The business of Indigenous affairs

• Indigenous job seekers are not hardwired to fail in employment;
• with goodwill, local jobs for local Indigenous people can be found;
• private sector jobs do not take away Indigenous identity and can restore pride in individual and community achievement;
• private sector jobs are a vital component towards building meaningful economic independence; and
• considerable barriers to employment remain.

The responsibility to fashion a more balanced regime with effective disincentives and incentives is one consequence of reforms to the welfare system. One model is New Zealand’s very effective “work-first welfare-second” reforms. Unemployment among Maoris declined from 16 per cent in 1999 to just 8.9 per cent in five years.

Emphasising economic development

A greater emphasis on Indigenous economic independence - private jobs, incomes and enterprises - is growing in significance to policy makers as the Indigenous population grows. Thirty years ago, Australia’s small Indigenous population of 106,000 people was principally rural. But in 2006 there were 517,000 Indigenous Australians, only one quarter of them living in remote areas. It is also a very young population, with 70 per cent of Indigenous people under 25.

Some successful Indigenous enterprises, ranging from micro business to capital intensive mining operations, are flourishing. Entrepreneurial Indigenous people exist and are supported - but commercial developments, rates of homeownership and self employment are critically low. Indigenous commercial development cannot be examined without a discussion of the development of land rights.

Land rights were given Commonwealth recognition in 1972 by the McMahon government, with funds made available for buying properties not on reserves. Today, Indigenous ownership of the Northern Territory is some 44 per cent, in South Australia nearly 21 per cent; Western Australia, 14 per cent; for other jurisdictions, less than 3 per cent; totaling about 16 per cent of Australia’s land area.

The vast majority of Australians do not begrudge Indigenous communities being rich in sacred sites and natural resources. Nevertheless, when so many communities are simultaneously asset rich and unacceptably poor, something is wrong.

Following the lead of Canada and the US, Australia created a system of land trusts and land councils to manage inalienable communal title. For three decades, workability and development were not seen as priorities. The general working principle was to build a system around subsistence from the land and waters. In turn, barriers to investment and involvement by Indigenous individuals and communities were created.

Under the new system introduced by the Howard government in 2006, traditional owners of communal land are able to lease their holdings to the Commonwealth for a period of 99 years in exchange for money for the use of the land. Closer to the economic mainstream; the government can then sell individual portions to families who wish to build homes or establish businesses.

When this system was threatened under the new Labor government, Warren Mundine - a former National Indigenous Council member and President of ALP National Executive - objected strongly:

We have 30 years of history that shows the failure of the communal land structure … (We must) stop being romantic … We need economic development in these communities. They will continue to live in poverty unless there are big changes.

The Labor Government has since announced that the length of leases will be considered on a case-by-case basis; with a lease as short as 20 years being acceptable. Whether this length is sufficient to allow the investment necessary for economic development remains to be seen. Mundine was pessimistic: “If the lease is shorter, it will limit the investment - that’s not rocket science, that’s economics.” He was supported by Gallarrwuy Yunupingu, who indicated that he was pushing ahead with a 99-year lease of clan land in Arnhem Land.

Worthwhile future directions include fostering financial literacy and capacity building among Indigenous communities to make best use of existing programs. These developments may well successfully tackle overcrowding and poor sanitation in remote and rural communities, provided they are not undermined. The reinstatement of the permit system - is an example of the problem; the permit system - dismantled by the Howard government - encouraged isolation from the mainstream with all the consequential problems of squalor, alcohol and sexual abuse.