Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Commission Research Articles

Was the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission an act of dispossession?

AbstractThe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has been described as one of the most comprehensive regional and national governance structures for Indigenous people in Australia. This paper looks briefly at its operational life between 1990 and 2005 and focusses on its abolition, arguing that this was an act of dispossession. The ATSIC was, for its time, a remarkable achievement for both the nation state and Indigenous people. Acting as an institution to both represent and deliver services to Indigenous people, the ATSIC model was, and could have remained, a powerful organisation for enacting critical change. Constructed and then removed by the nation state, the ATSIC's abolition dispossessed Indigenous people of a political framework dedicated to organising an Indigenous collective voice. This dispossession, different from earlier waves of dispossession from land, resources and cultural freedoms, can be understood by the application of critical Indigenous institutional analysis. Through its own structure and electoral representation, the ATSIC had made visible the quest for self‐determination and gave Indigenous people decision‐making powers not since replicated. Redirecting ATSIC's limited decision making back to government exposed the illusion of control. The ATSIC's abolition left a void in the growing capability of Indigenous people to self‐determine and a gaping hole in Australia's national political imagination.

The Voice and Its Doubles: Media and Music in Northern Australia by Daniel Fisher

Reviewed by: The Voice and Its Doubles: Media and Music in Northern Australia by Daniel Fisher Aaron Corn Daniel Fisher, The Voice and Its Doubles: Media and Music in Northern Australia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 344 pp. In The Voice and Its Doubles: Media and Music in Northern Australia, Daniel Fisher of the University of California, Berkeley, offers an insightful and well-theorized analysis of the challenging domain of Aboriginal radio broadcasting in Australia's north. It presents research grounded in fieldwork that was undertaken last decade before the Howard government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which was a conduit through which many Indigenous public programs were funded. Fisher's observations recount the trials faced by Aboriginal radio networks under the constant pressures of dwindling public funds, low wages for Indigenous broadcasters employed through government work-for-welfare and training schemes, and mounting imperatives to find alternative income streams in the struggle to stay on air. Fisher argues that these engagements of Australian Indigenous peoples with audio media production double and actualize through sound their complex socialites and politics of aspiration. Fisher's fieldwork was principally situated within two radio networks. The first, which he addresses in detail in Chapters 3 and 4, was 4AAA in Brisbane, which is owned by the Brisbane Indigenous Media Association (BIMA), and services the local Murri community and other Indigenous Australians living in southeast Queensland. As the capital of the northeastern state of Queensland, which has a long and well-documented history of dispossessing Indigenous peoples, Brisbane is generally considered to be the most populous urban gateway to Australia's northern expanse. The second radio network, which Fisher discusses at length in Chapters 5 and 6, was the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association [End Page 851] (TEABBA). TEABBA is headquartered in Darwin, the tropical capital city of the Northern Territory, but services a diverse audience of Indigenous Australians who speak a multitude of different Australian languages within an area known as the Top End that spans some 1,100 kilometers from north to south and 1,800 kilometers from east to west. Also running through these chapters is the story of the long-standing Indigenous Australian affinity with country music, which Fisher introduces in Chapter 2, and exemplifies through analysis of two recent films by Indigenous Australian directors, Samson and Delilah by Warwick Thornton (2009) and The Sapphires by Wayne Blair (2012). Fisher locates 4AAA's beginnings in 1984 in the studios of student radio station 4ZZZ on the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland in Brisbane amid the staunch conservatism of the Bjelke-Petersen state government. He recounts how its iconic manager, the late Tiga Bayles, had been guided by activist imperatives at the commencement of his career, yet came to realize over the years that 4AAA could cultivate a much broader reach beyond Indigenous audiences with a more accessible country music format. Fisher adeptly traces how 4AAA was positioned to negotiate the multiple tensions that arose over this time as the auditing and compliance regime to which it was subjected by government funders grew more and more onerous, as the Queensland state government sought to transform community radio services into commoditized creative enterprises, and as younger audiences began to identify with and wanted to hear newer styles of popular music. TEABBA, by contrast, was founded in 1989 in a visionary initiative to network media equipment and infrastructure that government had introduced into remote Aboriginal communities under the Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme (BRACS). One of the greatest proponents of BRACS and the usefulness of radio as a means of improving Aboriginal people's lives in remote Australia was the late Frank Dj. Garawirrtja, whom Fisher identifies in his manuscript as FD. Garawirrtja was a man of Yolngu ancestry from Galiwin'ku, a remote town on Elcho Island within the Yolngu homelands of northeast Arnhem Land some 800 kilometers east of Darwin. He was the founding Deputy Chair of TEABBA, and later its Chair, and I was immensely privileged to have worked with him after commencing my own fieldwork on the continuum of traditional and popular musics in Arnhem Land in 1996 (Corn 2013...

