Australian bureaucracy and its dealing with Indigenous rights and welfare has been a historically contentious issue. A manifold number of bodies have been dedicated, sometimes ostensibly, to such matters. Lacking any constitutional recognition, they have been susceptible to change and, as with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), wholesale abolition. With the approaching referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, another project, this time constitutionally enshrined, is promised.
In an interview with Michelle Grattan, chief political correspondent at The Conversation, Professor Marcia Langton, co-author with Professor Tom Calma of the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process report presented to the Morrison government, gave an expansive overview of the Voice in terms of design and intent. Of particular interest is her discussion about what might be called the “bureaucratic question” regarding the Voice’s administration.
According to Langton, most people could see that the Voice was “a very simple and modest proposition and that it will make a difference. And what I’m seeing more and more is most people realising, yes, well, why don’t Indigenous people have a say about policies and laws that affect them.” Such a measure would also blunt the nature of a constitutional document that currently “permitted the government to cause us harm”.
There was also a greater realisation that this state of affairs had “gone on for too long, where all these laws and policies that seem to be universally ineffective in closing the gap and causing more suffering have been imposed on us by non-Indigenous people for far too long.” This was exemplified by the Northern Territory Emergency Intervention initiated by then-prime minister John Howard, a military-styled measure designed to halt, in Langton’s view hysterical, allegations of child abuse in Indigenous communities.
What, then, of the administrative dimension of the Voice? Langton reiterated the view that existing bodies dedicated to the remit of Indigenous welfare would have to be accommodated in the design principles, incorporating them within a constitutional ambit. As things stood, such bodies did not have an “assured” and “formal” way of providing advice directly to governments, operating as a series of formally legislated and informal bodies driven by a volunteer base.
Two examples were suggested by way of illustration: the Torres Strait Regional Authority, and the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body. Both had certain merits: they could, for instance, provide some advice on community concerns, but did not sit within an “integrated framework” able to advise all levels of government, let alone play a more direct part in formulating policy specific to Indigenous concerns. Both bodies were also mutable entities susceptible to political fiat, and could be abolished depending on the mood of the government in power at the time.
The concern of turning the Voice into a burdensome, bureaucratic enterprise is also considered by Langton, who recapitulates one of the key design principles as avoiding the duplication of work of existing bodies. The proposal, she claims, is a “non-bureaucratic solution” that harmonises the framework of advice and representation. It was not intended as an entity staffed by bureaucrats who, in the scheme of things, “served their ministers” rather than the interests of the public or Indigenous Australians.
While Langton sees the Voice as a harmonising, integrative body, representative and inclusive, opponents cite its potential for bureaucratic accretion. In August 2022, Nyunggai Warren Mundine, director of the Indigenous forum at the Centre for Independent Studies, argued that, “The Voice to Parliament will be nothing more than another huge bureaucracy to control Indigenous lives. The same old, same old.”
For Mundine, the Indigenous populace had, over decades, a number of bodies that had furnished governments with advice, from the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) to the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples. To this could be added a plethora of “advisory committees to ministers for education, health, and more.”
This is a view held by various conservative voices fearful about what they see as potential bureaucratic growth and replication. South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic, for instance, argues that “the ‘Voice’ is not about helping Indigenous Australians, but about further expanding the bureaucratic class”.
Langton herself quotes the leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, who argues that the Voice would see “millions of dollars wasted in additional bureaucracy.” (Dutton has also openly wondered whether the constitutional solution would create “another layer of bureaucracy” thereby making it “harder for the Indigenous women in the communities to be heard”.)
For all these criticisms, Langton is adamant. A constitutionally enshrined, representative body would be able to avoid the Canberra-bureaucratic nexus in policy-making regarding the welfare of Indigenous peoples. Far from being a “waste of money”, it would “save lives.” Not addressing the current crisis of governance would imperil the population and culture of First Nations’ Peoples.
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