Issue Brief 18 / 1997

A central issue facing Australian policy makers is how to meet the principles of equity and social justice in access to economic benefits for diverse regional, ethnic and Aboriginal populations, while at the same time meeting broad national goals of economic development. This issue is particularly complex in the case of Aboriginal people, and the discussion paper Money, business and culture: issues for Aboriginal economic policy by Dr David Martin raises a number of significant questions for both policy makers and Aboriginal people themselves.

Formal socioeconomic indicators demonstrate unambiguously that while there are important regional variations, many Aboriginal populations across Australia are characterised by such features as:

• low living standards
• poor health and life expectancy
• limited educational attainment
• poor participation rates in the mainstream economy
• significantly lower income levels.

At the same time, whether they are in remote, rural, or urban areas, Aboriginal people themselves assert the reality and legitimacy of their own cultural values and systems, a fact recognised by many government policies and programs, such as those supporting the Aboriginal homelands movement.

Distinctive Aboriginal economic values

However, Aboriginal cultural values should not be seen as relating only to matters such as language, religion, or aesthetic and artistic traditions, but to 'economic' values and practices as well. Dr Martin examines the particular forms of social relations which Aboriginal people have established to control the production, consumption, and circulation of goods and services in an Aboriginal community economy. The research demonstrates how cash, and new organisational forms like enterprises, have been transformed by Aboriginal people to accord with their own values, in particular the emphasis placed on the accumulation of 'social' capital rather than purely 'economic' capital.

While this research has focused on the people of a remote Aboriginal township, there is also considerable evidence for distinctive Aboriginal economic values and practices in rural and urban Australia. These may well be incompatible with integration into the mainstream economy, through labour market participation or enterprise development, for example.

Challenges for policy makers

This then brings into sharp relief a fundamental dilemma for policy makers and Aboriginal people alike: how to ensure that the core government policy goals of reaching statistical equality with non-Indigenous Australia, 'economic development', and economic empowerment, are not unwitting tools for the assimilation of Aboriginal people into the mainstream society.

This research suggests that for particular regions and Aboriginal societies, there may be significant incompatibilities between these government policy objectives and the recognition of Aboriginal cultural values and priorities. For example, too narrow a focus on the development of Aboriginal-controlled enterprises may be ignoring certain Aboriginal notions of what 'doing business' is in fact about.

Challenges for the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme

Equally, particular challenges are posed for the CDEP scheme by the necessity to balance the potentially competing imperatives established under principles of equity and social justice for individuals on the one hand, and the recognition of Aboriginal cultural values and priorities on the other. This research suggests that cash, in the form of individual incomes, can have profound and sometimes adverse consequences for Aboriginal family and social relations. Clearly, to argue for the replacement of individual incomes by some other form of income support would be discriminatory.

However, there is considerable scope for the development of creative strategies in the implementation of the CDEP scheme in different regions, which draw upon Aboriginal social, political and economic structures and values rather than compromising them. Arguably, CDEP schemes should not be seen as primarily providing a pathway to employment in the mainstream labour market, a goal which is neither realistic in many regions nor desired by many Aboriginal people. Rather, their potential to reinforce Aboriginal priorities relating to such matters as the social value of work should be recognised and explicitly supported at the policy and program levels.

Implications for 'economic development'

More broadly, the very notion of 'economic development' which underpins much government policy in this area needs careful examination. This research suggests that there is an 'economic' arena within contemporary Aboriginal societies which is linked to that of the mainstream society, but which nonetheless comprises distinctive values and practices. This Aboriginal economic realm is one in which social capital, rather than financial or other forms of material resources, is typically given primacy.

This then suggests that 'economic development' should be understood as a process through which financial and other material resources can be brought to bear on maintaining and enhancing the viability of Aboriginal societies, rather than as one concerned solely with developing infrastructure or increasing wealth. In the specific case of enterprise development, Aboriginal people's strong emphasis on sociality and on maintaining kinship and other social relations, should be valued as a legitimate and core dimension of business structures and objectives, and not simply as a peripheral concern.

Conclusion

Low Aboriginal employment and income levels are by any objective assessment likely to remain intractable problems, and goals of economic self-sufficiency and economic development may be unrealistic.

In such circumstances, the very complex challenge for policy makers, and for Aboriginal people themselves, is to develop responses which enhance, rather than compromise, Aboriginal social and cultural viability. One area suggested by this research is to take into account the objective reality of continuing dependency upon government transfer payments for many Aboriginal people through more creative strategies in the implementation of the CDEP scheme. Another is to assist in the development of strategies to establish Aboriginal enterprises which aim to be financially viable, but at the same time enable the maintenance of distinctive Aboriginal values relating to such matters as the centrality of social forms of capital, work practices and relations, hierarchy and authority, and the use of profits.

This issue brief summarised CAEPR Discussion Paper No. 101, 'Money business and culture: issues for Aboriginal economic policy' by D.F. Martin published in 1995. It was prepared by David Martin and edited by Lynette Liddle.