthodoxy:
Disregarding the lack of fit between Indigenous lives and rights and a free market paradigm it [is] Indigenous Australia that ha[s] to alter to fit the template: rational economic man [is] not open to Indigenization (Walter 2010: 123).
Because the texts are silent about the cultural specificity of this ‘rational economic man’, and of the market economic model, the ‘marketisation’ of communities is presented as an inevitable part of ‘progress’, of bringing these communities into the modern era, rather than as the imposition of particular settler values and norms.
The unproblematised assumption and imposition of settler economic norms onto communities that are simply represented as having ‘little economic activity’ (B9: 1) also ignores the diverse contemporary experiences of economic development issues in remote Indigenous communities, and the longstanding and complex debates about this issue. While the Intervention texts entail a sweeping representation of all remote Indigenous communities as characterised by economic ‘idleness’ (H12), in fact, many Aboriginal communities have long been struggling to negotiate futures that balance engagement with commercial ventures and the capitalist economy with the often conflicting goal of maintaining Aboriginal identity, and there are widely ranging
views among Aboriginal people about how best to navigate this complexity (Davis R 2005). While market solutions are presented as unproblematic and inevitable in the Intervention texts, navigating the significant tension between economic development and the maintenance of Aboriginal traditions and connections to land is one of the key challenges faced by Aboriginal people (see Maddison 2009: 62-82).
7.2.3 The contemporary relevance of Indigenous culture
Because the texts represent a culturally specific set of norms to be universal, they avoid contemplation about how other cultural norms and values might be relevant to the people and communities the policy targets. Specifically, they are unable or unwilling to appreciate that Indigenous cultural values might inform a range of different development aspirations. Thus the third silence in these texts concerns the positive dimensions of Aboriginal culture, and its relevance to policy development. Indeed for many critics (Altman 2007a, 2007b, Hinkson M 2007, Altman and Hinkson 2010a, Fogarty and Ryan 2007, Dodson P 2007a) the failure to apply a cultural lens to the goal of ‘normalisation’ amounts to a dismissal or denigration of Indigenous identity and culture. Critics of the Stronger Futures consultations in particular suggest that the process involved a dismissal of Indigenous cultural issues important to many communities, even where these were directly relevant to the policy at hand (for example, Altman 2011f). This kind of concern is shared by several interviewees who feel that the Intervention involves insufficient respect for the Indigenous ‘perspective on life’ or ‘way of life’ (interviewee I4), or for the cultural differences between Indigenous communities.
The inability to see Indigenous culture as a positive attribute or as an asset to communities is not unique to the Intervention. It is mentioned for example by one of the authors of Little children are sacred report who observed during the inquiry that many government and community agencies had developed a view that:
we Aboriginal people were seen essentially as ‘a problem’: I got the sense that [they] were blind to the positives of Aboriginal life and culture and didn’t see the sheer potential of our people that was being lost (Anderson 2009: 13).
Similarly Mansell points to an ongoing failure on the part of governments to recognise that Aboriginal culture and heritage are not impediments but critical to his people’s survival (2007: 83).
In their blindness to (or lack of willingness to consider), the value and positive dimensions of Indigenous culture and its contemporary relevance to Indigenous people, the Intervention texts reflect the contemporary neoliberal policy environment in which legitimate models of development have narrowed to that of a market economy, with the attendant assumption that Aboriginal culture is an obstacle to development and progress (Maddison 2009: 79) and ‘a barrier to improved life circumstances’ (Walter 2010: 133). However such assumptions also draw more broadly on a long tradition in which settler states construct Indigenous people and cultures as inferior in order to rationalise their domination by the superior, sovereign and civilised modern state (Smith 2006, Maaka and Andersen 2006, Murphy 2009: 255) and to justify colonisation as an inevitable and moral, civilizing mission (Murphy 2009: 260, Brownlie 2009: 21-2, Maybury-Lewis 2006, Maddison 2011: 72- 3).
This silence about the potentially positive dimension of Aboriginal culture and its relevance to contemporary policy is less surprising in the Howard Government texts, given their generally negative representation of Indigenous culture and their explicit critique of former policies of cultural recognition. As Macoun argues, in the Howard Government texts, specific Indigenous aspirations are not only rarely contemplated, they are ‘considered irrelevant, as settler social and economic norms are understood as being so desirable and inevitable that their pursuit justifies the suspension or dismissal of other cultural and political claims’ (Macoun 2012: 162).
However it is particularly notable that the Labor texts also avoid contemplating alternative Indigenous aspirations, or considering how Indigenous cultural norms and values might inform a contemporary policy approach, because these texts include various positive references to Indigenous culture. The Labor texts refer for example, to ‘our shared pride in Australia’s continuing Indigenous culture’ (GS1: 3); they express a ‘respect for Australia’s first peoples, for their custodianship of the land, for their culture…’ (MS6) and for ‘the depth and breadth of Indigenous creativity and
culture’ that is a source of ‘wonder’ and ‘fascination’ to the world (RS1). Indigenous cultures are described as representing:
a unique way of thinking about the world. A vision that over tens of thousands of years has risen out of the land, the power, the very being of our continent, Australia’ (RS1).
However, my analysis of the texts finds that these kinds of positive sentiments about Indigenous culture are invariably made in symbolic terms rather than expressed specifically in relation to policy. The Labor texts, while conspicuous in their abstract praise for Indigenous culture are simultaneously unable or unwilling to consider the practical and particularly the policy implications of these sentiments. There is for example an absence108 of any goals or strategies relating to cultural recognition, support or protection in the government’s policy rationale (as expressed for example in D8, D10, D11, MMR22, MMR28).
In a deeper sense, the texts fail to consider whether this Indigenous world view that is described as having ‘risen out of the land’ is necessarily compatible with the social norms of private home ownership and market-based relationships that the government presumes to impose. Indeed the possibility that what Rudd understands to be a ‘unique way of thinking about the world’ might inform unique aspirations, produce different social norms and inform different economic relationships is actively closed off because the Labor texts (like those of the Howard Government) repeatedly construct Indigenous aspirations as simply the same as those of other Australians. Nor do the texts contemplate how Indigenous people’s cultural perspectives might contribute to the policy ‘partnership’ that the Government seeks with them (MS1, MO3, D4: 2); let alone how the ‘unique and special’ status of Australia’s ‘first peoples’ (GS1: 3) might define the kind of relationship(s) those peoples wish to establish with the Australian state.
This simultaneous symbolic celebration and practical absence of Indigenous culture is a manifestation of the ‘absurdity’ identified by Cowlishaw at the heart of much
108 One very minor exception is the signaling in D10: 8 of an intention to correct the ‘unintended consequence’ of the NTER’s removal of consideration of customary law or cultural practice in sentencing – but this is intended only in very narrow terms to relate to the protection of sacred sites or cultural heritage objects.
government and institutional discourse, which simultaneously implicates traditional culture in contemporary distress while also paying ‘elaborate respect … to an abstract Indigeneity’ (2012: 398). Consistent with this tendency, I find the ‘Aboriginal culture’ in the Intervention texts to refer ‘not to a way of life or a system of social relations – let alone to any particular Aboriginal people – but to a fantasized way of being’, a carefully cultivated form of ‘Aboriginal Culture’ that is ‘legible and safe’, and ‘harmonious with the values of contemporary society’ (Cowlishaw 2012: 413).109 Indigenous culture, while sometimes conspicuously celebrated in the texts, is simultaneously trivialised, for it is rendered irrelevant both to contemporary everyday life in Indigenous communities, and to practical matters of policy. Instead it is the norms and values of settler culture that frame the policy goals, and when it comes to imagining a future for these communities, it is a settler vision that predominates.
The failure to consider questions of culture and cultural difference and the positive influence that Indigenous culture might have in shaping Indigenous aspirations is also a characteristic of the discourse of disadvantage in these texts, and the ‘closing the gap’ approach that it supports. As critics of this approach argue, it involves a ‘deficit’ or ‘remedialist’ model that requires Indigenous people to change, presumes a need for them to fully embrace the market economy, hides the power imbalance that enables government to determine indicators of Indigenous wellbeing, does not necessarily reflect Indigenous aspirations, and over-emphasises equality at the expense of diversity and difference (Altman 2010, Kowal 2010, Pholi et al 2009, Altman 2009, Taylor 2009). Such a strategy is essentially about measuring ‘the extent to which mainstreaming has been achieved’ (Morphy and Morphy 2013: 185) and, because it is based on the comparison of Indigenous data to ‘mainstream’ categories, is an approach that begs the question of ‘whether it says anything at all about Indigenous peoples as social/cultural collectivities’ (Taylor 2009: 125).
This kind of failure to properly consider the practical implications of Indigenous culture, or the ways in which different cultural perspectives might inform different development aspirations is typical of settler discourse. It reflects the wider tendency for settler society to ignore, as it has done since colonisation, ‘the existence in
109 The internal contradictions in current policy settings that combine a ‘rhetoric of respect’ for Indigenous culture with policies and programs that have a questionable or negative impact on that culture is also noted by Marks (2008: 4).
Australia of indigenous societies or social orders’ (Peterson and Sanders 1998: 1). As a result it fails to value Indigenous culture or ‘life worlds’ as integral to wellbeing (Slater 2010: 145). Because ‘the state is committed to a one-dimensional universal world order, one which disallows for the diversity of peoples and cultures’, it leaves Aboriginal people wishing to develop their own communities with few choices apart from ‘assimilat[ion] into white Australia’ (Watson I 2009b: 1).
The constrained conception of Indigenous culture that is found in the government texts means, Indigenous communities tend to be represented only in terms of deficits rather than strengths. The proposal of ‘normalisation’ and ‘marketisation’ strategies for Indigenous communities and the assumption that ‘mainstream’ norms should be applied, demonstrates how the Intervention policies are indeed constrained by the ways in which they represent the ‘problem’’ (Bacchi 2009: 13). The possibility that Indigenous culture might be part of the ‘solution’ – that is, that it is a potential source of strength for Indigenous people and an asset that communities can draw on as they plan their futures, is not entertained.
7.2.4 The relationship between the settler state and Indigenous people
The fourth illustration of the silence about colonialism in these texts is the way in which they leave the nature of the contemporary relationship between Indigenous people and the settler state unproblematised, thereby naturalising existing colonial relations of power, reinforcing settler authority over Indigenous people and legitimising an ongoing regime of racial governance. While the texts assume the continuation of this settler colonial relationship and form of governance as if they were unproblematic, the nature of Indigenous citizenship, and the relationship between Indigenous people and the state in Australia are elsewhere understood to be a matter of ‘unfinished business’ (Dodson M 2003a, Pitty 2009) and described as ‘the unreconciled, unattended aspect of Australia’s past and present’ (Behrendt 2003: 8).
It is as a result of historical processes of colonial conquest and subsequent settler state development that Indigenous people are a marginalized minority in Australia, whose pre-existing societies and social orders are not given meaningful recognition or status. It is the newly constituted nation state that constructs Indigenous culture as inferior to
settler culture and subjects Indigenous people to colonial governance. This settler colonial rationality, and the ‘illegitimate foundation’ of the Australian state on which it is based (Watson I 2009a: 46) continue to be contested and resisted by Indigenous people, ensuring that the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia remains unresolved. Despite this, the contemporary relationship between Indigenous people and the state, and the colonial form of governance represented by the Intervention are not only left unproblematic in the texts, they are normalised and naturalised.
The assumption of a settler colonial relationship between Indigenous people and the settler state and society, is evidenced by the way in which the Intervention’s policy rationale, content and direction is determined by the settler state – consultation processes notwithstanding. Indeed as already demonstrated, the Intervention was framed from the outset as ‘a necessary assumption of [government] responsibility’ (H5); it is based on the assumption that Indigenous communities warrant ‘extra authority from the top’ (H2), that is, that they require authoritative and exceptional forms of state intervention.
It is noteworthy that the Labor texts make an explicit attempt to shift the way in which the relationship between Indigenous people and the government is represented in the Intervention texts. Indeed attempts to differentiate the Rudd/Gillard Government’s policy process and its relationship with Indigenous people from that of the Howard Government form a prominent thread in the Labor texts. Where the Howard Government had framed its actions as a ‘sweeping assumption of power’ by the state (H5), and as deliberately bypassing expected consultation processes with Indigenous people, the Labor texts repeatedly criticise the absence of consultation that accompanied the Howard Government’s launch of the Intervention (MGPC2, MGPC2, D8: 1, D9: 9, MR3) and the ‘fractured’ state of that government’s relationship with Indigenous people (MS5). They assert the Labor Governments’ intention to work in a more respectful (MS5, MS6, D2: 5, D9: 5) and consultative way (MGPC2, D2: 23, D3: 5, D8: 26) and ‘reset’ or ‘rebuild’ the relationship between government and Indigenous people (D4: 1, MS5, MS6).
However, the significance of this seemingly different narrative about the relationship between Indigenous people and the state is reduced, not only by the gap between this
rhetoric and the actual practices of consultation undertaken by Labor (which as noted previously, are much criticised), but also by the way in which this conception of ‘consultation’ remains firmly contained within a settler colonial relationship. The promise to ‘really listen’ to Indigenous people’s views (D2: 1) is premised on a settler colonial dynamic in which the government still sets the agenda and retains all decision making and policy development powers. Despite repeated assertions that the government’s approach will be to ‘engage’ genuinely with Indigenous people (D3: 5, GI: 1, MGPC1, MMR7), this task appears to be one that entails simply improving government communications to Indigenous people,110 and using consultation processes to seek Indigenous people’s views on policies already implemented. There is little evidence in the texts that the government understands the magnitude of the changes to its own policy development and service delivery models that would be required to move from a model of communication and consultation to one of ‘engagement’.111
Furthermore the Labor texts’ claim that the Intervention is a ‘partnership’ between government and Indigenous communities (MO3, D4: 2 D9: 5, MMR18) draws directly from the neoliberal language of mutual obligation and shared responsibility,112 ignoring the unequal relations of power that define the settler colonial relationship and giving the impression of Indigenous ownership of what is in fact government imposed policy. In this way the texts employ what Moore refers to as a ‘solidarity discourse’, one in which ‘the government denies its authority by framing its demands of Indigenes as a shared vision’ (2012: 6). My analysis identifies various instances of this kind of framing in the texts. They refer frequently for example, to individual people in Indigenous communities who have expressed their support for the government’s approach; Macklin in particular repeatedly cites the supportive views of people (particularly women) with whom she has personally spoken (see D8: 1, MO2, MO3, MS2, MS5, MS6). The texts also suggest that the government’s
110 The introduction of Indigenous Engagement Officers for example is described as a means to improve the way the government ‘communicate[s] with Aboriginal people on the ground in remote communities’ (MI14). 111 Research by Kennedy (2009) for example, points to the many limitations of current government ‘engagement’ processes from an Aboriginal standpoint, and the fundamental restructuring of these approaches that would be necessary to enable a more participatory model of program development and delivery that works with Aboriginal aspirations. 112 Similar notions of collaborative policy and government-Indigenous partnerships were used by the Howard Government to describe the operation of SRAs (McCausland 2005: 12).
various consultation processes revealed high levels of support for the policy, with the clear impression being that while views are ‘mixed’ (MR1), the policy measures have ‘majority’ support (M18, M19, MI11, MI12, D4: 5), a finding that is widely contested.113
In these ways, the texts demonstrate what Altman calls the ‘cunning of consultation’ whereby consultation findings are used as ‘government spin’ to demonstrate that ‘it is Aboriginal people who truly desire these draconian special measures’ (Altman 2011f). A number of those interviewed for this thesis make similar observations. Interviewee I8 for example, feels that the government ‘only listens to people that support the Intervention’. Both interviewees I5 and I2 also suggest that the government prefers to listen to and work with a small number of supportive community members and Aboriginal leaders who share its views, rather than acknowledge the wide range of different views in the Indigenous community. Interviewee I9 feels that while the 2008 Review Board ‘did an excellent job’ in collecting the wide range of views about the Intervention among Aboriginal people in affected communities, the government simply ‘chose to ignore’ the Board’s report. Interviewee I2 agrees that the government ‘deliberately ignored the intent’ of the report, minimised the significant criticisms it contained, and ‘manipulated’ its recommendations to suggest broad support for the policy.
The temporal dimension of my analysis finds that over time the Labor texts have shifted the narrative to the extent that the later texts now claim the Intervention measures (which have essentially changed very little) ‘focus on the issues that Aboriginal people themselves have emphasised’ and the ‘concerns they have raised’ (MI18, MS6), reflect Aboriginal people’s own ‘priorities’ (D9: 6, MI15, MI16) and ‘respond directly to what Aboriginal people told the government are the areas of most need during consultations’ (MMR28, also MMR22, MMR23, MMR24, MMR26, MS6, MI17). Thus, while there are almost no instances where the government has changed the existing measures in order to better reflect or respond to Indigenous
113 Various critics dispute what they see as the government’s overly positive interpretation of consultation results (for example Nicholson et al 2009, Harris 2010, Concerned Australians 2012, Harris and McKenna 2011).
concerns or priorities,114 the entire approach has been recast from a pre-formed and imposed government agenda to a response to Indigenous requests – and one that therefore reflects Indigenous aspirations.
Another aspect of Indigenous people’s relationship with the Australian state that is left unproblematic in these texts is the ongoing dependence of Indigenous people on government. This political dependence has been identified as one of a series of ‘damaging dependencies’ created by colonialism, and as a significant ongoing challenge for Indigenous people; one that sees them continue to struggle to reestablish their autonomy as self-determining peoples and political actors (Maddison 2009: 24). While the problematisation of dependency and the valorisation of self responsibility in the government texts may appear to suggest an ambition to reduce Indigenous people’s dependency on the state, these narratives involve a number of distinct constraints and contradictions. Most particularly, while the texts attribute responsibility for change overwhelmingly to individual Indigenous people and communities, they simultaneously (re)assert the authority of the settler state to determine the nature and direction of this change, and to adopt an interventionist, coercive and supervisory role in Indigenous people’s lives. Thus the Intervention is a means to ‘stabilise’ ‘troubled communites’ (RS1, B8: 12) by imposing external order. Similarly the imposition of income management is a means by which the government claims to ‘stabilise … chaotic household[s]’ (MS5) and ‘bring order’ (MO2) to people’s lives. Thus despite the problematisation of dependency and the promotion of individual responsibility, the Intervention actually extends the state’s surveillance of and control over Indigenous people; intensifying the ‘heavy-handed correcting presence’ of government in Indigenous lives (Lattas and Morris 2010a: 76).
A different perspective on this issue is provided by interviewee I1 who, while representing insufficient responsibility to be a problem in some communities, does so in a very different way to the government texts. This interviewee frames the issue as evidence of a need for greater community ‘sovereignty’ rather than imposed responsibilities:
114 The only exception is an amendment in the Stronger Futures legislation to give effect to the minor change signaled at footnote 108.
Communities need to take control and set standards. It doesn’t matter what Government says. The community needs to say ‘we don’t believe we should be bashing our old women in this town, we want our kids to go to school, we want to practice our traditional culture, we will not tolerate our kids being abused’ ... That’s what real sovereignty is … it does impose responsibilities, but let us define those responsibilities.
