2016 Seminars
Presentation Type
Presentation
Location
The University of Notre Dame Australia, Broome Campus
Start Date
14-7-2016 12:30 PM
Description
While governments in Australia and globally attempt to embrace demands from citizens for participative democracy, successive federal Governments in Australia over the last decade have often adopted an authoritarian approach to initiatives targeting Aboriginal people.
Literature about effective social policy and programs points to the wisdom of ‘co-production’ of solutions with Aboriginal people. This wisdom about success being linked to meaningful and genuine consultation, indeed ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’ (FPIC), is also consistent with international treaties and declarations which Australia has ratified.
However, consultation and FPIC are not the norms for government decision-making about Aboriginal people in Australia. Whether Aboriginal people should be consulted at all in major government decision-making is the question that federal governments ask.
How can this happen in Australia? Is it legal? What are the schemes in Canada and elsewhere that might guide Australia? How can this exceptional situation in Australia be fixed?
Recommended Citation
Beacroft, Laura, "Aboriginal people in Australia and government decision making: a story that needs rewriting" (2016). Talking Heads Seminar Series. 10.
https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/nulungu_talkingheads/2016/schedule/10
Aboriginal people in Australia and government decision making: a story that needs rewriting
The University of Notre Dame Australia, Broome Campus
While governments in Australia and globally attempt to embrace demands from citizens for participative democracy, successive federal Governments in Australia over the last decade have often adopted an authoritarian approach to initiatives targeting Aboriginal people.
Literature about effective social policy and programs points to the wisdom of ‘co-production’ of solutions with Aboriginal people. This wisdom about success being linked to meaningful and genuine consultation, indeed ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’ (FPIC), is also consistent with international treaties and declarations which Australia has ratified.
However, consultation and FPIC are not the norms for government decision-making about Aboriginal people in Australia. Whether Aboriginal people should be consulted at all in major government decision-making is the question that federal governments ask.
How can this happen in Australia? Is it legal? What are the schemes in Canada and elsewhere that might guide Australia? How can this exceptional situation in Australia be fixed?
