Now you see it, now you don't: Looking for the remote ‘advantage’ in the development of Northern Australia
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In October 2015, Dr Jude Lovell presented to the 7th Indigenous Economic Development Forum in Alice Springs on the topic of Now you see it, now you don't: Looking for the remote ‘advantage’ in the development of Northern Australia.
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Now you see it, now you don't: Looking for the remote ‘advantage’ in the development of Northern Australia
- 1. Now you see it, now you don’t. Looking for the remote ‘advantage’ in the development of Northern Australia Indigenous Economic Development Research Workforce Development in Remote Enterprises 7th Indigenous Economic Development Forum This is a Synthesis and Integration project for the Cooperative Research Centre for remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP)
- 2. Policy effecting sustainable enterprise (Central Australia) The barriers that we see impacting on remote sustainable enterprise activity include: • Custodians and traditional owner Knowledges are the ‘soft infrastructure’ missing from current sustainable development visions (Morrison, 2015) • Entrepreneurial and enterprising remote residents and businesses need to be better patched into planning and participation in sustainable development Policy documents lack strategies for planning and participation in the above: • Developing Northern Australia whitepaper agenda • ‘Disadvantage’ frameworks measuring ‘remoteness’ and ‘Indigenous’ without adequate classification for capacity, advantage and sovereignty We return to these issues throughout the presentation
- 3. Cluster One (all these activities in 2011) Ntaria and Tjuwanpa; Lajamanu; Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa); Yuendumu and outstations; and Papunya and Outstations Cluster Two (one or two of them) Atitjere; Darguragu-Kalkarintji; Owairtilla (Canteen Creek); Ampilatwatja; and Alekerenge (Ali Curung) Cluster Three (none of them) Wirliyatjarrayi (Willowra); Alpurrurulam; Nyirripi; Laramba; and *Tara (gazetted in 2011) Southern region of the Northern Territory – Clusters of remote settlements
- 4. Occupational census data and industry information for mixed-market activity at place of usual residence Art sales are very opportunistic and regularly occur outside art centres: this teal-coloured bar is only a record of sales through art centres. • Cluster One: 3 settlements have an active art centre in 2006, and 5 in 2011 3 settlements have an active ranger program in 2006, and 5 in 2011 • Cluster Two: 0 art centres in 2006 and 2 in 2011 1 ranger group starting up in 2006 and 3 in 2011 • Cluster Three had no active art centres at either point 1as part of ranger group cluster in 2006 and in 2011
- 5. Occupational census data (arts and cultural natural resource) As the data above indicates, there are very different impressions of what is occurring in employment of the Indigenous labour force between Census collection points and across the clusters. However, the mixed-market activities we can find information about are significant contributors where the activity is locally available.
- 6. Employees – Non-market and market These tables include the non-Indigenous/not stated category by cluster for both 2006 and 2011, as well as Indigenous status for both collection points.
- 7. Employees – Non-market employment by cluster Non-market (public) employees (governments) by cluster, and status (Indigenous or not) at two census collections points: 2006 and 2011)
- 8. 2006 and 2011: Reported income, per earner, per week, NI-NS status 2006 and 2011: Reported income, per earner, per week, INDG status
- 9. The figures for unincorporated owner managers are so low that they cannot be analysed, but it is included here for the valid number in Cluster One, 2011. 31 NI/NS owner/managers of unincorporated enterprises? Does anyone know who or what that represents? I’m puzzled by it, so if there is an explanation please send me a message. Business owners or employees? Market (private) employees by cluster, and status (Indigenous or not) at two census collections points: 2006 and 2011)
- 10. Wolf suggests non-market failure occurs where the real costs and benefits of providing a service do not reconcile with the real costs and benefits to a society as a whole (1979) and if that is the case, then the omission of local enterprise built around remote advantage and capacity will lead to failed and unsustainable development. Non-markets (public), customary and other markets (private) combine through opportunity structures, as mixed-markets
- 11. Social enterprise with integrated quadruple bottom line, and integrative social enterprise framework (governance and regulation) (Sengupta, Vietta & McMurtry, 2015) Financial profit lever for social, cultural or environmental benefit, uses supply and demand, and mainstream regulatory frameworks (Wuttunee, 2010) Models of Canadian Aboriginal Social Enterprise and Aboriginal Capitalism
- 12. Models of Yolŋu and entrepreneurial business aspiration and venture Entrepreneurs: • Economic and social dimensions are inextricably linked to business aspirations or ventures • Navigate mainstream regulatory frameworks • Negotiate social, kinship and cultural systems Businesses: • Not inextricably melded to dominant Australian consumer markets • Operate within Australian regulatory frameworks through governance mechanisms (Pearson and Daff, 2014).