For this interviewee, while it may be the case that some people do not exhibit appropriate behavioural ‘standards’ or meet their ‘responsibilities’, and while the problems in some communities do include violence, child abuse and poor school attendance as problematised by the government, this does not automatically imply a need for increased government intervention and sanctions. Rather interviewee I1 represents the problem to be one of insufficient ‘self-determination’, arguing that it is communities themselves that should define and enforce their collective responsibilities.
While for this interviewee responsibility implies control and sovereignty, in the government’s Intervention discourse, responsibilisation is to be achieved not by enabling greater autonomy and giving communities responsibility for decision- making, but by imposing external control. In this way, the government’s discourse maintains and reinforces the kinds of dependencies that are characteristic of the settler colonial relationship. By furthering the reach of Commonwealth agencies, and increasing the control they exert over individual lives, the Intervention arguably entrenches and extends rather than reduces Indigenous people’s dependence on government bureaucracy (Sutton J 2008). As an example, contrary to its stated aims, the policy of income management actually removes personal discretion from individuals and reduces financial responsibility, transferring it to government officials and administrators (Sutton J 2008: 28, Behrendt and McCausland 2008: 31), who now effectively manage people’s finances for them. As a result, the policy potentially impedes the development of the kinds of financial skills and capabilities that would support independence rather than dependence (Russell et al 2011: 28).
A number of Indigenous commentators have pointed to the absurdity of this juxtaposition. Anderson suggests that the government’s discourse is ‘paradoxical’, for it involves the state exercising control over Aboriginal people’s lives while
simultaneously employing a rhetoric that demands they ‘take responsibility’ for themselves (Anderson P 2007: 7). Interviewee I1 makes a similar point, suggesting that ‘the government says Aboriginal people have got to take control and meet their responsibilities; and then government takes every means of us doing that away, with income management [for example]’. Tom Calma, the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, similarly suggests that ‘the greatest irony’ of the Intervention is that in assuming the authority to impose solutions on Indigenous people, it ‘fosters a passive system of policy development and service delivery while at the same time criticising Indigenous peoples for being passive recipients of government services!’ (2007c).
To justify this apparent contradiction between simultaneously demanding and removing responsibility, the texts suggest that not only is there a responsibility deficit in Indigenous communities, but that Indigenous people lack the ability or capacity to exercise responsibility. Often the texts go further, implying that social norms are so lacking in remote Indigenous communities that their residents no longer even understand ‘normal’ standards of behaviour and social responsibilities. Hence the texts repeatedly spell out and restate people’s responsibilities, and list the kinds of behaviours that constitute social norms. They call for policy measures to raise parents’ ‘awareness of [their] obligations’ (H12), ‘help community people understand their participation requirements’ (D1: 9) and ‘see that people understand, accept and fulfill their responsibilities to their children’ (H12).
In addition to representing Indigenous individuals as incapable of responsibility, the representation of past policies of community self-governance as part of ‘the old way’ that has ‘failed’ (H9, MS1) also implies that Indigenous communities are incapable of exercising collective responsibility for the wellbeing of their members. Together, these narratives construct a picture of ‘wholesale incapacity’ among Indigenous people (Macoun 2010: 6), one that justifies the imposition of paternalistic controls over both Indigenous communities and individual Indigenous people’s lives. Again, this draws on long-established colonial assumptions that the relationship between Indigenous people and the state will be one of dependency and paternalism.
The exceptional kind of imposed, authoritative ‘paternalism in extremis’ (Maddison 2011: 79) that is assumed in the Intervention texts leaves as unproblematic the settler
colonial conception of the state as a benign and altruistic protector of vulnerable Indigenous people. This conception in the Intervention texts of the settler state as ‘crusader … rescuing Aboriginal women from Aboriginal men’ (Watson I 2009a: 48) involves significant silences and omissions, as this chapter has already made clear. The most notable of these is a denial of the long history of colonial violence perpetrated by the state. The Howard Government’s assurance of anyone ‘who might have been misled into thinking that the intervention was a hostile one rather than a benign and supporting one’ (H9) for example, denies the legitimate historical reasons for such a perception. Howard claims that ‘there is no reason for anybody to be concerned’ because ‘the whole object of the exercise is to help people, to protect people, to secure people, to reassure people’ (H9). Yet the history of Indigenous-state relations has involved numerous damaging and often violent forms of state intervention into Indigenous communities and Indigenous people’s lives, interventions that were accompanied precisely by claims that the state was acting in Indigenous people’s ‘best interests’.
In particular, the refusal to consider the possibility that ‘well intentioned interventions with children and families can have devastating and long term consequences’ shows a failure to learn the lessons of the Stolen Generations (National Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Workers Association et al 2007). By dismissing state hostility as a cause for concern, the texts dismiss Australia’s colonial legacy, silencing discussion about the originary and ongoing violence of colonialism (Watson I 2009b) and reinforcing the notion of ‘settler innocence’ (Macoun 2012: 91) whereby the state is not implicated in the contemporary ‘problems’ faced by Aboriginal people. By refusing to acknowledge the damaging colonial legacy experienced by Indigenous people and communities, the texts can also deny the possibility that contemporary forms of government intervention into Indigenous communities may also be harmful. On the contrary, state intervention is represented as necessary because yet again, Aboriginal people ‘must be saved from themselves’ (Maddison 2011: 71).
The final indication that the relationship between Indigenous people and the state is left unproblematic in these texts is their failure to engage with broader debates on this fundamental question, including the possibility of processes of decolonisation, that is
approaches that seek to dismantle or restructure colonial structures and relationships. In particular, the government’s discourse ignores calls from many Indigenous sources for more genuine participation of Indigenous people in dialogue and negotiation with the state (for example Anderson P 2011, ATSISJC 2011, NTER Review Board 2008: 8), and for community–government partnerships that enable not only more collaborative policy but new forms of community governance and self-determination (for example Calma 2007a, AHRC 2012, Anderson P 2007, 2009, APONT 2011, National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples 2012, Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care 2012).
The government texts not only ignore these debates but explicitly denigrate and dismiss the kinds of approaches that are based on the principle of decolonisation and that question or problematise the current relationship between Indigenous people and the state. The silencing of this debate about the possibility of decolonisation is evident in the way the Howard texts in particular point to the ‘failure’ of policies of the self- determination era. The kinds of policies, initiatives and principles dismissed or explicitly denigrated in these texts, from land rights (B6, B7) to self-determination (B7), the permit system (B4, B5, B8: 11, B6, B7, B13, H5) and ATSIC (B7) can be understood as those that attempt to destabilise the settler colonial relationship by acknowledging (to some extent) Indigenous people as a unique political entity with which the Australian state must engage. Instead, rather than contemplating decolonisation, the Intervention is the latest iteration of Indigenous policy as a means by which the Australian state seeks to maintain its own continuity (Watson I 2009a: 46). As part of the continual development and deployment of strategies to govern Indigenous people, it is an ‘internal colonial strategy’ that demonstrates the ongoing nature of the colonial project (Maddison 2011: 90).
7.3 Conclusion
This chapter argued that the most significant issue that is left unproblematic in the government’s Intervention texts is the settler colonial context in which the policy is made and implemented. It suggested that the failure to question or problematise this context has four consequences in the texts. Firstly it erases past practices of colonialism, denying the role that past state actions have played in creating the contemporary ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities. Secondly it enables culturally
specific settler norms to be represented as universal. Thirdly it obscures the contemporary relevance (and the practical relevance to policy) of Indigenous culture. Finally it produces a policy framework that takes for granted the existing colonial relationship between Indigenous people and the settler state, avoiding the question of what more genuine forms of dialogue and negotiation with Indigenous people might involve.
It is as a result of this silence about the historical and contemporary dynamics of colonialism that the government texts are able to construct the consistent and coherent discourse of dysfunctionality, dependency and irresponsibility that my analysis identifies as dominant in these texts. This silence also acts to limit the potential tension that the discourse of disadvantage might otherwise introduce into the texts, because it closes off a more radical interpretation of contemporary Indigenous disadvantage as a legacy of colonialism. On the contrary, the texts actively displace the ongoing effects of colonialism as a focus of concern, for the ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities are represented to be unrelated to the settler colonial context and instead the result of Indigenous people’s own individual behaviour and the deficits and failures of Indigenous communities and cultures. Further, in problematising the isolation or separateness of Indigenous communities from mainstream Australian society, the texts imply that the ‘suffering’ in Indigenous communities is the result, not of past colonial incursions into Indigenous territory and lives, but of insufficient interaction with the settler state. Together these narratives justify the reassertion of settler state authority.
Finally, these various silences and omissions enable the government to represent the policy as not only non-controversial and widely supported (even requested) by Indigenous people, but also as non-ideological and apolitical. Indeed the Howard Government texts repeatedly claim that the policy has ‘nothing to do with politics’ (H9), and that its goals are ‘more important’ than ‘political theory’ or ‘philosophy’ (H3, H7, H9). Similarly the Labor texts explicitly state that the government’s approach is ‘to take the politics out of Indigenous issues’ (MS1) and adopt an approach that is ‘evidence-based’ as opposed to ‘ideological’ (MI1, MI18). As a result, the nature of the Intervention as part of the ongoing colonial governance of Indigenous people is obscured. By reflecting on the silences in these texts, the chapter
has also strengthened the contestation of the government’s discourse that has been gradually developing in previous chapters. Articulating the nature of these silences, and bringing invisible issues into view has demonstrated how a focus on what policy texts leave out, or leave unproblematised, can create space for the problem to be ‘thought about differently’ (Bacchi 2009: 48).
CHAPTER 8. WHAT EFFECTS ARE PRODUCED BY THIS POLICY DISCOURSE?
8.1 Introduction
This chapter considers the fifth question in the WPR method, namely: What effects are produced by this representation of the problem? The focus on the effects produced by the government Intervention texts is a critical part of my analysis, because discourse is not only a set of ideas, or a way of communicating, but a series of ‘practices with material consequences’ (Bacchi 1999: 2). However, the exploration of effects is not an evaluation of policy impact or outcomes in the conventional sense, but rather a means of engaging in ‘political conversation about where particular problem representations have led and are likely to lead’ (Bacchi 2009: 43). This focus is a recognition that the way in which problems are represented, or constituted has implications not only for how the issue is spoken or thought about, but for ‘how the people involved are treated, and are evoked to think about themselves’ (Bacchi 2009: 1). This aspect of a WPR analysis therefore seeks to explore the practical implications of a given problematisation or way of thinking, both for policy and therefore for people’s lives. The aim is to understand how policy discourse creates effects for people 'in the real’ (Bacchi 2009: 18, emphasis original), or in other words, how the effects of discourse are experienced.
In this chapter I explore two kinds of effects, namely subjectification effects, and lived effects,115 and identify three dimensions to the way the texts produce these effects. I then consider the sub-parts of WPR question 5, namely ‘who is likely to benefit from this representation?’ and ‘who is likely to be harmed?’ (Bacchi 2009: 48). I approach this question of harms and benefits with a particular focus on the relationship between Indigenous people and the state; an issue that was introduced in the previous chapter.
115 The third kind of effect that the WPR method refers to is discursive effects. However these are largely identified via WPR questions 2, 3 and 4 as Bacchi notes (2009: 16). Accordingly the various discursive effects of the Intervention texts have been extensively explored in previous chapters, and so will not be revisited here.
In identifying the effects of the government’s Intervention discourse, I draw particularly on my analysis of the interview transcripts. These provide an especially valuable source of data in relation to this chapter as the interviewees offered a range of personal perspectives on how the effects of the government’s policy discourse are experienced. Many describe the everyday material impacts of the Intervention on their own lives and those of family and community members, and the various ways in which they are ‘living the effects’ (Bacchi 1999: 46) of the government’s particular discursive framing. In doing so, many offer their own contestations of the government’s problematisations, ideas and narratives, that is, they do not only object to the effects of the actual policy measures, but explicitly contest the effects of discourse. The inclusion of these analyses demonstrates that, while influential, government discourse is also always subject to contestation, including by those it targets.
To complement the analysis of the interview data, I also draw on a range of other sources. These include various submissions, reports, press releases and commentary by Indigenous organisations, reports of consultation processes with affected communities, and various other authors, all of which provide insights into how the Intervention is experienced by Indigenous people, and how they feel in response to it. I bring these various sources together in this chapter to build a picture of the subjectification and lived effects of the Intervention discourse.
8.2 Subjectification and lived effects
The concept of ‘subjectification effects’ refers to the way in which policy constitutes its subjects within discourse, or ‘makes certain subject positions available’ (Bacchi 2009: 16). In doing so, a given policy discourse establishes and endorses certain kinds of social relationships, and affects the way people think and feel about themselves and others (Bacchi 2009: 16). The analysis of subjectification effects therefore, seeks to identify the ‘political implications that accompany how subjects are constituted within problem representations’ (Bacchi 2009: 17). Further, it pays particular attention to the ways in which the constitution of particular types of political subjects works to stigmatise some groups, exonerate others and define the limits of policy change (Bacchi 2009: 42).
‘Lived effects’ are the impacts of discourses on ‘how people live their lives on a day- to-day basis’ (Bacchi 2009: 43). As discussed in Chapter 3, the interest in lived effects distinguishes the WPR method from some other discourse analytic approaches that focus only at a discursive level and thus neglect to consider the influence of other factors, such as the differential social location of different subjects, on people’s lived experiences (Bacchi 2009: 43). In contrast, the approach taken here assumes that ‘there are real bodies and real people living the effects of discursive conventions’ (Bacchi 1999: 46). It is concerned therefore with the direct impacts and consequences of the Intervention discourse on people – especially those Indigenous people who are targeted by the policy. Further, following Bacchi, I am particularly concerned to identify those lived effects of discourse that are ‘harmful’ (Bacchi 2009: 15, 34, 46), or ‘deleterious’ (2009: 18, 43).
While Bacchi conceives of subjectification effects and lived effects as related but distinct, my analysis finds them to be overlapping and often indistinguishable. The blurring of these two types of effects is apparent in the comments of interviewees, particularly in their descriptions of how the Intervention’s constitution of subject positions has direct and personal consequences in people’s lives. Indeed for many Indigenous people, the way in which the discourse affects ‘the perceptions of the rest of the community about who is to ‘blame’’ for problems (Bacchi 2009: 48) is one of the most significant and distressing impacts of the policy in their daily lives. This ‘subjectification effect’ is in other words, also a lived effect for many Indigenous people.
My analysis explores three dimensions of this issue. Firstly, I point to the subjectification effects of the kinds of negative representations of Indigenous people, communities and culture that have been discussed in previous chapters, particularly the way in which the ‘dividing practices’ that structure these problematisations produce feelings of stigmatisation. Secondly I identify a number of lived effects for Indigenous people. As previously noted, the overlapping nature of the two kinds of effects means that these include the lived effects of stigmatisation. Other lived effects derive from the representations of Indigenous people as irresponsible and incapable, and the assumption of a paternalistic mode of rule. These assumptions and rationalities have disempowering effects and inform a series of measures that create
practical difficulties in people’s personal lives, potentially reducing rather than increasing their capacity to take responsibility for their own lives. Thirdly I consider the way in which the texts position the non-Indigenous subject. I argue that an implicitly racialised discourse of ‘us’ and ‘them’ produces non-Indigenous people as caring and concerned about Indigenous people and as embodying the kind of positive norms and social and cultural values that Indigenous people should aspire to.
‘They blame us all’: dividing practices and the stigmatisation of Indigenous people
As previous chapters have shown, the government texts tend to constitute Indigenous people, communities and culture in negative or problematic terms while assuming the behaviours, norms and values of settler society to be superior. In this sense, the texts exhibit the kind of discursive strategies that Foucault describes as ‘dividing practices’ (1982: 777), because they represent different groups of people (or different sets of behaviours) as binary opposites. In considering the subjectification effects of policy texts, particular attention should be paid to the use of dividing practices, as this discursive strategy is a common feature of social policy discourse, which often legitimises the application of particular measures by ‘stigmatising targeted minorities’ (Bacchi 2009: 16).
My analysis finds dividing practices to be one of the central logics in the Intervention texts. There are frequent discursive contrasts between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, communities and societies that work to establish these divisions and justify the exceptional governance and racialised modes of rule of the Intervention. As previous chapters have demonstrated, Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities are described in radically contrasting terms, as ‘two very different situations’ (B9: 1). The dividing practices in the texts not only describe Indigenous communities as different, but represent them in a negative relationship to and as ‘alienat[ed]’ from the ‘mainstream’ or ‘the broader economy and society’ (H5, H15, B7) MS3).
Dividing practices not only work to justify the targeting of policy towards particular groups, but because they ‘set groups of people in opposition to each other’, they affect the way that people think and feel about themselves as different to others (Bacchi 2009: 16-17). Comments by various Indigenous interviewees repeatedly identified
this kind of subjectification effect, with interviewee I3 for example, suggesting that in its justification of the Intervention, the government is consistently ‘creating divisions’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. The Intervention’s negative representation of Indigenous communities appears to have been keenly felt by Indigenous people, with interviewees reporting strong emotional reactions among many. Interviewee I2 reports that people in affected communities were ‘very angry, very upset, and were heavily impacted personally at a very local level by the Intervention’, with many feeling it ‘put a negative light on their communities’. Similarly interviewee I9 suggests that particularly at the time of the Intervention’s launch, the government had wanted to generate ‘a front page story that there's this situation in the Territory with Aboriginal communities, it's a disaster, it's like a war zone, Aboriginal men are child molesters and wife bashers’. He reports that the experience of seeing the government ‘paint this really, really negative picture of Aboriginal Territorians’ had made him feel ‘disappointed and angry’.
A feeling of injustice at the way the Intervention discourse draws a race-based distinction between Indigenous people and the rest of Australia are commonly reported by interviewee. As interviewee I5 puts it:
We're always made the example of. [The implication is] we need to get off our bums and go to work, we need to contribute, our kids need to go to school … But in all the capital cities there are at least three generations of non- Indigenous welfare recipients … And what are they doing about them? We're the blackfellas, we're the ones who make the headlines … We're seen as some sort of alien species and they need to treat us differently.
Interviewee I2 describes her impression that this kind of differential treatment has produced in affected communities ‘a strong sense of injustice’. Likewise, interviewee N4 observes that the feeling of being ‘singled out on the basis of race’ is experienced as ‘racist and offensive’ by many, and has caused significant affront and angst.
This common sense of injustice is captured by interviewee I6, who questions why Indigenous communities are being targeted with punitive measures when high rates of child abuse are common around the country, and alcohol-related violence ‘is an issue for everyone in Australia’. As he puts it: ‘you only have to go down Hindley Street in
Adelaide on a Friday night to see people running amok – and there’s not many blackfellas down there’. Conversely, he points out that numerous Aboriginal people are non-drinkers. Similarly interviewee I7 objects to the way in which the Intervention targets Aboriginal people when ‘there’s child abuse and money mismanagement throughout the whole of Australia’. To many, the targeting of Aboriginal people seems unwarranted and unjust when ‘these problems are not just about Aboriginal communities’ (interviewee I6) and there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviour to be found across all communities (interviewee I7). Interviewee N9 suggests that the targeting of Indigenous people on the basis of race has made many feel like ‘second-class citizens’, and interviewee I4 suggests the policy is the equivalent of the government ‘saying that we are not Australian’.
