A model for Aboriginal self-government need not cost any extra and would replace paternalism an improve Aborigines economic position, according to a former Grants Commissioner and Federal Government taxation adviser.
Russell Mattews, who is professor of economics at the Australian National University, has put up a model for Aboriginal self-government, that would not require constitutional changes, saying the present system of high level of government funding was not achieving living standards for Aborigines that other Australians enjoy.
He argues that giving Aborigines responsibility for themselves will mean better living standards with the same level of government support. In the past solutions had been too legalistic and paternalistic.
He draws upon Canadian experience to show that a self-governing entity could be created in the Northern Territory from existing Aboriginal land as a starting point. The territory need not be contiguous, as the Canadian experience showed. It could be made up of scattered territory.
Canada was in the process of creating First Nations under which indigenous people passed their own laws and determined spending priorities and had indigenous citizenship. Australia spent about $14,000 per head on Aborigines in the Northern Territory, more per head than Canada spent for its indigenous people. Given this, there is no reason for Australia to be lagging behind Canada in giving more self-determination.
Agreement with the Northern Territory would be needed, but it might see the self-governing territory as getting a burden off its shoulders. Professor Matthews’s model does not require any more funding that at present, indeed it might require less.
He says the Grants Commission would work out grants to the Aboriginal self-government in much the same way as it does for the states now. It had been working on fiscal disabilities of Aborigines for 15 years, so would be easily up to the task.
Commonwealth money would go direct to the Aboriginal communities through the Aboriginal self-government, not through the states. The principle would be that it would get enough funding to provide the same level of services for citizens as citizens elsewhere in Australia, provided they impose comparable levels of taxation.
Professor Matthews posed the latter part of the equation as a possible solution to the Mabo-mining issue. He said that if an Aboriginal self-government vetoed a mining project then the Grants Commission would take into account the voluntarily lost revenue when allotting grants in the future.
“”As for other Australians, it would require them to make choices about the balance between taxing and spending and about the directions of spending,” he said. Much of the infrastructure was in place on Aboriginal land: schools, hospitals and township services. Norfolk Island was an precedent for a self-governing territory within the Australian framework.
Professor Mattews’s model was put in an article in the latest public-information paper of the Committee for Economic Development. CEDA is an apolitical organisation of business leaders and academics and others interested in social and economic developmentin Australia.
Professor Matthews said the Aboriginal self-government would have to be compatible with principles of parliamentary democracy, responsible government, financial accountability and the federal structure. The Commonwealth would continue with its functions as it did elsewhere in Australia.
Within it, however, Aborigines could protect their culture and to that extent their traditional law.
No constitutional change was necessary for the Northern Territory starting point, but if areas from other states were to join the self-governing entity it would require constitutional change. He thought that once a territory had obtained self-government in the Northern Territory and then in other areas where Aborigines were strongly attached to traditional lifestyles, some other self-governing models could be made for Aborigines in urban areas and country towns with large Aboriginal populations.
Professor Matthews said that in Canada citizens of the First Nation came under its laws even while outside its territory. The precise nature of indigenous citizenship and how it would apply outside the area and how the Aboriginal government would apply laws to non-indigenous people would have to be worked out.
It was important the right to self-government was based on prior occupancy, and was not available to other ethnic groups who came to Australia voluntarily.
“”Any self-governing territory will remain an integral part of the Australian federation and will not practise racial segregation,” he said.
Professor Matthews most telling point is that the present arrangements involve the expenditure of large sums of money for a poor outcome in Aboriginal living standards. He suggests that this is because present arrangements have too much paternalism, authoritarianism and exclusion of Aborigines from making decisions about things that affect them. He suggests that with the responsibility of self-government the outcome might change for the better.