Shared Responsibility Agreements - a critique

The focus of the government’s mutual obligation policy is the creation of ‘shared responsibility agreements’ (SRAs) between individual Indigenous communities and the Federal government, in which government funding to communities is made conditional on behavioural change and other commitments from the community. This 'new' and untested approach raises many serious concerns.

Foremost are concerns about the policy basis of SRAs, the introduction of which has been ideologically- rather than policy-driven:

• SRAs are ad hoc. They have no identified criteria, benchmarks or accountability and are not integrated within an evidence-based research policy framework.
• SRAs are not linked to needs-based funding. No additional funding has been provided for SRAs - funding comes from already identified sources, including program money transferred from ATSIC / ATSIS programs.
• SRAs are modelled on the as yet unevaluated 'whole of government' trials, also known as COAG trials (see below).

SRAs are a policy 'sleight-of-hand', portrayed as the basis for Indigenous service delivery but in reality accounting for only a tiny fraction of Indigenous spending. In 10 months only 72 SRAs have been signed, accounting for $13 million expenditure and addressing a miniscule fraction of the issues and needs facing communities. This is a mere 0.4% of annual Commonwealth Indigenous spending. Moreover, there are nearly 1300 Indigenous communities, so at the present rate it will take over 20 years to conclude at least one agreement with them all - that is, to scratch the surface of each community's needs.

How can a policy that accounts for such a small portion of Indigenous spending and need be taken seriously?

SRAs are essentially window-dressing and have been hyped by the Government far beyond their actual significance. SRAs appear devised to resonate with 'hot buttons' in the broader community and to provide a drip-feed of 'positve' stories highlighting proactive government intervention to address Indigenous community problems and needs. In the process the limitations and defects of the policy are masked.

A signficant defect of SRAs is their racially discriminatory nature, for example, that SRAs

• are not being applied in relation to non-Indigenous communities and would not be regarded as appropriate by such communities;
• may exclude any guarantee of Indigenous rights or cultural understanding;
• introduce coercive and inappropriate elements to the provision of Indigenous services by:
  - placing Indigenous communities in a position where they must bargain for certain rights to which they are entitled both as citizens and as Indigenous peoples, and;
  - pitting under-resourced and effectively powerless local communities against the Federal government via mainstream departments.
• have reduced Indigenous involvement in decision-making over Indigenous program funding (previously administered by ATSIC within an Indigenous-controlled and culturally appropriate framework).

The Government argues SRAs will give local communities more say in targeting Indigenous spending - that they are a "bottom up" approach. However, concerns about the power imbalance and consultation processes of agreements struck directly between local communities and the federal government suggest it will be government priorities and interests, and not those of Indigenous communities, that will take precedence.

Indigenous leaders have expressed strong concern over the way in which mutual obligation and SRAs are being introduced into the Indigenous community. Their concerns include:

• the racially discriminatory nature of the agreements being proposed;
• similarities with past failed practices during the paternalistic ‘native welfare’ era;
• the denial of self-determination, including the ability to make decisions about matters affecting their own lives;
• concern that the Government is not prepared to uphold its own responsibilities to mutual obligation, particularly in relation to the provision of services, resources and infrastructure to Indigenous communities.

Concern that the Government won’t uphold its own responsibilities is supported by the fact that, despite documented critical levels of need and underfunding, the policy has not been accompanied by any increase in Government expenditure. In fact, SRAs divert from the issue of Government underspending by suggesting they are a 'new way' to better target spending in comparison to the alleged waste and ineptitude blamed on ATSIC. The lack of any commitment to needs-based funding and the small proportion of overall funding subject to SRAs exposes the Government's insincerity and deception.

