Awaye!

In part two of 'Fear of a Black Planet', Tony Collins weighs up the economic prospects for a future north Australia.

While demographers predict a sharp increase in the Aboriginal population in the north over the next fifty years, economists point to a distinct lack of jobs and education in the growing black townships.

This program was first broadcast on February 10 2007

Transcript

Daniel Browning: Hello and welcome to Awaye, Indigenous art and culture on ABC Radio National. I'm Daniel Browning. Thanks for your company. Last week, in part one of 'Fear of a Black Planet', Tony Collins presented a disturbing view of northern Australia in the year 2050. Demographers predict a sharp increase in the Aboriginal population in the north, while economists point to a distinct lack of jobs and education in the growing black townships. After decades of intervention from state, territory and federal governments, the economic outlook for remote communities is as bleak as ever. But now, Aboriginal groups are looking to the corporate sector to build a viable economic future for their people. And, as we heard in last week's program, the provision of environmental services in a world where carbon trading is likely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars, is already shaping up as a key source of income for Aboriginal landowners in the north. In part two of 'Fear of a Black Planet', Tony Collins weighs up the economic prospects for a future north Australia where the majority of the population is Aboriginal.

Tony Collins: By the end of 2050, the majority of Australians living north of Townsville and Broome will be Aboriginal. At the moment the fertility rate among non-Aboriginal women in the north is 2.1. But they don't stay in the north for long. Migration trends show that in the period between each census, 30 per cent of those mothers will leave the Top End, taking their children south. Fertility rates for Aboriginal women, above the Broome to Townsville line, vary from 2.4 to 2.9, with the highest of these occurring in regional and remote locations. These mothers tend to remain in the same region for the whole of their lives.

These trends are feeding a completely unusual pattern of population growth in regional Australia. In the south country towns are stagnant, and smaller country towns are dying, leading to a population drift to the cities, so that city populations are increasing as a proportion of the overall population of each state. In the Northern Territory, it's the other way around. And in the Kimberley and Cape York, it's the same.

There's a population boom in regional and remote Aboriginal communities, the same communities that despite decades of government intervention, are among the most deprived on the planet. While predictions of a booming resource economy are likely to come true for northern Australia, there are not many jobs in the modern-day mining and energy sector, and the populations of the major non-Aboriginal cities and towns will more or less stagnate.

Economist Rolf Gerritsen, from the Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre in Darwin, says that the way the economy in northern Australia is developing at the moment, in 2050 there won't be much in it for Aboriginal people.

Jobs growth connected to the mining and energy sectors will be highly technical, and given the way that education resources are currently distributed, away from the Aboriginal communities, favouring the white towns, participation in the booming economy of the future is not likely to include Aboriginal people.

Rolf Gerritsen: Large inland towns will decline in population terms relative to the rest, and they will also age dramatically as the industries basically stagnate. A few towns in northern Australia—I mean Cairns and Darwin and Broome—will continue to grow, but in the very unofficial and seasonal labour markets, basically geared to the dry season tourism.

The mining industry will grow in terms of its economic output, but will decline in terms of its employment. In 20 or 30 years time you won't have any underground miners, it'll all be done by machine. The proportion of the population that's growing is also the poorest portion, and it's the portion of the population that doesn't have the education and qualification and skills that are required for the 21st century economy. And there is no unskilled or semi-skilled labour market except the highly seasonal labour market, say, in the tourism and hospitality industry. So the conventions create lots of jobs for waiters, and some Aboriginal people can become waiters, but we're not talking about secure employment. We're not talking about employment with a future. We're not talking about employment that people like you or I would want our children to have. So people like you or I, our children will leave.

Tony Collins: The future of northern Australia is beginning to look much like apartheid South Africa, with enclaves of wealthy white workers reaping the benefits of a resource-based economy, surrounded—and indeed outnumbered—by an underclass of poorly-educated, unhealthy, and poorly educated black citizens. The consistent failure of governments to invest in adequate infrastructure in the black townships of outback Australia is leading to the development of a gigantic ghetto of Aboriginal disadvantage, stretching from Broome to Townsville and from Port Augusta to Darwin.

Alison Anderson grew up in the tiny Western Desert community of Papunya. She served as an ATSIC Commissioner up until it was disbanded, and now sits in the Northern Territory Parliament as the member for MacDonnell, representing many of the most deprived communities in the Western Desert. She's part of an Aboriginal leadership that is trying to 'rescue the future'.