Feelings of stigmatisation also appear to be a particularly widespread effect of the Intervention discourse. Many of the Indigenous interviewees spoke of the sense of stigma that they (or their communities) felt. Interviewee I4 describes the Intervention as ‘absolutely humiliating’ and as leaving Indigenous people feeling ‘upset, unworthy, and not equal’. The lived effects of stigmatisation appear to have been felt particularly keenly by Indigenous men. Interviewee I3 describes the intense feelings of ‘anger, resentment and hate’ that the Intervention has produced in him and other Indigenous men who feel ‘accused and stigmatised as sexual abusers and involved with pedophile rings and drugs and rapes’. Interviewee I5 similarly feels the government’s Intervention discourse is ‘branding’ Aboriginal men ‘as pedophiles, wife bashers and drunks’. While he does not deny that ‘there are some appalling men out there who do appalling things’ he suggests that Aboriginal men as a whole feel unfairly stereotyped and stigmatised by these negative portrayals.
Both interviewees I6 and I5 illustrate how these stigmatisation effects are ‘lived’ or experienced at a very personal level. Interviewee I6 describes the experience of visiting family in a remote community and the deep sense of cultural offence and stigma caused by the presence of the Intervention signage:
Aboriginal people really have been stigmatised. … You’re going to visit your country that you’re proud of, and your grandparents teach you about that country and show you where they were born and so on. And now you go there
and you see a dirty big blue sign outside, when most of the people there don’t drink.
Interviewee I5 also describes personally experiencing stigmatisation, stating that ‘when the Intervention first happened, people would cross the street rather than walk towards me’, and recalling his ‘fear’ that his interactions with his young granddaughter would be viewed with suspicion and that he would ‘be blamed for something’. Interviewee I5 suggests that one of the effects of the negative view about Aboriginal men that has been exacerbated by the Intervention is that men are often excluded or marginalised in policy consultation processes, with government representatives and consultants preferring to talk to women and ‘men not being given the opportunity to express their views’. He is particularly concerned that as a result, some men with strong knowledge of relevant issues associated with law and culture were being ‘ignored’ in consultations.
Many of the non-Indigenous interviewees echoed the views of Indigenous interviewees that stigmatisation is a common subjectification and lived effect of the Intervention, based on their observations about its impact on Indigenous people they work or associate with. Specifically these interviewees describe the effects of the Intervention as including feelings of ‘stigma’ (N6), ‘shame’ (N6, N1), ‘embarrassment’ (N1) and ‘humiliation’ (N10). Interviewee N1 observes that many Indigenous people feel ‘labeled and under suspicion’ and interviewee N4 observes a sense among many that ‘their people were all painted in the same way as paedophiles and drug and alcohol abusers and pornographers’, and that ‘their culture was demonised’. Even one of the interviewees in a government role, who defends the government’s negative portrayal of Indigenous communities as mostly accurate, nevertheless feels that the Howard Government’s representations of ‘rings of paedophiles’ involved a level of ‘zeal’ that was not necessary and that ‘did a lot of damage’, creating widespread distrust and feelings of victimisation (interviewee N3).
The feelings of injustice and stigma reported by the interviewees support existing literature on the effects of the Intervention. Tangentyere Council states that ‘many people report feeling powerless, discriminated against, and embarrassed and shamed on a regular basis’, and that in consultations with affected communities, these feelings are the Intervention’s most strongly emphasised negative impact (2008: 25). The
Equality Rights Alliance reports feelings of shame and humiliation among women using the BasicsCard in shops in Alice Springs and Darwin and a perception that they are being judged to be ‘not competent with money or as parents’ (2011: 6). The 2008 Review Board for example, reports Indigenous people’s intense feelings of grief, anger, trauma and shock ‘at being isolated on the basis of race and subjected to collective measures that would never be applied to other Australians’ (NTER Review Board 2008: 8). It also notes ‘a strong sense of injustice’ about the way in which Aboriginal people and culture are represented ‘as exclusively responsible for problems within their communities that have arisen from decades of cumulative neglect by governments’ (NTER Review Board 2008: 7-9). Central Land Council representatives state that ‘the Intervention has caused us shame, hurt and trauma’ (Kunoth-Monks and Roy 2011). Others argue that the discourse associated with the Intervention has ‘psychologically scarred communities (in particular men) by implicitly labeling them as collective moral delinquents’ (Scrymgour 2011) and that the pornography measures in particular have ‘attached an unwarranted and damaging stigma to communities’ (AHRC 2012: 61).
The dividing practices in the Intervention discourse that produce these stigmatisation effects rely not only on contrasting, binary representations of Indigenous and non- Indigenous people but on a homogenisation of Indigenous people and communities. Thus the texts construct all Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory as similarly dysfunctional, disadvantaged and lacking in social norms, and, with a few exceptions, imply that all their residents are welfare dependent, engage in problematic behaviour and lack personal responsibility. As Havnen puts it, the Intervention ‘tars everybody with the same brush’, by implying that ‘everybody behaves poorly in terms of their responsibilities to their kids and their families’ (in Carrick 2007: np).
These homogenising effects are a source of criticism from many interviewees who object to the way in which the Intervention ‘lump[s] everybody into one basket’ (interviewee I4) and ‘make[s] out that it’s everyone’ (interviewee I6), in order to justify a ‘blanket approach’ (interviewee I5). For interviewee I7, this represents a refusal to recognise that ‘there’s good Aboriginal people that are gainfully employed and know how to look after their money and provide food and clothing and shelter for their families’. Instead the Intervention ‘rolls the good in with the bad, everyone is
targeted’ (interviewee I7), and as interviewee I5 sees it, the implication is that ‘all Aboriginal men are drunks, paedophiles, lazy, dirty, don't want to contribute’. Interviewee I8 makes a similar objection to what she sees as the government’s homogenised and distorted portrayal of Indigenous people:
Not every person on a community is a drinker or a pedophile. People do their jobs, they look after their communities and look after their own families and other families. So [what the government says] is lies.
Interviewee I4 also feels that the government homogenises Indigenous communities, assuming that problems are universal: ‘if a couple of people are alcoholics, or a couple of people can't manage their lives … they blame us all’. She suggests that the homogenising Intervention discourse is the latest of many examples that prove ‘other Australians are judged individually, but for Indigenous people, we are judged tribally and collectively, en masse’.
The homogenising nature of the government’s discourse, and the blanket measures it supports also means that the lived effects of the policy are widespread. Many interviewees express a sense of injustice that the material impact of the policy on daily life is experienced by everyone in the targeted communities, regardless of their circumstances and irrespective of whether their behaviour accords with that problematised by the government. As interviewee I5 reflects:
There were pensioners and there were people who genuinely looked after their kids, sent them to school, did the right thing - they were all caught up in the policy.
Similarly, interviewee N5 reports that some clients of her service ‘were managing [their financial affairs] quite well beforehand’, but that because they are now subject to income management, ‘they’re put in a position where they're seen to have not been managing’. Interviewee I6 is angry that some of his relations who ‘fought for this country in Vietnam and Korea’ find themselves in their retirement ‘on prescribed communities, living under those rules’, and suggests this blanket targeting of everyone in Indigenous communities made many people feel ‘bitter’. People were particularly offended by this approach he suggests, because many actually agree with the need for measures to address the behaviour of ‘a small majority who are running
amok and need some help’, but feel that the government is blaming the community as a whole for such behaviour, rather than involving communities in developing a response.
The attribution of responsibility, or blame that interviewee I6 and many others refer to is a typical subjectification effect of policy discourses, which often contain ‘implications about who is responsible for the ‘problem’’, and that use dividing practices specifically to implicate those they target (Bacchi 2009: 17). As previous chapters have demonstrated, the Intervention texts conform to this common pattern, attributing responsibility – both for the emergence of problems in Indigenous communities, and for overcoming them – to Indigenous people and communities themselves. Thus the subjectification effect of the texts is create Indigenous people and communities as primarily responsible for contemporary dysfunction, dependency and irresponsibility, and by extension for poor socio-economic outcomes. This effect is dominant even though the texts acknowledge some elements of ‘disadvantage’. The possibility that extreme and entrenched disadvantage might contribute to the problematic behaviours that these texts emphasise is closed off, as they repeatedly make it clear that disadvantage is not an ‘excuse’ or justification for unacceptable behaviour (H2, GS1: 2, GI: 1, MGPC2).
In an illustration of how discourse has effects ‘in the real’ (Bacchi 2009: 18, emphasis original), these dividing practices and implications of responsibility justify the way in which Indigenous people, as targets of the policy, are treated. In practice many aspects of the implementation of the policy rely on a distinction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. The most obvious is that in its initial form the policy required the suspension of the RDA in order to apply the measures only to Indigenous communities. Despite Labor’s reinstatement of the RDA, and its claim to be taking a ‘non-discriminatory’ approach (MR3: 5), the Labor texts also exhibit dividing practices that, as previous chapters have shown may be more subtle in expression, but are similar in effect. Indigenous people and communities are still ‘living the effects’ of these discursive practices for they remain disproportionately affected by a range of
measures, even if the target groups for these measures have been discursively reframed.116
‘We just wait for government to tell us what they’re doing’: paternalism, disempowerment and practical impacts on daily lives
In addition to the way in which Indigenous people are living the effects of stigmatisation and disrespect, my analysis identifies a number of other lived effects. These derive particularly from the representations of Indigenous people as irresponsible and incapable, and the assumption of a neoliberal, paternalistic form of governance that simultaneously demands greater individual responsibility and increases government involvement in people’s daily lives. These assumptions and rationalities produce a number of lived effects in people’s daily lives.
Various interviewees point to the assumption of Indigenous incapacity that underpins the Intervention, suggesting that this representation of Indigenous communities is experienced as ‘disempowering’ and ‘belittling’ (interviewees I4, I9). Further, interviewee I9 suggests the representation of Aboriginal people and communities not only as incapacitated and broken down, but as incapable of even developing the skills for independence and self-governance, is one that leads governments to repeatedly fund non-Aboriginal organisations to deliver services and programs, ‘rather than building Aboriginal people's skills and capacity to do it themselves’. This in turn is ‘disempowering for Aboriginal people’, and damaging to their ‘self esteem and worthiness’ (interviewee I9). He suggests the representation of Indigenous communities as incapacitated is therefore somewhat self-fulfilling because ‘it doesn't encourage Indigenous people to aspire’ to take charge of things themselves. Rather it perpetuates a situation in which Indigenous communities remain ‘heavily reliant on external workforces and external service providers’, and children grow up to always ‘see [non-Indigenous] people doing stuff for them’ and so get ‘the wrong message’, that their own communities lack these capacities (interviewee I9).
116 For example, Indigenous communities are no longer the exclusive targets of income management and SEAM, however they remain disproportionately affected because of their very high proportions of people in the newly defined target groups for these programs. Further, NT Indigenous communities continue to be subject to exceptional alcohol restrictions, and GBMs continue to be placed only in Indigenous communities.
For interviewee I1, while the capacity of different communities is extremely varied, the government’s tendency to ‘overlook’ the strengths and capacities of ‘those good communities that are working’ means it fails to learn the lessons from successful community-based initiatives. Interviewee I5 makes a similar point, arguing that the assumption of incapacity is patronising for people who are capable and eager to be involved in addressing the issues in their communities and have significant contributions to make. The failure of governments to recognise this is continually frustrating – as he puts it: ‘I don’t want people to hold my hand … we can work together … but don’t treat me with paternalism’ (interviewee I5). Similarly interviewee I9 suggests that Aboriginal people feel that the policy is ‘targeted at them’, rather than something that enables them to ‘participate in the process’ and ‘feel valued and empowered, as key partners’. Interviewee I6 suggests that the Intervention has perpetuated the sense of disempowerment that is already present in many Indigenous communities, in which Aboriginal people feel so ‘colonised’ that ‘we just wait for government to tell us what they’re doing’, rather expect to be actively involved in developing initiatives for their communities. For many others too, the Intervention has reinforced an existing sense of powerlessness and a ‘loss of control’ (interviewee N1) among Indigenous people, and its subjectification and lived effects are to produce further ‘demoralisation and disenfranchisement’ (interviewee N9).
The sense of disconnect that these interviewees identify, between a policy discourse that simultaneously demands responsibilisation and entrenches incapacity, disempowerment and dependence supports findings in the anthropological literature. In their investigation of the ‘lived experiences’ of the Intervention in one homeland community for example, Puszka et al (2013) find that the income management and store licensing measures are experienced in quite contrasting ways to the government’s framing of these measures. Contrary to the government’s stated intent of enabling ‘marketisation’ and encouraging economic participation, residents experienced the store licensing regime, which refused a license to their local store, as undermining their aspirations to own and operate the store as a means of increasing community self-sufficiency. Further, the combined impact of the store licensing and income management measures forced people to travel to a larger centre to shop, and negotiate family budgeting with Centrelink and other external suppliers. The effect was to make people’s personal and daily responsibilities, such as purchasing food and
other essentials and keeping track of personal finances, more difficult to fulfill. Thus rather than enabling responsibilisation, the policy is experienced by many residents in quite the opposite way; as constraining and undermining their sense of autonomy and aspirations for self-sufficiency and heightening existing feelings of alienation and powerlessness (Puszka et al 2013: 66-9).
A number of interviewees also report an increase in the practical difficulties of everyday life to be one of the lived effects of the Intervention, and particularly of income management. While the government represents the measure as a means to stabilise household budgeting (D4: 5) and help people ‘better manage their money’ (MI22), some interviewees report that it can have the opposite effect. Interviewee N10 for example, observes that for her friends who are subject to income management it appears to make ‘managing life’ logistically more difficult because their money is effectively in ‘two different piles’ (meaning that half is paid as cash and half is stored on the BasicsCard), and ‘they have to work out which one they’re going to spend where’. Likewise interviewee I6 suggests that income management ‘makes it even harder for people to budget’.
Contrary to the government’s representation of external management of people’s finances as a helpful and stabilising influence, many suggest that the increased interaction people must have with government bureaucracy in order to manage their personal finances is annoying, inconvenient and disruptive to their lives. Interviewee N1 reports that a local survey of affected communities found some people had been ‘quite happy with the way they were managing their money before’, and that being forced to have the government manage their finances had ‘stuffed it all up’, causing significant stress and annoyance. Interviewee I6 makes a similar reference to a friend who had to go through a ‘difficult and complicated’ series of negotiations with Centrelink in order to access enough of his managed income to purchase new tyres for his car. The time-consuming and convoluted process that this involved ‘really stuffed up his plans’ to drive to visit his son. Interviewee N5 similarly reports a number of difficulties that her clients experience in communicating with Centrelink and negotiating the details of their personal budgets. She reports for example, that even a simple task such as allocating the correct amount of income to household bills can take ‘quite a number of phone calls’ and is ‘not necessarily straightforward’, meaning
that her service sometimes needs to ‘help people negotiate that’ (interviewee N5). Recalling the question about ‘where particular problem representations have led’ in a policy sense (Bacchi 2009: 43), it is clear that the problematisation of Indigenous people as irresponsible, dependent and incapable has produced these kinds of daily impacts at a very personal level in the lives of those the policy targets.
Various kinds of daily, lived effects, or practical impacts, are mentioned by many interviewees. One who is herself subject to income management reports that her shopping practices must now be determined by which shops accept the BasicsCard – a lived effect that she experiences not only as inconvenient, but as restricting her ‘freedom of choice’ because ‘the right to walk into whichever shop you wish to go into, to spend your money where you see fit, that's denied’ (interviewee I4). Interviewees also mention restrictions on the ability to travel as a lived effect of income management (because all purchases made using income managed funds must be approved). As interviewee I4 puts it: ‘our choice of where we can travel to, because you can't buy plane tickets or bus tickets … that's all just been taken away’. This effect is also noted by interviewee N10, who works and travels with a number of Indigenous people subject to income management, and reports that many find organising travel ‘difficult’ for this same reason. Even more significantly, interviewee I6 reports that the policy has affected his mother’s decision about where to live in her retirement:
My mother worked all her life raising kids, with very limited money she got us through school. And now she’s retired … and she was thinking about going back to [her traditional] country. But the government wanted to put her on the Basics card if she did that. So she said ‘no I don’t want to do that!’ So it’s actually stopping her from going back. And she doesn't drink, and she’s managed her money all her life.
The contradiction in this example, between a policy that is discursively framed as requiring financial responsibility and ensuring people spend their money on their children rather than on alcohol, and its lived effects for this teetotal Indigenous parent, with a lifetime of financial responsibility behind her, is striking.
The way in which Intervention policies like income management are based on racialised problematisations also produces negative lived effects. Existing research shows ‘the impact of the NTER … is being played out under the public eye’, particularly in towns like Alice Springs where Indigenous people need to use their BasicsCards in shops, or queue at Centrelink, and consequently feel exposed to increased public scrutiny (Tangentyere Council 2008) and subject to ‘segregation’ where they are required to wait in separate queues (Gibson 2009: 23-5). This observation is supported by the comments of several interviewees. Interviewee I4 for example, suggests that some shops are deliberately ‘excluding our business’ by choosing not to install BasicsCard facilities, perhaps because the shop owners are ‘racist’, and see Aboriginal people only as ‘troublemakers’. She also points to the public and humiliating nature of the policy’s effects:
the BasicsCard has made [income management] much more visible. You have to go and line up in a certain line [one with BasicsCard facilities]. It's very much like apartheid; it's degrading and humiliating (interviewee I4).
Non-Indigenous interviewees also report seeing the very public nature of the lived effects of the racially targeted measures:
The person will be at the supermarket, with all their groceries at the checkout and the card won't work. The card is iridescent green so it's immediately identified that they’re on a BasicsCard ... They're so embarrassed. They are immediately stigmatised as having no money (interviewee N2).
Interviewee N6 reports similar experiences in shops, watching the embarrassment and practical difficulties faced by ‘people in the [supermarket] line in front of me who find they don’t have enough money on the BasicsCard’. Having witnessed incidences like this, interviewee N2 feels that the government does not understand the negative daily impact of its policies on people’s lives. Again, these comments echo the findings of some existing literature on the lived experiences of the Intervention.
‘Australians want our Indigenous people to have a better life’: positioning the concerned non-Indigenous subject
In examining the discursive constitution of subject positions and social relationships in the Intervention texts, it is important to consider not only their representation of Indigenous people, but also the ways in which these texts position the non-Indigenous subject. My analysis suggests that the dividing practices in these texts not only have the effect of stigmatising Indigenous people, but also position non-Indigenous Australians as concerned and caring, and establish ‘mainstream’ Australia as the source of the positive social, cultural and economic norms that are to be applied to Indigenous communities. As a result, the more punitive aspects of the Intervention are constituted as a necessary response to the reasonable expectations of these caring non- Indigenous Australians, who only have the best interests of Indigenous people in mind. These subjectification effects are achieved through three discursive strategies.