- 13. Mixed-market is a series of crossovers. We use the presence or absence of mixed-market activities to cluster 15 remote settlements in Central Australia. The activities are: • Art centres • Community researchers • Ranger groups Models of Aboriginal mixed-market in central Australian clusters
- 14. Conclusion This data snapshots suggests mixed-markets do provide primary and secondary occupations. Some of these are opportunities to engage in economic activity that meet aspirations, are attainable and rely on local capacity and advantage. Scarcity of information at the local level contributes to regional and national indicators that are contrary to wellbeing. There are models of social enterprise, quadruple bottom line, Indigenous capitalism and mixed-markets that may be useful to think about and enable remote enterprise . The mixed-market lens seems an adequate one through which to analyse both data and through which to better describe activity. Local scenarios and capabilities need better local analysis. This needs to be part of any agenda for Developing Northern Australia.
- 15. Important Questions • What is the admix that remote local residents require to connect to wider market activity? • Do local enterprises informed by local aspirations better enable sustainable social and economic benefit? • What ‘mesh’ is required for these activities and residents to succeed? For further information from the authors, or any questions please contact: Judith.Lovell@cdu.edu.au M: 0408 081 813
- 16. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of: * The Australian Government Department of Business and Science Cooperative Research Centres Program * The CRC-REP and project partners * The Central Australian Research Group (CARG) of the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University
Editor's Notes
- 1. Hello I am sorry to miss this opportunity to participate at the forum. My name is Judy Lovell and I’d like to acknowledge the Arrernte elders past, present and future, and thank them for their custody and of this land. I also like to acknowledge co-authors of work related to this presentation - Don Zoellner and John Guenther. I work for the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University on research synthesis for the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation. In discussing the ways that remote economic participation are evident or not in the central Australian region, it is clear that the issue of local enterprise and aspiration is vital to sustainable development. It is also evident we need a far better understanding about the goals of local remote residents as these are essential to sustainable enterprise. There are barriers aplenty presented in response to remote economic participation, and sustainable remote enterprise barely rates where conversations focus on deficit and disadvantage. We don’t suggest ignoring those things, but we suggest looking beyond them to understand the ways that enterprise and entrepreneurialism contribute valuable social and economic benefits. As we live in such a connected world, our research these days can increasingly be put into context with that of other developed nations, other industry workforce and labour force initiatives, and studies of remote enterprise. The ways that various cultural cohorts around the world approach sustainable development includes considering future generations, and this has been useful when thinking about the importance of local settlement perspective, and the problems wit identifying that through national data – such as censuses.
- 2. We are going to look at some data from census, some industry information and some models of enterprise. Then we will put up some points for progressing the agenda around enterprise, which we see as critically important to the sustainability of remote local settlements. We know that local people are essential to the economic, social, environmental and cultural sustainability of remote settlements. We know that local and regional perspectives and capacities are different things; and that urban planning affects almost 98 per cent of Australian residents, whereas remote and very remote area planning effects a little over 2 per cent. There is a lot of evidence that policy with a non-remote planning vision incurs unintended consequences in remote areas, but there is not a lot of agreement about what to do about it. It is our opinion that there is a need for better information at settlement levels about the capacity, aspiration and the advantages of Aboriginal ‘soft infrastructure’ and indeed Aboriginal sovereignty, in order to develop Northern Australia sustainably.
- 3. Enterprise has been seen as the panacea for remote Australia and mainly through extraction industries – through resources animal vegetable and mineral – but workforce labour-market returns to remote settlements from those extractive industries has been inefficient. That inefficiency influenced the actual flow-on versus the planned and assumed flow-on through socio-economic benefit returning to residents. In this study we have used a very local group of 15 Arandic and Ngarrkic settlements in central Australia to explore the three enterprise-types, by using public industry information and census information form 2006 and 2011. The enterprise activities are Art centres, Ranger programs and Aboriginal community researchers. In other remote regions that list would grow and might include bush food, tourism, knowledge centres or cross-cultural awareness programs, but as far as we can establish through this constrained data, those other industries were not active in the 15 settlements selected. The settlements are clustered according to whether, in 2011, they had all three activities occurring locally, or one or two, or none at all. The data is grouped by these clusters, and each has five settlements in it.
