Remote Australia Online

The West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA) project: the institutional environment and its implications

Guidelines for use of climate scenarios developed from statistical downscaling methods. Supporting material for IPCC.

An assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on fire regimes in Australia, and the consequences of these changed fire regimes for Australia's biodiversity was commissioned by the Australian Government to help increase our understanding of the complex interactions between climate change, fire regimes and biodiversity for future fire management. The report synthesises understanding of the drivers of fire regimes in Australia, identifies changes to fire regimes projected from climate change and identifies the broad implications of these changes for biodiversity. 'Fire regime' is defined as the history of fire events at a point in the landscape. The report finds that fire weather will become more severe in many regions, particularly southern Australia, and that the interactions between biodiversity and fire regimes are complex. It develops a national framework to assess the likely impacts of climate change on fire regimes and biodiversity for different bioregions, using a case study approach. Climate change may affect fire regimes across the Australian landscape through changes to temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Modeled climate projections show that much of southern Australia may become warmer and drier. This modeling suggests that, by 2020, extreme fire danger days in south-eastern Australia may occur 5 to 65 per cent more often than at present. For example, modeling of climate change impacts on the fire regimes of Australian Capital Territory (ACT) landscapes predicts that a 2oC increase in mean annual temperature would increase fire intensity by 25%, increase the area burnt, and halve the mean interval between fires in the ACT. Climate change is expected to have greater effects on fire regimes in regions where fire weather factors like temperature and wind strength determine fire occurrence and fire intensity. These are regions such as the temperate forests of the south-east and south-west of Australia. Climate change is expected to have less effect on fire regimes in places where fuel levels or ignition sources determine fire occurrence and intensity, such as northern tropical savannas. Managing fire regimes to reduce risk to property, people and biodiversity under climate change will be increasingly challenging. The assessment was undertaken by a CSIRO-led multi-disciplinary team of scientists in consultation with State, Territory and Commonwealth agencies. It was led by Dr Richard Williams.

Fire regimes and biodiversity in the savannas of northern Australia

Landscape-scale fire research in northern Australia

The Zero Carbon Australia Project is a research collaboration between Beyond Zero Emissions and the University of Melbourne. The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan is the first of six, ten-year plans for a fully decarbonised future. 1. Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan 2. Zero Carbon Australia Transport Plan 3. Zero Carbon Australia Land Use & Agriculture 4. Zero Carbon Australia Buildings 5. Zero Carbon Australia Industrial Processes 6. Zero Carbon Australia Renewable Energy Super Power The Project draws on the enormous wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise from volunteers working in industry and researchers from the University of Melbourne and other Universities across Australia.

This timely collection of articles explores some of the most pressing issues confronting both Australia's Indigenous peoples and Australia as a nation. In the current period of economic strength, Indigenous peoples have found themselves increasingly struggling to develop economic opportunities and to ensure the viability of their social and cultural lives. This volume brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors from a range of disciplines and experiences. Focussing primarily on remote Australia, they bring together the whole range of issues and concerns which need to be addressed." -- Back cover. Contents Introduction. Culture, economy and governance / Diane Austin-Broos Part I. History of initiatives What can pre-colonial and frontier economies tell us about engagement with the real economy?: indigenous life projects and the conditions of development / Nicolas Peterson Indigenous art as economy / Howard Morphy Land rights and local economies: the Gagudju Association and the mirage of collective self-determination / Robert Levitus Mining projects in remote Australia: sites for the articulation and contesting of economic and cultural futures / David Trigger Part II. Indigenous disadvantage Indigenous educational disadvantage / Janet Mooney The role of discrimination and the exclusion of indigenous people from the labour market / Boyd Hunter Contested debates about citizenship rights to welfare: indigenous people and welfare in Australia / Bettina Cass Part III. Economic futures The indigenous labour market and regional industry / John Taylor Economic futures on Aboriginal land in remote and very remote Australia: hybrid economies and joint ventures / Jon Altman Between a rock and a hard place: economic policy and the employment outlook for indigenous Australia / Bob Gregory Part IV. Education and community governance 'Learning lessons': a retrospective / Tess Lea Education and community / Jerry Schwab Households and community governance / Diane Smith Governance, cultural appropriateness and accountability within the context of indigenous self-determination / David Martin Part V. Institutions and economy CDEP and ATSIC as bold experiments in governing differently: but where to now? / Will Sanders The indigenous sector / Tim Rowse Indigenous organizations and economic development / Larissa Behrendt.

