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We need a seismic shift in attitude

By Stephen Hagan - posted Wednesday, 7 May 2008


Once again Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has unequivocally stepped up to the dais and delivered for Indigenous Australians. This time, while on the London leg of his world tour, he made an impromptu, but critically important, commitment to report annually on the results of his government’s efforts in “closing the gap”.
Mr Rudd said that in a modern and prosperous Australia there should be no reason for these gaps to exist.

“Each year we must, as a government and as a people and a country, know ... what progress has been made in closing this gap,” he said. “We should not underestimate in our country the size of this challenge.”

“Each year in the Australian Federal Parliament, on the first working day, we will mark that with a prime ministerial statement reporting progress on closing the gap in life expectancy, closing the gap in terms of infant mortality and closing the gap on literacy and numeracy outcomes,” he said.

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During my time as an avid follower of federal politics I’ve heard a lot of grandiose promises by Indigenous Affairs Ministers of all political persuasions on how they propose to improve the livelihood of Indigenous Australians. Many start with the best of intentions and commence their campaign at breakneck speed, seeking to impress and gain praise from their colleagues as the “can do” man, or woman.

Despondently, but inevitably, the party’s apparatchik’s long tentacles of influence slowly but surely reign in their ambitious parliamentarian and in so doing offer up a sobering reminder that their aspirations were not attainable.

But finally we’ve got a commitment on Indigenous issues higher up than ministerial level. This time we have a politician who is not concerned about holding his inner cabinet position on the front bench.

Having gained an emphatic mandate from the November election and overwhelming support from his National Apology I believe Kevin Rudd’s London statement will deliver him positive outcomes that no other Prime Minister has come close to achieving in the volatile arena of Indigenous affairs.

I make this ambitious forecast because I finally believe public servants charged with enacting Indigenous policies of the government will be held accountable by the Prime Minister if incremental advancements are not forthcoming. This feisty politician does not want to be embarrassed by his over exuberant call on closing the gap.

Indigenous affairs - the poison chalice for Ministers - has been placed in the too hard basket for decades and the resultant ABS figures of severe disadvantage speaks volumes of the ineptness of past administration’s handling of this sensitive portfolio.

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Now public servants - many whom I believe are totally out of touch with their clients and grossly over paid - will have to deliver. I hope those who don’t perform are identified and moved on from Indigenous affairs.

Personally, I hope the high level of Indigenous employment in the federal public service before the abolition of ATSIC in 2004 is re-established. At present you can count the number of senior Indigenous bureaucrats - who wield any real influence - on one hand.

The Prime Minister ought to insist on Indigenous employment equity (2 per cent of total employment numbers) from secretarial support up to managerial level within his myriad of departments that service Indigenous people.

In ivory towers around the nation that house our federal and state public servants there are more pictures of Indigenous people adorning the walls than there are of Indigenous public servants sitting behind desks.

And you wonder why Indigenous people don’t have confidence in the public sector. Last year I had cause to visit an Indigenous specific office in Brisbane with a relative to speak to a public servant and was appalled to observe the process we had to go through in securing a face-to-face meeting.

We had to press a button on a blank wall - there was no Indigenous art décor to speak of or sitting room to take a seat in - and wait patiently for an anonymous voice to come over the intercom to direct us to another floor where someone observed our movement on a security camera and continued to direct us through slowly opening doors.

At the end of a series of sophisticated manoeuvres, that wouldn’t look out of place in a James Bond thriller, we arrived at our destination to be greeted by a non-Indigenous public servant in a most uninviting meeting room.

I shook my head and knew at that instant why Indigenous clients don’t visit these offices. The alternative of phoning a public servant is even worse: the new cost saving automation service that we are all patently aware of is a process that only Centrelink clients endure for fear of loosing their benefit.

The best way of overcoming the indignity of relying on public servants, as the first and last port of call to address our level of social disadvantage, is to be proactive and look at all options available within our communities in addressing specific needs or in getting a job.

I say “get a job” because I’m of the belief that for too long some Indigenous people have been their own worse enemy, regurgitating the well worn “poor bugger me” mantra to justify their high level of unemployment and associated lifestyle they endure today.

It disappoints me that many of our children wake up each morning and prepare their meals and iron their school uniform while their parent(s) lay motionless in bed without a worry in the world because they don’t have a job to go to.

Why should our children have to search for role models outside the home? The head of the household must gain meaningful employment and provide the basic level of sustenance and security for his or her family.

There is no need for such high levels of unemployment of our people around the nation when the mining and agricultural sectors are screaming out for workers - many employers are reluctantly choosing the expensive option of recruiting semi-professional workers from Asia.

In some parts of rural Australian there is a predominance of females taking up labouring jobs around their communities because their men folk have taken up high paying six-figure jobs in the mining sector. Most mining companies offer a ten-day on, ten-day off, arrangement which allows their employees to return regularly to their communities.

Indigenous Australians have got to help themselves and be prepared to travel outside their communities if necessary to secure a job and a better future for their families.

The Prime Minister can only offer so much in terms of resources and expertise - because as the old saying goes: “… you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”.

Indigenous people generally, especially those who continue to blame others for their high level of disadvantage, need to adopt a seismic shift in attitude and begin to help themselves.

At a briefing session on April 13 in Queensland’s Parliamentary chamber for State delegates chosen to attend Australia 2020 Summit I was provided with a booklet that identified Queensland’s current standing within Australia and the world on a number of fronts. During that session the facilitator made an innocuous remark that still resonates with me.

The flippant mention of the fact that Australians could be on par with Japan as the oldest race of people in the world - if it wasn’t for the Indigenous statistics that lowered our standing and placed us in fourth position behind Switzerland and Iceland. I turned to my Indigenous colleague sitting next to me, Neil Willmett (former medical student and now successful businessman) and said “pity about that”.

Neil smirked and as I looked at other Indigenous colleagues; Dr Mark Wenitong (president of the National Indigenous Association of Doctors), Dr Mick Adams (President of the National Indigenous Community Controlled Health Services), Professor Cindy Shannon and Dr Jackie Huggins from the University of Queensland, I could tell the observation of our statistical inconvenience had a barb to it.

I hope before the year 2020 comes around that the efforts of a proactive government headed by Kevin Rudd, with the help of Indigenous people, can address Indigenous disadvantage.

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About the Author

Stephen Hagan is Editor of the National Indigenous Times, award winning author, film maker and 2006 NAIDOC Person of the Year.

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