Table of Contents
A Practical Critique of Practical Reconciliation.
What is the Reality of Indigenous Funding?
Greg
Crough
The focus of public comment is upon the amounts of money spent on
Indigenous communities. Yet so little is often achieved. And too often federal funding rewards
policy inaction rather than action. Greg Crough argues that new approaches to funding, and the
strings that are attached to it, are required.
Indigenous Australian Participation in Higher
Education:
The Realities of Practical
Reconciliation
Wendy Brabham and John Henry, with Esme Bamblett
and Jennifer Bates
The current federal policy focus in Indigenous education is
on ‘mainstreaming’. Too often that means redistributing money earmarked for
particular Indigenous needs to ‘mainstream’ programs which are of little use to
Indigenous students. As a result, current forecasts suggest a marked turnaround in Indigenous
enrolments in higher education. The hard-won gains of decades may be under threat.
Regional Agreements, Higher Education and Representations of
Indigenous Australian Reality (Why wasn’t I taught that in
school?)
Greg McConville
Australians generally
need to relearn what they have been taught about Indigenous people. Educational institutions need to
engage Indigenous people in the development and delivery of Indigenous studies programs. Because of
the shortage of Indigenous staff, Greg McConville argues that universities need coherent strategies
designed to increase both their numbers and their job security.
Approaching Ethical Issues: Institutional Management of Indigenous
Research
Gus Worby and Daryle
Rigney
Indigenous research poses complex issues in terms of ethics clearances.
Gus Worby and Daryle Rigney argue that ethics clearances should be required of all work in the area.
On the other hand, there is a shortage of Indigenous staff with the expertise to assess such
applications, and they risk becoming increasingly overloaded.
Superannuation Issues for Indigenous Australians: Scope for
Reform
Brad Pragnell
Superannuation has become
a key determinant of retirement incomes. And yet Indigenous life expectancies and retirement ages
are far lower than the national average. This will serve to further exacerbate poverty levels in
Indigenous communities. Brad Pragnell recommends strategies to provide more Indigenous Australians
with decent retirement incomes.
Apartheid, Australian-Style
Joel Wright
Joel Wright argues that the current
government’s Indigenous policies mark a return to older, paternalistic models of social
provision for Indigenous peoples. He argues for a system of regional agreements around cultural
research, restoration and tourism on the one hand as the potential basis for a more productive
approach to Indigenous self-sufficiency and self-determination.
Understanding Australian
Racism
Laksiri Jayasuriya
The history of
Indigenous policy in Australia is interwoven with the histories of colonialism and a range of
racialist theories and assumptions. The ‘blood’-based racism of the nineteenth
century, and the ‘cultural difference’-based racism of the twentieth, have
produced complicated legacies of discrimination and exclusion. These legacies still cast a heavy
shadow over our current debates over cultural nationhood, immigration and exclusion.