Over the past two or three years the Aboriginal art market has been the subject of considerable media attention which has raised questions about the authenticity of Aboriginal art. Such challenges are of significant concern for a number of reasons. First, they challenge the integrity of Aboriginal artists and others involved in the Aboriginal art market. Second, they threaten a significant source of economic resources for many Aboriginal communities. And third, they threaten the Australian international art market of which Aboriginal art forms a significant component. However, several of the questions that have been raised in relation to Aboriginal art in Australia have in fact bedevilled philosophers and art historians about art more generally for centuries. At the same time, Aboriginal art does presents us with some further complexing issues. Today I want to begin this session by outlining some of the different ways we might think about the authenticity question. In raising these issues I am drawing upon the research Ken Polk and I have carried out over past 2 years, and in particular in the first half of this year. We are very grateful to the many art gallery owners, art centre co-ordinators and may other interested parties who talked and spent time with us. There are too many to list individually here, but we will be acknowledging them all for their invaluable contribution to this research when we publish a more detailed report of our overall findings. When a buyer is about to buy a piece of Aboriginal art there are probably two general questions in relation to authenticity about which they might be concerned. The first is the general question that would be an issue for the purchaser of any form of fine art, that is, whether or not the named artist is responsible for the work? The second question relates more to the purchase of a piece of Aboriginal art, and that is whether or not the piece is an authentic Aboriginal product? Both of these questions however present us with further dilemmas that we now want to examine in a little more detail.

This article examines the issues surrounding the appropriation of indigenous culture, in particular art. It discusses the nature and context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in Australia in order to establish why appropriation and reproduction are important issues. The article outlines some of the ways in which the Australian legal system has attempted to address the problem and looks at the recent introduction of the Label of Authenticity. At the same time, the article places these issues in the context of indigenous self‐determination and examines the problematic use of such concepts as ?authenticity.? Finally, the article looks beyond the Label of Authenticity and existing law of intellectual and cultural property, to sketch another possible solution to the problem.

'Brokering Aboriginal art: A critical perspective on marketing, institutions, and the state', the 2005 Kenneth Myer Lecture in Arts and Entertainment, presented 7 April 2005 at Bunjilaka Gallery, Melbourne Museum. Edited by Ruth Rentschler of Deakin University Centre for Leisure Management Research. In the 2005 Kenneth Myer lecture, Jon Altman discusses a paradox: the international success of the Indigenous art market contrasted with Indigenous Australians’ stagnating socio-economic circumstances. Examining state sponsorship of arts infrastructure from an historical and analytical perspective, he argues that, although the market appears successful, it remains fragile, and complacency in policy and practice would be detrimental to its sustainability. His lecture concludes with arts policy observations intended to ensure the development of the Aboriginal arts sector, particularly in the light of recent changes to Indigenous affairs organisations. Over the past 30 years, visual art has shone as a beacon of Aboriginal cultural survival, adaptation and efflorescence in post-colonial Australia. This success has occurred within a broader national context where Aboriginal socioeconomic status is perceived to have either stagnated or declined. Yet dynamic and innovative art movements thrive in many remote communities that are regarded as the most problematic in terms of welfare dependence and social disintegration. This lecture explores this apparent paradox by focusing on a history and analysis of state-sponsorship of arts infrastructure in that Aboriginal arts sector, a form of sponsorship that has provided the inter-cultural mediation, or brokerage, that has been pivotal to this unusual arts movement. By then drawing out some emerging tensions, contestations and challenges I argue that that there is no room for complacency in arts policy or practice—the new-found success of Indigenous arts remains fragile. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the risks to Aboriginal art posed by recent changes in Indigenous affairs and makes some broad arts policy observations, based on historical evidence, for the ongoing development and growth of the nationally significant and internationally acclaimed Aboriginal visual arts sector.