Firstly the texts employ a familiar technique of ‘othering’ by distinguishing the general Australian public from Indigenous people. As Moore argues in her analysis of Gillard’s Indigenous policy discourse, this sets up a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and excludes Indigenous people from ‘national belonging’ (Moore 2012: 5). The description of Indigenous communities as ‘another country’ and a ‘failed state … in our own backyard’ (MS1) illustrates this. As noted in Chapter 5, the texts, particularly in their discourse of normalisation, assume a non-Indigenous audience. These discursive techniques enable them to describe the situation in Indigneous communities as something ‘we as Australians have to face up to’ because ‘what chance have these people got if we ignore them?’ (B7, emphasis added). Because they evoke culturally specific settler norms and values to be invoked as universal and normative, the policy aims can be described as transforming Indigenous communities ‘into something we would recognise’ and ‘view as normal’ (MGPC1, MGPC2 emphasis added). As in the texts Moore analyses, non-Indigenous people are positioned the ‘default Australians’ in the Intervention texts, and are thus constructed as ‘non-raced’ (Moore 2012: 5).
Secondly, (non-Indigenous) Australians are represented as caring and concerned about ‘our’ Indigenous people and communities. The texts refer for example to ‘the concern that obviously exists in the community about this issue’ (H10), and ‘the
anguish so many Australians feel about the state of Indigenous Australia’ (H16), and state that ‘Australians want our Indigenous people to have a better life’ (GS1: 1). The non-Indigenous community is also represented as impatient for action, with the texts claiming that ‘the Australian public wants something done about the chronic problem in the Northern Territory’ (H3), and that ‘throughout our nation there is a genuine desire to make sure that we respond effectively to this national emergency’ (H4). They also appeal to nationalist sentiments, describing the policy as a ‘national challenge’ (MS1) and an ‘opportunity to remove this blight from Australian society’ (B3). This technique enables the texts to describe the policy as both ‘a great national endeavour [and] the right thing to do’ (B8: 15); and its launch as ‘an occasion where the nation stands up and says that as a nation—not as a government—it will answer the call for Aboriginal children in the Territory’ (B3). If as Bacchi suggests, policy discourse influences not only how we think about others but how we think about ourselves (2009: 268), the effect of statements such as these is to encourage a self- perception among non-Indigenous Australians that ‘we’ are a nation of caring people, deeply concerned about ‘our’ Indigenous people. It also establishes the Intervention not only as morally right, but also as the government’s response to the collective ‘deep dream of a better life for all’ (GS1) that exists among non-Indigenous Australians.
Thirdly, just as the government texts represent the Intervention as a response to Indigenous wishes, as discussed in Chapter 7, so too do they position it as aligned with the reasonable expectations of ‘the community’ (meaning non-Indigenous people) that Indigenous people should assume increased responsibility for their lives. Thus the texts state that ‘the community can expect those who receive [income] support to help themselves and to meet basic obligations to society in return’ (H12). A similar implication can be seen in the assertions that ‘no one has a right to have the Australian taxpayer fund their irresponsible behaviour’ (H12), that ‘the Australian population has a real desire to see [welfare] money only spent on the welfare of children’ (H1) and that ‘the Australian people’ expect welfare recipients ‘to meet their obligations … to behave responsibly’ (MI11).
As already discussed, the attribution of responsibility within policy texts affects broader community perceptions about who is to blame (Bacchi 2009: 48). Thus,
because the texts consistently attribute responsibility and blame to Indigenous people, the demand that they improve their behaviour in line with ‘normal’ community expectations is framed as reasonable. The texts simultaneously encourage the perception among this (non-Indigenous) public that harsher welfare policies are required to ensure Indigenous people ‘behave responsibly’. The assertion that Indigenous people need to ‘deliver what all Australians expect’ (GS1: 6) also reintroduces a dividing effect, which, like the demand that Indigenous people have a responsibility to ‘reach out to other Australians’ (GS1: 2) allows a non-Indigenous audience to feel that the onus is on Indigenous people to prove themselves to the rest of the country.
The use of these various discursive strategies to position the non-Indigenous subject thus reinforces the texts’ assimilationist logic. Further, the insistence that the best way for caring, concerned non-Indigenous people to ‘assist’ Indigenous people and to ‘do more for them’ is to ‘incorporate them into the mainstream of our society’ (H15, emphasis added) makes it clear that it is Indigenous people who must change in order to fit into non-Indigenous society. The texts simultaneously deny the kinds of cultural change that this implicitly demands from Indigenous people however, by stressing that they have the same aspirations as non-Indigenous people, that they ‘want very similar things, similar to most Australians’, (MI15, also RS1, MS6). Further, by asserting that Indigenous people should simply ‘expect from the Government the same things every Australian expects’ (GS1, also MS5) the texts encourage a perception among the non-Indigenous community that previous expectations of ‘special rights and special entitlements’ (H15) were unreasonable.
8.3 Harms and benefits
I now turn to the question of harms and benefits, prompted by the sub-parts of WPR question 5, namely ‘who is likely to benefit from this representation?’ and ‘who is likely to be harmed?’ (Bacchi 2009: 48). By way of clarification, the focus here is on the harms and benefits that appear to be a result of the policy discourse, rather than those that result from the policy itself. Before beginning this section I therefore acknowledge that there are probable benefits to some Indigenous people from some of the specific policy measures that have been implemented as part of the Intervention. In particular it appears that the policing measures have increased safety in some
communities (see Pilkington 2009). The intention however, as in the preceding parts of this chapter, is not to evaluate the impact of specific measures, but to trace the effects of the policy discourse. Further, the WPR method has a specifically concerned to identify the ‘harmful’ or ‘deleterious’ effects of discourse (Bacchi 2009: 44-45, 238), hence the emphasis in the following section.
Harms to Indigenous people and to Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationships
A health impact assessment by the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association (AIDA) finds the Intervention to have caused ‘immediate and lasting harm to Indigenous people’, reporting ‘feelings of loss of responsibility, loss of control, loss of power’, and pointing to examples of cultural, social and emotional harm (2008: 9- 11). The previous discussion of subjectification and lived effects has already identified a number of harms for Indigenous people. While I do not claim that all Indigenous people have experienced or interpreted the Intervention discourse in a harmful way, the thesis has demonstrated the kinds of harm that can and have been experienced by at least some Indigenous people as a result of the problematisations that dominate the Intervention discourse. In particular, the use of dividing practices that homogenise and stigmatise Indigenous people and communities, and the attribution of responsibility and blame for problems to Indigenous people themselves appear to have been particularly hurtful. Notably, some of the harm caused to Indigenous people is acknowledged in the Labor texts, which – while they attempt to lay blame for this damage entirely on the Howard Government,117 nevertheless register that the Intervention has caused feelings of hurt, shame, humiliation, confusion, anger, and fear among Aboriginal people (MGPC2, MGPC2, D5: 12, D7: 1, D8: 1, MO3, D9: 1).
117 For political reasons, the Labor texts are convoluted in this respect. Because the then Labor opposition supported the Coalition Government’s launch of the Intervention, and the Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments continued almost all aspects of the policy, the Labor texts go to some lengths to characterise their criticisms as relating to the policy process or specific details of its implementation under the previous government, rather than either its content or ideological basis, or its current administration. Hence the damage is represented to be caused the way the NTER ‘was initially implemented’ (D9: 9) or the way it was ‘introduced by the previous government, without consultation’ (D8: 1).
Several interviewees suggested that Indigenous people feel not only directly hurt by negative government representations of their communities, but concerned about the harm that this discourse causes to broader community perceptions about Indigenous people, and therefore to Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationships. Many interviewees are convinced that the Intervention discourse has had a negative effect on how non- Indigenous Australians think and feel about Indigenous people and communities. Interviewee I9 for example, feels that the Intervention has encouraged non-Indigenous people to think that ‘Aboriginal communities are disorganised, they can't get their act together … they're blueing, they're violent, they're belting each other, they're raping their kids’. Interviewee I6 feels that since the Intervention the attitudes of Darwin residents towards Indigenous people have hardened because the policy has perpetuated ‘the idea that blacks are useless’.
For many, the impact of Intervention discourse on the broader community has been to reinforce non-Indigenous people’s existing ‘well established negative stereotypes about all Aboriginal people’ (Tangentyere Council 2008: 25). Many interviewees make this point. Interviewee I2 points to an existing context in which non-Indigenous people are already ‘pretty good at reacting to horrible stories about Aboriginal communities and almost entirely ignorant of all the positive things that might come out of communities’. She suggests that the divisive nature of the government’s Intervention discourse has worsened these already negative public perceptions, causing Indigenous people to feel increasingly ‘ostracised by the rest of Australia’. Interviewee N1 also feels that the Intervention has made non-Indigenous people ‘more negative’ by reinforcing and exacerbating existing prejudices and ‘ma[king] it easier for them to stigmatise Indigenous people, and keep them separate’. Interviewee I7 suggests that the consequences of the way the Intervention has ‘demonised and vilified Aboriginal people’ will be to make it more difficult to ‘move forward and promote community harmony between non-Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people’. Interviewee N1 predicts a similar impact of the government’s overly negative representations of Indigenous people, suggesting that ‘it’s taken race relations a step backwards’.
Benefits to the settler state
While the Intervention discourse has caused a range of harms to Indigenous people, it simultaneously produces a series of beneficial effects for the settler state because, as argued above, it constructs the state, and non-Indigenous people and society more broadly, in positive terms. Further as previous chapters argue, the dominant problem representations in the Intervention texts form a consistent and coherent narrative that problematises and attributes responsibility to Aboriginal people, communities and culture while simultaneously obscuring the settler colonial context in which these ‘problems’ arose. In governmental terms, the effect of these dominant representations is to naturalise existing colonial relations of power, reinforce settler authority over Indigenous people and legitimise the Intervention as part of an ongoing regime of racial governance. As such then, it is the settler colonial state that benefits from the dominant problematisations in the government’s Intervention discourse. Four specific benefits can be identified.
Firstly, because the focus of attention is directed towards Aboriginal people and communities themselves – to their need to assume greater ‘responsibility’ and meet increased ‘expectations’ – it is directed away from ‘the quagmire of past governmental neglect’ (Hinkson M 2007: 7). It thus obscures the contribution of ‘decades of under-investment by governments in capital and social infrastructure’ to the contemporary ‘human tragedy’ in remote Indigenous communities (Dodson P 2007a: 23). Because ‘Aboriginal people’s failure to take responsibility has become the central tenet of the debate’ (Dodson P 2007a: 23), any claim that the ‘problems’ identified might need to be tackled primarily through government effort is undermined, and criticisms of ongoing government failures potentially blunted. As Puszka et al argue, while the application of the ‘responsibilities agenda’ stresses the need for Indigenous people to assume greater responsibility, ‘the responsibilities of policy makers to communities are conspicuously absent from these discourses’ (2013: 69). Thus the state benefits from the Intervention’s individualisation of problems and responsibilities because it reduces the focus on the contributions of government.
Secondly, the failure to recognise the diversity of Indigenous cultures, or to understand Indigenous cultural and social forms as anything other than a barrier to progress, enables government to develop and justify a simplistic ‘one-size-fits-all’
approach that takes little or no account of cultural context. This benefits government by reducing the policy challenge, allowing it to avoid the more difficult and painstaking task of working with individual communities at a local level to develop a range of different and culturally appropriate policy initiatives. In so doing the government can overlook the need to develop its own ‘cultural competency’ (AHRC 2012: 18), or to adjust its policy structures and processes, and can continue to use a well-established colonial cultural lens to reproduce and re-impose existing structures and processes of colonisation onto people and communities (Marika et al 2009: 412).
Thirdly, the nature of the Intervention discourse renders opposition to the government’s approach more difficult. The Intervention’s ahistorical and depoliticising narrative gives the policy credibility as a non-ideological, well- intentioned, practical and reasonable approach. This narrative, and the paternalistic mode of governance that the discourse justifies enables the government to more easily dismiss critics of the policy as ideologically driven – as people for whom ‘winning some kind of doctrinal argument is more important than protecting children’ (H10), for example. As many critics have suggested, the representation of ‘abject suffering’ particularly of children, legitimises ‘heroic’ state action (Stringer 2007: 1, Macoun 2012: 135), and this action is therefore difficult to contest. The representation of child safety as somehow ‘above’ politics, and the use of this issue to justify the entire Intervention package enables the government to dismiss its critics by implying that they favour the continuation of child abuse (Behrendt 2007b: 17, Davis 2007b: 103, Rundle 2007: 38, Walter 2010: 128, Brown and Brown 2007: 22, Hunter B 2007: 40).
Fourthly, and as the preceding points suggest, an apolitical policy narrative that obscures the settler colonial context is one that renders demands for a different policy approach, and specifically for one based on principles of decolonisation and self- determination, outdated and irrelevant. As the previous chapter demonstrated, because the texts focus on contemporary ‘problems’ removed from their historical context, and represented as largely unrelated to colonialism, the role that the settler state itself plays in contributing to the development and perpetuation of these problems is obscured, and a sense of ‘settler innocence’ established. This enables the government to propose a narrow policy response that avoids addressing those issues relating to the colonial legacy; most notably the relationship between Indigenous people and the
Australian state and its implications for Indigenous influence and control over policy. Thus in an immediate and practical sense the government benefits from a narrowing and simplification of its policy responsibilities. More fundamentally, the settler colonial state benefits by displacing the agendas of decolonisation and self- determination that pose challenges to its legitimacy. In direct contrast to those agendas, the problematisation of Aboriginality reproduces and reinforces established settler justifications for occupation and the sovereignty and moral authority of the settler state (Conor 2011, Kramer 2012, Macoun 2010, 2012, Lovell 2012b, Howitt 2012: 826).
Thus, in response to the concern within WPR question 5 about the beneficiaries of a given problematisation, it can be seen that the government, and in a broader sense the settler state, gain significant benefit from the kinds of problem representations, ideas and narratives that dominate the Intervention texts. However, this assessment needs to be complicated somewhat, for it is also possible that the reliance on this particular discourse has come at a cost for government, as discussed below.
Harm to the relationship between Indigenous people and the state
There is a range of evidence that the Intervention discourse, and particularly the way in which the government represents the ‘problems’ has caused significant harm to the already fragile relationship between Indigenous people and the state. This damage is identified in the existing literature, and by many of those interviewed for this thesis.
One significant source of this harm is the disrespect that Indigenous people feel the Intervention discourse shows to Indigenous culture and communities. The rationality of ‘normalisation’ in particular is seen by many interviewees as based on a fundamental disrespect of Indigenous culture. This is a rationality that is interpreted as implying that Indigenous culture has ‘failed’ (interviewee N10) or is ‘wrong’ and ‘not modern’ (interviewee I4) and that Indigenous people must therefore ‘assimilate’ by adopting a non-Indigenous ‘lifestyle’ (interviewee N6). For many interviewees the government’s ‘normalisation’ policies show a failure to appreciate the importance that many remote-living Indigenous people place on the ability to live on their own country and maintain their culture (interviewee N2). Rather, the policy discourse is interpreted as typical of the attitude of governments and policy makers who, as
interviewee I5 puts it, want to ‘squeeze us like toothpaste so that we’ll come out white’. Also expressing the extreme forms of harm that they feel to be associated with this rationality, Kunoth-Monks and Roy (2011) suggest that normalisation ‘amounts to cultural genocide’.
Disrespect for Indigenous culture and ways of life, and by extension for the priorities, values and aspirations of the Indigenous people that the policy targets, underpins the kind of ‘dividing practices’ discussed earlier in this chapter. It also has practical implications, or ‘effects in the real’ (Bacchi 2009: 18). In particular, it leads to a policy process that is widely seen as inappropriate and offensive, and that consequently appears to have increased Indigenous people’s hostility towards and distrust of the government. In an illustration of how a particular way of thinking about the targets of policy can inform and enable differential treatment, interviewee I6 points to the way in which the government suspended the RDA without consultation with Indigenous people. He suggests that such a major decision would not be undertaken without consultation if it had affected any other group in society, and that this action demonstrates a deep ‘disrespect’ for Indigenous communities and culture.
Most notably, the consultation and engagement processes that were later undertaken are seen to be evidence of a deep disrespect for Indigenous culture and perspectives. For interviewee I6, the failure to respect or engage with issues of culture and Indigenous perspectives has made these processes inappropriate and ineffective. The failure to appreciate not only the relevance of culture to policy making, but the diversity of Indigenous cultures, views and priorities across different communities who ‘don’t all agree with each other’, means the government does not take sufficient time to properly discuss options with communities, insisting instead on a need ‘to have outcomes straight away’ and develop a single policy approach (interviewee I6). Others suggest that the failure to sufficiently respect Indigenous culture leads to the employment of government officers and other consultants who are ignorant of local cultural issues and culturally-based relationships within communities (interviewee I5) and lacking in the necessary ‘cultural competence’ to communicate effectively with Indigenous people (interviewee I1).
The result of the widespread perception that the government’s policy discourse, rationale and process are disrespectful of Indigenous people, communities and culture
appears to have been a significant loss of trust and an increase in hostility towards government among many Indigenous people. This is evident in the comments of many interviewees, which refer to feelings of ‘suspicion’, ‘distrust’ and ‘hate’ towards government and government employees as a consequence of the Intervention (N2 I6 I8 I3, N4). Interviewee I8 for example suggests that ‘when you ask people [in affected communities] about what’s been happening since the Intervention, and how they feel about government, they just say ‘oh we don’t trust government any more because they’re just lying’. Interviewee I3’s views are similarly distrusting; he feels that government reviews and consultation reports relating to the Intervention are ‘all false, misleading information, it’s all lies to try to continue to get public support, and create confusion’.
While the Intervention discourse delivers a number of benefits to the state as noted earlier, this loss of trust in government, and the increased antagonism of Indigenous people towards government represent a set of potentially negative consequences for the state. The NTER Review Board report points specifically to this issue, stating that ‘one of the impacts of the NTER was to fracture an already tenuous relationship with government’ (2008: 7). Indeed at the time, the Board advised the Minister for Indigenous Affairs that ‘such widespread Aboriginal hostility to the Australian Government’s actions’ as it encountered during consultations ‘should be regarded as a matter for serious concern’ (NTER Review Board 2008: 8). It also concluded that the potential effectiveness of the Intervention was being undercut by ‘resistance to its imposition’ among Aboriginal communities (2008: 8).
That this antagonism is a lasting effect of the Intervention is evident in the comments of interviewees. Reflecting on the hurt and damage caused by the Intervention. Interviewee I3 for example, is hostile towards the Labor government’s more recent invitations to Indigenous people to ‘engage’ with government:
You put all this [stigma] onto us … and then you expect us to engage with you? Well no thank you … If you're not going to show respect and courtesy to us and if you're going to brand us, no thanks.
Interviewee N4 also feels that, as a result of the Intervention, Indigenous people are ‘not trusting of the Commonwealth in the way that they have been in the past’. He
suggests that in previous decades Aboriginal people in the NT ‘had quite a good deal of goodwill for the Commonwealth government’ based on a positive perception of the role it played in progressing ‘the land rights agenda’ in the 1970s’,118 but that this goodwill has been severely undermined by the Intervention. As a result, he believes the Commonwealth Government has ‘a heck of a lot of work to do in terms of resetting the relationship [with Indigenous people]’ and that this will need to go ‘beyond just the words’ (interviewee N4).