Alison Anderson: I think that we have to start looking at investing in remote Aboriginal communities properly in the future, and I think a long-term strategy, a 20-year strategy, to have a look at what they can do with law and order and overcrowded houses. That's the kind of initiative that we want to see in remote Aboriginal communities; a long-term strategy, a long-term commitment from Australia to remote Aboriginal people, and it's a fact that over the years there has been no investment in remote communities. It's overcrowded housing; it's no housing; it's about putting better health services and better education system into remote Aboriginal communities. Governments right around the country are thinking that it's not viable to invest in smaller communities.

It's about regionalising communities. I think we need to have a look at bigger communities where all the services can be accessed. We talk about the continued movement to towns like Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin from remote Aboriginal communities, and we complain about the anti-social behaviour, but it's about putting the services back out where people can access it and that's like having proper ATMs so people can withdraw their money; proper health services, and proper education. Because most of the time you've got people coming in to either visit their children that are going to boarding schools in Alice Springs, visit their husbands or sons that are in jail, and visit their sick relatives in the Alice Springs hospital, or on dialysis machines. These people are permanently removed from their culture and their communities for medical reasons into hub towns like Alice Springs. And it's only correct, I think, that their families follow them in, because most of these people are elderly people.

Tony Collins: After the Federal Government abolished ATSIC and instituted a new regime of funding for Aboriginal communities, it soon became clear that isolated and remote communities with small populations were out of favour and would have to justify their existence or be absorbed into larger regional centres. This policy direction reversed the trend set by the homelands movement of the 70s and 80s, which saw Aboriginal people returning to their traditional lands after decades or even generations of displacement.

The renaissance in Aboriginal culture that resulted has given rise to an arts industry that dominates the Australian arts scene internationally, and generates millions of dollars annually.

Tourism related to Aboriginal culture and the spectacular landscapes of Aboriginal-owned land at places like Uluru and Kakadu is another multi-million dollar industry that exists alongside townships where traditional owners, living in overcrowded third-world conditions watch their children's future evaporate in fumes from cans of petrol strapped under their noses.

It's not a good report card for a country with a booming economy and a budget consistently in surplus. But the failure of government to provide for Aboriginal communities has led, in many instances, to creative partnerships between Aboriginal organisations and private enterprise, and this is increasingly seen as the only hope for the future.

What about economic opportunities in those remote locations—can you see that there's a future for developing enterprises and employment-creating initiative that are based on culture and based on the natural resources that exist out in those remote locations.

Alison Anderson: Absolutely. You just have to have a look at a place like Titjikala that's only 70 km south of Alice Springs. They've got an agreement now with Macquarie Bank and they're working in true partnership and there is real development for tourists to visit Titjikala and actually sit down and talk to the people about their culture, there law. And these people are really interested in the Aboriginal aspect of going out to Titjikala. There's also Oak Valley not far out of Titjikala that has a tourism enterprise, and there's opportunities for Hermannsburg and Arreyonga to develop real employment capacity for the people that live out there, and really stretch out the imagination of tourists coming in to central Australia, and really see that beautiful country that we've got. And there's also opportunities in places like Mount Leibig and Yuendumu. We have the big mining industry there, Tanami Mines out near Yuendumu. There's perfect opportunities out there for people. But it's about educating people, it's about making sure that people are healthy, and encouraging people to go into real employment rather than just CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects).

We invest, the Northern Territory, in the world market and encourage people to come and visit the beautiful scenery that we have in the Northern Territory and the fact that we have Indigenous people with their language and culture still in place and we need to make sure that we maintain the law and culture and the people that we market across the world.

Tony Collins: Aboriginal leaders in northern and central Australia are preparing to move beyond the era of Land Rights and Native title and into an era of enterprise development and culture-based economies NAILSMA, the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, is one organisation that is working to assist people to take advantage of opportunities to develop enterprises based on the culture and natural resources of their communities. While the federal government has all but given up on investing in remote settlements and outstations, NAILSMA is looking to industries of the future, like carbon trading, water trading, border protection and land management, to form the basis of sustainable economies in remote locations. Executive officer, Joe Morrison.

Joe Morrison: I guess the basis for people entering into the economy in the north is founded on the notion that Indigenous people have a whole set of knowledges with is unique to them and to their clan and their communities that no-one else can claim to have. So this basically what we're saying, that Indigenous people have knowledge which also brings about customary obligations and community obligations to be managing landscapes. And they do it in a way which only Aboriginal people can deliver, and we're saying that that's a product in itself, so that basically is the foundation for the notion of the culture-based economy. People are providing unique services for the nation. It's not a service that can be provided by a farmer or a pastoralist. This is something that's entrenched and goes back a long time, people's connection to country. It brings about, also, a holistic approach. So the notion of a culture-based economy really is underpinned by Indigenous people's knowledge of their country and their customary obligations to continue managing their country for future generations.