Some of Australia's leading anthropologists put the Culture Wars under the microscope, dissecting the notion of difference and asking whether this is a useful way of looking at the problems remote Indigenous Australians face. An urgently needed dialogue, this book unflinchingly confronts the policies that have failed these communities and shows how the discipline of anthropology can still provide hope. Contents Introduction: Anthropology and the culture wars / Melinda Hinkson. PART I. The problem of recognition. 1. Indigenous politics in late liberalism / Elizabeth A. Povinelli. 2. National anthropologies and their problems / Jeremy Beckett. 3. Helping anthropologists, still / Gillian Cowlishaw. 4. The politics of suffering and the politics of anthropology / Andrew Lattas and Barry Morris. PART II. THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE. 5. The shock of the new: A postcolonial dilemma for Australianist anthropology / Marcia Langton. 6 Child sexual abuse: The Intervention trigger Francesca Merlan. 7. Quarantining violence: How anthropology does it / Diane Austin-Broos. PART III. COUNTING CULTURE. 8. Re-figuring 'Indigenous culture' / Tim Rowse. 9. Is culture the problem or the solution? Outstation health and the politics of remoteness / Emma Kowal. 10. Indigenous education and training: What are we here for? / Tess Lea. 11. 'Only whitefella take that road': Culture seen through the intervention at Yuendumu Yasmine Musharbash PART IV. IMAGING FUTURES 12 Media images and the politics of hope / Melinda Hinkson. 13. Other people's lives: Secular assimilation, culture and ungovernability / Nicolas Peterson. What future for remote Indigenous Australia? Economic hybridity and the neoliberal turn / Jon Altman

‘Practical reconciliation’ and more recently ‘closing the gaps’ have been put forward as frameworks on which to base and then evaluate policies to address Indigenous disadvantage. This paper uses census-based analysis at the national level to examine trends in Indigenous wellbeing since 1971. There has been steady improvement in most socioeconomic outcomes as measured by standard social indicators in the last 35 years. This finding is at dramatic odds with the currently dominant discourse of failure in Indigenous affairs. However, evidence of convergence between Indigenous and non-Indigenous outcomes is not consistent. There have now been eight censuses since 1971, and this paper seeks to use information of best-case scenario trends to make some crude estimates of when the gaps might be closed in order to assess the realism of this emerging overarching goal of policy.

This report presents preliminary research about fresh water governance arrangements in the Maningrida region of some 10,000 square kilometres in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The report begins with a discussion of methodology before turning to a description of the region’s water resources. The focus is on three linked broad perspectives on water: a historical analysis of the political economy of water; a sectoral analysis of water in the regional ‘hybrid’ economy; and a spatial analysis of water governance in Maningrida and the hinterland. These three perspectives are combined in a discussion about cross-cultural contestation over water values and property rights, and early steps that might be taken to ameliorate such contestation are outlined. Finally, it is suggested that a new water governance paradigm that lies beyond the water allocation system might be needed in this region.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued a research report Competition and consumer issues for Indigenous Australians. "The report by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy at the Australian National University is part of the ACCC's approach to trade practices compliance and awareness issues within Indigenous communities", ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today. "It provides better awareness of relevant Indigenous cultural issues and market practices which affect Indigenous communities. "CAEPR researchers reviewed Australian and overseas literature and comment on the role of stores in remote Indigenous communities and the Indigenous visual arts industry. "While the views expressed in the report are those of the researchers and not necessarily of the ACCC, the report will be valuable in helping the ACCC, and other consumer agencies, develop future Indigenous strategies. Early phases of the research have already assisted in the development of Storecharter—a service charter serving remote and Indigenous communities and in the development of community-focused education materials. It is hoped that the report will stimulate further research in this area. "Visits by ACCC staff to remote communities in central and northern Australia have indicated that Indigenous consumers and businesses are often unaware of their rights and obligations under the Trade Practice Act 1974. This reflects the broader need for information by business and consumers in rural and regional communities which gave rise to the ACCC's Rural and Regional Program. "The ACCC has responded to this need by developing targeted educational materials and establishing the Regional Network which is comprised of more than 450 regional supporters. The Regional Network has been established to improve access for people in country Australia to relevant and topical trade practices information".