- 4. In this research we are modelling economic participation using three types – they are market (private); non-market (public); and the admixture of these that we call the ‘mixed-market’ to try and create some better understanding about the industries which provide important opportunities for remote enterprise and the models and structures which need to be in place to enable them. Where they are available locally, the enterprise activities we discuss make some contribution as seen in occupational data. However, industry data suggests the census data greatly under-represents the amount of enterprise activity. In terms of the census, the category of ‘employment’ includes those working at least one hour or more per week, or actively seeking work. Even considering the under-reporting of enterprise, the impact of local availability can be seen clearly. The averages of indigenous labour force to population across the clusters in 2011 is about 1 person in the labour force in every 4 Indigenous residents. In contrast, the whole of the rest of Australia in 2011 those figures are 1 in every 2 residents. Considered with the income data that follow we suggest that opportunity structures for secondary and opportunistic enterprise enable a significant contribution to sustainability through social, cultural, environmental and economic benefit.
- 5. In Cluster One, the labour force declined a little, but employment declined significantly more, and unemployment increased by 2/3rds of the amount of decline in employment. Arts related occupation reduced by but cnrm activity increased by 38 people. This echoes the increase in funding for ranger programs between census points and the change in relationship of CDEP to arts related occupations. In Cluster Two the labour force is close to static, but employment increased by almost 100, and this may account for the fall in unemployed. Both arts and cnrm virtually trebled in cluster two, with the addition of art centres and ranger programs. In Cluster Three the labour force increased slightly and employment increased slightly, as did the number of people seeking work. While 5 people give an arts related occupation in 2011, there is a larger increase in cnrm from 4 to 34 people and this likely reflects station work at Napperby.
- 6. These next slides consider the census data for employees in the categories of ‘market’ (private), non-market (public) and mixed-market – as described above. We need to consider this data knowing that a person who perhaps works in an art centre, and is on the board, or is a traditional owner, has not classified themself as an ‘owner/manager of an incorporated business’. It appears that CLC rangers wouldn’t consider themselves employees of the federal government, despite CLC status as a statutory authority of the Australian government. These are clear examples of why we need much more to inform remote economic participation policy than census data. Cluster One shows a decline Indigenous participation in market and non-market of around 50 per cent. The NI/NS category more than doubled in both. In Cluster Two shows Indigenous participation in market and non-market declines and there is a fourfold increase in NI/NS non-market and a three-fold increase in NI/NS market activity. Cluster Three shows Indigenous participation reduced by a 1/3 in non-market and about 2/3rds in market activity. The NI/NS non-market category increases four-fold, but the market activity halves. Thinking through this suggests change impacts from CDEP and the Shire amalgamation appear to have had detrimental employment consequences across these settlements.
- 7. Employees within the three tiers of government by cluster. In 2006, Local government employment was highest for local Aboriginal residents. In 2011 the number has decreased by about 5/6ths in Cluster One and 4/5ths in Clusters Two and Three. The NI/NS Local government employment increased three-fold in Cluster One, ten- fold in Cluster Two, and nine-fold in Cluster Three. Some increases in remote Aboriginal employment with the Territory Government occurred, and there were losses and gain in Australian Government tier. Remote NI/NS employment increased in all clusters across all tiers of government. Again, this data when studied with income data indicates where the trend towards higher paid and increased numbers of NI/NS staff has occurred and seems to signify the loss of employment in this sector contributed to overall reduction in the level of income per person for Aboriginal residents, across the clusters between the Census points.
- 8. Census income data suggests an increase in income and in the number of NI/NS employed in the settlement in the study who reported this as their place of usual residence at the census. Many are not long-term locals, and it can be assumed that most of these incomes were spent outside the community and the region. It is alarming that there is an overall decrease in reported income of local Aboriginal people between census points.
- 9. Back to the topic of this presentation: where does enterprise show up? And how do we know what it contributes? This is the last data slide and in it we look at status across the clusters, at the two censuses in the classifications of business owners or business employees. There is very little in the category of Indigenous ‘owner/manager of unincorporated enterprises’ and there is zero record of ‘owner manager incorporated enterprise’. Yet those categories should include board members of incorporations, traditional owners and custodians. The table confirms that there is almost no business ownership or employment acknowledged in this region of central Australia during the collection points.
- 10. Evidence of the mixed-market activities does not show up well in national Census data, so for modelling we have looked at sources beyond local data and industry information. We know national census data is not designed for use with small numbers of residents, such as those in remote settlements and so the information from collection points that we present here must be understood as snapshots in time and place – not as predictive or indicative trends. We know remote mobility, social, cultural and kinship activity and seasonal events effect Census as much as language use, interpretation of surveys and self-assessment does. We know that there are variables that impact on labour force, employment and unemployment which are external to remote contexts. These include cosmopolitan and national markets, and changes in programme and service delivery as a result of non-market policy and politics.
