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How to destroy a black community without even really trying
Issue 77
NATIONAL, March 30, 2005: If you were looking to write a blueprint on how to keep an entire Aboriginal community sick and uneducated, then look no further than the Federal and Northern Territory governments' efforts in a remote town in the Top End of Australia.
A landmark report from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) has found that government services to the community of Wadeye are, well to put it bluntly, all arse-about.
The report is entitled 'The Opportunity Costs of the Status Quo in the Thamarrurr Region' and it was released last week by authors John Taylor and Owen Stanley.
Broadly, it seeks to identify how much government money is spent in the Thamarrurr region on a per capita basis, versus how much government money is spent on the rest of the Territory population.
No report like it has ever been compiled in Australia.
And given its findings, you could almost forgive government for never agreeing to fund another one (this report was financed by the federal Department of Family and Community Services).
Wadeye (pronounced Wod-air) is the Northern Territory's sixth largest town, with a population of around 2,500.
The region of Thamarrurr (pronounced Tumma-rur) has up to 3,500 people, with 20 clan groups and seven Indigenous languages.
It is one of the nation's poorest, unhealthiest and most uneducated communities, although the community has what Australian governments generally regard as the nation's strongest traditional governance structure (see story below).
Government ministers at a state and federal level regularly refer to Wadeye as one of the shining lights in terms of regional/remote governance.
And all the while, the Northern Territory and federal governments have been over-spending on services like welfare payments, law and order and keeping Aboriginal people in prison, while simultaneously under-spending on areas such as health and education.
You might say Wadeye gets plenty of lip service from the government, but not a lot else.
While the Howard government far from escapes its wrath, the report's findings paint Clare Martin's Northern Territory Labor government in the worst light.
The report reveals that for every dollar spent on a child's education anywhere in the Northern Territory, the government spends as little as 26 cents educating a child in Thamarrurr.
The report also reveals the Howard government has been overspending on welfare payments to the community and underspending on training.
For example, the Department of Science, Education and Training (DEST) spends five times more on the average Territorian than it does on someone living in the Thamarrurr region.
Similarly, the Department of Transport and Regional Services (DoTARS) spends about two thirds more per capita on Territorians.
The report also condemns the former ATSIC/S - the spending gap on the rest of the Northern territory was huge, set against what ATSIC/S spent in Thamarrurr - $4,372 per capita across the NT, versus $2,013.
The Howard government - which has been trumpeting the principle of getting Aboriginal people out of welfare and into the 'real economy' appears to have exempted the Thamarrurr region.
Centrelink - the government's chief welfare agency - spends almost twice as much on Thamarrurr residents as it does on all Territorians.
The most shocking part of the report for the Howard government, however, was the methodology used to establish aged care spending.
Because Aboriginal people in Wadeye, on average, die so young the report's authors had to adopt a different methodology.
"In terms of assessing relative per capita spending, consideration needs to be given to the relevant population that aged care services are directed towards," the report says.
"In the Territory as a whole, this refers to the population aged 70 years and above.
"Because of premature [death] if this definition were applied to the Thamarrurr population only 23 people would be eligible (thus wildly skewing the results).
"However, because high morbidity invariably precedes a premature [death], one option here is to reduce the age of eligibility to those over 50 years in line with DoHA practice."
The result is that aged care spending on the Northern Territory as a whole comes in at $3,858 per person, per year, against $4,341 in Thamarrurr.
The report did, however, provide reason for some optimism, if only for several government departments.
Agencies such as Family and Community Services and the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR), have - according to the report - been doing their fair share in Wadeye.
While the report warns figures are difficult to quantify, DEWR is clearly meeting its obligations in Wadeye in terms of funding economic development, spending up to 10 times more on Wadeye residents than it does across the whole of the Territory population.
And FaCS spends $299 per person, per year in Thamarrurr, versus $81 throughout the rest of the Territory.
But the report warns "The policy challenge... is to reverse the current pattern of over-spending on negative areas of expenditure and underspending on positive areas to create a situation of investment in human and physical capital substantially beyond existing levels.
Both the Northern Territory and federal governments did not respond to requests for comment at the time of press. |
