The Australian government announced in April that the only government agency representing the country’s indigenous peoples will disband.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was created in 1989 to better serve the needs of the country’s indigenous population. It was composed of a main office and 35 regional councils of elected indigenous representatives who were responsible for consulting with their communities and working with other government agencies to implement indigenous-driven policies. While the regional council members’ terms last until June 2005, the national governing office and all funding will be cut this June by legislative action.
According to Prime Minister John Howard’s administration, ATSIC was overly concerned with "symbolic" issues and was no longer capable of addressing the matters endemic to the people it was intended to serve. The agency had recently been marred by scandal when its former chairman, Geoff Clark, was suspended for alleged misuse of ATSIC resources.
"You would think that if ATSIC has been losing its legitimacy, then there would be fewer people turning out to vote, and fewer people nominating," said Tim Rowse, a senior fellow of the history program at the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and a visiting professor of Australian studies at Harvard University. "The figures from 1993 to 2002 don’t show that just yet, so the only empirical evidence available shows that ATSIC’s legitimacy among indigenous Australians has remained constant. "
The 1,200 employers of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSIS), the fiscally responsible counterpart of ATSIC, await the result of the funding cut. ATSIS’s Community Development Employment Program provided job opportunities and training for thousands of indigenous people, including those in some of the most remote Aboriginal communities. While the community development program will still be managed by indigenous organizations in the communities that receive money, most ATSIC defenders worry about the trickledown effect that may result from the negation of democratically elected indigenous representation.
"The challenge now is for the remaining regional councils to assert their relevance in the process of government services and to assert the fact that they have a continuing mandate to speak for Aboriginal people," Rowse said.
The Howard government had planned to replace ATSIC with an appointed indigenous affairs council, but many prominent indigenous people have said they would not serve on a government-appointed council. The heads of the regional ATSIC councils met shortly after the government announced ATSIC’s closure and formed a panel to ensure public services would continue to be distributed to the indigenous population.
With Australia’s elections approaching, the eyes of the country’s indigenous people will now be on Mark Latham’s Labor Party and its commitment to create a replacement body for ATSIC.
"If Latham gets in and he’s serious about indigenous representation, then he’ll have a regional structure already waiting there for him to build on," Rowse said.