The most comprehensive and important work of its kind. The book covers everything from documented archaeological traditions and art styles, through to the development of the remarkably diverse contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practices that have attracted so much attention in recent years. Contents • Part 1. Foundations of being: 1. Religion 2. Ritual and sacred sites 3. Kinship and gender Colonial and post-colonial scenes: 4. Colonial continuities and discontinuities 5. Rock art revisited 6. Arnhem Land 7. Between islands 8. Queensland 9. Central Australia 10. The Kimberley 11. The southern states Renegotiating tradition: 12. Urban Aboriginal art 13. Film and communications 14. Literature 15. Music 16. Performance 17. Fibre-work and textiles 18. Cultural meeting places 19. Living spaces The public face of aboriginality: 20. Aboriginalities 21. Reception and recognition of Aboriginal art 22. Cross-cultural exchange 23. The way ahead Part 2. Alphabetical entries Appendix. Regional maps.

This Issues Paper is a first step in the development of an Indigenous Arts Strategy (IAS) for the Northern Territory (NT). It aims to do two things. First, to assess the current state of Indigenous arts in the NT. Second, to canvass issues for consideration by arts stakeholders and to facilitate the development of an Indigenous arts support framework for the NT. It should be noted at the outset that the development of such an Indigenous arts strategy is unprecedented in the NT, and possibly in Australia. Strategies have been developed for the arts generally and arguably for the Indigenous visual arts industry nationally, but there has never been a comprehensive attempt to develop a strategy for Indigenous arts at the State level. To some extent it is fitting that the NT is taking the leadership role here, because not only is it the most significant Indigenous jurisdiction in terms of relative population (29% of the NT's small total population of just under 200,000 is Indigenous according to the 2001 Census) but also because Indigenous arts here, and especially the visual arts, have such high regional, national and international profiles. This Issues Paper seeks to chart a realistic pathway to ensure Indigenous arts success under an NT Indigenous arts advocacy and support framework. The challenge for the NT Government's IAS will be to develop a positive and achievable Indigenous arts policy umbrella that is warmly welcomed by the NT arts community and the NT constituency and that is regarded as valuable by other major Commonwealth funding agencies. This suggests, on one hand, that these other Commonwealth agencies are also stakeholders in the development of the IAS-it is in the Commonwealth's interests to seek to sustain a national Indigenous arts sector, and to ensure that the important NT component is sustainable by supporting it institutionally and financially. On the other hand, while it is in the NT Government's interest to form an effective alliance with the Commonwealth because of its current financial dominance in the sector in the NT, both interests, as well as Indigenous arts stakeholders, will be well served by strong coordination. Resolving such issues will require astute political judgments by the NT Government. The challenge for the development of the IAS is to seek to convert the undeniable current of NT Government goodwill, and broader Commonwealth concurrence (recently evident in the March 2003 CMC Communiqué), to a focus on Indigenous arts as a priority for positive policy action. How can the NT Government ensure that it enhances and maintains the national leadership in Indigenous arts, and especially visual arts, that the NT clearly enjoys? This, ultimately, must be the aim of the IAS.

Art Business: The Indigenous Visual Arts Infrastructure

Brokering Kuninjku art: a crtical perspective on the complex processes of mediating with the market

This Topical Issue is adapted from a submission in response to the Australian government’s Indigenous Economic Development Strategy Draft for Consultation1 (henceforth the Draft Strategy). The need for a policy framework to enable Indigenous economic development is of critical importance in addressing the marginalized situation of many Indigenous people in Australian society. And so it is very appropriate that the incoming Rudd government committed to the formation of a new Indigenous Economic Development Strategy. This is an area of Indigenous affairs policy that has been especially challenging in the past. While I make clear at the outset that I am not a supporter of the currently dominant ‘narrative of failure’, there have been areas of exceptional economic development performance in the past and such success needs to be recognised, supported and replicated—which is not to deny there has also been failure. Nevertheless, there is currently a national mood to improve the marginal economic situation of many Indigenous Australians captured by the evocative idea ‘Closing the Gap’ and so it is timely that the issue of Indigenous economic development is rigorously addressed.

