Government doing something for Indigenous people not with them ...

A tiny remote Aboriginal community near the Gulf of Carpentaria has demonstrated that you don’t need government subsidies to win the healthy food battle.

Mungoorbada Aboriginal Corporation owns the community store at Robinson River a community of about 250 residents almost a 1,000 kilometres southeast of Darwin.

In an effort to get more residents to eat healthy food, Mungoorbada, decided to drop the cost of freight from the price of produce and meat. Yet rather than putting a dent in their profits they were pleasantly surprised to find that their profits increased because more people were buying fruit and vegetables.

This example highlights a point made in many submissions to a government inquiry into remote stores - that when fruit and vegetables are of a good quality and reasonably priced, they quickly sell.

Contrary to popular opinion most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders know what foods are good for them, but problems with supply and affordability limit opportunities to consume fresh fruit and vegetables on a regular basis.

Expensive ad campaigns by government to get Indigenous people to eat more healthily are not only insulting to some remote residents but also of no use if fruit and vegetables are not available for them to buy.

A survey of Government Business Managers in remote communities in the Northern Territory found that 55 per cent of the surveyed communities did not have access to any fresh food for certain periods.

In an attempt to improve the availability and affordability of fresh fruit and vegetables in remote communities, the government established a company called Outback Stores in 2006.

Outback Stores manages stores on behalf of communities, which pay a fee for the service. Communities are encouraged to sign long-term (five years or more) management agreement with Outback Stores and to sign over control for the day to day management of stores.

Outback Stores has 27 stores in Indigenous communities across Australia and plans to expand the number of stores it manages to 90.

The rolling out of more Outback Stores will leave little room for other contractors and could make it less economically attractive for communities to run their own stores or to explore alternative methods of obtaining fresh fruit and vegetables, such as growing it themselves.

The large amounts of government funding that have gone into propping up Outback Stores means that they don’t face the same pressures that other community stores do.

The manager of an Outback Store in Wutunugurra admitted to ordering more fruit and vegetables than the community could consume in order to meet Outback Stores healthy food targets. Since they can always rely on federal funding, Outback Stores don’t have to worry about consequences such as bankruptcy for intentionally creating waste.

The Robinson River store is just one of a number of successfully run community stores. Another is the Bawinanga Good Food Kitchen, a take-away store in Maningrida. After recognising that residents enjoyed the convenience of pre-cooked food, Bawinanga Good Food Kitchen decided to sell healthy versions of the type of foods that the local residents want to eat (pre-cooked pies and gourmet pizzas.) The store does not inflate prices to make a large profit but simply aims to cover its costs. Its main role is to encourage residents to adopt healthier eating habits.

Instead of crowding out community initiatives by expanding the number of Outback Stores, the government should be looking at ways it can encourage and increase communities’ self-reliance.

To date $77 million in government funding has gone into Outback Stores - this seems an awful waste of resources and is surely not sustainable in the long term. Eventually the money is going to run out and what will happen to marginal stores managed by Outback Stores then?

If communities are encouraged to come up with their own solutions they are likely to be more permanent than those administered by government.

Having Outback Stores take over the day-to-day management of stores may be helpful in addressing some poor mismanagement practices but there should be a clear exit strategy which supports and trains local Indigenous people to become responsible for the management of their own stores.

Unfortunately Outback Stores’ promise to employ and train local Indigenous people to work in and eventually manage the stores has been slow to eventuate, with some submitters arguing that there are fewer local people employed in remote stores than there were before Outback Stores came along.

Without community engagement Outback Stores will be yet another example of government doing something for Indigenous people not with them.