Closing the gap report revelations reveal nothing new

Many locals from the communities, who are indeed grateful for the training opportunities provided, also lament the lack of jobs and more importantly a lack of commitment on part of governments to open up industries for job creation which restricts opportunities to start up small, locally owned and managed businesses. Another aspect of the training industry they feel leaves them up the creek is the lack of any professional development during the training process, meaning training is overly text book orientated with not a great deal of practical work as most work (when regarding labouring) is seasonal in Cape York. Due to the FIFO nature of training providers people rarely see their trainer and rarely engage with them in any workplace placement post completion of training. A bare minimum of engagement they say is due to the fact they are treated as numbers and quotas in order to pull in the government cash incentives.

For all the positive elements of this up-skilling and training trend, the holes in its ultimate success on the ground, in real terms is left wanting. That is because where RTOs have placed much emphasis (being bush areas) are also areas where jobs and job prospects are slim. Many Aboriginal communities and rural/remote towns have no retail and no space for retail, township growth and subdivision of cattle stations are somewhat forbidden and there is much political focus on locking up these areas, shying away from agriculture and primary industries. Essentially what this means is that increasing employability of a person or people is but one piece of two conjoining pieces. Increasing economic opportunities by way of reneging on the 'lock up and throw away the key' emphasis placed on places like Cape York is the other, crucial yet ignored piece needed to close the gap in Indigenous/non-Indigenous employment.

Not specific to the Closing the Gap Report but relative to Indigenous affairs (in terms of contributing to inequality and spending waste) are issues relating to Native Title which are becoming more and more noticeable across the board. Any conversation about the plight of Indigenous people and the state of Indigenous affairs has to be brave enough to look at the short-comings of Native Title.

What is becoming clearer by the day is that there are growing problems with how Native Title is working- or rather not working. This is shown as I and the newly formed representative & advocacy group for Cape York, the Cape York Alliance, is in receipt of a growing number of letters, emails and complaints about the way Traditional Owners are being poorly represented by their Registered Native Title Representative Body, meaning Land Councils. The issues with Native Title extend beyond Traditional Owners to non-Indigenous land holders who in areas where freehold is not the nature of a land lease are subject to Native Title Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs).

In a perfect world Native Title would not necessarily cause division amongst Traditional Owner groups nor would it pose a threat to the viability of non-Indigenous managed land and its uses. However due to the very human condition we all are limited by, the concept of greed is seemingly the driving force behind many an ILUA negotiation and Native Title dispute; made worse by the valuing of money over true cultural ambition and a will to live alongside one another in cohesion.

None of what I am saying is new, not to black fellas or to white fellas. We all see what greed and in-fighting can do to communities and families. What these problems are, are not always easy to resolve but what is clear is that such problems have arisen under the provisions and powers of the Native Title Act. But I suppose more in the attitudes of those exercising those powers and provisions.

Native Title these days seems to cause more fighting and disagreement and disharmony than it does long-term good. All the media ever reports on are the determinations of Native Title, the hand backs, yet they never scrutinise the deals made under relative ILUAs and follow up to see whether or not the Traditional Owner stakeholders did or didn't benefit in the long term and whether or not any possible royalties made it to the people or was instead swallowed up in the Native Title representational machine, or even if job quotas negotiated under ILUAs are being filled by the rightful Traditional Owners or by a clique instead.

I and so many others, especially from my home region of Cape York, are seeing the concept of Traditional 'ownership' over the ancient charge of 'custodianship' supersede the latter and is being warped into a very cold, capitalist greed machine by a small but powerful and influential few. I am seeing the concept of 'co-existence' as being superseded by the notion of 'land lording' to an extent similar to pre-Magna Carta England in some ILUA negotiations; 'negotiations' being the operative word. I see the Native Title powers and processes being abused & misused and the provisions of negotiation for mutual benefit at odds with the fact that, accept it or not, we as in the First Peoples of Australia are part of a globalised world where nationwide responsibilities of unity are currently being overlooked for the sake of individual gain- unwittingly ushering in a warring contrast between the environmentally sustainable use of land and the 'lock-up' mentality of regions such as Cape York.

Native Title is no longer the same as what Eddie Koiki Mabo, Rev. David Passi and James Rice began to fight for in the early 90s. Native Title is almost unrecognisable from their dignified and righteous intentions as Native Title has moved so far beyond what it was intended to achieve, which was recognition and adherence of the ongoing and vital link to country that Indigenous peoples here in Australia and in the Torres Strait Islands have.

Nobody is saying that Native Title in its perfectly theoretical incarnation doesn't have a valid role to play in achieving recognition for the First Peoples however, what is upsetting is the blind eye we have all turned and the fact that nobody is saying what needs to be said. The time has surely come to ask the tough, no doubt unpopular but much needed question of whether or not we review the Native Title Act more than what is presently being argued is needed. The under-performance of the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC) must also be placed under scrutiny.

The problems facing Indigenous people across Australia are varied and extend far beyond government/Indigenous relations but to internal relations as well. The problems facing Indigenous affairs are as extensive as the Closing the Gap Report annually showcases however the problems reach far beyond the report's scope. Continuing down the path of throwing cash at the problems without any difficult-to-swallow scrutiny of existing outlooks, processes and policies will only continue to exacerbate the problems. Tough review and overhaul of the way we look at "closing the gap" is needed and as I have always said, the answers to this can be found in the middle, common ground as after-all you cannot truly close a gap based on racial statistical paradigms but only with a human approach, and we are all Australians.