Briefing note

Briefing note
Office of Robin Chappel MLC
Member for Mining and Pastoral Region
Portfolio: Aboriginal Affairs.
Issue: Closure of remote indigenous communities.
Purpose: The purpose of this briefing note is to provide economic arguments against
proposed closures of remote indigenous communities by the Barnett State Government.
Background: In 2014, the Western Australian state government was handed responsibility
for provision of services for remote aboriginal communities in remote areas from the
federal government.
Current Situation:
 The Western Australian state government under Premier Colin Barnett has
announced that it will close between 100 and 150 remote indigenous communities
(Davidson, 2014).
 1300 people live on the smallest 174 aboriginal communities, this is considered by
the State government to be unviable (Davidson, 2014).
 Specific communities that will be closed have not been specified, making it difficult
to predict exact cost benefits of closures (Davidson, 2014).
 Employment and economic viability of the upkeep of such communities is the
predominant argument for the closures although high levels of social dysfunction
and poor health in such communities are also cited as reasons for their closure
(Davidson, 2014).
 Colin Barnett has stated that such communities do not provide opportunities for
employment of indigenous people (Davidson, 2014).
Key Considerations/Counter Points
Opportunities arising from inhabiting traditional country.
 Indigenous economic development can be recognised with the right economic
conceptualisation recognised as assets and resources of a 3 sector economy
incorporating aboriginal culture as an asset and resource alongside the public and
private sector:

The alternative approach that is championed here is a livelihoods approach. It is
argued that such an approach might be more successful than mainstreaming in both
economic and cultural terms in addressing Indigenous poverty. This approach,
referred to as ‘the hybrid economy model’, emphasises that the customary or non-
market sector has a crucially important role to play in addressing Indigenous poverty
in Australia. The paper concludes with a note of caution: Australia is keen to export
an approach to development that promotes the free market. But this approach has
been unsuccessful in remote regions in addressing Australia’s Indigenous
development problem, so it is unclear why it should succeed offshore.
(Altman, 2007, 1).
There is great potential for this sector to generate economic benefits for remote Indigenous
communities currently lacking conventional commercial opportunities. Areas with growth
potential include the provision of environmental services at a regional scale and emerging
industries like carbon abatement. Such activities will also generate national benefits during a
period of climatic and related environmental uncertainties.
(Kerins and Jordan, 2010, 1).
 Traditional indigenous activity has value environmentally and economically but is
often unrecognised for their if it is seen as “informal” or not explicitly economic:
Community capacity in remote Indigenous Australia in particular is high when people
live on country because they have an intimate knowledge of the environment that is
linked to their making a livelihood off country and being dependent on natural
resources. All too often false distinctions are made between formal and informal
Natural resource management activities, with the latter being unrecognised and
usually unremunerated.
(Altman et al, 2011, 8).
 The knowledge and skills of indigenous people on country is only applicable to their
traditional country and needs to be practiced regularly to be of use:
It is important to note that Indigenous ecological knowledge (IEK) is often rooted in
Indigenous languages and cultures and is often regionally specific. The primary
vehicle for the intergenerational transfer of this valuable knowledge is through
practice. Practice is enormously difficult or impossible when Indigenous peoples are
unable to live on their country.

(Altman, 2011, 3).
This is also consistent with the Department of Corrective Services “Opportunities” in
their annual report of improved aboriginal engagement in corrections to produce
better outcomes for aboriginal offenders.
(Department of Corrective Services, 2014, 73).
 Aboriginal leaders have shown to care about their people having “real” jobs (Jobs in
non-traditional sectors). Their only preference being that such jobs are situated on
their traditional lands:
Yolngu leaders on the homelands and the present government see eye to
Eye about the need for 'real' jobs for Indigenous people. But whereas the
Government seems only to be able to imagine such jobs as existing in the
'Established' and 'emerging' market economy, homelands Yolngu are trying to
envisage a future for themselves in which there are 'real' jobs on the homelands.
(Morphy, 2008, 391).
 Economic development can in fact be based on cultural incentive to care for country
and the economic models of programs and corporations which do this, offer greater
opportunity for further development and growth as monetary surplus is rarely
distributed only to individuals but invested in jobs, capital and community projects:
Community-based enterprises differ from most conventional businesses in that they
are not based on utilitarian economic models but have broader political, social,
cultural, environmental and economic goals. Through community-based enterprises
there is little if any distribution of profit to individuals, as any surplus is reinvested for
the long-term benefit of the land owners (the community) and their culturally
significant and biologically diverse lands and waters.
This is done through investments in jobs, capital items and community-based
projects. Community-based enterprises reflect Indigenous Australians’ right,