Tony Collins: It's that unique knowledge and connection to the land that forms the basis of a growing industry in cultural tourism being developed by Indigenous entrepreneurs in conjunction with community organisations and private enterprises. On the pristine beaches of the Gove Peninsula, just far enough away from Alcan's expansive bauxite operation to get the feeling that the white man's hand has barely touched the earth here, the Burarrwanga family of the Gumatj clan have developed a fast-growing tourism enterprise called Bawaka Cultural Experiences. The centrepiece of the operation is a tiny, remote outstation, called Bawaka. It consists of three solar-powered houses on a white sandy beach, overlooking a spectacular natural harbour that appears on the map as Port Bradshaw. The only development on its shores are Gumatj outstations like this one, which each house about 30 people and form a base for a tradition-orienting lifestyle that includes hunting and fishing and the regular performance of traditional ceremonies.

It's a hard place to get to, from the mining town of Nhulunbuy, but the family don't want the sandy track fixed up, or a runway put in for light planes. Their fathers and grandfathers left clear instructions about development on the homelands. The leader of the enterprise, Timmy Burarrwanga, whose father is buried under a stone monument in the centre of the beach, says their aim is to entertain small groups of tourists and keep the environment in its natural state. He remembers his dad saying you have to try hard to get to Bawaka, but when you end up there, it's like heaven.

Timmy Burarrwanga: I think this remote area is really important. And Bawaka is—all state and territory people want to come and visit, experience it. But while they wanted to hear about it... it's a significant country. I remember my Dad saying not to fix the road. And the road, I'm saying it's not going to be fixed. That's why I need people to come and experience it. I know I remember my Dad saying, you try hard to go to Bawaka and you end up here, it's just heaven.

Tony Collins: While you couldn't imagine a more enticing location for a tourist development, the Burarrwanga family have modest ambitions, with plans for only one extra building to accommodate overnight stays. At the moment the venture is limited to day-trips that include hunting and fishing excursions, a lunch on the beach, and stories about the place and the people who've always lived here. There are many sacred sites and, clearly, the culture and language that relate to them is alive and well. Timmy Burarrwanga and his family have the support of the mining company Alcan, who use the day-trips to Bawaka to induct new workers at their Gove plant into the culture of the local Aboriginal people. Instead of meeting drinkers in town, begging for change, new workers at the mine go fishing and hunting with proud Arnhem Landers and learn to treat the environment and the people with respect.

Timmy Burarrwanga: Development in the future is not really happening [unclear] ... people understand how this beautiful place is, and really in my own opinion, and my family's, we don't develop to put on in the future—just to leave it like this. And that's how we can help people to understand [unclear] ... but the family should be able to grow together. And really the land is our power and we don't want to develop anything.

Tony Collins: You know what we were talking about yesterday with the Land Rights legislation, and John Howard wants to change the laws so that Aboriginal people can sell their land, or lease it for 99 years to somebody else; would you ever do that here?

Timmy Burarrwanga: No, never. Howard's government have never experienced this country. Bawaka is a very important place. I reckon Howard's government, and Territory government, will be saying to understand about how Indigenous people are trying to make business and trying to be economically ... and honouring the place. It's for the Indigenous to understand how it is. But I reckon government Howard is saying that to own this country...but he must come and experience it. It's about coming here and experiencing it. But there's a lot of big country here. And I reckon the Federal Government—a lot of changes—what they do is a lot of changes, and they don't know what they're doing. It's about change, it's about tolerance, and economically in their world. But I need to find out how here, founded in our culture and our law.

Tony Collins: By setting up this Cultural Experiences tour, you're using the land and your resources to generate jobs and money for your people, for the landowners. So it's already happening, isn't it?

Timmy Burarrwanga: That's a really good point. What I really want is... Yolngu people have no qualifications... This is the fact that I'm telling you. Yolngu is a very important knowledge. Yolngu people are significant. They are natural people from here. They hunt, they already are educated in this environment. Yolngu environment is like going to university. So all these people here have got a talent. They are educated. They are fully educated. They have a qualification in the nature and for the their rights. If people are coming to visit Bawaka you must be careful of any dangers. And we are educated from them. We are educated when we are in the mother, the womb, you know. And that's how we bring education. A lot of people say that you need education, you need education... but it's not true. It's a part of it. If you go to the white world... and a lot of Indigenous people are well educated. A lot of people don't go to school. Really it's employment and training, and I reckon the Howard government need to understand that there is an opportunity for Indigenous people to understand about the country, and not [unclear] the country, but to understand. And it's about educating Yolngu people and implement training for my people... all working together.