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

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.

A nation within? Indigenous peoples, representation and sovereignty in Australia

Many Indigenous peoples who exist as minorities in a postcolonial nation seek to achieve some level of self-determination or shared sovereignty within the nation. This article explores the concept of sovereignty in an Australian context. Under the former Liberal coalition government the recognition of Indigenous rights was portrayed as a form of separatism that threatened national unity. One of the casualties of government policy was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), an elected Indigenous body that had previously administered a significant budget for Indigenous programmes. With the demise of ATSIC, Australia’s Indigenous peoples have been denied a formal mechanism for the expression of their political interests in the name of national unity. The advent of a new Australian Labor Party (ALP) government opens the way for these issues to be reconsidered. Can sovereignty be shared in a way that delivers effective self-determination to Indigenous peoples without creating a threat to national cohesion?

National Policy‐Making in Indigenous Affairs: Blueprint for an Indigenous Review Council

This article examines the dearth of any representative Indigenous role in national Indigenous affairs policy‐making and suggests a remedy. After making the case for a specific Indigenous place in national policy‐making, the article considers the reasons for the failure of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the body that filled this brief for a decade and a half. The article then considers three possible ways of ensuring an Indigenous role in the policy‐making process: a replacement for ATSIC with specific policy powers; set seats for Indigenous representatives in federal parliament; and the creation of a new elected body whose role would be to review Indigenous affairs legislation. The article concludes that the latter proposal in particular is worth trialling as it would ensure a significant Indigenous voice in national policy‐making while learning from the mistakes that led to ATSIC's demise.

Legislating away Indigenous Rights

In January 1998, after two years of implementing the Howard government’s agenda in relation to various national and highly controversial issues, such as the granting of consent under the then World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1984 (Cth) for the development of Hinchinbrook marina and resort, I was promoted to a senior policy position within the Office of Indigenous Affairs. This was the branch of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet responsible for advising the Prime Minister and Cabinet on Indigenous affairs. It was a particularly contentious period for Indigenous affairs. The Office of Indigenous Affairs was conducting a review of policy development functions, and administration of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC); drafting the Native Title Amendment Bill 1998 in response to the High Court Wik decision; drafting the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Bill 1998 in response to the Hindmarsh Island Bridge affair; and managing matters relating to the Howard government’s decision to approve the construction of a uranium mine at Jabiluka within the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. It also housed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. I was assigned to a small legal policy team responsible for the preparation of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander Heritage Protection Bill 1998 that would repeal and replace the existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth). Our small team of three people was responsible for working with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel within the federal Attorney-General’s Department in preparing the clauses and content of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Bill (‘the Bill’) and the Explanatory Memorandum. We were also charged with responsibility for liaising with the states and territories about specific sections of the Bill. The team prepared all parliamentary speeches, includingthe second reading speech that introduced the Bill into Parliament. While we were responsible for these tasks, we received our directions from the Prime Minister and Cabinet, including specific details about the objectives and intent of the legislation. Official and confidential Cabinet documents detailed this information. At the direction of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, bureaucrats designed the Bill to take a broader focus than simply Indigenous heritage protection. The Bill focused on balancing competing interests.

The Howard Government and Indigenous Rights: An Imposed National Unity?

