Ideology, Evidence and Competing Principles in Australian Indigenous Affairs: From Brough to Rudd via Pearson and the NTER

Abstract

This paper tracks the recent rise of an 'ideology vs evidence' discourse as a way of describing good and bad Indigenous affairs policy. It suggests that a more useful way of thinking about Indigenous affairs is the analytic of three competing principles: equality, choice and guardianship. The paper suggests that dominant debates in Indigenous affairs balance these principles and move between them over time. Using a fourfold categorisation of ideological tendencies, it also suggests that different tendencies of thought about settler society and its relations with Indigenous societies occupy different positions in relation to the three competing principles. Finally, using the work of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board as an example, the paper examines the role of evidence in Indigenous affairs. Evidence, it argues, always needs to be contextualised: it is always a part of arguments or debates and needs to be understood in relation to the much larger issue of balancing competing principles.

Changing Scale, Mixing Interests: Generational Change in Northern Territory Local Government

“…Conceptually, this change can take the form of switching between the three competing principles of equality, choice and guardianship, which, I have argued, are at the heart of Australian Indigenous affairs (Sanders 2010). Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a rediscovery of the guardianship principle in Australian Indigenous affairs, after 30 years of emphasising the choice and equality principles.…”

Here and now: the attendance issue in Indigenous early childhood education

“…In an examination of ideology, evidence and principles underpinning the Northern Territory Emergency Response to reports of chronic child abuse and neglect in 2006, Sanders (2009) argues that Indigenous affairs policy in Australia has long been underpinned by three competing principles -equality, choice and guardianship. These, he argues, do not neatly align with conventional political ideologies; most policies initiated by both the Right and the Left have sought instead to balance these three competing principles.…”

“…2 It is argued that although schools make efforts to encourage attendance, limited practical strategies are employed to pressure parents to supervise children's regular attendance, or to deal effectively at the classroom level with the day-to-day outcomes of intermittent attendance. Furthermore, global policies, whether underpinned by ideological notions of equality, choice or guardianship (Sanders 2009), are unlikely to be effective in the Indigenous ECE context, at least in the immediate term. Not only is a multifaceted holistic approach to wider sociocultural issues required, but importantly, a prioritising of pragmatic strategies to ameliorate and address the impact of absenteeism for young children in the school system here and now.…”

Engaging Indigenous Economy. Debating diverse approaches

“…This can be seen as the translation of concerns for differencebased policy (e.g. Sanders 2010, Crabtree 2014, flexibility and selfdetermination (e.g. into legal property articulations.…”