The WA government’s long-awaited policy proposal for remote Aboriginal communities has been described as a “disappointing PR exercise” and a “poor start” by Aboriginal organisations, who say the promise of consultation has come six months too late.
The premier, Colin Barnett, announced what the government has described as “major reforms” for the state’s 274 communities on Thursday.
The proposals include a review of the state and federal government’s $4.9bn spend on Aboriginal services in WA, investment in the infrastructure of remote communities and the establishment of regional strategic advisory councils to consult Aboriginal communities.
Barnett said he was prepared to increase funding to Aboriginal communities, including drawing on the Royalties for Regions fund, to get better outcomes in health, education, employment and child protection.
Aboriginal affairs minister Peter Collier, who chairs the cabinet subcommittee that has been working on the proposal for two years, said he hoped it would provide “solace”.
But the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) said the announcement gave no assurance that communities would not be closed or that they would be given control over their future.
Its chairman, Anthony Watson, told Guardian Australia the announcement was “very disappointing.”
“We were expecting that they would put out a report, not a five-page PR exercise,” he said.
“There is no comfort. We don’t know the details … they have been sitting on it since November and now they put out a five page report? It’s insulting, and it gives no comfort.”
But Watson said the proposed review of funding and service delivery was desperately needed, provided the Indigenous people on the strategic advisory council represented a broad range of community views and were given decision-making power, rather than merely the right to offer “more advice that can be ignored”.
“Out of the $5bn [spent on Aboriginal services], we get less than one tenth of that, head to ground,” he said.
“The funds are there to change things, it’s just been getting misused. Bureaucracy has been using those funds up and we get nothing on the ground, no better outcomes.”
Ian Trust, who runs the Wunan Corporation in the East Kimberley, also supported the review, but told ABC News the government needed to be “very clear” about its intentions.
“Up in the Kimberley just hearing the way people talk up there is that expectation ... they’re going to lose their homes,” he said. “It’s very much in people’s minds.”
In statements released supporting the announcement the government said funding for services would be “prioritised” in “locations that have the greatest potential to be safe and sustainable”.
Nominations for Aboriginal leaders to join the new regional strategic advisory councils will open this month. The government has said that Aboriginal people will be “extensively consulted” and “fully informed” of all changes.
Michelle Nelson-Cox, chairwoman of the Aboriginal Health Council of WA, said service providers should also be consulted. But the process was already off to a “poor start” with the appointment of child protection minister, Helen Morton, to guide the reforms, she said.
Nelson-Cox said Morton’s appointment entrenched the link, made on a number occasions by Barnett, between funding and child welfare concerns, which she said was “a slur on all Aboriginal people”.
Barnett repeated those concerns on Thursday, saying that “the evidence [of child sexual abuse in some remote communities] is so strong and so compelling that it cannot be ignored”.
Both the KLC and the health and welfare council said they have been trying to talk to the government since Barnett’s comment, late last year, that between 100 and 150 of the state’s 274 remote communities faced closure because they were “not viable”.
The government now refuses to put a figure on the number of communities that might close but said some closures would inevitably occur. Regional development minister Terry Redman, whose department will stump up the extra cash to invest in communities, said he expected it would take five years to show “significant change”.
Barnett acknowledged his comment had “provoked reaction” – including international protests and the condemnation of the UN – but repeated that there would be “significantly fewer” remote Aboriginal communities in the future.
Labor’s Aboriginal affairs spokesman, Yamatji man Ben Wyatt, said the government’s oscillating rhetoric on remote communities read like a never-ending attempt to clean up the damage done by Barnett’s remarks.
“The premier has created this diabolical situation of anger, angst, frustration and fear in remote communities, and now we have the hapless Aboriginal affairs minister, Peter Collier, saying ‘oh, we’re sorry about all this’,” Wyatt said.
“You don’t say, ‘we’re closing you, you’ve failed, you’re riddled with child sexual abuse’, and now say, ‘oh, we’re going to talk to you about the future of your communities’.
“I just hope that Colin Barnett is in no way involved in this process because he can’t say anything without offending everyone.”
Wyatt said the government’s “major reform” was nothing more than a promise to “finally” talk to Aboriginal communities. “This is not a major reform … the government should have started where we are here,” he said.
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