During the Howard decade, numerous controversies emerged in the Indigenous Affairs portfolio: the ‘ten point plan’ on native title; the question of a formal apology to the stolen generations; and the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). Underpinning these contested policy developments is a common issue—the rights of Indigenous peoples within the Australian nation. The Coalition government has consistently opposed measures that give recognition to Indigenous rights. The previous policy of self-determination was rejected on the grounds that it has ‘implications of separate nations or governments’ that are unacceptable (OATSIA 2003a). ATSIC was dismissed because it was deemed a failure, but also because it was said to represent a form of separatism that divided the nation. This was done without consultation or negotiation with Indigenous representatives, imposing a vision of national unity by unilateral decision. This article documents key developments in the portfolio and explores assumptions implicit in the government's rhetoric—that recognition of Indigenous rights and self-determination are divisive and inherently at odds with nation cohesion and unity. In the final section, the ideas of several theorists are outlined to suggest that other approaches are possible—that rather than ignoring or suppressing the demands of Indigenous minorities for recognition, national unity is best served by political accommodation of the special status of such groups.

An ‘experiment’ in Indigenous social policy: the rise and fall of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)

English The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was established in 1990 as part of the Australian government's attempts to address the extensive disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australians. ATSIC was described as a “path-breaking experiment” in indigenous affairs, combining administrative and representative functions in one statutory body. By 2004, however, ATSIC was all but dead. This article describes the short life history of ATSIC and examines the major conflicts, tensions and criticisms that have led to its demise.

The impact of Aboriginal community controlled health service advocacy on Aboriginal health policy

This paper reviews the advocacy role of Aboriginal community controlled health services (ACCHSs) in the development of Aboriginal health policy over the past 30 years, with a specific focus on the recent changes in Commonwealth funding and administrative responsibility - the transfer of Aboriginal health service funding from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Services (OATSIHS) within the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA), and the development of policies aimed at Aboriginal health services accessing mainstream (Medical Benefits Scheme [MBS]) funds. The outcomes of this policy change include a significant increase in funding to Aboriginal primary health care (PHC), the inclusion of ACCHSs in collaborative strategic relationships, and the development of new arrangements involving regional planning and access to per capita funds based on MBS equivalents. However, the community sector remains significantly disadvantaged in participating in this collaborative effort, and imposed bureaucratic processes have resulted in serious delays in releasing funds for actual services in communities. Government agencies need to take greater heed of community advocacy, and provide appropriate resourcing to enable community organisations to better direct government effort, especially at the implementation phase. These remain major concerns and should be considered by non-health sectors in the development of new funding and program development mechanisms in the wake of the abolition of ATSIC.

The Tasmanian Electoral Roll Trial in the 2002 ATSIC Elections

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) elections since 1990 have used the Commonwealth Electoral Roll (CER) as a large under‐specified list of potential voters. Dissatisfaction with this arrangement within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community led to a trial roll of Indigenous electors being drawn up for the 2002 ATSIC elections in that State. This paper recounts a number of contexts in which this trial was developed. It also recounts the experience of the trial itself, which did not work out as successfully as those who had promoted it had hoped. Finally it looks at lessons from the trial and options for the future.

Recent developments in national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health strategy

In this paper I will describe some of the sentinel events in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy and strategy during 2003 and the early part of 2004. This will involve discussion on the:• National Strategic Framework in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health• National Strategic Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Mental Health and Social and Emotional Well Being 2004–2009• National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework• The roll-out of the Primary Health Care Access Program• The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey and the National Indigenous Health SurveyThese developments are consistent with a policy agenda that has evolved, in general terms, since the release of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy in 1989. However, I will also consider significant developments in the broader context for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, particularly the decision made in early 2004 by the Howard government to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). While the key events and developments that are reported in this paper elaborate on an agenda that has been developing for more than a decade, the decision to abolish ATSIC is likely to have a revolutionary impact on the future development of Aboriginal health strategy.

