Suchergebnisse

This Issues Paper is a first step in the development of an Indigenous Arts Strategy (IAS) for the Northern Territory (NT). It aims to do two things. First, to assess the current state of Indigenous arts in the NT. Second, to canvass issues for consideration by arts stakeholders and to facilitate the development of an Indigenous arts support framework for the NT. It should be noted at the outset that the development of such an Indigenous arts strategy is unprecedented in the NT, and possibly in Australia. Strategies have been developed for the arts generally and arguably for the Indigenous visual arts industry nationally, but there has never been a comprehensive attempt to develop a strategy for Indigenous arts at the State level. To some extent it is fitting that the NT is taking the leadership role here, because not only is it the most significant Indigenous jurisdiction in terms of relative population (29% of the NT's small total population of just under 200,000 is Indigenous according to the 2001 Census) but also because Indigenous arts here, and especially the visual arts, have such high regional, national and international profiles. This Issues Paper seeks to chart a realistic pathway to ensure Indigenous arts success under an NT Indigenous arts advocacy and support framework. The challenge for the NT Government's IAS will be to develop a positive and achievable Indigenous arts policy umbrella that is warmly welcomed by the NT arts community and the NT constituency and that is regarded as valuable by other major Commonwealth funding agencies. This suggests, on one hand, that these other Commonwealth agencies are also stakeholders in the development of the IAS-it is in the Commonwealth's interests to seek to sustain a national Indigenous arts sector, and to ensure that the important NT component is sustainable by supporting it institutionally and financially. On the other hand, while it is in the NT Government's interest to form an effective alliance with the Commonwealth because of its current financial dominance in the sector in the NT, both interests, as well as Indigenous arts stakeholders, will be well served by strong coordination. Resolving such issues will require astute political judgments by the NT Government. The challenge for the development of the IAS is to seek to convert the undeniable current of NT Government goodwill, and broader Commonwealth concurrence (recently evident in the March 2003 CMC Communiqué), to a focus on Indigenous arts as a priority for positive policy action. How can the NT Government ensure that it enhances and maintains the national leadership in Indigenous arts, and especially visual arts, that the NT clearly enjoys? This, ultimately, must be the aim of the IAS.

In 2007 the Australian government declared that remote Aboriginal communities were in crisis and launched the Northern Territory Intervention. This dramatic move occurred against a backdrip of vigorous debate among policy makers, academics, commentators and Aboriginal people about the apparent failure of self-determination. -- back cover

"In February 2008 the Australian Prime Minister made an apology to the 'Stolen Generations' on behalf of the nation. Since then, we have witnessed the rapid implementation of a policy framework focused on 'Closing the gap' and an increasingly complex, managerial and technical approach to addressing undeniable Indigenous disadvantage. This approach has been endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). As policy has become more monolithic and monopolistic, the state has become less sympathetic to the diversity and difference that is a feature of Indigenous societies, especially in remote Australia . In this chapter we want to problematise the notion that closing the gap in education will improve socioeconomic outcomes. In short, we question whether human capital theory that is so uncritically accepted as an elixir to socioeconomic disadvantage is applicable in all cross- or inter-cultural contexts, or in all territorial spaces ." - page 109

