The policy goal of normalisation, the National Indigenous Reform Agreement and Indigenous National Partnerships Agreements

Abstract:

This paper, the third and final in a series of papers for the Desert Knowledge CRC, examines the landmark document of the present policy period in Indigenous affairs, the National Indigenous Reform Agreement (NIRA). The first paper in the series examined a previous policy instrument, Regional Partnership Agreements (RPA), in particular the Ngaanyatjarra RPA, concluding that services to desert settlements are still bogged down with long chains of bureaucratic administration. The second paper described the importance of the Indigenous service sector and argued for greater recognition and support for it to provide appropriate services. This paper examines the current policy environment with those findings in mind. Though periods of public policy are not easily pinned down, since policy itself is necessarily somewhat ambiguous (Mosse 2004, pp. 650–651), and scrutinising policy documents is like seeing through a glass darkly, it is clear that before the turn of the century we entered a new policy era in Indigenous affairs. This era has turned its back on the vision of a semiautonomous, de-colonised and modernised discrete realm for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, where they would largely manage themselves in culturally appropriate ways. The new era is characterised by the intention to re-engage the state with its Indigenous peoples, and normalise their relations within their communities and with the wider population. Normalisation is the term used in this paper, deliberately, though the policy is not officially called normalisation. The present government prefers ‘closing the gap’, but this paper retains the term because it encapsulates the development dilemma for Aboriginal people. Normalisation is a positive goal if this means that Aboriginal people can expect a standard of living at the national norm. It is a challenge if it means that Aboriginal people are required to reflect socially, culturally and individually an idealised profile of the normal citizen established by the remote processes of bureaucratic public policy making.