Tony Collins: While not many tourists to the Top End actually make it out past Kakadu to Gove, the fact that Bawaka Cultural Experiences is heavily patronised by Alcan is a saving grace. The operation also relies on the administrative support of the Dhanbul Aboriginal Council at Yirrkala, which is one of a network of Aboriginal organisations set up to provide resources to the outstation movement. While the federal government is questioning the viability of outstations, the people who live on them are not about to pack up and move into town. Economist Rolf Gerritsen says there's a broad range of economic activity that takes place on outstations, much of which goes unrecognized.

Rolf Gerritsen: About a quarter of the artists of Australia actually live in the Northern Territory and they're Aboriginal. And there are considerable sums of money. I still think there's unresolved tensions there between some commercial pressures to create what I'd call 'airport art', and then the galleries try and create the high art that's exclusive to small numbers of people. But the middle range of art, the sort of bark paintings that I'd buy, or could afford to buy, I think is pretty strong. And the great thing about that industry, too, is that women are heavily involved, so that it's a great industry for outstations.

Tony Collins: Joe Morrison, from NAILSMA, says that the movement of Aboriginal people back to their traditional lands is a major factor in the success of the Aboriginal art industry, and that any threat to the existence of outstations will threaten the future of Indigenous art in Australia.

Joe Morrison: I think the arts industry is probably the only industry which is wholly Indigenous. I'm talking about the Indigenous arts industry here. And it's pretty successful. I think the spin-offs from local art centres is quite significant when you put it in global terms, not only the amount of money that's attracted from overseas, but also the interest. Arts is also sustained by people's connection to country; their language and, like you say, their ability to articulate their cultures onto canvas and so forth. However, I think there's a disparity between the notion of Aboriginal art and also keeping people on country. I think that there's lots of misconceptions. I remember Senator Vanstone making the point that she wanted to look at the viability of these communities, and the next week she said that the Aboriginal arts industry was one of the most important industries for Australia, not really making the connection that people don't just sit in towns and dream these paintings and so forth up, that it's got deep-rooted connections to country. And so there needs to be a greater articulation of that connection. But also the fact that you need to keep people in those landscapes so they can continue to express themselves through the arts industry—which has proven to be a successful industry for Aboriginal people. Not to say that it's perfect. there's lots of issues with the arts industry, but certainly it's one where Indigenous people could run extremely well.

Tony Collins: Rolf Gerritsen is an economist at the Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre in Darwin, and a former economic adviser to the Territory government. He's conducting long-term studies into the economic viability of remote communities and outstations. He sees the Indigenous arts industry as a model for other culture-based enterprises that can be carried out on Aboriginal homelands.

Rolf Gerritsen: Well the art industry is the biggest Aboriginal industry in northern Australia. It's one of the few industries where Aborigines have a significant of control. And to me it's an excellent industry because it's an industry based upon their own social patterns and the sustainable use of natural resources. So to me it's an illustration of how you could set up Aboriginal land management and fire management services that would, I think, be equally successful. The music industry is at present underdeveloped, and that's partly because the government efforts to support it are very splintered between different groups. The private sector interest is good. There's a company here in town, Skinnyfish Music, that have done a wonderful job in developing Indigenous contemporary music. And to me that's an area we should be focusing on, because that takes up the young men and it interests young men. We did a study of Maningrida, for instance, that when the music program from the NT School of Music was actually at the school at Maningrida, attendance rates shot up because the boys came to school because they were interested in music. And there's lots of Aboriginal groups, Saltwater Band and Yugal and others that are starting to crack through into becoming commercial in the way that Yothu Yindi is. Actually while I was in government I put up a proposal to the government to say that with the investment of about a million dollars, we could at least quadruple the production of Indigenous contemporary music. It has a huge range of positive externalities. Most of the people who are assaulted or bashed, particularly women, are bashed by young men who if you could engage them productively would stop doing that kind of behaviour, which would have all sorts of positive externalities in terms of expenditure by governments on law and order and justice services, health services. So to me there was a strong economic argument for getting behind that industry.

But you can't see it on the horizon. It's not a big crane, so the government doesn't seem to be interested.

Tony Collins: Rolf Gerritsen is not the only analyst who sees government policy being driven by political opportunism. Gary Robinson from the School of Social and Policy Research at Charles Darwin University says policy decisions at both federal and territory level are focused on patchy responses to crisis situations.

