“Aboriginal people and their culture are critical to the future of our State. Their unique knowledge is the defining element in building a sustainable future for Western Australia.” Indigenous Implementation Board Report to the Hon. Peter Collier MLC Minister for Indigenous Affairs February 2011 Table of Contents FROM THE CHAIR ................................................................................................................ 1 THE BOARD ........................................................................................................................... 7 TERMS OF REFERENCE. .................................................................................................... 9 THE BOARD’S STRATEGY ................................................................................................ 11 DEFINITION OF TERMS. .................................................................................................. 13 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................... 15 RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................................... 21 Section One RESETTING THE RELATIONSHIP ................................................................................. 27 Why the Board was established The Board’s philosophy and strategy Developments regarding regional governance Comment on progress to date Section Two SUPPORTING THE NEW RELATIONSHIP ................................................................... 53 Promotion of Aboriginal Culture Healing Leadership and Governance Economic Participation Section Three MAINTAINING DIRECTION ............................................................................................. 75 APPENDICES ....................................................................................................................... 79 Minutes of Regional Roundtables __________________________________ ATTACHMENTS Report on the Goldfields Conversation: Kalgoorlie 2-3 February2010 A new Dreaming: Noongar Dialogue February 24 – 25 2010 Mid West and Gascoyne Conversations FROM THE CHAIR Introduction This is the third and final report of the Indigenous Implementation Board submitted in accordance with its Terms of Reference and Ministerial direction. This report maintains the strategic theme developed by the Board in its initial and second reports of the need for fundamental change to the structures and processes of Government engagement with the Aboriginal people of Western Australia. The need for such strategic change was first identified in the early stages of the Board’s discussions and has constantly been reinforced throughout two years of conversations with Aboriginal community leaders in the regions of the State. The evidence is clear – the existing strategies are costly and do not deliver sustained change to the well being and prospects of the majority of Aboriginal people in either the cities or the regions. The exceptions to this finding offer some encouragement but, despite the best intent of many hard working people, are too few to justify the expenditure of the existing federal and state programs. Many of the accepted indicators of the effects of Council of Australian Government programs, i.e. education participation, health, engagement with the justice and corrective systems, are worsening for Western Australia. This suggests that the ongoing philosophy of assimilation that is obvious if unstated in underpinning “overcoming disadvantage” and “closing the gap” programs may be a contributor to growing Aboriginal alienation and dysfunction. The objectivity of these assessments has been hampered by the fact that the Board has been unable to gain from Government an accurate picture of the objectives, costs and outcomes of the existing programs. While the Board has formally noted this as a matter of concern to the Auditor General, it is also readily apparent that program objectives, where they exist, are not developed within anything that would pass for a strategic framework aimed at a sustainable future for Western Australia and its people. Evidence from the broad data available suggests that, despite the growing wealth of the State, the foreseen costs, both financial and social, are, in all probability, unsustainable. The Board has developed the view that the help and cooperation of Aboriginal people are required if this trend is to be turned around. The fundamental premise is that only Aboriginal people can solve Aboriginal problems and they can only be empowered to do this through shared strategies and plans developed in a partnership that is based on equality and recognises and respects their cultures and knowledge. 1 The Board also recognises that the deliberate and sustained erosion of Aboriginal culture over many years and attempts to replace it with layers of corporate structures makes this empowerment a task of considerable complexity. Over the last ten years Native Title bodies and emerging prescribed bodies corporate have helped form a pathway to more advanced forms of negotiation and participation by traditional owners but they are not sufficiently embracing in their current form to address all the requirements of a successful strategy. It will therefore require significant resourcing to build the leadership, trust and confidence and to allow the building or rebuilding of culturally legitimate structures that can partner governments in the business of strategy development and governance. In keeping with its Terms of Reference this report of the IIB identifies Aboriginal views on how this might be done and suggests guidelines for the ongoing work of the Government, particularly the Department of Indigenous Affairs, to engage Aboriginal people in the task of rebuilding their communities and making their culture a central part of Western Australia’s future. Regional Government At the request of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs the Board has concentrated its attention over the last period on the development of proposals for regional government in two of Western Australia’s northern regions – the Pilbara and the Kimberley. This activity coincides with the Board’s recommendation in its second report that, as a first step to building a strategic partnership with Aboriginal people throughout the State, Government should begin the process of establishing regional government in one region and form an inter departmental working group to work with all parties to that end. The Board has been working with the Department of Indigenous Affairs and Aboriginal communities as part of this process. A summary of the Department’s recommendations are included in this Report together with the Board’s views on the proposed way forward. Whatever approach is decided by Government to develop the options offered, it is considered to be vital that there is a shared vision of the way in which regional governance will work and the processes by which a legitimate Aboriginal contribution will be generated. This recent activity has confirmed the Board’s original findings that there are no preceding regional strategies and plans that have engaged Aboriginal people in solutions to their contemporary problems and futures. Rather, there continues to be a series of unconnected and overlapping programs at the end of uncoordinated stovepipes extending from both Canberra and Perth. Recent COAG attempts to coordinate service delivery with Aboriginal participation in selected regions aside, there are no current mechanisms that allow Aboriginal people to contribute to strategies for regional development in a way that empowers them to have control over their own futures. In many ways this lack of power is a reflection of the general malaise that affects all rural communities in Western Australia – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. 2 Governance structures in Western Australia continue to reflect the lack of maturity at the time of Federation when the population of an area greater in physical size than Western Europe was less than 250,000. It had grown rapidly to this size from a figure of 50,000 at the time of Proclamation in 1890, primarily due to the gold rush in the Eastern Goldfields in that decade. In all probability the newly declared dominion would not have joined the Australian Federation had it not been for the newly arrived miners threatening to form a separate region and federate without the rest of Western Australia. An emergent natural aversion to regionalism has left the State with central governance in Perth and more than 140 local government authorities based primarily on the immature philosophy of Country Roads Boards that existed from the time of Proclamation. Most contemporary local government authorities are therefore mendicant in the sense that they generate minimum revenue internally and are almost entirely dependent on grants from both the State and Federal Governments. Such structures are incapable of generating strategic vision and are therefore limited to service delivery of a simple and uncomplicated nature. Capital works other than of a minor nature remain at the discretion and in accordance with the vision of the central governments. Having been regulated under separate legislation since the time of Federation, Aboriginal people have been faced in recent times with being thrown at the mercy of this dysfunctional governance structure that shows clear signs of even failing to meet the needs and gain the commitment of its non-Aboriginal constituents. These attempts to