Disenchantment, Normalisation and Public Value: Taking the Long View in Australian Indigenous Affairs

Abstract

This paper situates contemporary dilemmas of Indigenous development in the underlying themes and principles of Indigenous policy over the medium-term—approximately, the last twenty-five years. It brings together the involvement of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), the radical restructure of public administration with the introduction of New Public Management and the underlying trend towards ‘normalisation’ of Indigenous people and communities, which follows widespread mainstream disenchantment. Within this broad trajectory, some significant developments receive attention—the rise and fall of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the recent decline of the Indigenous community-controlled service sector and the disenchantment that sanctioned the Northern Territory Emergency Response, following allegations of Indigenous child abuse. The paper signals its own disenchantment with the lack of progress under New Public Management and the policy framework of normalisation of Indigenous peoples. It concludes by advocating fiscal and structural reform that would reconfigure policy towards management for public value. This approach rejects formal concentration on Indigenous deficit and reaffirms the state's responsibility for fulfilling a range of diverse local and regional intangible, as well as material, values.