Gary Robinson: Too much of it is driven through a kind of political opportunism that looks at tendencies to crisis, looks at organisations' failure, looks at the failure of Aboriginal societies to somehow improve and deal with major health and social issues, and then kind of constructs interventions on that basis. So we're going through a series of policy reformulations at the moment—some of with have been longer-term than they appear, but with new ministers in Indigenous Affairs, really trying to overturn things, redefine directions and so on. Now some of that may be valuable, but it's driven by a kind of crisis approach and an orientation to governance and governance failures and so on that really doesn't do much justice to the nature of Aboriginal social conditions, to Aboriginal societies, to what's going on in them. And so really doesn't come with any real analysis or real strategy for developing effective medium-term strategies. So it's very reactive, very crisis-driven, with some long-term agendas probably at work. But not much that's geared up to saying, okay, what outcomes can we really expect, what interventions can we really build, what capacity should we build in Aboriginal societies to achieve those outcomes?

Tony Collins: NAILSMA, the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, is one of the organisations now focusing on the way forward for remote Aboriginal communities. Former director of the Kimberley Land Council, Peter Yu, is the chairman.

Just on the states and territory governments themselves, do you think they are actually helping, in a policy sense remote communities to actually move towards creating more resilient economies, more self-sustaining economies?

Peter Yu: I think theoretically people are wanting to do the right thing. I wouldn't be cynical enough to say that people are doing things deliberately to not make improvement. The fact of the matter is that we've failed dismally, and that's where we should be attacking the problem. We've certainly got to get the numbers up in terms of the industries that have been around for a while. I think the only one where I'm aware of significant change has been the Argyle Diamond Mine where I think it's up to around 27 per cent, when four or five years ago it wasn't very big at all. It's quite ridiculous really when you think that if you were to take people off CDEP immediately, that you might have an unemployment level of anything above 60 to 70 per cent, if not even greater in some communities, on the basis that the training has failed and people haven't been as competitive as perhaps they ought to be, because I think the CDEP has been one of the greatest evils that I have seen in terms of denying people their ability to exercise their rights and responsibilities in the appropriate manner. We have been complacent about that I think. Some people would argue against it, I know, and say what's happening with CDEP.. but I know a lot of people are saying it's inevitable come 30 June that the system will have been changed irrevocably so that people will have to go out and do other things. I think that hopefully will provide impetus for people to look at industries but also at other forms of business in their own communities.

Tony Collins: I guess people involved at the federal level would point to things like the COAG trials as an attempt to turn that situation around, in specific communities. But recent appraisals of that program, particularly in the Territory example at Wadeye, seemed to indicate that it was an abject failure.

Peter Yu: What we're dealing with is a systemic issue that is not just a question of Aboriginal government relationships. It's also one to do with Commonwealth–state relationship. And Aboriginal people get caught up in the middle of it. I think that is part of the problem. The unfortunate aspect is it's a co-dependency relationship, where Aboriginal communities are dominated, with very little scrutiny or accountability, in my view, in regards to government both Commonwealth and state, in terms of their performances. It was very useful to see if there were to be individual workplace arrangements introduced in the public service to measure the performance of those people who are responsible for dealing in this highly complex and very stressful environment, but also a very necessary one because it indicates, provides a measure of effectiveness as to how we can deal with other things where we can be successful in our communities. But I think there is that element, and I think part of it seems to be getting caught up in this ongoing GST debate—about revenue raising in the Commonwealth and the state, and the demarcation that brings in regards to providing the level of investment in remote communities. And I think the Aboriginal community is getting caught up in that.

Tony Collins: Land Rights and Native Title legislation has in large part succeeded in bringing large tracts of land under Indigenous control. But land councils and other Aboriginal organisations have been fully preoccupied for the best part of three decades with gaining and defending their land tenure in the courts. It's only now that organisations like NAILSMA are looking to the future to assist traditional owners to establish viable and sustainable enterprises that are in keeping with their aspirations. NAILSMA executive officer Joe Morrison sees relationships with mining companies as crucial to future economic development in remote areas.

Joe Morrison: We take the view that regardless of the land tenure at the time of a mining operation setting up, that Aboriginal people will always have interest in that particular parcel of land, whether it's a partial lease or not or whether it's a national park or whatever. And so what we're basically saying is that this is a discussion that's really important and it needs to be I guess enhanced and discussed a lot further. But it does look like there are potential positive outcomes for Indigenous people and mining companies to enter into these kinds of arrangements. There are certainly lots of bad examples that have occurred in the past and also lots of ill-feeling. But the fact is that there's 6 billion people on the planet and that's not going to reduce. And the fact that northern Australia in particular is very mineral-rich and a lot of it is on Aboriginal land or lands that have interest from Indigenous groups. So I think part of the realisation is saying, well, this stuff is going to go ahead whether we like it or not, and the view that NAILSMA takes is making sure that Aboriginal people are at the negotiating table from day one and they are in a strong position to put their own circumstances on the table and articulate that into real benefits for their communities.