This description of government intentions as ‘just words’ is a reference to the Labor texts, which explicitly attempt to reframe the representation of this relationship. As noted earlier, these texts acknowledge that the Intervention has produced feelings of hurt and anger among Indigenous people (D8: 1, MO3) although they limit this assessment to the period of the Howard Government. They also acknowledge that the way the policy was launched (although not the policy per se) has inflicted damage to Indigenous-government relations (MS5). The texts further stress the importance of a positive relationship with Indigenous people to the achievement of the government’s policy agenda, stating that ‘without a strong and robust relationship … the pathway to reform hits a dead end’ (MS5). However, as this thesis has shown, the problematisations, ideas and narratives in the Labor texts are largely consistent with those of the Howard Government. This suggests that the Labor Government assumes that ‘resetting the relationship’ between government and Indigenous people is a task that primarily requires changes to the policy implementation process (rather than a discursive shift and a rejection of the problematisations and assumptions on which the policy is based).
The lasting damage to this relationship means that, while the state does benefit from the problematisations that dominate the Intervention texts, it also arguably faces greater practical difficulties in working with Indigenous people and communities whose trust in government has been eroded and replaced with suspicion or anger (and who may be less inclined than the Labor Government hopes to distinguish between its approach and that of the former government). This increasingly difficult working environment is an effect referred to by one of the interviewees in a government role,
118 In 1976 the Commonwealth passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory), which recognised a form of Aboriginal land ownership for the first time. See National Archives of Australia 2013, Central Land Council 2013.
who reports that the damage done by the portrayal of the problem as ‘rings of paedophiles’ is taking a long time to overcome. He reflects that government agencies have ‘had to work in that environment [of distrust and people feeling victimised] ever since’.
As a result of the discursive framework it has adopted, and the policy approach this has informed, the government is attempting to implement policy in what in many cases is a newly hostile environment. It must therefore now expend considerable energy and resources trying to repair the damage, gain people’s trust, and ‘reset’ or ‘rebuild’ its relationship with Indigenous people (D4: 1, MS5, MS6). The damage the Intervention has done to the relationship between Indigenous people and the government therefore appears likely both to make the current Intervention measures more difficult to implement and to reduce the willingness of Indigenous people to support and engage with future policy initiatives. While the government may express a ‘determination to build strong and positive relationships with Indigenous Australians based on cooperation, mutual respect and responsibility’ (MMR18) the reality is that many of those it presumes to ‘engage’ or work in ‘partnership’ with (D3: 5, MS1, MO3, MMR18, MS5) feel extremely hostile and antagonistic towards it.
Further while the adoption of a ‘one-size-fits all’ approach to governance has reduced the government’s policy challenge in the short-term, the failure to engage more deeply with the issues from the perspective of local communities themselves has potentially constrained the capacity of the settler state to develop effective governance frameworks in the longer term. As Puszka et al argue, the application of ‘generic solutions to diverse circumstances’ has not only created policy that is poorly targeted and does not necessarily ‘resonate with local concerns’, it has also ‘denied policy makers important opportunities for bureaucratic learning’ (2013: 69). Without committing to such learning, and to the development of its own ‘cultural competency’ (AHRC 2012: 18), and without allowing for the possibility that its own representations of the problems, and its own policy frameworks may need to change, I suggest the government has little chance of developing the kinds of ‘genuine partnership’ with Indigenous people (D3: 5) that it repeatedly espouses.
8.4 Conclusion
This chapter has explored the subjectification and lived effects of the problematisations, ideas and narratives contained in the Intervention texts. Beginning from the assumption that a given policy discourse produces particular subject positions and social relationships, the chapter examined how the Intervention discourse positions Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, and how it represents the social relationship between the two. This exploration demonstrated that the discursive elaboration of problem representations both has implications for how those targeted by the policy think and feel about themselves and others, and produces real consequences in living arrangements (Bacchi 2009: 16, 43). Like other policies, the Intervention ‘create[s] representations of problems that have effects in the real’ (Bacchi 2009: 18), in this case, materially affecting the lives of those Indigenous people who are targeted by it in significant and often harmful ways.
The use in the Intervention texts of discursive strategies that both homogenise diverse Indigenous people, communities and cultures, and divide them from non-Indigenous people and ‘mainstream’ culture produces subjectification and lived effects that are highly stigmatising for Indigenous people. Further, the adoption of a paternalistic mode of rule produces disempowering effects, which again are experienced as material impacts in Indigenous people’s lives. These various effects constitute forms of harm of the kind that the WPR method seeks to identify (Bacchi 2009: 15, 34, 46).
The converse of these discursive strategies is to produce the non-Indigenous subject as caring and concerned about Indigenous people, and as holding reasonable expectations that government policy should use more punitive measures to change Indigenous people’s behaviour. The Intervention discourse is one that produces significant benefits for the settler state, by continuing to legitimise the kind of racialised, paternalistic forms of rule that have long been applied to Indigenous people. At the same time however, the lasting damage that the renewed application of this framework has caused to the relationship between Indigenous people and the state has constrained the capacity of the settler state to develop effective governance frameworks in the longer term.
Consistent with the thesis as a whole, this chapter has demonstrated the ways in which ‘problems’, subjectivities and social relationships are constituted within discourse, and the significant kinds of effects that policy discourses therefore produce. However, this should not be taken to imply that discourses are determinative. Policy subjects also have political agency, and various forms of resistance to official discourse are therefore possible (Bacchi 2009: 42). As the thesis has demonstrated, the government’s Intervention discourse has been ‘questioned’ or ‘disrupted’ in numerous ways and there are many instances of and opportunities for ‘re-problematisation’ (Bacchi 2009: 19, 45). These contestations and re-problematisations are synthesised in the following chapter.
CHAPTER 9. CONCLUSION: CONTESTING AND REPLACING THE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE
9.1 Introduction
This chapter serves two purposes. Firstly it completes the application of the WPR method by addressing the final WPR question 6b, which asks How can the dominant representations be questioned, disrupted, replaced and re-problematised?119 I use this question to reflect on the previous chapters of the thesis and to synthesise the most compelling contestations of the government’s Intervention discourse. I then point briefly to a number of potentially less harmful replacement discourses. I also consider the directive that follows the six WPR questions, namely that policy analysts apply a similar critical scrutiny to our own problem representations and assumptions as that we have applied to government discourse. In response to this challenge, I acknowledge a number of possible limitations and risks of the various replacement discourses.
Secondly the chapter provides a formal conclusion to the thesis, by drawing together the findings of the analysis and making some overall conclusions about the ways in which ‘problems’ are represented in the government’s Intervention discourse, and the implications and effects of these particular representations. I also reflect on the theoretical and methodological approach taken, acknowledge some limitations of the study, and suggest areas for further research. I conclude the chapter by summarising the contributions of the thesis and discussing its broader implications.
9.2 Contestations and replacement discourses
My application of the WPR framework has identified the particular problematisations that dominate the government’s discourse, the assumptions on which they rely, the forms of rationality they invoke, their genealogy, the issues they leave unproblematic and their effects. Throughout the thesis I have drawn on my own analysis of the government texts and the interviewees’ contributions, as well as on a wide range of
119 WPR question 6a was addressed in Chapter 4.
existing literature and public commentary in order to subject the government’s texts to multiple forms of ‘problem-questioning’ (Bacchi 2009: 46) and critical interpretation. In line with the conceptual framework of the thesis, the intention has been not simply to present criticisms of the policy itself, but to identify and develop discursive contestations of the policy. The focus has therefore been on perspectives that provide ways of ‘reconsidering the basic concepts through which we organise our way of thinking’ (Bacchi 2009: 215). Thus my analysis has not merely explored and unpacked the government’s discourse, but unsettled it, called its truth status into question and made its contestation possible. Most importantly I have identified a number of discursive, subjectification and lived effects of this policy discourse that, because they are harmful, or potentially harmful, suggest a need for this discourse to be resisted, and its key concepts rethought, or subjected to a process of ‘re- problematisation’ (Bacchi 2009: 139).
Having created this ‘space for challenge’ (Bacchi 2000: 55), I now reflect on the multiple interpretations and critiques presented throughout the thesis, and on my own analysis in order to synthesise what I consider to be the three most important and compelling contestations of the government’s Intervention discourse. I then consider the implications of each of these contestations, particularly with regard to the question of how the relevant aspects of the dominant discourse might be replaced with alternative representations and conceptual frameworks that would be likely to have less harmful effects.
Contesting and replacing neoliberalism
Firstly the thesis contests the neoliberal assumptions that produce an individualistic, behavioural framing of ‘problems’, which erases the history of colonialism as a cause. This understanding of problems is simplistic, ahistorical and depoliticising. By creating a perception that individuals are responsible for their own suffering, it obscures the devastating impact of colonialism on Indigenous people, communities and culture, and directs attention away from the contribution of past and ongoing actions of the state. Its effects are harmful because it stigmatises Indigenous people, causing many of them to feel blamed for circumstances that are beyond their control.
In addition to contesting the neoliberal understanding of problems, the thesis also contests the associated neoliberal policy framework, one that is defined by a rationality of responsibilisation. This is a mode of rule that presumes to tackle entrenched, complex, multi-causal problems with significant historical, social and economic determinants, through simplistic behaviouralist measures aimed at individuals. In establishing the goal as one of attitudinal and behavioural change, the neoliberal rationale shifts what should be understood as social and state responsibilities onto individuals. In practice it justifies the application of intrusive and punitive forms of surveillance and interference in the daily lives of marginalised groups that would not be contemplated for more advantaged social groups. Such paternalistic measures are likely to reduce people’s sense of personal control over their lives and, paradoxically, may constrain their capacity to be ‘responsible’, and therefore ultimately increase their dependency on government.
A preferable replacement discourse for neoliberal responsibilisation is one that is located, as this thesis is, within a conceptual framework that understands the historical dynamics of colonisation, dispossession and settler state development to provide the most fundamental explanation for contemporary ‘problems’. This alternative paradigm re-imagines colonialism and its legacies as the problem. More broadly it assumes that these dynamics continue to frame ‘the social, political, and economic framework of indigenous collectivities’ (Maaka and Andersen 2006: 10-11). From this perspective, policy approaches that attempt to address problems at an individual, behavioural level appear inappropriate, inadequate and likely futile. There is a need instead, to focus increased attention on the responsibilities of the state to address the society-wide legacies of colonialism. On this view, the kind of ‘problems’ identified in the Intervention texts are in fact symptoms of deeper problems that will need to be tackled primarily through government effort and attention to social, structural, economic and political factors.
Contesting and replacing ethnocentrism
Secondly, the thesis contests the ethnocentric assumptions that underpin a conception of Indigenous people, communities and cultures as problems to be solved. The apparent reliance on a lens of deficit, dysfunction and failure continues colonial ways of seeing Indigenous communities and cultures. It resurrects colonial stereotypes
about Indigenous people, and it can only imagine Indigenous cultural and social forms as a barrier to ‘progress’ or ‘development’, both of which are defined in settler terms. This ethnocentric conceptual framework fails to engage with, and hence does not understand or value, the priorities and aspirations of Indigenous people who live in remote communities. It also homogenises what are diverse communities by treating them as an undifferentiated whole, and so fails to appreciate their varying cultural, social, economic and geographic circumstances, the differences in the challenges and opportunities that each community faces, and their varied priorities, goals and aspirations for the future.
These ethnocentric and colonial assumptions inform the socio-cultural rationality of normalisation, and the socio-economic rationality of marketisation. These modes of rule represent culturally specific and contestable settler norms, values and models of economic development not only as superior, but as if they were universal and beyond debate. It then seeks to impose these norms onto Indigenous communities without acknowledging the symbolic and practical violence that accompanies the smothering of other (existing or potential) cultural, social and economic forms. Normalisation is therefore a mode of rule that has its genealogy in, and shares many of the assumptions of, discredited and damaging policies of assimilation that assumed the state must ‘civilise’ Indigenous people by ensuring they adopted settler ways of living so they could be incorporated into settler society. It constitutes a form of what Iris Marion Young calls ‘conformist assimilation’; one that simply requires minorities to conform with the majority population because it ‘denies that group difference can be positive and desirable’, constructing it only as ‘a liability or disadvantage’ (1990: 166). Further, like assimilation, normalisation imagines all necessary transformation to be on the part of Indigenous people and does not contemplate the possibility of changes in the structures, processes or priorities of the settler state.
The negative effects of this ethnocentric set of assumptions and rationalities are clearly apparent in the case of the Intervention. These discursive ‘dividing practices’ produced policy measures which, in their earliest and crudest form, were unambiguously racist (in the sense that they contravened existing anti-discrimination law). While now more carefully designed in this respect, they continue to have discriminatory impacts and to be widely experienced as racist. It should be no surprise
that racially targeted measures informed by a conception of those they target as defined by deficit, dysfunction and failure cause widespread hurt, stigmatisation and anger.
The homogenising tendencies of this ethnocentric framework rationalise the application of ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy measures across diverse remote Indigenous communities. This is an approach that appears to benefit government, at least in the short term, by reducing its policy challenge. However such a monolithic and inflexible approach fails to take account of the differences between communities, or to respond effectively to specific local concerns. It sees no reason to consult communities or engage them in any meaningful way in the policy process, and ignores the opportunity to develop the cultural competency of policy makers, bureaucrats and government service providers. As a result, it is unlikely to be particularly effective and may well have unintended negative consequences that become ‘problems’ for future governments. This approach is also likely to increase the sense of alienation from, and potentially the level of hostility towards, government among those it apparently seeks to engage, as they struggle to see any evidence that government either understands their particular circumstances or respects their aspirations. This is likely to create lasting harm to the already fragile relationship between Indigenous people and the state, eroding trust and jeopardising future government initiatives.
The thesis acknowledges that the problematisation of disadvantage sits in a degree of tension with the other, dominant and mutually reinforcing problematisations in the government’s discourse. I consider this tension to be positive, for the notion of disadvantage is one that goes some way towards acknowledging the material (if not always the structural) dimensions of the problems in Indigenous communities that the government seeks to address. However, the problematisation of disadvantage still has shortcomings because it also tends to rely on an ethnocentric deficit model, in that it always compares Indigenous people to a settler-defined standard or norm. It is true that many socio-economic indicators do have wide application and relevance across Indigenous communities, and that there is significant value in (and widespread Indigenous support for) the ‘closing the gap’ agenda that this conception of disadvantage supports. Furthermore, this framework is in itself less likely to be
harmful than those of normalisation, marketisation and responsibilisation. However, there remains a need to at least question the culturally normative framing of disadvantage, because it risks overemphasising statistical equality with non- Indigenous Australians at the expense of valuing cultural diversity and engaging with Indigenous-defined indicators. It also tends to render disadvantage ‘a technical problem with no history’ (Altman 2009: 14), and in this respect is part of a tendency in recent Indigenous policy discourse to shift the focus away from historically informed agendas that challenge the role, or in fact the legitimacy, of the settler state, in favour of what can be a depoliticising focus on ‘practical’ issues.
An alternative to this ethnocentric policy discourse would begin by acknowledging the existence of Indigenous ontologies as different from, but now entwined with, Western liberal settler ontologies, and would seek to understand and engage with the cultural values associated with these alternative ‘political worlds’, rather than assuming Indigenous people will always adopt settler ontologies and values (Brigg 2007). Abandoning the coercive pursuit of ‘normalisation’, it would acknowledge that some people may ‘choose to live fundamentally differently from the mainstream’ (Altman 2006a: 13). This replacement paradigm would respect the desire of some Indigenous people to create ‘alternative spaces’ to live in, spaces defined as either radically against the neoliberal state and its corporate forms (Arabena 2007: 31), as a hybrid of settler and Indigenous forms (Altman 2001, 2006b), or as providing ‘relative autonomy’ within the encapsulating state (Morphy and Morphy 2013: 182).
In contrast to a ‘one size fits all’ approach, this alternative framework would entail a pluralistic understanding of the kinds of futures to which different Indigenous communities might aspire, and a capacity to imagine a diversity of social and economic development trajectories that might accord with these visions. This would also require a suspension of the assumption that the marketisation of all remote communities is necessary or inevitable. While some communities may wish to pursue this particular model of economic development through a strategic engagement with capitalism (Ah Kit 1997: 53), others may find alternative economic forms to be either more realistic or better aligned with local aspirations (Altman 2001, 2006b). Rather than assuming the superiority and inevitability of market economic development, this alternative conceptualisation would recognise that there may be ‘complex trade-offs’
between cultural continuity and material prosperity (Altman and Rowse 2005: 176) and that Indigenous people’s willingness to make these trade-offs will vary.
In practice, moving from an ethnocentric deficit model and a rationality of normalisation to a more pluralistic and positive conception of possible futures for Indigenous communities might begin with policy makers seeking out existing examples of strengths-based programs and initiatives and successful, locally managed development models (Atkinson 2007, Fogarty and Ryan 2007). A focus on local capacities and the potential for their realisation and development, rather than dependencies, deficiencies and the need for external control, might also encourage the community development approach that many call for (Fawcett and Hanlon 2009, Calma 2008), one in which ‘the process is often just as, if not more, important than the outcomes because it equips the community to then be able to do things for themselves’ (Calma 2008).
In light of the numerous criticisms of the government’s failure to properly consult with Indigenous people and enable them to participate in the development and implementation of the Intervention (ATSISJC 2008a, Anthony 2009, Pounder 2008, Vivian and Schokman 2009, Puszka et al 2013, Partridge et al 2012), it is also a significant observation that a recognition of Indigenous community strengths, assets and capacities – rather than only deficits – would necessitate a more consultative and participatory policy process, because the knowledge, experience and insights of community members would be critical inputs to the policy process. Locally-specific ‘Indigenous counter-knowledge’ might then be valued as a more relevant resource for governments and policy makers than pre-existing ‘white’ bureaucratic procedures (Marika et al 2009: 405), and an engagement with this knowledge understood as necessary to enable bureaucratic learning and increase governments’ cultural competencies (Puszka et al 2013, interviewee I1).
While socio-economic indicator frameworks play an important role in tracking progress towards ‘closing the gap’ across a range of core issues, an amended, less ethnocentric approach to Indigenous policy would recognise both the need for equality with non-Indigenous Australians on some measures and the value of cultural difference in relation to others (Altman 2009: 14). Rather than a disadvantage framing that assumes outcomes for Indigenous people and communities should always be
compared (and, the implication is, raised) to a non-Indigenous standard, a revised approach would include indicators that encompass broader, culturally specific components of wellbeing. This would entail a conceptual framework that not only acknowledged the ‘socially functional dimensions’ of Indigenous communities (Anderson I 2007: 134-135), but also considered ‘alternative interpretations of what nourishes life’ (Slater 2010: 144), and valued Indigenous culture or ‘life worlds’ as integral to wellbeing (Altman and Rowse 2005, Slater 2010: 145). In practice this revised framing implies a need to adopt indicators developed by Indigenous people themselves.
Contesting and replacing current rationalities of government
The third significant contestation of the Intervention’s discourse that is presented in the thesis concerns the way in which it imagines the governance of Indigenous people. The thesis contests the specific ‘rationality of government’ (Foucault 1978) that underpins the policy approach. I find this mode of rule troubling, not only because it displays the abovementioned neoliberal intention to shift responsibility for what should be understood as social problems onto individuals, but also because it applies an exceptional or racialised mode of governance to Indigenous people, one that is particularly paternalistic, authoritative and, as discussed above, ethnocentric.
