Issue Brief 7 / 1996

Accountability in Aboriginal affairs has been receiving national prominence over recent months. The Coalition government proposes to move from what it terms 'the symbolic' to effective service delivery in Aboriginal affairs. There is an ongoing and sometimes hostile public debate about the accountability of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) itself. There have been investigations of various Aboriginal Legal Services, the Federal Minister has appointed a Special Auditor to oversee and review ATSIC grants to Indigenous organisations, and a review has just been completed of the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act 1976 under which many Indigenous organisations are incorporated.

The discussion paper Linking accountability and self-determination in Aboriginal organisations by Drs David Martin and Julie Finlayson offers a fresh and potentially fruitful approach in this contentious area.

Pressure for demonstrable outcomes

When placed against the demonstrated disadvantage from which much of Aboriginal Australia suffers, and in a time when there are also major budgetary cuts to Aboriginal organisations and agencies directly impacting on Aboriginal people, the bureaucratic surveillance entailed in increased accountability requirements is interpreted by many Aboriginal people as unfair and discriminatory.

At the same time, pressure from both government and Aboriginal people dependent upon the services provided by these organisations inevitably has lead to a growing requirement for service delivery to be assessed in terms of efficiency, cost effectiveness, and outcomes. Consequently, ongoing demands for self-determination by Aboriginal leaders take place in a political climate highly attuned to questions of fiscal responsibility and demonstrable outcomes, and alert to breaches of accountability.

Internal accountability: the link between public accountability and self-determination

Public accountability

Most of the attention in this debate has focused on 'public' accountability - that is, the financial accountability of Aboriginal organisations to funding agencies, to government, and ultimately to the wider public. Policy and administrative responses to this debate have focussed on imposing ever more restrictive and onerous reporting and other financial accountability measures on Aboriginal organisations.

Internal accountability

There has been less concentration on 'internal' accountability - that is, the accountability of organisations to their memberships and constituencies or clients. Important aspects of internal accountability relate to such factors as:

• the representativeness of organisations
• their responsiveness to their members or clients, and
• equity of access to the services they provide.

However, there are also significant dimensions of internal accountability which derive primarily from Aboriginal political culture. These dimensions tend to:

• emphasise the primacy of local groups over broader constituencies
• stress the obligations of individuals to their immediate kin.

Some Aboriginal organisations have taken such features of Aboriginal society into account, and have given careful attention to what the actual structures, extent and dynamics of their constituencies are, and have attempted to incorporate this diversity within their organisational structures and processes.

These organisations are more likely to have achieved good internal accountability than those which attempt to legitimate themselves - whether internally or externally - on some loose notion of being 'community' or 'grass roots' based. Furthermore, internal and external accountability are linked. The available evidence suggests that organisations which maximise their internal accountability are more likely to be externally (including financially) accountable.

Internal accountability and self-determination

Organisations which have sought to maximise their internal accountability will have instituted such measures as:

• broad incorporation of the diversity of their constituencies into their structures
• procedures to ensure equity and service delivery and access to resources
• participatory processes by which organisational goals and strategies are developed
• procedures to ensure accountability of staff
• transparency in decision-making, and
• procedures for ongoing monitoring of their performance by their constituencies.

Such matters relate directly to what could be termed 'organisational self-determination' (the capacity for Indigenous people to realise their goals through their own incorporated bodies) and self-management (the capacity to effectively administer them). Thus, more rigorous attempts to achieve internal accountability for Aboriginal organisations would facilitate their greater public accountability, and enable Indigenous people to better achieve self-management and self-determination through them.

Conclusion

Ensuring that funding directed to Aboriginal organisations is used appropriately and that demonstrable outcomes are achieved are clearly legitimate public policy goals. However, there are also concerns that increasing bureaucratic surveillance of organisations adversely impacts on Aboriginal people's capacity to realise self-determination. This research argues that increasing bureaucratic surveillance need not be the only means of ensuring better public accountability. It suggests that mechanisms to ensure better internal accountability of Aboriginal organisations will result in increased public accountability, and that these will also enhance the capacity for Aboriginal people to achieve self-determination through their own organisations.

The discussion paper argues that a policy focus on mechanisms to better achieve internal accountability for Aboriginal organisations would assist in the realisation of both Aboriginal self-determination and public accountability. It argues that this would provide a more creative way forward in what can often be a sterile debate on whether to emphasise public accountability at the expense of Aboriginal self-determination.

D.F. Martin and J.D. Finlayson.

This Issue Brief summarised CAEPR Discussion Paper No. 116, 'Linking accountability and self-determination in Aboriginal organisations' by D.F. Martin and J.D. Finlayson published in October 1996. It was prepared by David Martin, assisted by Linda Roach and Melissa Lucashenko, and edited by Maureen MacKenzie-Taylor.