This paper sets out to examine, at the national level, changes in the socioeconomic status of Indigenous Australians during the decade 1991–2001, a period that closely matches 'the reconciliation decade'. The information used is from three five-yearly censuses undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1991, 1996 and 2001. Comparisons are made both of change in absolute wellbeing for the total Indigenous population, and of relative wellbeing between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Five broad categories of socioeconomic status are used in the analysis—employment, education, income, housing and health. The decade is divided into two five-year periods, 1991–1996 and 1996–2001. In 1996, there was a change in Federal government so that for the first time since Indigenous Australians were included in the census in 1971, there is a close match between political and census cycles. This facilitates a comparative assessment of the broad Indigenous affairs policy performance of the Hawke and Keating governments from 1991 to 1996, and that of the Howard governments between 1996 and 2001. This comparative analysis is important because there has been an attempt to change the broad approach in Indigenous policy since 1996. According to recent policy discourse, the period 1991 to 1996 saw a focus on both 'symbolic' (Indigenous rights and 'practical' (socioeconomic improvements) reconciliation, while the period since 1996 has focused increasingly on 'practical' reconciliation only, in an attempt to reduce the material disadvantage of Indigenous Australians. The paper develops a 'scorecard' and shows that, in absolute terms, it is difficult to differentiate the performance of governments pre- and post-1996. However, in relative terms—that is when comparing the relative wellbeing of Indigenous people as a whole with all other Australians—there is some disparity between the two periods, with the early period 1991–1996 clearly outperforming the more recent period. In conclusion we note that while practical reconciliation forms the rhetorical basis for Indigenous policy development since 1996, there is no evidence that the Howard governments have delivered better outcomes for Indigenous Australians than their predecessors. Indigenous socioeconomic problems are deeply entrenched and do not seem to be abating even during a period of rapid economic growth at the national level. It is of particular concern that some of the relative gains made between 1991 and 1996 appear to have been offset by the relatively poor performance of Indigenous outcomes between 1996 and 2001.

The quest for solutions to urban unemployment prompted the federal government to give serious consideration to providing support and encouragement to alternative rural communities. It hoped that residents in these communities would withdraw from the formal labour market and establish alternatives to conventional employment. A study of 20 rural land sharing communities in New South Wales indicates that at the present time these communities do not provide a supply‐side ameliorator of unemployment and that their future economic viability would depend on substantial government support for local employment initiatives. What the lifestyle in these communities clearly offers, however, is a quality of life denied to those on the dole.

Made available by the Northern Territory Library via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT). ; Includes bibliography. Evidence Base is a publication of the Australian and New Zealand School of Government.

Practical reconciliation' and more recently 'closing the gap' have been put forward as frameworks on which to base and evaluate policies to address Indigenous disadvantage. This paper analyses national‐level census‐based data to examine trends in Indigenous wellbeing since 1971. There has been steady improvement in most socioeconomic outcomes in the last 35 years; a finding at odds with the current discourse of failure. Evidence of convergence between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous outcomes, however, is not consistent. For some outcomes, relatively rapid convergence is predicted (within 25 years), but for the majority of outcomes, convergence is unlikely to occur within a generation, if at all.

Introduction / Chris Gregory -- The Good Death? Paying Equal Respects in Fijian Funerals / Matti Eräsaari -- Changing Standards of Living: The Paradoxes of Building a Good Life in Rural Vanuatu / Rachel E. Smith -- 'According to Kastom and According to Law': 'Good Life' and 'Good Death' in Gilbert Camp, Solomon Islands / Rodolfo Maggio -- 'This Custom from the Past Is No Good': Grassroots, 'Big Shots' and a Contested Moral Economy in East New Britain / Keir Martin -- A Moral Economy of the Transnational Papua New Guinean Household: Solidarity and Estrangement While 'Working Other Gardens' / Karen Sykes -- Cycles of Integration and Fragmentation: Changing Yolngu-Balanda Sentiments of the 'Good Life' in Northern Australia / Fiona Magowan -- 'The Main Thing Is to Have Enough Food': Kuninjku Precarity and Neoliberal Reason / Jon Altman -- The Rise of the Poverty-Stricken Millionaire: The Quest for the Good Life in Sargipalpara / Chris Gregory.

"The development of a Northern Territory outstation/homelands policy which meets the needs and aspirations of a dynamic and highly mobile population is extremely important. It is a complex and difficult task, but one which provides an important opportunity for outstations/homelands to be viewed as an integral component of the Northern Territory Government's vision for 'a framework for a sustainable future where development takes place within a context of land and sea conservation' as envisaged in the Northern Territory Parks and Conservation Masterplan 2005. An innovative outstation/homeland policy which solves the problem of government service delivery of Indigenous Australians' citizenship entitlements—so that it provides a choice for Indigenous Australians where they want to live and how they want to engage nationally and internationally in social, cultural and economic life—is urgently needed." - Introduction, page 1