Tony Collins: If we look at the McArthur River mine, which is on a pastoral lease where Aboriginal people clearly have sacred sites. It seems to be that they would have a Native Title interest if there was a claim for it lodged. But there is a clear interest of the traditional owners in that land, yet there's nothing that compels the mining company to deal with those traditional owners, other than the Sacred Sites Act. What's the remedy for, say, the Gadangi people in that particular relationship?

Joe Morrison: I should probably take a step back in relation to what I'm talking about here. When I say mining companies, I'm particularly talking about just a few of the mining companies which are taking a positive leadership role I think in this which will have good positive benefits for the mining industry down the track. There are obviously a few operations like McArthur River which I wouldn't have thought of as a positive contributor to Indigenous engagement, Indigenous employment. So when I say mining companies, I'm thinking in my head of some of the positive companies that are thinking laterally and not just thinking about how much they can extract out of the country.

Certainly the issue down at McArthur River is one that we wouldn't support. And Xstrata is the extremely big multinational company and I doubt whether the company actually hears the plight of Indigenous people, and the fact that there are downstream effects felt, or going to be felt, by Yolngu people on those islands there. So there's going to be some serious consequences down the track, and I think part of the issue is that it's been extremely hard to get Indigenous aspirations and views into the media on that stuff in a clear and concise manner. Obviously industry and small businesses dominate the debate there. And the end of the day Indigenous people, particularly in relation to the environmental impact statement process, rely a lot on the Northern Territory government's goodwill to hear their plight and to take into consideration the impacts on their culture and cultural economies as well as their societies; not just the environment.

So the McArthur River issue is one that we're watching very closely. We support the Yolngu people and those people down there to articulate their concerns in relation to what the future issues could be, particularly in relation to their livelihoods and their ability to hunt turtle and dugong and to be able to get a whole lot of foods which basically keep people healthy on those islands. I think a lot of that hasn't been articulated all that well. And the processes of approving those kinds of mining operations I think is pretty well flawed at this time. We don't have proper social and cultural indicators to determine what the impacts could be for Indigenous people.

Tony Collins: Well if that mine generally is not a good example of how culture-based economies can grow and benefit Indigenous people, what's an example of a good one—something like Rio Tinto, the diamond mines in the east Kimberley—is that a more responsible approach?

Joe Morrison: Yes, I talk about Rio Tinto in particular rather than just talk about the Argyle mine or Century Zinc or the west coast of Cape York mines that they have. Rio Tinto recently released a biodiversity strategy which is basically an opportunity for Aboriginal people to provide environmental services and be paid accordingly. These are some of the positive steps that I talk about in relation to mines taking a more proactive economic view on how their mining operations could impact on local Indigenous people. So we're not just talking about mining leases themselves, and the biodiversity on those leases; we're talking about biodiversity in the region. And I think that's a very positive step for the mining operation to realize that they could contribute to biodiversity outcomes through the provision of flying Aboriginal people on communities and so forth. And I think those sorts of steps should be celebrated and supported as much as we can.

Tony Collins: What has brought them to the table there?

Joe Morrison: Well I think it comes back to the fact that Rio had a global look at their operations. There have been some appalling things that have come out of some of their mining operations in other parts of the globe. And I say this because I've actually worked with Rio Tinto in southeast Arnhem Land in the past, so I know when they were working down there they were funding a potential impact study on potential mining operations in that part of the world. And at the same time they were examining their own operations globally and thinking that much of the land that they're operating on has got Indigenous people residing either next door or on it. And so they needed to take a more proactive approach in supporting the development of those Indigenous communities rather than leaving them impoverished and in absolute crisis once the mining operation ceases. And again, it's one of those things that I say, that it's good for these mining companies to have that sort of realisation. However, it's always been a long process for them to do that. But at the same time, I should say that it should be celebrated. There are some mining operations that have been around for a long time, or a longer period of time than Rio Tinto, and have still not come to that realisation. So I think this is a bit of a leadership role and a good case study for Rio to push and to continue to fund those sorts of initiatives. Particularly the arts, because I think arts are important industries that Indigenous people basically drive in northern Australia. The Indigenous arts industry is one that could be extremely successful, or more successful than it currently is. It's one that Indigenous people basically run and operate. And mining operations I think have come around to the view that supporting those sorts of local economies are important drivers for the future of those little communities.