The effect of this framing, or way of imagining rule, is to reproduce longstanding colonial justifications for state intervention in, and authority and control over, Indigenous people and communities, whether for the purposes of stabilising and regulating them by imposing law over barbarism and order over chaos, or in the name of protection, teaching and guiding, normalising, civilising or modernising. In reproducing these justifications, and reframing them for the contemporary context, the Intervention discourse leaves both the settler colonial context for the policy and the relationship between Indigenous people and the state entirely unproblematic. More than this, it positively legitimises this relationship by reasserting settler state authority as the solution to the problems it articulates.
This is a regressive political strategy, because debate about this issue is in fact longstanding and ongoing. The nature of the relationship between Indigenous people and the settler state is understood by many Indigenous people to constitute
‘unfinished business’ (CAR 2000, Dodson M 2003a) and ‘the unreconciled, unattended aspect of Australia’s past and present’ (Behrendt 2003: 8). Fundamental questions about the legitimacy of the Australian settler state, the political status and rights of Indigenous people, and the relationship between Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians remain unresolved. While typically avoided by non- Indigenous people (Maddison 2011) and obfuscated by governments (Short 2008: 8), these issues remain central to the struggles of Indigenous people, whether those struggles are articulated in terms of land rights, constitutional recognition, community control, self-governance or self-determination, sovereignty, Indigenous citizenship, reconciliation, decolonisation, political autonomy or a treaty.
While the previous policy paradigm of the 1960s-1990s at least allowed some (albeit limited) space for debate on these issues, the Intervention is symptomatic of a recent paradigm shift that sees these ideas discredited and even blamed for contemporary Indigenous suffering. This ideological and discursive shift enables government to frame both ‘problems’ and policy ‘solutions’ narrowly, that is, in ways that avoid addressing those issues relating to the colonial legacy. Thus, in an immediate and practical sense, the government benefits from a narrowing and simplification of its policy responsibilities, but more fundamentally, the settler colonial state benefits by displacing the agenda of decolonisation that poses challenges to its form, its institutions, its authority and its very legitimacy.
In order to replace the Intervention’s neoliberal and colonial form of paternalistic, authoritative governance of Indigenous people, there is a need to re-problematise the settler colonial relationship between Indigenous people and the state. It is the nature of this relationship that means the government not only continues to imagine the policy challenge to be ‘the Aboriginal problem’, but simultaneously assumes this to be a problem for the state, to be solved by the state. This ‘statist’ approach – one that assumes that ‘the solution to the crisis of Indigenous society lies solely in the domain of the existent and its management by the state’ (Hage 2012: 412) needs to be challenged.
One means of reconceptualisation might be to turn the problem-centred discourse of government policy back on itself, such that, as Cowlishaw suggests, ‘the problems the nation creates in the everyday lives of Indigenous people [are] the focus of analysis,
rather than the other way around’ (2010: 57). Writing not specifically about the NT Intervention, but about the ways in which government bureaucracy and ‘helping whites’ intervene in Indigenous lives more broadly, Lea describes the ‘magical circularity of interventionary perception’ which rests on the belief that:
our past failures … of policy necessitate greater (if more enlightened and reformed) governmental intervention in the present. When governmental categories are imagined as making up everything that matters for a life, it is a small step to assume that the only way forward is more governance. That is the magic of intervention’ (2008: 151).
It is through such circular logic, Lea argues, that the apparatus of government justifies and reproduces itself. I suggest that challenging these totalising governmental policy categories and conceptions is a means of disrupting this circular interventionary logic, which has long been the foundation of Indigenous policy. This would involve acknowledging that the settler state is not a neutral observer and arbiter of problems, but ‘an agent that seeks to solve problems that it partly creates’ (Lattas and Morris 2010a: 82-3).
This reconceptualisation of the relationship between Indigenous people and the state might result in a replacement discourse with a very different underlying assumption, namely that it is the very nature of the settler colonial relationship itself that constitutes the underlying problem. As Grieves (2012) puts it, this is a problem that is ‘never seriously considered in Australia, but put in the too hard basket’, for it is one that challenges the state to ‘deal with Aboriginal people, in all their diversity, on their own or negotiated terms’, and to ‘modify the Australian democratic system to incorporate models of self-governance’.
9.3 A need for reflexivity
The six questions in the WPR approach are followed by a directive, namely to ‘apply the list of questions to your own problem representations’ (Bacchi 2009: 19). This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the WPR approach, for it asks us to subject our own policy ideas and replacement discourses to the same critical scrutiny we have applied to government policy. This demands a degree of reflexivity that
acknowledges that ‘we are immersed in the conceptual logics of our era’ and therefore need to interrogate our own assumptions (Bacchi 2009: 19). With this directive in mind, I wish to recognise the potential limitations and negative effects of the alternative or replacement discourses that I have highlighted above. I outline four potential risks of, or necessary qualifications to, these alternative conceptual frameworks.
Firstly, my advocacy for less ethnocentric models does not imply a need to recognise all ‘difference’ as positive. I am not advocating value-free cultural pluralism for, as in any culture, it is likely that not every aspect of Aboriginal tradition is worthy of being defended (Langton 2008a). It is important to recognise that (as in other communities) some socio-cultural norms in Indigenous communities rely on the kind of unequal relations of power that are harmful to some community members – often women and children. A number of Indigenous authors make this point, arguing that attempts to defend some clearly damaging individual behaviours, social practices and community norms as legitimate because they are ‘traditions’ involves a distortion or corruption of traditional relationships and values (Pearson 2000c: 144, Bolger 1991: 50, Dodson M 2003b: 3), and leaves vulnerable community members at risk of harm (Langton 2008c, McGlade 2012).
Secondly, there is a risk that demand for less problem-centred, pathologising representations can imply that the issues that are problematised in the government’s discourse are not ‘real’ or do not ‘actually’ exist in remote Indigenous communities. The eagerness of some to view the conditions in Indigenous communities as evidence not of inequality but of cultural difference sometimes constitutes a ‘denial of distress’, that downplays issues of violence, poverty and inequality and ignores community members’ own concerns about those conditions (Austin-Broos 2010: 21). Thus in criticising the tendency for government discourse to use a wholly negative lens of deficit, dysfunction and failure to understand Indigenous people, communities and cultures, it is important not to deploy an equally simplistic, wholly positive lens as its replacement. This is an approach that, as Kowal (2010) points out, risks simply replacing a problematic negative ‘remedialism’ with a similarly problematic positive ‘orientalism’.
Thirdly, while I have pointed to a number of troubling silences in the government texts, and issues that are left unproblematic, replacement discourses often contain their own silences, and leave other issues unproblematised. Most notably, there has been a tendency in some criticisms of the Intervention for concerns about the racism of the policy to almost completely override concerns about violence in Indigenous communities. Some critics who are vocal in their criticisms of the government are simultaneously silent about the issues of violence and abuse that the government claims to be addressing (Merlan 2010: 118 Langton 2010: 106). In particular, many non-Indigenous criticisms of the policy – including ironically those of some feminists – entail a relative silence about, or failure to engage with the intersection of issues of race and gender and specifically with the issue of Aboriginal men’s violence against women and children (Howe 2009, Partridge and Maddison 2014 forthcoming). The apparent reluctance of some Intervention critics to confront the specific issue of Aboriginal men’s violence continues a tendency in Aboriginal rights discourse more broadly to omit discussion of this issue because ‘racism has been accorded primacy’ (McGlade 2012: 71-73). The effect of some Intervention critics’ relative silence on the issue of Indigenous men’s violence is to render invisible both the decades of work by Indigenous women to bring this issue to public attention and to obtain government help in addressing it (Howe 2009),120 and the public acknowledgment of and strong condemnation of violence by Indigenous men, both well before the Intervention (Dodson M 2003b) and more recently (see Central Australian Aboriginal Congress 2008, Gosford 2010).
Fourthly, the suggestion that the rationality of paternalistic governance should be replaced with one based on community strengths and capacities that promotes community control needs to be qualified. This argument needs to avoid romanticising the capacity of people living in impoverished circumstances and experiencing the effects of intergenerational trauma and socio-political marginalisation, to effectively address entrenched and complex problems (however they may be represented) without some form of external support, at least in the short term. Further, enabling community control must not be used as an excuse for governments to avoid their
120 For examples of the extensive efforts of Aboriginal women since the early 1990s to raise the issue of gendered violence and sexual abuse in their communities, see Bolger (1991), Robertson (2000), Atkinson (2002) and the many sources cited by Moreton-Robinson (2009: 71), Howe (2009) and McGlade (2012: 96-128).
responsibilities; it must be accompanied by a commitment to provide the kind of formal institutional support and protection that all citizens have a right to expect.121
9.4 Conclusion
Thesis summary
This thesis has used discourse analysis to identify and analyse the problem representations, ideas and narratives in the government’s Intervention discourse, and to explore how a range of stakeholders respond to and engage with this policy discourse. In taking this approach, the study countered the central positivist assumption still implicit in many approaches to both policy development and policy analysis, namely that social problems simply exist, and that the only question is how they might best be fixed or solved. In contrast, as a social constructionist approach, the thesis made the very representation or constitution of ‘problems’ in Indigenous communities explicit, taking these processes themselves as the objects of study. In the process, the thesis has not only analysed the official Intervention discourse but has contested it. By challenging the ‘truth status’ of this official discourse it has contributed to an ongoing process of contestation, not only of this specific policy, but of Australian settler state discourse more broadly.
Beginning with a descriptive chapter that identified ‘what the problems are represented to be’ in the selected government texts, and how these problematisations are disseminated by government policy (WPR questions 1 and 6a, Chapter 4), subsequent chapters then subjected these problem representations to critical scrutiny and analysis. In doing so the thesis demonstrated that these problematisations are not inevitable, but rather are ideologically and historically contingent. By asking what assumptions and forms of rationality the problematisations in the government Intervention texts rely on (WPR question 2, Chapter 5), how they have come about (WPR question 3 Chapter 6), what they fail to problematise (WPR question 4, Chapter 7), and what their effects are (WPR question 5, Chapter 8), the analysis questioned the taken for granted status of these problem representations, and so
121 McGlade’s discussion of how to improve responses to sexual assault in Indigenous communities demonstrates the need to strike this balance. While she argues for community derived and controlled models of Aboriginal justice or healing, she emphasises the need for these to be supported by the formal criminal justice system (2012: 204).
destabilised them. As a result, it opened up the ‘space for challenge’ (Bacchi 2009: 237), that is, for considering discursive contestation and replacement (WPR question 6b). That question was the focus of the earlier part of this chapter, in which I outlined the three most compelling contestations of the Intervention, and pointed to some potentially less harmful replacement discourses. In doing so I sought to maintain a degree of reflexivity, as suggested by the final WPR directive, in order to acknowledge the possible limitations and risks of those replacement conceptual frameworks.
Throughout the thesis, extracts and insights from the interview data have been integrated, helping to place the government’s policy discourse in the broader context of public debate and bringing a range of additional perspectives to bear on the government’s problem representations, ideas and narratives. The addition of this interview data has added depth and richness to the thesis, allowing it to demonstrate not only how policy ideas are constructed in government discourse, but also how those representations circulate in a social and political context in which various stakeholders reproduce, question, adapt, contest or otherwise engage with them. Further, the interview data shows that, just as many of the problematisations, ideas and narratives in the government’s discourse are not new or unique but have their roots in longstanding debates and discourse about welfare and Indigenous policy, so too do other stakeholders employ a range of pre-existing ideas and ideological frameworks.
Argument and conclusions
Government Intervention discourse constitutes the ‘problems’ in remote NT Indigenous communities to be a generalised dysfunction or lack of social norms, welfare dependency, particular kinds of individual behaviour (especially irresponsibility) and disadvantage. These problematisations draw on forms of explanation that are both typically neoliberal and specifically racialised. Similarly the Intervention discourse establishes and justifies a mode of rule for Indigenous people that, while it involves numerous characteristics of neoliberal governmentality generally, is also specifically racialised. This rationality of government has a number of similarities to former assimilationist and protectionist iterations of Indigenous
policy in Australia and, like those ideological frameworks, continues to assume a settler colonial relationship between Indigenous people and the state.
The overall effect of the Intervention discourse is threefold. Firstly it locates the ‘problems’ and their causes as attributes of Indigenous people, communities and culture themselves. While the problematisation of ‘disadvantage’ occasionally points to other contributors to current ‘problems’, such as living conditions and past government neglect, it ultimately marginalises these issues and uses forms of explanation that reinforce the dominant neoliberal and racialised logic of the Intervention. More significantly the texts entirely avoid a more radical interpretation of disadvantage that would see it as an effect of past processes of colonialism and dispossession and as a central feature of a settler colonial society. Secondly, the government’s Intervention discourse has the effect of excluding Indigenous peoples’ own representations of the ‘problems’ that form their own lived experiences. Finally, the government’s Intervention discourse attributes responsibility for change overwhelmingly to Indigenous people and communities. At the same time, however, it (re)asserts the authority of the settler state to determine the direction of this change, and to adopt an interventionist, coercive and supervisory role in Indigenous people’s lives in the name of ‘behaviour change’ and ‘normalisation’.
Considering the Intervention texts in the broader political and historical context of Australian Indigenous policy, the overall effect of this discursive regime is to reproduce, justify and naturalise longstanding settler colonial relationships. In the process, it closes off the potential for more radical discourses – specifically those that seek to challenge or disrupt the settler colonial order – to contribute to contemporary Indigenous policy debate.
Limitations of the thesis
Discourse analysis is only one of many possible approaches to a study of the Intervention. While the thesis demonstrates the strengths of this method and the kind of insights it can offer, it also shares its limitations. Viewing the Intervention as a policy discourse has enabled the thesis to explore the discursive practices of government, and the various effects of these practices. A discursive analysis has helped to identify the norms, values, and ideological positions and perspectives that
underlie the Intervention, and in so doing to illuminate the relationship between discourse and power. This approach does not however attempt to evaluate the policy, to judge its effectiveness, nor to assess it against particular policy or legal standards or principles. This should not be taken to imply that such other kinds of analysis are not valuable – on the contrary, as noted in Chapter 1, the significant body of existing evaluative literature on the Intervention provides numerous important insights. Rather the focus of this thesis is simply different, and the method appropriate because the object of study is not the policy itself, but rather the policy discourse. The limits of this focus are acknowledged.
As a white, non-Indigenous researcher, a central ethical concern has been to acknowledge the social and cultural specificity and the racial privilege of the position from which I write. I have tried to remain aware of the specificity of my own perspective throughout, and to be reflexive about how it might be influencing my response to, and analysis of, particular texts. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that my position as a non-Indigenous researcher inevitably constitutes a limitation of the study. Because it is undertaken from this perspective my analysis is necessarily specific and therefore partial. More than this, there is an inherent limitation involved in the goal of dissecting government policy discourse as a component of my own society. As someone occupying a privileged, white, and non-Indigenous subject position, I personally accrue ongoing and multiple forms of benefit and advantage from the very political and institutional structures of Australian society whose discursive dimension and effects I have attempted to analyse here. As noted in Chapter 3, a responsibility to reflect on ‘the peculiarity of our own state institutions and of the government policy that we take for granted’ (Cowlishaw 2010: 48-9) was part of the motivation for the thesis. However, I also readily acknowledge that my subject position may prevent me from seeing or understanding some of the more complex and subtle ways in which racialised ideas operate – both in my subject matter and in my own analysis.
Finally, while I have tried to gather and review as much literature and other public commentary and analysis produced by Indigenous people and organisations as possible, because I have relied on publicly available (and written) material, the thesis reflects only a very limited range of Indigenous voices, perspectives and positions.
Similarly, while I deliberately sought out Indigenous people to interview, and have tried to engage with and represent the diversity of opinions and perspectives that these interviewees expressed, the sample was very small and does not in any sense claim to be representative of the diversity of Indigenous perspectives and positions on this issue. In particular, as noted in Chapter 3, it does not represent the views of those Indigenous people who are strong supporters of the Intervention, and it deliberately does not include ‘ordinary residents’ of affected communities (that is, those who did not already have a public or professional role or profile). Investigating the views of these two groups might be a suitable project for future, Indigenous-led research.
Methodological reflections
The thesis has provided the first comprehensive and systematic application of the WPR method (Bacchi 2009) to the case of the Intervention. By analysing 118 government texts produced over a five-year period it also added a temporal dimension to the WPR approach. In addition, while the WPR framework takes policy texts as its primary object of focus, the study extended this methodological approach by incorporating the findings from 19 semi-structured stakeholder interviews into the analysis. This methodological addition enabled the study to explore the specific research questions with a diverse set of stakeholders and seek a range of perspectives and views on the government’s policy discourse, providing a particularly rich data set that was then incorporated into the overall analysis.
This integrated analysis of both policy texts and interview data enabled the study to develop an understanding not only of the discursive constructions in government policy itself, but also of the broader discursive field in which the Intervention is situated and the social and political context in which that policy circulates. Specifically, it drew attention to the ways in which different stakeholders either share or contest the problematisations, ideas and narratives contained in the government texts. As a result, the study has not only been able to demonstrate the ways in which meanings are produced in and by government policy texts, but has also highlighted the complex and political ways in which those texts are received and understood and variously legitimised or challenged by different and differently located stakeholders. This suggests that future applications of the WPR method to other policy texts may also benefit from the addition of complementary interviews (or other qualitative
methods of gathering the views and perspectives of relevant stakeholders), as a means of broadening and deepening the analysis of policy discourse in a social context. Access to a diversity of perspectives on any given policy is likely to demonstrate that, while government policy discourse has a particularly powerful status, it is not immune to challenge. On the contrary, official policy discourse is typically subject to multiple forms of interpretation, resistance and contestation, including by those it seeks to target.
Strengths and limitations of WPR
The WPR approach has proven valuable to this study, both as a conceptual framework and as a practical method of discourse analysis. As a conceptual framework it has provided a novel problem questioning approach, which contrasts with the more conventional problem solving orientation implicit in much existing policy development and analysis. This has been particularly valuable for an Indigenous policy case study, because the longstanding assumption at the core of Australian Indigenous policy has been that the challenge to be addressed is simply ‘the Aboriginal problem’. While contemporary policy language may appear less explicitly colonial, it maintains the assumption that the very existence of Aboriginal people is a problem to be solved. With regard to its value as an analytical method, like others who have applied the WPR approach (see Goodwin and Voola 2013), I found that considering examples of alternative problem representations to those produced by the government provides an effective means of highlighting how those ‘problems’ can be thought about differently. Indeed in this case, both the critical literature and some of the interviewees provide what are often radically alternative ways of representing the ‘problems’. Finally, as a methodological tool, the six-question framework has provided a systematic means of structuring the analysis and ensuring that each step in the methodology received appropriate attention, as well as a coherent means of presenting the findings.