articulated by UNDRIP, to determine and develop their own priorities and strategies
for exercising their right to development (Article 23).
(Kerins and Jordan, 2010, 4).
 In addition to improved health services, Aboriginal Community Controlled health
services defined as those in a local aboriginal community deliver far greater value for
money in regards to health than mainstream services:
Despite increased health expenditure until recently, health gains over the past
decade have been fewer than expected, reflecting the fact that the primary health
care sector that delivers the best results for Aboriginal Australians is the least funded
— Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS).
(Alford, 2014, 9).
 A large number of such health and social services employees employ large numbers
of aboriginal people with substantial multiplier effect benefits :
ACCHS provide a channel for employment and economic growth in communities. As
a relatively large-scale employer of Aboriginal people and the main source of
employment in many communities, an investment in ACCHS would generate a range
of local, regional and national multiplier effects, as an initial investment leads to
more jobs and more income, which creates more jobs and income, and so on. The
multiplier effect refers to the increase in final output (employment, income, GDP)
arising from any new injection of spending.
(Alford, 2014, 40).
 Significant opportunity to reduce government welfare expenditure through
increasing indigenous employment. Although this includes indigenous people off
country, the proportion of indigenous people in remote communities this includes
would contribute substantially:
We estimate that the increased labour market earnings reduce social security
payments by $780m per year, if the employment rate of the Indigenous population
increased to be equal to that of the non-Indigenous population.
(Gray, Hunter and Biddle, 2014, 3).

 Activities previously mentioned such as land care, serve two purposes of cultural
development, health and management of land that would otherwise need to be
provided by government separately:
Scoping economies occur when the cost of providing two or more goods jointly is less than
they would cost if they were to be supplied separately. Such activities are likely to result in
scoping economies through the joint supply of health and environmental benefits that occur
as a result of the cultural connection of Aboriginal people with country
(Campbell, 2011, 370).
Arguments against/ potential costs.
There is no clear evidence that indigenous people will be socio economically better off if
moved from country:
Then and now there is no evidence that socio-economic status was better at the larger, often
artificial, townships created by colonial fiat or missionary zeal than at remoter outstations.
Indeed, a number of economists, including EX.Fisk, noted in the 1980s that the available
evidence indicated that with enhanced access to the non-market or customary sector
(wildlife harvesting) and opportunity for art and craft manufacture, livelihood prospects at
outstations were better than at townships.
(Altman, 2006, 9).
 Migration by indigenous peoples would cause significant problems for the
communities which they migrate to:
Some suggest that the free market can succeed in remote and very remote Australia.
Others suggest that in the absence of mainstream commercial opportunity at remote
Indigenous communities, it is imperative to move the people to the opportunities. The
latter approach is naïve at best, because it ignores people’s agency and their active
links to the ancestral lands that they now own. Also given Indigenous people’s low
educational and health status and their economic marginality, labour migration
could be disastrous for migrants, as well as for communities where they move
(Altman 2007, 2-3).
 For governments to persist in their pursuit of indigenous employment separate
from cultural considerations would be futile, as it has been since white settlement:

For many Indigenous persons, and particularly those in remote communities,
achievement of employment may require sacrificing elements of their culture, which
may in turn have a negative impact upon their wellbeing. Indeed, many non-
Indigenous Australians would not take a job if it required moving house, was too
disruptive to their family life or they found the work morally objectionable.
(Dockery, 2009).
 Studies by the ANU centre for indigenous policy development have determined that
measures solely based in mainstream economics will not solve the issue of poverty in
indigenous communities:
A paternalistic and assimilationist approach to Indigenous economic development in
remote Australia will not work and runs the danger of exacerbating rather than
alleviating poverty. Such an approach is limited because it fails to recognise the role
and comparative advantage of the customary or the futility of forcing mainstream
solutions onto very non-mainstream situations.
This paper suggests that a fundamentally different approach is needed that
empowers communities to grow all sectors of the hybrid economy to alleviate local
poverty. The possibility of engaging Indigenous people in the wholesale provision of
environmental services on the massive Indigenous estate is likely to generate local,
regional and national benefits.
(Altman, 2007, 8).
 In regards to aboriginal health expenditure, there is too much funding for hospital
and mainstream health care services that aren’t actually used much by aboriginal
people, this money would be better utilised using community health serviced
provided on country, that are underfunded:
Government funding issues include rationing Aboriginal health expenditure, under-
utilisation of mainstream services, giving indigenous underutilisation
(Alford et al 2014, 14).
 Potential health service costs could be enormous when it is taken into account that a
weakening of cultural practice is likely to produce similar symptoms to post
traumatic stress disorder:

