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Responding to Indigenous disadvantage

Nothing bothers me more than the continual repetition of poor public policy choices. Whether it concerns the economy, education, public housing, drug laws, higher education, whatever, I like to think of myself as constantly open to diverse ways to engage with, and respond to, well, anything really.

Thus, new ideas to enduring problems are always interesting to me. Australian economist Andrew Leigh (whose blog I have enjoyed for some time now) is someone who is always out there with interesting new ideas. In his blog today, he proposes five novel suggestions for PM Kevin Rudd's [that still sounds odd to me] proposed 'war cabinet' on issues related to Indigenous disadvantage. I can't say that I'm overly keen on all of them, but I like that people are prepared to think from left field. By crikey, if any public policy area is in need of fresh ideas, this is one!
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Political Umpire said…
I must say it has been quite an experience going from a country in which indigenous rights are at the forefront of everyone's political agenda (NZ) to one where indigenous rights are dismissed as the talk of skinheads and the BNP (Britain). Here much the same sorts of sentiments about assisting disadvantaged groups come out, but all directed at certain underperforming, if you will, immigrant communities.

It kind of suggests to me that slotting the disadvantaged into 'immigrant' or 'indigenous' groups isn't the relevant point, it is the fact that some groups don't perform well in the society constructed by others. Whereas, say, the strong entrepreneurial culture of Greeks, Jews and many Asians means they prosper pretty much anywhere they end up, that isn't so for everyone.

Education is at the heart of it, I suspect, and encouraging it has to be A Good Thing. But underpinning educational success is the values system which certain cultures have which place a high importance on education. Simply offering a few pennies to people to turn up at school isn't really going to instill those values.

Do I have any better ideas? No.
15 February 2008 at 22:42
Kris McCracken said…
Payment for attendance is one of those ideas I am not comfortable with, to be honest. There are too many potential negatives, for all parties concerned. I like the idea of some of the earlier ‘no school, no pool’, or ‘no school, no footy’, where non-attendance produced a barrier such as not being able to use the local pool or play in the local football teams. The research I have encountered in relation to the programs appears to confirm some success; however, that success is generally constrained to the micro level.

Therefore, that’s where we are today. Simplistic patriarchal assimilation policies have been seen to fail. Similarly, simple ‘empowerment’ in the form of ATSIC has clearly failed, so as I said in the original post, I am glad to see people trying to think with a little more creativity to address what is a pretty serious problem. As with everything, it is trying to find the balance between structure and agency in an all too tangled problem loaded with cultural and historical significance.
16 February 2008 at 08:03
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