Tony Collins: Mining companies and energy producers are already negotiating with Aboriginal groups to pay for environmental services that will offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Peter Yu says NAILSMA is helping to negotiate the transition of traditional Aboriginal land management practices into an environmental service provision with a dollar value in the carbon trading economy of the future.

Peter Yu: I do think that while Aboriginal people may not have all the answers for it, there is an opportunity in terms of the way the land has been managed where there is the intellectual knowledge and capacity to greater explore and understand the nature of the impact that we have on the environment from our activities. And I think that unfortunately, like everything else, that tends to have little worth and value in broader society. I think that's one of the bigger challenges, first of all getting the acknowledgment that we are serious contributors and are serious in wanting to work within the national framework. But there needs to be significant investment in relation to issues like governance and infrastructure and a capacity for people to actually translate that knowledge into something manifest which might assist this whole issue of global worming.

Tony Collins: When you fly along the coastline of northern Australia, the great expanse of the continent is laid out before you. Over the vast distances between major towns, the only sign of human occupation are the tiny outstations, with a huddle of houses around a bore-fed water tank, with state-of-the-art solar power and a couple of dinghies pulled up on the beach. Most people aren't aware that each of these outstations will usually have at least one person who's trained to do autopsies on dead animals and take samples of diseased tissue for the Australian Quarantine service. They are equipped with radio communications, and on the lookout for illegal fishing operations, which they regularly report to Coast watch headquarters. The Djelk rangers at Maningrida, for example, are a highly mobile, well-trained organisation, carrying out surveillance and land management tasks funded solely by the CEDP work-for-the-dole scheme. Which means that although they can spend their whole lives working 20 hours a week for the benefit of the community and the nation, they will never receive anything more than a pair of boots and the equivalent of a normal dole payment. Joe Morrison says that sooner or later the federal government will have to recognize the value of these services being carried out by Aboriginal people in remote regions, and start paying them real wages.

Joe Morrison: I think that was a great missed opportunity in the last Budget, payment for particularly the Maningrida rangers who are doing these things, and have been screaming for the last 18 months for someone to take notice of them. So what we're basically doing in relation to that issue is to take a strategic northern Australian approach, so it's not just the Djelk rangers out at Maningrida screaming on their own, but there's a lot more Aboriginal people entering the dialogue on foreign illegal fishing. And I think the government has to take some notice at some time, particularly if it's more and more Indigenous people that are screaming for those sorts of services. They're doing it already, there's a whole lot of Aboriginal people, particularly on the Northern Territory coastline, that have been through relevant training, they've got their coxswain's, they've got certified courses through Customs, they've got the Northern Territory police helping them out in relation to enforcement issues—there's a whole lot of positive things that have happened for the sea rangers in the Top End and the Northern Territory. But we're still at that stage where the feds and the other bureaucrats in Canberra still don't see the value of those services. So I think we're just going to have to keep on growing the voice and putting more pressure on the federal government to take notice—that people are doing these things but they can't be paid on CDEP wages.

Tony Collins: For much of the last 12 months the debate about Aboriginal Affairs has centred on child abuse and law and order issues, particularly in relation to remote communities. Alison Anderson sees this as feeding in to the Federal Government's campaign to rationalise spending through closing down outstations and smaller communities by demonising Aboriginal society.

Alison Anderson: There are some dysfunctional communities to do with governance and law and order, but most communities are safe, and outstations are used as a haven to—when people start fighting in communities, some families move out to outstations. So it's a place where people feel safe, to go out to outstations. And I don't think that the media or the people that have been in this debate really understand remote Aboriginal communities. People understand that there's some issues going on at the moment, and people want to be involved in the debate and people want to discuss the lack of investment in their communities. It was actually the Prime Minister that cut off most of the woman's program in '96 when he first came in that ATSIC had in remote Aboriginal communities where these programs were encouraging women to talk about these issues of violence against themselves and children, and had the women's centres operating. And it was the government that actually cut those programs off back in '96.

We told the Prime Minister exactly what Nanette Rogers told the world, three years ago back in 2003. And we had so many people sitting round the table like Professor Boni Robertson. And the meeting that we had with the Prime Minister was so emotional. People were telling him what was happening with children, what was happening with women, and what are we going to do about it? Let's start doing something about it now. And the Prime Minister is the one that chose not to do anything about it. And I think as Australians, as Territorians, we have to start doing something for Aboriginal people in remote Aboriginal communities and stop this talking and let's get some programs down on the ground that really have effects, so that these children have a future.