Renewable energy options for hot water systems in remote areas

Providing hot water for remote indigenous communities in Australia has become a priority as part of the effort to improve indigenous health. Earlier work by Healthabitat, among others, has identified washing people to be important in overall health outcomes. In the remote central and northern regions of Australia, the solar regime is very good and the potential for the use of solar hot water systems has been thought to be among the best in the world. Reports from communities in these areas, however, have been pointing to severe problems with the operation of solar hot water systems. The present paper gives the results of a trial of 29 hot water systems in remote locations with the view to identifying the best systems. Of the 29 systems, 14 were solar systems, six were heat exchange systems and the remainder gas and electric. In addition, four biomass heaters (CAT chip heaters) were trialed alongside solar systems. The hot water systems were located at Napranum (northern Queensland), Kintore (NT), Kalka (SA), Wataru (SA) and Alice Springs (NT). The trial started in June 1997 and finished in October 1998. Data loggers were placed on the systems to monitor water temperature, electricity consumption and water flow. Solar radiation and ambient temperature were also monitored at each site. The project was funded by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Koori Primary Health Care in Victoria: Developments in Service Planning

The Alma Ata 1978 Declaration on primary health care has conventionally been applied in developing countries, where medically trained personnel and other highly skilled health professionals and medical infrastructure are limited. Although such concepts have salience in relatively resource rich countries such as Australia, it is in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy that they have become pivotal. A growing national focus on the development of Aboriginal primary health care capacity followed the release of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy (NAHS) in 1989 (Anderson, 1997). This focus consolidated further, following the evaluation of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy implementation in 1994 which preceded the transfer of administrative responsibility for the Commonwealth Aboriginal health program from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to the Commonwealth Health portfolio (DHFS, 1994). Within the strategic framework provided by federal state agreements, the development of primary health care services is a priority. In the current national policy framework domains of policy and strategy development have been identified as key developmental themes.

In Indigenous Affairs Nothing is New, Just Forgotten

Australian Journal of Public AdministrationVolume 56, Issue 4 p. 5-10 In Indigenous Affairs Nothing is New, Just Forgotten Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM, Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM Former Chair, ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission)Search for more papers by this author Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM, Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM Former Chair, ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission)Search for more papers by this author First published: 18 March 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.1997.tb02483.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume56, Issue4December 1997Pages 5-10 RelatedInformation

Contrasting world views on accounting

Examines the issues arising from the enforcing of a Western form of accountability on the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples. Aboriginal organizations such as the ATSI Commission (ASTIC) are set up under a policy of self‐determination. Policy makers need to balance the tension between the policy of self‐determination and the need for accountability. This tension may be expressed as a conflict between Aboriginal organizations’ (or agents’) accountability to governments (or principals) and their responsibility to “higher principals”, their “Dreaming Law”. Seeks an understanding of Aboriginal culture and highlights areas of conflict between systems of financial accountability and Aboriginal culture. Unless systems of accountability applied to the Aboriginal context take into account Aboriginal culture, they can be disempowering and alienating. Recommends further dialogue with the ATSI peoples to develop a more enabling form of accountability.

Reshaping governance in Torres Strait: The Torres Strait regional authority and beyond

Getano Lui (Jnr) suggested in his 1993 Boyer Lecture that it was time to ‘build a new framework’ for the Torres Strait and that this might be negotiated in time for the centenary of the Australian Constitution in 2001. This paper examines possibilities for reshaping governance in Torres Strait, particularly the idea of Torres Strait regional government. It does so in the light of the history of settlement and contemporary population characteristics in the Strait and also the history and development of local and regional structures of political representation. It pays particular attention to events leading up to the establishment in July 1994 of the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TRSA) within the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ASTIC). Under the labels of other authorities, the marine environment, constituency and confederal representation, it also examines some key issues which are likely to arise in attempts to move beyond the present structures towards fuller regional g...