There is certainly a negative correlation between loss of culture and poor health. A
weakening of cultural practice is likely to produce similar symptoms to those experienced
by sufferers of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Those suffering from cultural loss are
disproportionately represented in prisons, infant mortality, suicide, drug dependence and
substance abuse and general medical conditions, as well as lower life expectancies.
(Palmer 2013, 54).
 Unless it is recognised that indigenous culture is inseparable from indigenous
economic development as both an asset and resource for enterprise, labour and
importantly land, efforts to increase indigenous employment will be futile:
Net negative impact on wellbeing if employment, economic and social outcomes are
pursued in the absence of culture.
(Palmer, 2013, 55).
 Inequitable health outcomes are a drain on government budgets: Cost savings of
about $2,770 million a year would result from equitable health outcomes between
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, on country health services would play a
key role in this.
(Alford 2014, 56).
 Poor health from resulting from indigenous peoples difficult socioeconomic
circumstance has economic disadvantages:
Poor health results in low labour force participation, unemployment, productivity
losses and high rates of welfare dependence. False economies— limiting current
primary health care funding result in more expensive hospital-based services and
allocative inefficiencies. Inequitable health outcomes are a drain on government
budgets. In the short and medium term overall, Indigenous health expenditure needs
to increase.
In the longer term the potential for direct cost savings as health outcomes improve is
substantial, as well as additional budget savings in areas such as welfare and the
justice system.
(Alford 2014, 15).
 There is evidence that moving indigenous people of country and away from
meaningful activity will actually increase welfare dependency:

The perceived advantages of servicing centralised populations have been considered
By funding agencies to outweigh the deleterious social consequences of
Artificially forcing different Indigenous cultural groups to live together.
Centralisation has often resulted in social dysfunction, weakening of
Traditional governance structures and increased welfare dependency.
(Trudgen 2001, Cited in Morrison and Burgess 2007, 185).
 Cost of crime and incarceration that may result from social unrest known to occur in
centralisation is expensive, especially for juvenile offenders. Such costs may be
substantial giving the high number of indigenous offenders in youth detention.
In 2013/14 the cost of keeping a juvenile offender in custody per day was $817 and
90$ a day for community supervision (Department of Corrective Services, 2014,
149).The cost for Adult offenders in detention is $315 a day, with 51$ a day needed
for community supervision orders (Department of Corrective services 2014, 143).
High recidivism rates indicated by the proportion of sentenced prisoners with prior
imprisonment by Aboriginality would indicate that such costs would be very high to
the Department of Corrective Services, police and justice systems:
The proportion of Aboriginal prisoners with a history of prior imprisonment has
increased in WA from 71.3% to 79.8% (Department of Corrective Services 2014, 19).
• Benefits from Involvement in on country activity is not arbitrary or
constrained to on country activity:
Many young people living in remote communities have used involvement in the
customary economy to take jobs as rangers, store managers and community health
workers.
(Palmer 2013, 59).
• There could be substantial savings to the expensive justice and juvenile
offender rehabilitation systemfrom on country activities:
Learning language, bush knowledge and visiting the country of ancestors assists in
the campaign to minimise young people’s involvement in the justice system. Indeed,
some, including those deeply involved in the court system, claim that ‘culture’ is
more capable in this regard than many other diversionary and sentencing options.