The process of applying the WPR method to this particular case study also suggests however, that while valuable, it has a number of potential limitations. Like others who have applied this method of policy analysis I noted the tendency as a researcher to be led into a ‘labyrinth’ (Goodwin 2011: 174) of analysis across different policy fields because identifying problem representations in a single policy is ‘like opening up a
babushka doll: there is not one problem representation but many’, and each leads the researcher to another in a seemingly ‘never ending spiral’ (Cort 2011: 24). This was certainly the case in my experience, as the problematisations, ideas and narratives in the Intervention texts pointed me both backwards to recent eras of Australian Indigenous policy and older forms of European colonial thought, and laterally to the field of welfare policy – one that has both influenced and now been influenced by the Intervention. However I found this tendency, while challenging, to also be a strength of the method. By encouraging both an acknowledgement of the complexities of a given policy discourse and an investigation of the multiple and often competing ideological influences that make up its ‘tangled’ history (Foucault 1984: 76), the method strengthens the researcher’s capacity to counter the often simplistic and depoliticising policy frameworks deployed by governments. This certainly seems valuable in an era in which, as I argue elsewhere, Indigenous policy is presented by government as a non-ideological, technical exercise (Partridge 2014).
In addition to these already documented issues, I found three other limitations to the WPR method. While minor these are outlined here as a theoretical contribution that might inform the development of the WPR methodological framework. Firstly, the WPR method begins with the selection of a specific policy, or policy proposal. However, this case study has shown that defining the parameters of a specific policy can be difficult. In one sense ‘the Intervention’ is the policy chosen for analysis here, yet this singular term is inadequate to describe the numerous different policies across diverse areas of social policy that were introduced under this banner. While Bacchi does acknowledge that any selected policy will be connected to a broader ‘web of policies’, there remains a tendency in the WPR framework to treat policies as singular entities rather than what are often slippery, multiple and interconnected phenomena that can be difficult to disentangle. This means that deciding what constitutes ‘the policy’ under study is perhaps more challenging than Bacchi implies.
Secondly, Bacchi tends to demonstrate the use of the method on single policy texts, albeit while sometimes drawing in a small number of related texts to provide a fuller picture. While valuable in providing an initial ‘snapshot’ of problem representations, this approach is insufficient to capture the temporal dimension of policies. The Intervention is a clear example of a policy that has been both continuous and
changing over time, for as Chapter 1 shows, while many of its measures have been maintained, its descriptive and administrative boundaries have been repeatedly redrawn and its nomenclature reinvented over time as part of the political process. The approach taken in this thesis – to identify and analyse a very large number of policy texts produced over a five year period – is an attempt to stretch the WPR method in this temporal sense, such that the analysis is better able to capture the similarities and differences, continuities and changes in the way problems are represented over time and across a constantly changing political landscape.
Thirdly, I found a slight lack of clarity in Bacchi’s conception of lived effects, which made the application of WPR question 5 to the Intervention texts somewhat challenging. In the articulation of this question, the focus is on the lived effects of problem representations (Bacchi 2009: 48), the assertion being that ‘how problems are represented directly affects people’s lives’ (Bacchi 2009: 17). Some of Bacchi’s illustrations of ‘lived effects’ are indeed of this nature; for example, ‘living with stigma’ as an effect of being labeled an ‘illicit drug user’, or a ‘problem gambler’ (2009: 93). However, elsewhere, the examples provided appear to be about the lived effects of policy itself, rather than of the representations it contains. For example, a ‘lack of food and/or inadequate housing’ and ‘emotional and material distress’ are cited as lived effects of welfare quarantining (Bacchi 2009: 17-18), and financial hardship and poverty as lived effects of Youth Allowance activity tests (Bacchi 2009: 70). The underlying assumption appears to be that a particular problem representation will lead to particular policy measures, which in turn will have lived effects.122 If this is indeed the case then the relationship between problem representation and lived effect is less direct than Bacchi sometimes implies. Furthermore, policy measures (and their lived effects) are unlikely to be entirely the result of problem representations; it is more likely that the way a problem is represented is one reason among others for the development of a particular policy measure.
Fourth, the degree of overlap and interrelationship between the different WPR questions meant it was not always easy to structure the presentation of the findings such that they addressed each question in turn while avoiding repetition. While the
122 See for example, the description of policies based on the notion that welfare is a ‘hand-out’ (Bacchi 2009: 43).
six-question list has the appearance of providing a linear structure, in reality it encourages a process of analysis that tends to move backwards and forwards. This is appropriate for discourse analysis, which, by its very nature will not be a linear process, however it can make the task of presenting the results of the analysis challenging.
Conclusion: implications of the research
As noted at the outset of this thesis, Indigenous policy in Australia has long conceived of its domain as ‘the Aboriginal problem’, with successive governments tending to view Aboriginal people and communities as problems to be solved. Furthermore, the assumption has been that they are not just problems, but problems for the state, which must be solved by the state. The analysis of the Intervention undertaken in this thesis suggests a need to disrupt not only the problem-centric orientation of Indigenous policy, but also its state-centric perspective.
Much existing literature on the Intervention has challenged both the nature of the Intervention’s policy ‘solution’ and the process by which it was implemented. Critics have disputed the effectiveness of this ‘solution’ and objected to its top-down imposition of externally developed measures. As a remedy, many have called for either different solutions, and/or a different policy process; typically one in which Indigenous people would be more involved in developing and implementing policy measures, and so feel a greater sense of ownership of policy. I do not dispute this argument; increasing the participation of citizens in any area of policy is a worthy aim.
However I suggest that this approach does not go far enough, and in particular that it neglects to sufficiently disrupt the state-centric conception of Indigenous policy. There are important considerations that might precede or override the concern to improve participation in government policy processes and community ownership of policy solutions. Specifically there is a need to foreground the right of Indigenous people to influence or control the initial process of problem representation. In other words, before they can participate meaningfully in the development of solutions, Indigenous people need to be able to define for themselves the nature of the ‘problems’ they face. They need to have what Bessant (writing about policy subjects
in general) calls ‘the power to say how things are’ (2002: 16). This includes the ability to apply Indigenous perspectives and processes to an analysis of those problems and to articulate their own goals and aspirations.123
This conclusion supports the arguments of many Indigenous writers who point to the need for Indigenous people to determine, define and articulate not only potential policy solutions but also the nature of the problems they face. Calma for example argues that Indigenous policy must have ‘Indigenous ownership of both the problems and their solutions at its core’ (2007a: 280), and Dodson contends that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people ‘ought to be able to be in charge of the answers’ because it is they who best ‘know what the problems [are]’ (Dodson M 2011). Furthermore Calma has ‘confidence that Indigenous communities – supported by government – can own the problems that exist in their communities and more so, that they want to own the problems’ (Calma 2008: 12). Anderson also writes of how she was struck by this attitude in relation to the issue of violence and abuse during the inquiry that produced the Little children are sacred report, observing the way in which people were both ‘owning the problem’ and ‘want[ing] to be part of the solution’ (Anderson P 2011: 23).
On this view, the role of government should be to assist Indigenous people to be ‘agents of their own change’; that is, to empower them to be ‘self-determining’ (ATSISJC 2011). Further, as Calma points out, United Nations human rights frameworks provide Indigenous people not simply with a right to the ‘polite’ notion of ‘participation’ in policy processes, but much more significantly, with a right of self-determination (2007b). Thus a policy process that aims to enable self- determination requires beginning not with government-defined problems, but with Indigenous people determining what Gooda calls ‘our issues and our priorities’ (2011b, emphasis added). This suggests that improving consultation processes, or increasing the participation of Indigenous people in policy processes, while important, will never be sufficient if those processes have begun with government-defined ‘problems’.
123 Without wanting to pre-empt Indigenous people’s decisions about what such processes might entail, it is highly likely that in the case of remote communities in the NT, they would need to be locally specific in order to reflect the diversity of aspirations among different communities and cultural groupings.
As this thesis has shown, the government’s Intervention discourse is based on a specific and constrained, ethnocentric settler conception of the ‘problems’. Like much debate about Indigenous policy more broadly, it fails to recognise Indigenous ontologies (Brigg 2007), and employs a bureaucratic logic that is ‘unable to imagine life outside government-led policy’ (Lea 2008: 150). In contrast, the argument here is that a decolonising approach to policy, that is, one that seeks to dismantle colonial structures and relationships, must be based on a different conception. When, and if, such an approach focuses on ‘problems’, it must recognise as foundational the right of Indigenous people to identify, define and articulate in their own terms the shape of those ‘problems’ as they affect their lives.
More broadly, the approach to policy analysis taken in this thesis has implications beyond the realm of Indigenous policy. It suggests that paying greater attention to processes of problematisation in any area of social policy may both enable policy to be more effectively contested, and open up space for subject populations to define for themselves the shape of the ‘problems’ that affect their lives.
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APPENDIX A. KEY TO GOVERNMENT TEXTS
In text Document B1 Brough, Mal 2007, National emergency response to protect Aboriginal children in the NT, media release, 21 June. B2 Brough, Mal 2007, in Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 7 August 2007, pp. 1-127. B3 Brough, Mal 2007, in Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 13 September 2007, pp.11-41 B4 Brough, Mal 2007, in Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 18 September 2007, p. 37. B5 Brough, Mal 2007, in Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 20 September 2007, pp. 2-4. B6 Brough, Mal 2007, Commonwealth's intervention into Aboriginal Communities in The Northern Territory, 15 August, National Press Club, Canberra. B7 Brough, Mal 2007, Alfred Deakin Lecture, Melbourne University, Melbourne, 2 October. B8 Brough, Mal 2007, NT Emergency Response Taskforce, media release, 25 June. B9 Brough, Mal 2007, Government outlines Phase One of NT reform, media release, 26 June. B10 Brough, Mal 2007, Why not rally for the Safety of Indigenous children? media release, 13 July. B11 Brough, Mal 2007, NT Emergency Response - good progress in first month but long road ahead, media release, 19 July. B12 Brough, Mal 2007, Jobs and training for Indigenous people in the NT, media release, 23 July. B13 Brough, Mal 2007, Howard Government getting on with the job of protecting children in the Northern Territory, media release, 6 August. B14 Brough, Mal 2007, Clare Martin highlights need for NT intervention, media release, 7 August.
B15 Brough, Mal 2007, Parliament Supports Vital Reforms to Protect Aboriginal Children, media release, 17 August. B16 Brough, Mal 2007, NT response - Underwhelming and poses more questions than it answers, media release, 20 August. B17 Brough, Mal 2007, New alcohol restrictions to take effect in NT, media release, 10 September. B18 Brough, Mal 2007, Government delivers long-term commitment to housing jobs, health and police as part of long term commitment to NT, media release, 18 September. B19 Brough, Mal 2007, Legislation changes will further protect Indigenous children, media release, 20 September. B20 Brough, Mal 2007, NT Emergency - Labor for it one day, against it the next, media release, 5 October. D1 Australian Government 2008, Northern Territory Emergency Response: One year on, 20 June. D2 Australian Government 2009, Future directions for the Northern Territory Emergency Response: discussion paper. D3 Australian Government 2009, Report on Northern Territory Emergency Response redesign consultations. D4 Australian Government 2009, Landmark reform to the welfare system, reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act and strengthening of the Northern Territory Emergency Response, policy statement. D5 Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives 2009, Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009, Explanatory memorandum. D6 Parliament of Australia, Senate 2009, Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009, Explanatory memorandum. D7 Australian Government 2009, Future directions for the Northern Territory Emergency Response: a community guide to proposed changes, December, Canberra. D8 Australian Government 2011, Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory: discussion paper, June, Canberra.
D9 Australian Government 2011, Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory: report on consultations, October, Canberra. D10 Australian Government 2011, Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory: policy statement, November, Canberra. D11 Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives 2011, Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Bill 2011, Explanatory memorandum. D12 Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives 2011, Social Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, Explanatory memorandum. GI1 Gillard, Julia 2011, interview, 7.30 Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8 June. GS1 Gillard, Julia 2011, This work will go on, speech to the House of Representatives (transcript), 9 February. GS2 Gillard, Julia 2012, Prime Ministerial statement: Closing the Gap, 15 February (transcript), Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. H1 Howard, John 2007, Indigenous emergency, joint press conference with the Hon. Mal Brough, Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (transcript), 21 June, Canberra. H2 Howard, John 2007, interview, Sunrise, Seven Network, 22 June. H3 Howard, John 2007, interview, ABC Radio Perth, 25 June. H4 Howard, John 2007, weekly radio message, 25 June. H5 Howard, John 2007, To stabilise and protect: little children are sacred, speech to the Sydney Institute, 25 June, Sydney. H6 Howard, John 2007, interview, 7.30 Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 25 June. H7 Howard, John 2007, interview, Territory Today, Radio 8HA, 26 June. H8 Howard, John 2007, doorstop interview, 26 June, Fraser Shores, Hervey Bay. H9 Howard, John 2007, doorstop interview, 27 June, Amberley RAAF Base. H10 Howard, John 2007, doorstop interview, 29 June, Narangba. H11 Howard, John 2007, joint press conference with the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, 10 July, Phillip Street, Sydney.
H12 Howard, John 2007, Address to the Liberal Party, Tasmanian Division (transcript) 14 July, State Council, Launceston, Tasmania. H13 Howard, John 2007, interview 6 August, Radio 2UE, Sydney. H14 Howard, John 2007, ‘PM stands firm on Indigenous permit system changes’ (interview) 28 August, ABC News 24. H15 Howard, John 2007, Press conference, 12 October, Phillip Street, Sydney. H16 Howard, John 2007, ‘A new reconciliation’, speech to the Sydney Institute, 11 October, published in The Sydney Papers, vol. 19, no. 4, The Sydney Institute. pp. 104-110. MGPC1 Macklin, Jenny and Gillard, Julia 2011, joint press conference, 7 June, Alice Springs. MGPC2 Macklin, Jenny and Gillard, Julia 2011, joint press conference, 22 June, Canberra. MI1 Macklin, Jenny 2007, ‘Labor eyes expanded NT scheme’ (interview), The Weekend Australian, 30 November 2007 MI2 Macklin, Jenny 2008, interview, The World Today, ABC Local Radio, 19 June. MI3 Macklin, Jenny 2008, First anniversary of the Northern Territory Emergency Response, press conference, 21 June, Darwin. MI4 Macklin, Jenny 2008, Response to the NTER Review, press conference, 23 October, Parliament House, Canberra. MI5 Macklin, Jenny 2008, interview, 7.30 Report, ABC TV, 23 October. MI6 Macklin, Jenny 2008, interview, Breakfast, ABC Radio National, 24 October. MI7 Macklin, Jenny 2009, press conference, 28 August, Melbourne MI8 Macklin, Jenny 2010, interview, Breakfast, ABC Radio National, 31 March. MI9 Macklin, Jenny 2010, interview, ABC News Radio, 10 June. MI10 Macklin, Jenny 2010, interview, ABC Radio National, 16 June. MI11 Macklin, Jenny 2010, press conference, Canberra 22 June. MI12 Macklin, Jenny 2010, interview, Breakfast ABC Radio Darwin, 22 June. MI13 Macklin, Jenny 2010, interview, News Breakfast, ABC2, 22 June.
MI14 Macklin, Jenny 2010, press conference, 18 October, Canberra. MI15 Macklin, Jenny 2011, interview, CAAMA Radio, 22 July. MI16 Macklin, Jenny 2011, press conference, 18 October, Alice Springs. MI17 Macklin, Jenny 2011, interview, ABC Alice Springs, 18 October. MI18 Macklin, Jenny 2011, joint press conference with Minister Garrett, 14 November, Canberra. MI19 Macklin, Jenny 2011, interview, Sky PM Agenda, 14 November. MI20 Macklin, Jenny 2011, interview, Radio National Breakfast, 14 November. MI21 Macklin, Jenny 2012, interview, Radio National Breakfast, 15 March. MI22 Macklin, Jenny 2012, press conference, 29 June, Melbourne. MMR1 Macklin, Jenny 2007, Building stronger Indigenous communities, media release, 10 December. MMR2 Macklin, Jenny 2008, Macklin meets Northern Territory Emergency Taskforce, media release, 17 January. MMR3 Macklin, Jenny 2008, NT Emergency Response Review Board, media release, 6 June. MMR4 Macklin, Jenny 2008, Northern Territory Emergency Response - One Year On, media release, 20 June. MMR5 Macklin, Jenny 2008, Making Indigenous communities safer, media release, 13 May. MMR6 Macklin, Jenny 2008, NTER review report, media release, 13 October. MMR7 Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs 2008, Compulsory income management to continue as key NTER measure, media release, 23 October. MMR8 Jenny Macklin 2009, School attendance measure begins in NT, joint media release with Paul Henderson MLA, Chief Minister - Acting Education Minister, 28 January. MMR9 Jenny Macklin 2009, Response to the Report of the NTER Review Board, Australian Government and Northern Territory Government media release, 21 May. MMR10 Jenny Macklin 2009, Towards a sustainable development phase: Discussion paper on future directions for the NTER, media release, 21
May. MMR11 Jenny Macklin 2009, Northern Territory Emergency Response progress, media release, 20 June. MMR12 Jenny Macklin 2009, Comprehensive consultation on redesigning the Northern Territory Emergency Response, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 23 November. MMR13 Jenny Macklin 2009, Children eating healthier food in NTER communities, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 15 December. MMR14 Jenny Macklin 2010, Northern Territory Emergency Response progress, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 9 June. MMR15 Jenny Macklin 2010, Improving community safety under the Northern Territory Emergency Response, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 19 June. MMR16 Jenny Macklin 2010, NTER Government Business Managers report positive community responses to income management, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 22 June. MMR17 Jenny Macklin 2010, Racial Discrimination Act to be restored in the Northern Territory, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 22 June. MMR18 Jenny Macklin 2010, Driving change in the Northern Territory, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP, 18 October. MMR19 Jenny Macklin 2011, Closing the Gap, Northern Territory Emergency Response, media release, 31 May. MMR20 Jenny Macklin 2011, Improving lives for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, joint media release with Warren Snowden MP, 13 October. MMR21 Jenny Macklin 2011, Independent NTER Evaluation finds Aboriginal communities safer, media release, 10 November. MMR22 Jenny Macklin 2011, Education, jobs and tackling alcohol abuse the key to building stronger futures in the Northern Territory, 14 November. MMR23 Jenny Macklin 2012, Improving safety in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, joint media release with Nicola Roxon MP, Warren
Snowdon MP and Senator Trish Crossin 28 March. MMR24 Jenny Macklin 2012, Municipal and essential services for outstations and homelands in the Northern Territory, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP and Senator Trish Crossin, 28 March. MMR25 Jenny Macklin 2012, Supporting children, youth and families in Northern Territory communities, joint media release with Kate Ellis MP, Warren Snowdon MP, Senator Trish Crossin, 29 March. MMR26 Jenny Macklin 2012, Investing in the health of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP and Senator Trish Crossin, 29 March. MMR27 Jenny Macklin 2012, Building stronger relationships with Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, joint media release with Senator Trish Crossin, 9 May. MMR28 Jenny Macklin 2012, Building Stronger Futures for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, joint media release with Warren Snowdon MP and Senator Trish Crossin, 29 June. MO1 Macklin, Jenny 2009, ‘Figures show NT intervention alive’, opinion piece, The Australian, 22 September. MO2 Macklin, Jenny 2010, ‘Breaking the vicious cycle of welfare dependency’, opinion piece, The Australian, 21 June. MO3 Macklin, Jenny 2011, ‘Aborigines in the NT must be consulted on interventions: partnerships key to a stronger Indigenous future’, The Australian, 24 June. MR1 Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination, Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) monitoring report, July 2008 to December 2008: Part one, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. MR2 Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Closing the gap in the Northern Territory: monitoring report, July–December 2009: Part one. MR3 Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Closing the gap in the Northern Territory: monitoring report, July–December 2010: Part one.