Senator Aden Ridgeway, until recently Australia’s only Indigenous member of Federal Parliament, has also pointed out the irony of the Government’s focus on Indigenous responsibility while at the same time removing the Indigenous structures through which responsibility can be exercised:

“There's a huge irony here … on the one hand [the Government is] trying to get Aboriginal communities to behave in a certain way and use this term 'responsibility at the grassroots' while they're knocking over our structures at the national and regional levels, where we do have avenues at the moment - before they get destroyed - where we could actually be exercising that responsibility as well.” 8 Jan 2005

From 30 June 2005, with the ATSIC regional councils abolished, there are no longer federally funded regional Indigenous structures representing and interfacing with local communities. The Government has said it is open to working with regional arrangements set up by local communities however, without funding it will be impossible to set up sufficiently resourced and effective bodies similar to the ATSIC regional councils. It is the equivalent of expecting a non-Indigenous community to set up and fund their own local government. This contradicts the Government's claims to be instituting a 'bottom up' approach, by failing to provide resourced representative structures for local communities to have a voice at regional and national levels.

Regional planning and coordination has been handed to Indigenous Coordination Centres (ICCs), providing the main Government contact points, managed by mainstream bureaucrats. ICCs are mainstream-dominated and less culturally sensitive, stripped of much of the Indigenous knowledge and experience developed by the ATSIC regional councils.

Under these arrangements there is no indication of how the ad hoc SRAs will be coordinated and integrated with regional planning.

The Government's lack of information regarding the details of SRAs is making assessment of the effectiveness of the policy difficult. It suggests the Government is seeking to avoid public scrutiny and accountablility. However, details made public about some SRAs, such as the Mulan SRA, confirm many of the criticisms discussed above.

The Mulan SRA

The first SRA publicly announced, between the remote Indigenous community of Mulan and the Federal Government, has been criticised for being inappropriate and 'patronising'. The agreement requires hygiene (showering and face-washing of children), rubbish, pest control and anti-petrol sniffing measures by the community in exchange for a $172,260 Federal Government contribution towards petrol bowsers for the community and Western Australian Government regular health checks of children and “monitoring and review” of the clinical health services at the community.

A major criticism of the agreement is that it breaches human rights obligations by placing conditions on the provision of health measures which are the responsibility of government. Criticism also points to the inappropriateness of linking the provision of petrol bowsers with child health.

A further discriminatory impact is that the agreement focuses attention on Indigenous behaviour as “the problem” requiring government intervention, and deflects scrutiny from government neglect and policy failure. In fact, the community itself initiated the face washing measures 18 months previously with significantly improved outcomes already achieved (80% infection rate down to 16%). Some community members have expressed concern that the funding agreement was unfair, and gives the impression that they don’t care for their children.

On the face of it, the Mulan agreement appears to have taken a community’s initiative in exercising self-determination in solving their own problems and unnecessarily made it subject to a conditional agreement, the terms of which act to confirm non-Indigenous negative stereotyping of Indigenous behaviour. Such stereotypes are being used to justify coercive and racially discriminatory government intervention.

An example of this has already occurred in relation to the Mulan agreement. A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald credited the Mulan SRA for eliminating trachoma. No mention was made that it was the community's initiative. The article also suggested that criticism of the agreement as 'patronising' was negated by the successful results.

The Murdi Paaki SRAs

In contrast to the Mulan agreement, Western NSW Indigenous communities involved in the second round of SRAs announced, refused to trade their civil liberties for government assistance. Murdi Paaki Regional Council chairman, Sam Jefferies stated: “They will never use their citizenship rights, their basic human entitlements, to bargain for any resources out of the Commonwealth or state”. The Murdi Paaki agreements cover programs to encourage children to remain at school, training and work for young people as night patrol officers and administrative trainees and computer resources.

Also in contrast to the Mulan agreement, the Murdi Paaki agreements are “the product of years of hard work by the ATSIC Murdi Paaki Regional Council and other Aboriginal-organisations in Western NSW”. In other words, there has been substantial, independent Aboriginal involvement and extensive community consultation in developing the agreements. (The ATSIC Regional Councils were abolished as of 1 July 2005, however Murdi Paaki survived as a regional representative body, assisted by funding from the NSW Government.)

Self-determination v paternalism

These two examples highlight the difference between agreements struck in the context of the active participation of Indigenous communities via independent, appropriately-resourced representative bodies, and those in which the lack of effective power and capacity of individual communities makes it more likely that resulting agreements will reflect the political and policy priorities of the Government. This represents the difference between self-determination and paternalism.

ANTaR will continue to monitor and provide updates on the new arrangements. Please keep checking our website for details.