Tony Collins: Gary Robinson, from Charles Darwin University's School of Social and Policy Research, says the push to move people from outstations into regional centres and towns is a recipe for disaster and completely misses the opportunity to reap the benefit of the Homelands movement.

Gary Robinson: People complained about the dysfunctionality of communities and the rocks on the roof and the graffiti and the rubbish. They might complain about some of the enclaves and town camps for how they look and for the drinking that goes on there and so on and so forth, but there's nothing more depressing than a housing commission block and the people all jammed in there, either. The logic of dismantling some of these structures and assuming that our current housing policies and housing commission and work for the dole and whatever else we've got going can absorb it all and handle it all is just absolutely fraught. It's highly problematic and it's not taking into account the positive potentials that can be harnessed within the social structures that are there, whether it's outstations and people's interest in working with the land or working on the land and expressing their relationship to the land in some way that can be harnessed for purposes of generating work, for generating economies around whether it's tourism or whether it's wildlife protection or whether it's a whole range of things that are really just barely being played with at the moment, and haven't been systematically developed. If the policy direction works too much in the other kind of direction of pushing people out of these existing cultural museums and into suburban ghettoes and housing commission type circumstances and not figuring out how to make life in these communities more viable, how to make use of the outstation possibilities and the social alternatives that exist in the remote communities, they're going to miss huge opportunities to come up with much more healthy, much more viable, and much more differentiated ways of doing things.

Tony Collins: Historically the major industries in the north have been based around cattle, mining, and the presence of military bases. In the past 20 years, tourism has developed into a major new industry. But Rolf Gerritsen argues that none of these industries will provide livelihoods for the growing black population in significant numbers. He sees the NT government's decision to invest $250 million in a harbourside convention centre in Darwin as a disaster for the future Territory economy.

Rolf Gerritsen: If you're going to waste $250 million on a convention centre, which is great for the prostitution industry... But $250 million, if you invested that in a university that could actually develop its own economic momentum within the economy, I think the rate of return would be a lot better. Or invested it in getting the small manufacturing firms organized to be able to secure the big defence contracts for maintenance and repairs on the defence infrastructure that's here. To me, that's an investment in the future of the Territory. Or you wouldn't even have to invest a lot to try and take our derivative IT industry and provide them to set up incentives for things that we could do here, like for instance creating computer games, that aren't dependent on where you're located. To me, that's imaginative economic development, whereas building a convention centre that's going to go broke and just lumber us all with debt, to me is just stupid economics. I can see the politics of it are fine, because since self-government, Territorians have this political culture that the government's got to build big things. So we get all the supply-side economics. We get a railway 30 years before we need it. We get a port that's about ten times the capacity of the demand for it. It's all just field of dreams stuff.

Tony Collins: Gerritsen describes the approach of both the territory and federal governments to economic development in the north as a classic case of urban bias. He predicts that the regional cities of northern Australia in the future will be more like Port Moresby is now, rather than resembling other Australian cities. Chairman of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, Peter Yu, believes that the future can be rescued if the necessary planning and development in Aboriginal communities occurs now.

Peter Yu: There has to be a much more comprehensive and integrated approach to the whole planning and application of the way that these resources are exploited and used. I don't think we can afford to ignore it. I think most people in the community are now more aware of the possible implications of global warming, so I think that what we should be doing is trying to develop these assets in perpetuity, which is to be able to balance the nature of the economic demands and needs of contemporary society, while at the same time being able build into place securities that ensure that we aren't devastating and we aren't following the bad practices of the past. I'm a believer where I think there is an opportunity to balance these, and I think the Aboriginal community can play a significant role in that. But the demographics of the north indicate quite clearly that no matter what you do, you have to engage the Aboriginal community, not only in terms of land ownership, but also in terms of the developing birthrate, which I think is still generally speaking about 2.5 times the national average. We are a very young community, there's a rapid incline in terms of age, in terms of numbers. Large centres show that about 60 per cent are under the age of 25 or something. So we're not going away. We're actually growing quite quickly. And I think that there are important reasons to understand how this can be applied in terms of the strategic planning of what happens up here.

Daniel Browning: 'Fear of a Black Planet' was produced by Tony Collins.

Guests

Professor Rolf Gerritsen
economist, Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre, Charles Darwin University

Joe Morrison
executive officer, North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA)

Peter Yu
chiarman, North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA)

Alison Anderson
Member for Macdonnell, Northern Territory Parliament and former ATSIC Commissioner (NT Southern Zone)

Timmy Burarrwanga
Bawaka traditional owner, Gumatj clan member and representative Bawaka Cultural Enterprises

Presenter

Daniel Browning

Producer

Tony Collins