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Someone highlighted this article for me which gave a bit more background
on the ATSIC story for those who are interested.
Andrew
Watts The Bulletin April 21, 2004 COLUMNS > POWER PLAYS LAURIE OAKES: EXPLODING ATSIC INEVITABLE While the decision to dismantle ATSIC was predictable, less so is how it will be replaced and what, if any, indigenous voice is preserved. Put aside, for the moment, the behaviour of some of ATSIC's leading lights. Even without the scandals, the court cases, the allegations of corruption, nepotism and conflict of interest, the experiment was never likely to succeed. The reason is that federal and state governments used the organisation as a scapegoat. When ATSIC was set up to deliver services to indigenous Australians, the "mainstream" service providers largely walked away, even though its resources were limited. Recognition of this in the health area, following an evaluation in 1995, resulted in responsibility for health service delivery being transferred from ATSIC to the federal health department. But the problem continued in other areas. ATSIC was established primarily because mainstream service providers had neglected Australia's indigenous population shamefully. Those mainstream providers were then able to use its existence to shrug off all responsibility. Now its failure is used as an argument for a return to mainstreaming. The hope has to be that attitudes in the mainstream have changed during ATSIC's troubled 14-year existence. Some optimists involved in indigenous affairs are convinced that is the case. They believe one positive to come out of the ATSIC experiment is the mainstream is now better educated about the responsibilities involved in service delivery to the indigenous community. They say the mainstreaming of health resulted in increased funding and federal-state pacts for the improvement of indigenous health services. However, as one of those optimists said after John Howard announced that the entire ATSIC structure would be scrapped: "Mainstreaming must be held to account." In other words, a system needs to be put in place to monitor how effectively services for indigenous Australians are delivered by the mainstream government departments that will take over ATSIC's functions. Ideally, if the concerns of Aboriginal people are to be put to rest, the body keeping watch on the mainstreaming process should represent the indigenous community. And, contrary to Howard's view, it would almost certainly be better if those representatives were elected rather than appointed by the government. Under Howard's proposed legislation, the only say indigenous Australians will have is via an appointed advisory body. There are two things wrong with that. One is that it will be difficult to persuade prominent and respected Aboriginal leaders - people of the calibre of Noel Pearson, Lowitja O'Donoghue, Peter Yu, Mick and Pat Dodson - to join such a body. Pearson, whose views on welfare dependency Howard quotes favourably, has already blasted a process he says would make Aboriginal leaders nothing more than "token advisers" to the government. "They won't accept the poisoned chalice," says a person who has worked with Aboriginal organisations for the past decade. "But if there was some kind of elected body with the muscle to keep a proper eye on mainstreaming departments, they probably would serve." The second problem with the Howard plan is that Aboriginal people clearly want the dignity of some sort of electoral process. Indications are that, despite her silly comparison of ATSIC with apartheid, Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone recognises this. While Vanstone went along with Howard on abolition of the ATSIC board, she fought tooth and nail in cabinet for ATSIC's elected regional councils to be retained to advise the government. She lost the two-hour battle, but secured a compromise. While the board will disappear as soon as legislation is passed, the regional councils will continue to operate until the middle of next year. A source familiar with Vanstone's thinking says that, if the regional councils can lift their game in that time, there may be a chance the government will consider preserving them as a community consultation mechanism. While Labor and the Australian Democrats favour an elected advisory body to replace the ATSIC board, the idea contains an inherent problem. There is genuine concern that, no matter what kind of voting system was devised, Geoff Clark, Sugar Ray Robinson and their ilk would still manage to get themselves elected to the new body. I understand Vanstone could solve this problem if the government was interested. She has apparently been advised that grounds exist for the dismissal of more than half the members of the ATSIC board. If they were sacked, legislation could be drafted specifying that this made them ineligible for election to a new body. But Howard is unlikely to see any point in this. To him, it is not just a matter of avoiding the usual suspects. He is opposed on principle to any separate elected body representing indigenous Australians, and always has been. When ATSIC was first established in 1990, Howard complained that it would divide Australians on the basis of race. It was contrary to what he used to describe as his "One Australia" philosophy in the days before One Nation reared its head. "I am critical of ATSIC not because I don't like diversity," he said, "but because I strongly object to policies which emphasise those things which divide rather than unite us." He has held to that view throughout his years as PM. But Howard was anything but a lonely figure when ATSIC was established. Even the so-called "wets" in the Liberal Party had strong doubts. The leading "wet" at that time, Peter Baume, co-authored a minority Senate committee report rejecting the whole concept. And, while Prime Minister Bob Hawke was in favour, his party was deeply divided. Then-Northern Territory Labor senator Bob Collins, who last year headed a review that advised scrapping the ATSIC board, was highly sceptical back at the beginning. Probably the real wonder is that ATSIC lasted this long. (c) The Bulletin http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/EdDesk.nsf/printing/786FCE506FAB A6A4 CA256E7B0013B7B9 ************************************************************************ |