Law, Knowledge, Culture : The Production of Indigenous Knowledge in Intellectual Property Law

The relationship between indigenous/traditional knowledge and intellectual property law is a complicated contemporary legal problem. Questions around indigenous knowledge protection present issues unlike any other that intellectual property law has had to consider. Indigenous peoples’ concerns include legal questions involving copyright, patents, trademarks, designs and/or confidential information. They also raise issues that are not always legal or commercial in nature and can include ethical, cultural, historical, political, religious/spiritual and moral dimensions. Intellectual property law is largely European in derivation and promotes particular cultural interpretations of knowledge, ownership, authorship, private property and monopoly privilege. Indigenous peoples do not necessarily interpret or conceptualize their knowledge systems and knowledge practices in the same way or only through these concepts. Indigenous peoples’ interests in intellectual property law can affect over 370 million indigenous people and any researcher, cultural institution, corporation, industry affiliate or government department working in and/or with indigenous peoples and/or indigenous communities. While the value of indigenous knowledge has changed dramatically in the last ten years, there is not yet an international consensus about how indigenous rights to the protection of their knowledge systems can be secured, either within an intellectual property regime or through some other over-arching legislative or policy framework. Indigenous people must be centrally involved in developing appropriate frameworks for access and use of their knowledge and knowledge practices. Future directions are foundationally dependent upon the development of frameworks that enhance and embolden indigenous perspectives about existing and emerging knowledge management approaches. Indigenous knowledge can no longer be considered a raw-resource from which others benefit. Indigenous people are asking for their cultural systems and ways of governing knowledge access and use to be recognized as legitimate, and to be respected as custodians/owners/nurturers of knowledge that is valuable within and beyond indigenous contexts. Critical evaluation of categories and frameworks that have been taken for granted are crucial for developing new strategies in this area. Rethinking how we do research, how we conceptualize knowledge, how we share knowledge, how we recognize legitimate overlaps in knowledge use and circulation, and the extent of the role of law in influencing our social orders of knowledge exchange, are necessary starting points."

This guide explains how pay as you go (PAYG) withholding, the goods and services tax (GST) and the Australian business number (ABN) apply to Indigenous artworks sold at art centres.

Introduction Pt. 1. Remembering the Mission 1. Encounter at Ntaria 2. Kaporilya, a Big Place 3. The Meaning of Pepe Pt. 2. Life as a Standing Fight 4. Home and Away: The Dislocation of Identity 5. Living with Kin 6. Honey Ants and Relatedness Pt. 3. Outstations and Being Remote 7. Factionalism (or; The Secret Life of an Outstation Movement) 8. When Imaginaries Collide 9. A Very Remote Emergency App. A. Kaporilya Song App. B. Glossary of Western Arrernte Terms.

Culture in Australia: policies, publics and programs

If the social does not exist as a special domain but, in Bruno Latour's words, as 'a peculiar movement of re-association and reassembling', what implications does this have for how 'the cultural' might best be conceived? What new ways of thinking the relations between culture, the economy and the social might be developed by pursuing such lines of inquiry? And what are the implications for the relations between culture and politics? Contributors draw on a range of theoretical perspectives, including those associated with Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Law and Haraway, in order to focus on the roles of different forms of expertise and knowledge in producing cultural assemblages. What expertise is necessary to produce indigenous citizens? How does craniometry assemble the head? What kinds of knowledge were required to create markets for life insurance? These and other questions are pursued in this collection through a challenging array of papers concerned with cultural assemblages as diverse as brands and populations, bottled water and mobile television.