ATSIC must be replaced by a new body without 'flexible integrity'

Where am I?

Scene one – family members rising early to the shriek of parrots, galahs and lorikeets to erect galvanised tin sheeting, to stop the incessant morning breeze from blowing out the newly lit fire, specially made to cook breakfast and dry the dampness from school uniforms.

Scene two – children playing with bare feet on an abandoned vehicle littered with broken glass constantly rubbing sore eyes and swatting unrelenting flies.

Scene three – effluent seeping into living quarters of a large family home.

Scene four – man falls through deteriorating floorboards whilst sitting on the toilet.

Scene five – residents sit upright in bed afraid to sleep at night while their house is overrun by a plague of mice with ravenous appetites.

Answer (tick or insert appropriate answer): Africa, South America, Middle East, Bangladesh or other (name country only)

How prophetic the words Mark Phillips (Courier Mail, April 19) credits John Howard with: “…there should be no separate treatment of the first Australians.” And Pauline Hanson’s penned in The Queensland Times, January 6, 1996: “…until governments wake up to themselves and start looking at equality, not colour, then we might start to work together as one.” Especially viewed in light of the announcement by John Howard on January 17, 2004 to abolish ATSIC.

Without blowing the trumpet of the extreme right-wing Prime Minister, who enunciates the same racist vitriol at times as the former Federal Independent Member for Oxley, I do believe Indigenous Australians need to reflect for a moment and assess where we now stand as an identifiable group within the broader community.

One need not go any further than the recent Social Justice Report (2003) of Bill Jonas, the outgoing Social Justice Commissioner for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, which paints a grim picture of Indigenous disadvantage.

• In 2001 the gross income of Indigenous people was 62 per cent of the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, compared to 64 per cent in 1996.
• In 2001 the unemployment rate for Indigenous people was 20 per cent - an improvement from the rate of 23 per cent in 1996. This is three times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous Australians.
• In 2002, 38 per cent of Indigenous students were retained to year 12 compared to over 76 per cent for non-Indigenous students. This was an increase from 29 per cent in 1996.
• In 2001, 63 per cent of Indigenous households were renting compared to 27 per cent of non-Indigenous households, and 13 per cent owned their home outright, compared to 40 per cent.
• Indigenous people have consistently constituted 20 per cent of the total prison population since the late 1990s; compared to 14 per cent in 1991 (we are only 2 per cent of the population).
• Life expectancy for Indigenous females declined slightly from 1997-2001 to 62.8 years and Indigenous males increased slightly from 1997-2001 to 56.3 years.
• There are 2.5 times as many deaths among Indigenous infants than non-Indigenous infants in Australia.
• The narrowing of the gap is so miniscule over the past decade that these figures make the government records of sub-Saharan Africa (with the impact of HIV-AIDs factored out) and Myanmar (Burma), Papua New Guinea and Cambodia seem quite inspiring.

Are we so blinded by our own self-pity that we persist in calling for the maintenance of the status quo by supporting our overpaid and under-performing ATSIC Commissioners? There are some within our political ranks who wish to go beyond rhetorical condemnation of the inevitable passing of the Howard-inspired legislation in the May 2004 sitting of parliament.

I do not condone violent protests of any description and I can assure those who are planning to partake in that course of action, there will be no shelling out of funds ($85,000) of the type recently approved by ATSIC Commissioners for their besieged and suspended Chairman if they happen to find themselves before an unsympathetic magistrate.

What is required by our more enlightened and progressive thinking leaders is to take time out to read the fine print of the new proposal and to strategise on how best to turn a negative into a positive. I believe we should embrace the concept of mainstreaming Indigenous affairs (a re-direction of the $1.4 billion annual budget of ATSIC) by exerting pressure on the bureaucrats charged with administering the new windfall to deliver to and for our people.

What have we got to lose, as they couldn’t possibly be any worse than ATSIC in delivering services to Indigenous Australians?

Mark Philips quoted John Howard’s views on the mainstreaming of Indigenous programmes: “I think it can be better achieved treating everybody equally and where there are areas of disadvantage, having special assistance and special programs … is the best way of helping Indigenous people.”

Once again I agree with Howard when he says we should all be treated equally. I can assure readers from my personal experience, as a former ATSIC Regional Councillor that within the highly volatile council meetings, the 12 elected black officials did not assess Indigenous submissions for grant funding on a needs basis. Unfortunately I concur with an opinion thrown around loosely by a silent majority within our community of “tax payers’ money going to the greedy not the needy” as being right on the money (pardon the pun).

Tony Koch (Courier Mail, April 16) correctly points out:

It (ATSIC) was established to deliver to the most needy Australians, to lift them from disadvantage to at least equal status with the rest of the population. But despite all those best intentions, the indefatigable efforts of many good people, and the investment of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, it achieved virtually nothing.

Craig Johnstone (Courier Mail, April 16) observed: "Only 30 per cent of Indigenous people actually voted in ATSIC elections, which made it more vulnerable to political manipulation and favouritism.”

Some of our leaders certainly had fun with taxpayers’ money (including Indigenous tax payers) and over time mastered the art of political manipulation and nepotism at the expense of the more destitute within their respective communities.

We, the Indigenous population, can cry, “poor bugger me” and “racist politicians” at the inevitable legislative abolition of ATSIC, or we can engage in open and frank dialogue with the government and bureaucrats in charge of administrating “ATSIC monies” on our behalf.

I would also call on those qualified Indigenous professionals, who escaped the precariousness of black politics, to come out of their self-imposed exile. They should now join with the hard working and committed leaders still present in our communities to ensure accountability, transparency, respect and pride is returned to our people.

There is a large pool of experienced Indigenous workers within incorporated Indigenous organisations who would be more than happy to continue in their jobs. Perhaps the government should give consideration to securing their futures by locking them into the public service employment career path.

On a recent exercise with an experienced Four Corners team in rural Queensland I witnessed their producer and journalist, hardened from assignments in war-torn Africa and Eastern Europe, brought literally to tears on hearing the depressing stories of Indigenous people living in this town. So moved were they (producer, journalist, camera man and sound technician) by what they had just filmed that they all contributed to a hat-collection and bought several boxes of groceries for the large family they had got to know who were living in squalid conditions.

I speak of my home town of Cunnamulla (the answer to the question at the beginning of story) where my relatives who live in ATSIC funded houses live in despair while my relatives who live next door in State Housing Commission homes live in relative luxury with unlimited hot water, electrical wiring that meets strict health and safety regulations and where the compulsory installation of reverse cycle air-conditioning keeps them out of harm's way when the temperature reaches high-40s in summer and bitterly sub-zero temperatures in winter.

Try asking the relatives from the former group if they would support mainstreaming or would they fight to maintain the status quo with ATSIC.

Where to from here?

Very simple – We need to go back to the old days of the National Aboriginal Conference, ATSIC’s predecessor, with a structure as follows:

• 18 directors (body to be called the Australian National Indigenous Peoples Assembly, ANIPA and to represent the same geographic area as current ATSIC Commissioners) – Elections to be conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission within three months.
• Abolish Regional Councils.
• Rename ATSIC/ATSIS with the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, DATSIA. (Minister must be a cabinet minister with the specific portfolio of Indigenous Affairs)
• Replace all ATSIC Regional, State and National offices with the name DATSIA and maintain existing staff (reclassify and readvertise positions gradually over 12-month period)
• ANIPA to be an advisory body only with no direct input into the administrative role performed by DATSIA.
• ANIPA to be adequately funded with secretariat, media advisers and a large research team of experienced post graduate Indigenous academics (minimum of $25m annual budget)
• Elections every four years.