This seminar will report on recent research about fresh water governance arrangements in the Maningrida region covering some 10,000 square kilometres in tropical Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The seminar describes the region's water resources and then focuses on three linked broad perspectives on water: a historical analysis of the political economy of water; a sectoral analysis of water in the regional 'hybrid' economy; and a spatial analysis of water governance in Maningrida and the hinterland. These three perspectives are combined in a discussion about cross-cultural contestation over water values and property rights, and early steps that might be taken to ameliorate such contestation are outlined. The seminar proposes that a new water governance paradigm is needed for this region especially if Indigenous development aspirations are to be realised.

A 2008 background paper on which the seminar is based is available at http://www.anu.edu.au/caepr/Publications/WP/CAEPRWP46.pdf.

The Yanyuwa language of the south west Gulf of Carpentaria is, as with many other Indigenous languages, critically endangered. This seminar describes the development of methods to record important stories about family and country. Beginning with the Yanyuwa atlas to more recent developments using animation as a tool to try and bridge knowledge gaps between older and younger generations. This is a work in process that involves the use of new technologies but at the same time attempting to be true to an original way of understanding country and all that it contains in regard to understanding of Law and family. Embedded within this project is the old people's hope that a restructuring of individual and group identity may be possible in order for younger people to understand the value of their country and the knowledge that belongs to it.

According to the 2006 Census, around three quarters of Indigenous Australians live in regional areas or major cities. This represents a small, but noticeable increase from previous census years, especially in large regional towns. While most measured socioeconomic outcomes are advantageous relative to remote parts of the country, there are still substantial gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in regional and urban Australia. Indeed, in absolute terms, many of the extra jobs and houses that will need to be found for Indigenous Australians in order to achieve a policy of 'closing the gaps' will need to be situated in regional and urban areas. However, the constraints and policy challenges involved in doing so are in a number of ways separate to those in remote Australia. In order to provide an evidence base to help meet these challenges, this paper has three aims regarding Indigenous Australians in urban and regional Australia. Firstly, to document the measured socio-economic outcomes of Indigenous Australians relative to their non-Indigenous counterparts in these areas. Secondly, to identify the patterns of migration into and within urban Australia over the most recent inter-censal period. Thirdly, to examine the extent and type of residential segregation into poor urban neighbourhoods and how this is changing through time.

Halving the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians over the decade beginning in 2008 is one of six COAG targets set to address Indigenous disadvantage. To understand better the labour market outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and the human and social capital factors influencing those outcomes, the Productivity Commission has undertaken an analysis using the 2006 Census. The labour market indicators studied are participation, unemployment, hours worked and total personal income. For each of these indicators, separate regressions are estimated for Indigenous males, Indigenous females, non-Indigenous males and non-Indigenous females.

The evidence indicates that education is an important influence on labour market outcomes. Completion of secondary and any level of tertiary education improves labour market outcomes significantly. The estimated marginal effects are significantly larger for Indigenous persons compared with non-Indigenous persons. The evidence also indicates that a number of social factors impact on labour market outcomes, such as remoteness, the number of young children and the need for assistance with disability.

This paper will begin by using population figures from the 2006 Census, organised by the ABS’s Indigenous geography, to raise some questions about the Northern Territory Government’s ‘Working Future’ policy, announced in May 2009. It will suggest that by focusing on more populous Aboriginal settlements, the policy has also, perhaps inadvertently, focused on the Top End of the Northern Territory at the expense of the Centre. Thirteen of the twenty Aboriginal settlements proposed as Territory Growth Towns are in the Top End and another three are north of Tennant Creek, the geographic centre of the NT. Only four, or one fifth, of the proposed Territory Growth Towns are in the southern half of the Territory, despite the fact that this area accounts for about one third of the Territory’s  rural Aboriginal population. This reflects the fact that the Centre has a larger number of less populous Aboriginal settlements compared to the Top End.

While this critique is based on population numbers, it also at least indirectly suggests that the ‘Working Future’ policy might itself have been based, rather too simply on such numbers. However in the latter half of this paper, I will suggest a somewhat deeper cause of poor policy – collaborative federalism in an emergency. I will argue that good collaborative federalism is built on genuine differences of perspective between central and regional governments, and hence robust debates and disagreements. The Northern Territory Government ought, in most policy debates, to have a different perspective and to be disagreeing with the Commonwealth. However, in an ‘emergency’, the normal politics of disagreement and difference of perspective becomes disreputable – and policy making suffers. Good collaborative federalism runs the risk of becoming poor coercive federalism, in which the perspective of the central government, with the power of the purse, too quickly predominates. The Northern Territory Government should be encouraged to develop its own distinctive perspectives on policy issues and to disagree with Commonwealth perspectives if necessary. For the sake of good public policy, let’s get back to politics as normal in a collaborative federation.

Will Sanders is Senior Fellow, CAEPR and  Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University

Policy development in Indigenous Affairs often proceeds with dated estimates of population and with little understanding of the likely impact of changing demographic parameters on future Indigenous population size and composition. To the extent that policy itself can influence demographic outcomes, this represents a significant deficiency in current planning methodology. To stimulate a dialogue around such issues, this paper models the national and regional population impacts of a continuation of existing mortality and fertility regimes compared to a situation where these converge. The effects of inter-regional migration are also considered. The scenarios presented are heuristic only and reflect the logic of sustaining into the future recently observed demographic trends compared to following through on the idea of convergence in socio-demographic outcomes over time-scales that are commensurate with stated policy ambitions. As such, they are designed to sketch out the effects on the size and composition of Indigenous population of no change in current conditions compared to maximum change. What they show is that while the overall size of the Indigenous population is conservatively projected to be around 830,000 by 2031 regardless of which assumptions are adopted, any movement towards convergence in demographic outcomes produces a population that is much older and more urban in profile.

Dr Richard Denniss, Executive Director of The Australia Institute, will launch Power, Culture, Economy: Indigenous Australians and Mining on Wednesday 26 August. This latest CAEPR Research Monograph is edited by Professor Jon Altman and Dr David Martin, and is published by ANU E Press. The launch is to be a forum involving four of the contributors to the volume – both editors together with Dr Sarah Holcombe and Dr Ben Scambary – discussing the research. Further details are available from ANU Billboard and from the PDF flyer below.