From Dreamtime to Overtime: Awards for Aboriginal Workers

Many Aboriginal people work for below-award wages and under poor conditions for their own organisations something that the former Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the present Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has been discussing with the Federal Government. In 1993, the International Year of the World's Indigenous People, moves to phase in award wages and conditions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations funded by the Federal Government were given greater attention. Concern about under-award conditions in Commonwealth-funded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island organisations led to the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) researching a project on the impact of award conditions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island organisations. The DIR consequently established the Aboriginal Awards Project Unit in the Awards Management Branch. These moves heralded a new approach in industrial relations, recognising the traditional Aboriginal style of decision making. In September 1991 the ACTU Congress resolved that the campaign to develop award coverage should be intensified on a priority basis. It also resolved that an approach should be made to the Federal Government to allocate sufficient financial resources to enable the awards to be brought in. The January 1992 meeting of the ACTU's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders' Committee made as its priorities for phasing in the awards: the award claims of the Pitjantjatjara community, workers in Aboriginal health organisations, Aboriginal community organisations in WA, NT and Queensland, Aboriginal education workers and Aboriginal legal aid workers. Although there was opposition by some Aboriginal organisations to the concept of the phasing in of award conditions rather than immediate payment, it was recommended that the awards be introduced over a period of two years to allow the Federal Government to meet the cost. In 1992 the Federal Budget allowed for funding to supplement the budgets of Commonwealth-funded government organisations for the cost of introducing award rates and conditions of employment for their workers. For this supplementary funding, ATSIC budgeted $3.3 million for 1992-93, $7.8 million for 1993-94, $11.8 million for 1994-95 and $12.3 million for 1995-96. For organisations to qualify for assistance, certain conditions need to be met. They must have DIR's involvement, the rates and conditions must not exceed the community's standards, and appropriate restructuring must have been or must be undertaken. This is to make sure that restructuring undertaken by other Australian workplaces in recent years, under the Award Restructuring and Structural Efficiency Principles processes, is also carried out by funded organisations.

RECONCILING PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND ABORIGINAL SELF‐DETERMINATION/SELF‐MANAGEMENT: IS ATSIC SUCCEEDING?

Abstract: Since the early 1970s commonwealth governments have been pursuing policies of self‐determination/self‐management in relation to Aborigines. In 1987, the Hawke government announced its intention to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to further this policy goal. During the debates over ATSIC's formation, the issue of public accountability in the existing administration of Aboriginal affairs came to public prominence. The result was some extensive reworking of the ATSIC proposal, which in 1989 reemerged with a strengthened emphasis on public accountability. This article traces the events and arguments surrounding ATSIC's formation and then goes on to examine ATSIC in practice. It asks whether ATSIC is succeeding in reconciling the two imperatives of Aboriginal self‐determination/self‐management and public accountability.

The Royal Commission, ATSIC and Self‐Determination: A Review of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

The National Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, in recommending fundamental reforms of government policy, proposed a primarily political and administrative notion of Aboriginal empowerment or ‘self‐determination’. That is, the Commissioner argued the fundamental importance of publicly‐funded Aboriginal organisations and urged governments to relax financial accountability requirements imposed on them. The paper quotes extensively from the National Report to argue that this, rather than ‘land rights’ or ‘economic independence’ is what the Commissioner meant by ‘self‐determination’. But what is the place of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in such a view of Aboriginal and Islander political development? The paper demonstrates the Commissioner's ambivalence about ATSIC, and his failure consistently to project ATSIC's role when making his recommendations about health, alcohol and housing policies. It concludes by citing Commonwealth responses which indicate that ATSIC is likely to emerge as an obstacle in the Commissioner's scenario of Aboriginal and Islander political development.

Establishing trends in ATSIC regional council populations using census data: a cautionary note.

"This paper points out that limitations in official census data for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders draw into question the validity of trend analysis based on time series data for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) regional council areas.... Following discussion of [the] problems, detailed figures showing changes in the size of the Aboriginal and Islander populations and labour force in each council area are presented using 1976 as the base year. As expected, geographic patterns of population and labour-force change are difficult to discern and exact reasons for comparative growth or decline are impossible to determine. The paper concludes that reverse projections for regional council areas using 1991 Census data would provide a more reliable basis for establishing demographic trends."