- 11. Beginning with a global context, these diagrams represent two models of Aboriginal social enterprise in Canada. They are developing a framework to describe social enterprises. But for today it is the two models relating to Indigenous social enterprise are most relevant to our topic. The top model describes Indigenous enterprises with a quadruple bottom line – that is those that return integrated social, cultural, environmental and financial benefit. The purpose of ‘Indigenous social enterprise’ from this perspective is to realise sustainable integrated goals and operate in line with dominant Canadian markets through the national regulatory system. The second model has been described as Indigenous capitalism. It makes use of the structure of cooperatives, but sees further premise of ‘social enterprise’ as a barrier to free choice. This model practices philanthropy through bestowing financial support to projects of social and economic benefit to Aboriginal people. It operates through mainstream supply and demand markets in return for profit-taking. Products and services may include those without any social, cultural or environmental benefit – such as casino, tobacco and alcohol - which are individual pleasures/rather than social-benefit returns. These cooperatives also operate within the national regulatory system.
- 12. These next models are very locally informed, but to the north of our study region, in Arnhem Land. Women’s entrepreneurial activity and aspiration was studied over a six year period. The activities included local art production, tourism ventures, night patrol services and nursery production for conservation. The women aspired to a new model of Yolngu business that meshes with the national regulatory system, but is not inextricably linked to Australian consumer markets. Yolngu customs and values influence the entrepreneurs in all aspects of their work and the business aspirations discussed combined economic and social dimensions Governance was felt to be an integrator between the Yolngu businesses and the dominant Australian consumer markets. The study also found stronger cultural drivers for establishing small business than financial ones. In common with research undertaken with Arrernte women, the entrepreneurs did not identify themselves as marginalised or impoverished and their motivations for business were not driven by goals of reducing poverty or earning investment capital.
- 13. This brings us to the research discussed earleir. As previously mentioned we have called this a mixed-market model because each of the enterprises and industries we found active rely on non-market resources to enable market transactions; and markets value products of the ‘soft-infrastructure’ of local Aboriginal residents. Each enterprise-type adapts their business model, and each of these ones works within different regulatory framework, has varied membership and employment structures, and varied access to governance structures. Because they combine public funding with market generated income we call them ‘mixed-market’ activities. More about that model later. Art Centres – local governance through the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act (2006) Ranger Programs (Southern Region NT) – regional management by the Central Land Council, a not-for-profit statutory authority of the Australian Government Aboriginal Community Researchers – individual fee for service or wage labour contracts to NFPs, CATSI orgs, and private companies. The mixed-market structure provides access to remote services or products through regulatory and governance frameworks of the dominant Australian market. The supplier requires public funding for some level of resource and/or infrastructure – which is not unique; in fact all remote businesses rely on public expenditure for infrastructure, resources, or services. Each of these mixed-market enterprises returns some or all of social, cultural, environmental benefits; and always a financial benefit to the resident/supplier/producer. However, understanding the impact of mixed-market activity for remote workforces, labour markets and in terms of social and economic benefit is far from easy, as we have seen. Aside from the census data, we used industry information for the three activities we think most likely in 15 communities in central Australia, and we clustered those communities in regard to the presence or absence of all, some or none of these. The analysis of what we found is very constrained by the data, but it was the best available. Even with those constraints, further attention to mixed-markets and the structures they require to perform as local enterprises is warranted.
- 14. Conceptualization of remote entrepreneurs and enterprises seems to be absent in industry and census data. Census data has not reflected occupational activity accurately through primary occupation, and in places the labour force is exceeded by an understated record of arts entrepreneurs. Policy changes seems to have contributed to less equity between long term local residents and migratory workers, and census reports give the impression of a very dominant non-market in remote settlements. Aboriginal residents who are entrepreneurs, traditional owners and on boards of governance do not self-select as business owners/managers/employees/ of local businesses We need to rethink the ways that local enterprise is supported, fostered, discussed and understood and to enable the non-market structures people need to use for sustainable entrepreneurial activity the concept of a mixed-market acknowledges a present need for public expenditure that will contribute to vital and sustainable enterprise activity through placing Aboriginal soft-infrastructure and capacity central, as those are things which through local enterprise can derive service or product with a market value More work is underway around the attraction and retention of local remote staff, and through that we hope to expand the view of mixed-markets, local aspirations and remote capacity.
- 15. Thank you for listening, please contact us if you have a further interest in this work, or talk to Ruth in the session.