MR4 Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Closing the gap in the Northern Territory: monitoring report, July–December 2011: Part one. MS1 Macklin, Jenny 2008, Closing the Gap - Building an Indigenous Future (speech), 27 February, National Press Club, Canberra. MS2 Macklin, Jenny 2009, speech to the Fabian Society annual dinner (transcript), 4 September, Melbourne. MS3 Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Jenny Macklin) 2009, in Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 25 November, pp. 12783-12787. MS4 Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Jenny Macklin) 2011, Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (2009 Measures) Bill 2009 - Second reading speech, 25 November, Parliament of Australia. MS5 Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Jenny Macklin), 2011 Building the foundations for change, speech to the Sydney Institute (transcript), Sydney, 9 August. MS6 Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Jenny Macklin), 2011, Stronger futures in the Northern Territory Bill 2011 – Second reading speech 23 November, Parliament of Australia. RS1 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd 2009, Closing the Gap Report (speech), 26 February, Parliament of Australia, Canberra. RS2 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd 2010, Ministerial statement: Closing the Gap, (speech), 11 February, Parliament of Australia, Canberra.
APPENDIX B. PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM
Emma Partridge, PhD candidate Phone: (02) 9385 5797 Mobile: 0400 568 433 Fax: (02) 9385 7838 Email: [email protected] Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052 Approval No 11 019
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM ‘Problem’ representation and the role of ‘evidence’ in the policies of the Northern Territory intervention
Participant selection and purpose of study You are invited to participate in a study of the Federal Government’s policies associated with the Northern Territory Intervention. The study is being conducted by Emma Partridge as part of her PhD research at the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Emma intends to study the relationship between evidence and policy in relation to the Intervention, by considering how this policy represents ‘the problem’ it aims to address, what evidence the Government has used to inform and justify the policy, and how others – particularly Indigenous people – have responded to the policy. The research aims to develop suggestions for improved policy making processes. You were selected as a possible participant in this study because of your experience of, and expertise in, a range of issues associated with the Intervention.
Description of study and risks If you decide to participate, Emma Partridge will conduct an interview with you, seeking your views and perspectives on these research questions, which she will then include in her analysis of this issue. The interview will be approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour in length and will be conducted face-to-face or by telephone, whichever is convenient to you, at a time and place to be nominated by you. With your agreement, the interview will be audio recorded and a written transcript produced, to ensure that your views are accurately recorded. There are no anticipated risks of harm associated with this project, however we acknowledge that your involvement may be inconvenient, and you may find speaking about these policies causes a degree of discomfort. While we hope to produce suggestions for improved policy making, we cannot and do not guarantee or promise that you will receive any benefits from this study.
Confidentiality and disclosure of information The results of the research analysis will be published in the thesis and any subsequent publications. Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will only be disclosed with your permission, except as required by law. If you sign this document, you give us your permission to use the data obtained in the interview and agree to be identified within the research according to the confidentiality option that your choose as listed on the attached consent form, namely:
[you select from these option(s) on the attached consent form]: (1) my comments may be attributed to me by name and position title; OR (2) my name may appear in the list of people interviewed for this research, but particular comments may not be attributed to me by name. Comments should be attributed to my position title or to a generic descriptor that does not identify me (please specify) OR (3) another level of identification or confidentiality as defined by me (please specify).
Please note: The thesis will include a general statement specifying that interviewees’ views are their own and may not necessarily reflect the views of the organisations they represent, or in which they are employed.
Use of quotations from your interview After the interview we will produce a written transcript from the audio recording of your interview. You will be provided with a copy of the transcript to check it for accuracy, and given an opportunity to change or withdraw any part of it. Quotations taken from your interview transcript may be used in Emma Partridge’s thesis and related publications, providing they are attributed in accordance with the option you specified on your consent form.
Complaints Complaints may be directed to the Ethics Secretariat, The University of New South Wales, SYDNEY 2052 (phone 9385 4234, fax 9385 6648, email [email protected]). Any complaint you make will be investigated promptly and you will be informed out the outcome.
Feedback to participants To ensure that you receive feedback about the research findings, Emma Partridge will provide you with an electronic copy of her PhD thesis upon completion.
Your consent Participation is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate will not prejudice your future relations with the University of New South Wales. If you decide to participate, you are free to withdraw your consent and to discontinue participation at any time without prejudice. If you have any questions before making a decision, please feel free to ask us. You are also free to discuss this invitation with others if you wish. If you have any additional questions later, Emma Partridge, PhD student at the University of NSW will be happy to answer them. Emma can be contacted on (02) 9385 5797 or by email at: [email protected]
You will be given a copy of this form to keep.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM (continued)
(Problem representation and the role of ‘evidence’ in the policies of the Northern Territory intervention)
You are making a decision whether or not to participate. Your signature indicates that, having read the information provided above, you have decided to participate.
I agree to be identified in the following way (please tick ONE only):
my comments may be attributed to me by name and position title;
my name may appear in the list of people interviewed for this research, but particular comments may not be attributed to me by name. Comments should be attributed to my position title or to a generic descriptor that does not identify me (please specify)
______
another level of identification or confidentiality as defined by me:
(please specify) ______
………………………………………… .……………………………………………
Signature of research participant Signature of Witness
………………………………………… .………………………………………….
(Please PRINT name) (Please PRINT name)
………………………………………… ………………………………………….
Date Nature of Witness
______
REVOCATION OF CONSENT
(Problem representation and the role of ‘evidence’ in the policies of the Northern Territory intervention)
I hereby wish to WITHDRAW my consent to participate in the research proposal described above and understand that such withdrawal WILL NOT jeopardise any treatment or my relationship with The University of New South Wales.
.…………………………………………… ………………………………………….
Signature Date
…………………………………………………
Please PRINT Name
The section for Revocation of Consent should be forwarded to Emma Partridge at: Indigenous Policy and Dialogue Research Unit, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052.
APPENDIX C. INTERVIEW GUIDE
Interviewer and project introduction and explanation. Check understanding of / sign PISC form. Any questions before we start? Begin recording. State interviewee name and position, and date.
Questions and optional prompts
Introductory • Can you tell me when you first became aware of the Northern Territory Intervention? And how have you been involved in the issue since then? What has been your role in relation to these policies? o How would you describe your general view on the Intervention policies?
Indigenous policy context • Australia has had a long history of different approaches to Indigenous policy. The Intervention was presented as a new approach. o Do you see it as a new approach? Or how do you see it in relation to previous policy approaches? Is it similar or different, and in what way?
Policy ‘problems’ • Most government policy is presented as responding to some kind of policy ‘problem’. But different people define the problem differently. o What do you think the Intervention says about how the Federal Government sees ‘the problem’ in Indigenous communities? o How does this compare to your own view of any problems that need addressing? o Do you think the government’s understanding of the problem is consistent with the ways in which Indigenous people see the problem? (obviously there are many different Indigenous views)
o Thinking about the way the Government defines the problem, or approaches this issue, are there issues you see to be missing? Are there any gaps or silences in the Intervention policy?
Effects of the policy • From what you have seen and experienced, what have been the everyday effects of the Intervention on the lives of Indigenous people? o Prompt for positive and negative. • The Intervention has brought Indigenous issues more into the spotlight, and we have seen increased media and public debate about this area of policy. What do you see as the effects of this? Has it changed the way Indigenous communities are seen and discussed? Or changed public perceptions? o Prompt for positive and negative.
Howard / Labor approach • The Intervention was introduced by the previous Howard Government, but it has been continued under Labor. What are your perceptions of how Labor has approached this policy? o What are your perceptions of how the different governments have approached the policy? Similarities/differences? o Do you think Labor has a different definition of ‘the problems’? • Optional: Ask about any specific submission and/or government review or consultation process the interviewee was associated with. Particular issues raised. Perception of government’s approach.
Ideas for improving policy making • How do you think Government policy making in this area could be improved? Either in relation to the Intervention or policy for Indigenous people more generally. What kinds of principles and practices would you like to see being adopted by governments?
Wrap up
Are there any further comments you would like to make, or any issues that I haven’t covered that you’d like to raise?
APPENDIX D. INTERVIEWEE BIOGRAPHIES
Notes:
• Interviews were undertaken throughout 2011. Biographies were sent to each interviewee for approval (together with the interview transcript) shortly after each interview. Hence these biographies may no longer reflect interviewees’ current positions or roles. • All interviewees spoke in a personal capacity. Their views are their own and may not represent those of the organisations and groups they are employed by or associated with. • Interviewees are listed below in alphabetical order, however the codes used to indicate individual interviewees in the text were allocated randomly.
Interviewees
Bob Beadman was Coordinator General of Remote Services in the Northern Territory between May 2009 and May 2011. This whole-of –government role drew administrative support from the NT Government Department of Housing, Local Government and Regional services. Beadman’s duties included overseeing, monitoring and providing advice to Government in relation to the development and delivery of government services and facilities in the 20 NT ‘Growth Towns’, and implementing the NT Government’s Working Future policy. He also reported on progress towards achieving the national Closing the Gap targets in remote towns and communities of the Northern Territory. Prior to this, Beadman was a Commonwealth public servant from 1958 and a NT public servant from 1994 until he retired in 2001. He is currently chair of the NT Grants Commission, a role he has held since 2002.
G Chandran (does not use first name) is a Research Officer at Danila Dilba Health Service (DDHS) in Darwin. He is a non-Indigenous man who has worked in the field of Indigenous health for 25 years. DDHS is a community-managed organisation providing primary health care services to Biluru communities in the Yilli Rreung Region. This includes the six town-based communities in and around Darwin that became ‘prescribed’ under the NTER. As part of the NTER, DDHS received
additional resources to undertake child health checks in these communities. In 2011 the organisation also carried out research into the parenting support needs of residents in these communities, interviewing 53 parents and carers about various issues, including aspects of the Intervention.
Julian Cleary is a Policy Research Officer, at the Central Land Council (CLC), based in Alice Springs. The CLC is an Australian Government statutory authority under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, and covers an area of 750,000 square kilometres in the southern half of the Northern Territory. Approximately 24,000 Aboriginal people live in the CLC’s region, speaking more than 15 different languages. The Council comprises 90 Aboriginal people elected from communities in this region. The CLC made submissions to the 2008 Northern Territory Emergency Response Review and the 2010 Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into the amendment of the original NTER legislation. Julian is a non- Aboriginal man and has worked at the CLC since 2010, prior to which he was a research assistant at the School of Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University.
Eddie Cubillo is the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, a position he has held since June 2010. Prior to this, Cubillo was a consultant for Indigenous employment and development at the University of South Australia. Previous roles include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) councillor, and Chair of ATSIC’s Yilli Rreung Regional Council, the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) and the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee (NT). Cubillo has also worked as a solicitor for both the NT Legal Aid Commission and the NT Government. Cubillo is of Larrakia/Wadjigan and Central Arrente descent.
Richard Downs is an Alyawarr elder and spokesperson, who lives in the Ampilatwatja community. Ampilatwatja is in the central desert of the Northern Territory, three hours north-east of Alice Springs and is a ‘prescribed community’ under the NTER legislation. In July 2009, the people of Ampilatwatja, comprising 30 elders and members of the Alyawarra nation, walked off their community in protest against the Intervention. They established a ‘protest house’ at Honeymoon Bore, built with the help of trade union members and other supporters. Downs has since travelled extensively in Australia, speaking and campaigning against the Intervention, and in
May 2011 was part of a delegation that attended the United Nations Permanent Forum II on Indigenous Issues in New York, where he spoke about the impacts of the Intervention.
Bob Durnan is a non-Indigenous community development worker. He has worked in Aboriginal town camps and remote communities in the Northern Territory and Queensland since the late 1970s. Between 2006 and 2010, Durnan worked for the Western Aranda Health Aboriginal Corporation (WAHAC), developing health programs in the communities of Hermannsburg, Areyonga and Wallace Rockhole, all of which are ‘prescribed communities’ under the NTER. Prior to this he worked in the NT Chief Minister's office in Alice Springs, in a role focusing on remote communities. Between 2001 and 2003 he was the Central Australia regional coordinator for the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT). In 2011 Durnan conducted research for Bowchung Consulting, interviewing a number of Aboriginal people in four of the larger Central Australian Aboriginal communities for the FAHCSIA-funded Community Safety and Wellbeing Research Project. Many of the matters canvassed in these interviews related to issues that the NTER was intended to address.
Marcia Ella-Duncan was a member of the Commonwealth Government’s 2008 NTER Review Board. As part of her role she travelled to Indigenous communities across the NT conducting consultations on the impact of the first twelve months of the NTER. The Board submitted its report to the government in October 2008. Previously, Ella-Duncan chaired the NSW Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce, which reported to the NSW government in 2006. She is a current member of the NSW Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Ministerial Advisory Panel. Ella- Duncan has 25 years experience in Aboriginal affairs in areas including criminal justice, family and child safety and wellbeing, community development and land management. She is a former elected ATSIC regional chairperson for the Sydney region and is currently chairperson of the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council. Born and raised at La Perouse in Sydney, Ms Ella-Duncan is a descendant of the Yuin nation on the NSW far south coast.
Jan Ferguson is Managing Director of Ninti One, the management company for the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP), a role
she has held since 2006 (when it ran the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre). Based in Alice Springs, the CRC-REP conducts research on economic disadvantage and the complex issues that restrict full economic participation in remote Australia. The Centre is a partnership organisation with members from government, non-government, university, business and industry sectors. Thirty per cent of its membership comes from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and communities. The Desert Knowledge CRC made submissions to the 2008 NTER Review, and the 2009 House of Representatives Inquiry into Community Stores in Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. Ninti One also made a submission to the Commonwealth Government in response to the 2011 Stronger Futures discussion paper. Jan is a non-Indigenous woman who was born and grew up in desert South Australia, and her career includes extensive experience in senior government appointments and in organisational development.
Mick Gooda is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, at the Australian Human Rights Commission. The AHRC made submissions to the 2008 NTER Review (under its former name, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) and the 2010 Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into the amendment of the original NTER legislation. Previously, Gooda was Chief Executive Officer of the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health for over five years, Acting Chief Executive Officer of ATSIC and Senior Consultant to the Aboriginal Legal Service (WA). He is also currently a Board Member of the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health Queensland. Gooda is a descendent of the Gangulu people of central Queensland.
Wendy Morton is Executive Director of the Northern Territory Council of Social Service (NTCOSS), a role she has held since 2005. NTCOSS is the peak body for community service organisations in the NT, and advocates for social justice on behalf of people and communities affected by poverty and disadvantage. The Council made submissions to the 2008 NTER Review, and the 2010 Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into the amendment of the original NTER legislation.
Katherine Napaltjarri-Parker is a Pintupi woman who lives in Kintore in the Northern Territory. Kintore is 500 kilometres west of Alice Springs, near the Western Australian border, and is a ‘prescribed community’ under the Intervention legislation.
Napaltjarri-Parker has campaigned against the Intervention as part of the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance (PAPA), travelling to Darwin and Sydney to do so.
John Paterson is Executive Officer of the Aboriginal Medical Service Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT), a position he has held since June 2006. During this time, AMSANT made submissions regarding the NTER to the 2007 Senate Inquiry into the original legislation, as well as to the 2008 NTER Review and the 2010 Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry. Paterson previously held a number of elected positions within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, including Commissioner for the Northern Territory (North Zone). Other previous roles include Acting Director of the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS), and senior advisor to the NT Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Paterson’s grandmother's people are the Ngalakan, whose traditional country is near Ngukurr on the Roper River in south east Arnhem Land.
Des Rogers is Senior Advisor in the Office of the NT Chief Minister, in Alice Springs. He has experience in small business, having established and run a number of Indigenous owned and operated businesses, including fruit and vegetable wholesaler Red Centre Produce, and security company pepperedBLACK®. Rogers was an elected an Alice Springs Town Council alderman (2003-2004), and was elected chair of the Alice Springs Regional Council of ATSIC (2001-2004). He has served on numerous local and NT government boards and committees, and is currently on the board of Desert Knowledge Australia. Prior to going into private enterprise, he worked for the Bushfires Council of the Northern Territory for 15 years. Rogers is an Aboriginal man of the Pertame clan (Southern Arrerente). He was born in Alice Springs and is of Afghan and Aboriginal descent.
Senior FaHCSIA officer (name withheld) is a senior officer within the Commonwealth Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). This officer has had high-level responsibilities in relation to the Intervention (in various roles) since its inception.
Jared Sharp is Managing Solicitor, Advocacy Section at the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA), based in Darwin, a role he has held since 2009. In February 2010 he appeared on behalf of NAAJA before the Senate Community
Affairs Committee Inquiry into the amendment of the NTER legislation. He also also worked for NAAJA between 2001 and 2004 as a criminal lawyer, a role that involved substantial work in remote communities in the NT.
Barbara Shaw is Chair of the Alice Springs Intervention Rollback Action Group (IRAG), and founding member of the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance (PAPA). She is a lifelong resident of Mount Nancy, an Alice Springs ‘town camp’ community, which is a ‘prescribed community’ under the NTER legislation. Shaw has campaigned against the Intervention from its inception, and led community delegations to convergences in Canberra and Darwin, to highlight the Intervention’s negative effects to parliamentarians and the general public. She was a candidate for the Alice Springs Town Council local government elections in 2008, and the Greens candidate for Lingiari at the 2010 Federal election. She was a member of the Indigenous delegations to the 7th and 10th meetings of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2008 and 2011. Barbara’s father is Kaytetye-Arrernte and her mother is Warlpiri-Warramungu.
Walter Shaw is CEO of Tangentyere Council, which is incorporated under the Northern Territory Associations Act (2008), and is the major service delivery agency for the 18 Housing Associations known as ‘town camps’ in Alice Springs. The population of the town camps is estimated to be between 1,950 and 3,300, approximately 70% of whom are residents and 30% visitors or homeless. Each town camp comprises a largely distinct Indigenous community based on language and kinship groups. Town camp communities often have strong links with remote communities and there is substantial mobility between the two. Tangentyere Council made submissions to the 2008 NTER Review and the 2010 Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry. Shaw is a fourth generation resident of the Mount Nancy town camp.
TEWLS solicitor (name withheld) is a solicitor with the Top End Women’s Legal Service (TEWLS), based in Darwin. This role includes working with some of the town communities around Darwin that are ‘prescribed communities’ under the NTER legislation. TEWLS receives funding from the Commonwealth Government to provide legal services to Indigenous women affected by the NTER. The Service made a submission to the 2008 NTER Review.
Dr Hilary Tyler is a non-Indigenous member of the Intervention Rollback Action Group (IRAG), an Alice Springs based group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people campaigning against the Intervention. She has been active on this campaign since the beginning of the Intervention, helping to organise meetings and rallies and documenting the views of people living in ‘prescribed communities’, for example by filming many of the Stronger Futures consultation sessions. The IRAG made submissions to the 2008 NTER Review and the 2010 Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry. Tyler is also an Emergency Consultant in the Emergency Department of Alice Springs hospital, where she has worked since 2005. In this capacity she authored a submission to the 2008 Review of the NTER on behalf of, and endorsed by, 30 Central Australian medical specialists.