(Palmer 2013, 59).
Examples of Successful remote indigenous initiatives:
These Examples of successful initiatives in remote indigenous communities were
from the Education and Health Standing Committee report: "Ways Forward—Beyond
the Blame Game: Some Successful Initiatives in Remote Indigenous Communities in
WA." In 2008.
The Yiriman Project:
Supported by the Kimberly Aboriginal Law and Cultural Centre, Yiriman’s work mostly
involves hosting what local people call “back-to-country trips. This involves removing
troubled youth for periods of time, hunting and collecting food, meeting others, going on
country with their elders, taking care of country and walking as a means of learning stories,
becoming healthy, building their skills and respecting the old people.
” In so doing the organization brings together the young, elders, other community members
and a range of other people such as land care workers, educationalists, health practitioners,
researchers and government officials, but it also leads to a range of other events including
people’s involvement in:
 Landcare.
 Cultural education.
 Fire management.
 Science and economic development.
 Health care.
 Education tourism training for employment language regeneration.
Several employable skills are learned by the young people on such trips:
Traveling together with trainers young people get to learn how to burn country using
traditional and modern burning techniques, take bloods and carry out post-mortems for
quarantine testing, use machinery for various land care purposes, operate digital technology
to record research, build their literacy and numeracy levels, learn about health management
and first aid, make films and other production work and create project reports using
multimedia and public presentation software.

Findings of the project stated the Education and Health Standing Committee report include
that:
The Yiriman Project is a successful project in the west Kimberley region and has bought
together various state and local government as well as academic and Indigenous
organisations. It has provided a unique mix of positive social and economic outcomes.
Recommendations from this report about the project include:
 The Yiriman Project should be supported by government and used as a model
for similar projects in Indigenous communities in other remote regions of
Western Australia.
 The Yiriman Project should be supported by government and used as a model
for similar projects in Indigenous communities in other remote regions of
Western Australia.
Jarlmadanga Community
Small, self-contained community of approximately 100 persons.
Aspects of the economy include a number of small-scale tourismventures;
indigenous ranger group; pastoral industry and its own community store and
community cultural centre. Jarlmadangah is also a strong base for the Yiriman
Youth program.
Ngumpan Feasibility plan
It is located just off the Great Northern
Highway, 100 Kilometres east of Fitzroy Crossing and has
Worked with the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, KALACC and the Fitzroy
Futures Forum on the development of a pre-feasibility study for a development at
Ngumpan which includes the following elements:
• Education: building a new school at Ngumpan — the school providing
Education to children from each of the surrounding communities and
Circumventing the problems associated with Christmas Creek flooding each
Wet season;
• Roadhouse: the Roadhouse would provide employment and economic income,
Including a small art centre, and would also negate the need for community
Members to drive the 100 km to Fitzroy Crossing just to fill up their vehicles;
• Tourism: there are economic and employment opportunities associated with
the nearby Ngumpan cliffs and the nearby Mimbi Caves

Surrounding Ngumpan are up to 10 equally small communities and the larger
community of Wangkatjunga. The basis to the Ngumpan model is a spoke and wheel
approach. The model then poses the question about whether these communities
could be regarded as sustainable if rather than being totally discrete and separate,
they had a service hub which united them.
Recommendations:
In order for an economic argument to be made for allowing remote aboriginal communities
to stay open, Aboriginal activities on country must be shown as an asset to government and
the wider economy. This is a topic given little attention in the mainstream media and would
be a positive move beyond seeing aboriginal people only as economic liabilities with rights.
It would useful to frame the policy of keeping these indigenous communities open be
framed as cost savings exercise aimed at reducing deficit of state government . Terms such
as good investment returns, jobs and efficient service funding allocation would be potent in
arguing that remote communities’ closures would be uneconomic.
Talk about potential high cost on health services from social unrest acknowledged by Colin
Barnett, from removal from traditional country. Note that in particular a better allocation of
health resources toward Community controlled Health Services would produce greater
health outcomes without additional investment. In particular the lower dependence on
welfare on traditional country should be highlighted. Crime reduction and cost on the
justice systemalso has potency as an economic argument worthy of further consideration.
Conclusion
There is significant economic development options by aboriginal people remaining on
traditional country including employment and training which often have led to job
opportunities, many of programs offering this would not be effective without indigenous
people’s connection to country. There would also be benefits that are economic not widely
recognised such as carbon abatement, land care and making of cultural artefacts that could
not continue off country.
In addition to decreased participation in the labour market The main economic detriments
is the high cost of the increased demand on government services – Health and Justice
standing out in particular arising from an influx of indigenous people into larger towns. For
indigenous economic opportunity to be recognised, identity of indigenous people as being
inseparable from country (Paul Burgess and Joe Morrison, 2007) must be worked with
rather than fought.

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