Comments on: NT needs someone to ‘call things honestly’ says Havnen …

By: Bob Durnan

Bob Durnan — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 07:17:17 +0000

I believe Ralph (Posted October 20, 2012 at 7:51 am) is broadly correct: some communities’ populations may be generally more mobile than others, but multiple ‘residences’ and identities are the norm for many of their ‘residents’, some of whom may be more accurately labelled variously as ‘habitually travelling, occasionally itinerant, often wandering or sometimes semi-nomadic people’. The ‘over-estimations of remote community populations’ is a real problem, but under-estimations are also a problem. A health service will generally perceive a higher resident population than will the ABS, NTEC or the AEC, for example, as the clinic keeps records of all the people who define themselves as residents (i.e. ‘living’ in the community) at the time they visit the clinic, even if they unpredictably disappear, unbeknownst to the clinic, shortly afterwards, whilst the ABS and Electoral Commission workers, constrained by all kinds of niceties even if they are highly familiar with the community, will be unable to push past their agency’s guidelines, ‘protocols’ or resource constraints to identify where some people are living, and are unlikely to find any trace of many of those who are on the Clinic’s books at the time, even if they may still be most often residing in the community in question. The clinic and ABS figures both will probably be quite different to the average number of people present in the community in the course of the year. Outstation services and the old community councils had their own ways of measuring population numbers, but these were sometimes conflicted by their need to maximise numbers in order to maintain desperately needed funding levels.
The true average is a figure that nobody is ever likely to know with any accuracy, as the fluidity of ‘residence’ on a daily basis is shaped by various unpredictable and often very elusive factors, as well as by an ever changing combination of predictable causes.
However, when Ralph claims that ‘remote community men can, in no way, afford to not have an income’ he is largely correct, but on less stable ground. Although it is true that ‘remote community men can, in no way, afford to not have an income’, that does not mean that all men, at any given time, will actually have an income. Some of these men – a small number – for various reasons, will very often not have an income. The reasons for this range from rejection of sufficient co-operation with the welfare system, to simple social disconnection and inability to sufficiently comprehend the system’s requirements. For some, constant mobility is one of these factors, and may be enabled by relatives who feel pity for the ‘akunye’ (a ‘poor thing’, deserving of pity and, perhaps, care).
However, as Ralph indicates, the people working for Centrelink and in other segments of the welfare apparatus are these days mostly hyper-vigilant to minimize the instances of “people falling through the cracks”, so the numbers who do fall are far less than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The mythology that drives the popular assumptions that Ralph is attacking have their basis much more in data and lived experience from past decades than they have in the present, since the NTER enabled Centrelink to employ sufficient workers and establish systems to bring virtually all those who wish to be on welfare into the system on a relatively permanent basis.
This contrasts strongly with the situation in the 70s and 80s, when many men (at least, many men amongst those living on or frequently visiting town camps) did survive for considerable periods without any reliable income. I suspect that the now deeply engrained practices of humbugging for access to relatives’ and acquaintances’ cash, goods and cards, using a combination of bullying and distortions of reciprocal sharing traditions (‘demand sharing’), became more deeply entrenched as a survival mechanism amongst some groups during those desperate times, when the rate of alcohol addiction and its associated needs were far outstripping the ability of many individuals to maintain a commensurate personal income stream.

By: Annie Farrell

Annie Farrell — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 23:34:49 +0000

Well, Ralph, it’s good to see some detail at last rather than all of that rhetorical high emotion! But your views are not necessarily singularly correct – worthy, of course, but highly contestable which is the very nature of this (and most other) policy fields. My current research is on ‘income management’ as it emerged from the ‘intervention’ and every policy critique ‘angle’, including the data, is highly fraught and strenuosly contested. Best we keep our wigs on and have the conversations rather than assert we have a monopoly on the truth of the matter even when we think we really, really do! Regards, Annie

By: Ralph Folds

Ralph Folds — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:21:07 +0000

Remote communities have highly mobile populations with multiple residences, in several communities, outstations and town camps, confusing names (for whitefellas), overestimations of remote community populations based on actual residence at just about any particular time and, as a result, data that is inaccurate and equivocal enough to be subject to a range of interpretations depending on one’s bent. Against that, remote community men can, in no way, afford to not have an income. Remote community men who are not employed access a range of benefits including a share of family payments and other forms of welfare and there is a very high level of pressure on agencies to ensure that any elgible person is getting a benefit. The failure of a single payment for any reason can produce a storm of protest. What I particularly object to from someone with the assumed credibility of the former NT Coordinator-General of Remote Service Delivery is that her statement has strong implications for policy action to remedy a host of other problems. It’s a false trail, yet another one, and it absolutely needs to be challenged in a forthright manner in the public domain. I do understand that the role of coordinator general has many passionate and articulate defenders, but to be effective it needed to be grounded in the day to day realities of remote community life and it simply wasn’t.

By: Annie Farrell

Annie Farrell — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:20:37 +0000

Ralph! Why not just contest the data that Ms Havnen has invoked (which the Ed. appears to be signalling you’ve misquoted anyway) rather than load it up with hubris and a certain tone and tenor? What’s your agenda in being unnecessarily a bit dank? I think I saw Ms Havnen post that she’s more than happy to be corrected about the data and appears to be engaging in a self-reflexive and civil manner. Unfortunately your less than civil tone and tenor is a bit of a blight on the otherwise reasonable responses of the other postees. Where on earth have you been honing your public domain conduct lately? Regards, Annie.

By: ralph

ralph — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:05:39 +0000

Annie, so you’re ‘not in any way engaged with the data’ but simply object to the language I use? W.E.H Stanner highlighted the importance of grounding policies in the real lives of Aboriginal people, and wrote in an understated way that you may find more satisfactory: ‘We thus sometimes beg the question whether we have consulted the right reality in the first place’. I would think that this applies rather well to Olga Havnen’s claim that 60% of Aboriginal men of working age (in the NT) have no income.

ED – The ’60% with no income’ claim was with respect to men living in remote communities in the NT, not the NT as a whole.

By: Annie Farrell

Annie Farrell — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:04:03 +0000

Ralph, again your use of dramatic language like “disturbing” and “disconnected from reality” is distinctly curious. I’m not in any way engaged with the data (the complete stats dud that I am) but am always surprised and disappointed by the overstuffed and, in this instance, empty and lazy language which endeavours to pose as critique or a form of rigour. Regards, Annie

By: ralph

ralph — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 02:45:57 +0000

Thanks Annie,
I would have thought that the 60% figure is extraordinary enough to require some rigour of its own in the form of credible evidence to support it, and I neither see that in the comments nor can find it in my research of the available data. Please direct me to it. My ‘evidence’, of a couple of decades of working in remote communities and with their residents, tells me that the statement is absurd. That it could be presented by the former NT Coordinator-General of Remote Service Delivery is disturbing, and I think, justifies the claim that she is disconnected with the reality she describes.

By: Annie Farrell

Annie Farrell — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:37:34 +0000

Ralph Folds
Your rather overdetermined comment regarding ‘the disconnect between the ex Coordinator-General of Remote Services and the reality she is attempting to describe’? appears to be only somewhat formulated as a public domain comment and, unless you were rudely interrupted in the midst of this endeavour and accidentally pressed ‘post comment’, its lack of rigour suggests a lamentable and considerable whiff of hubris. Your use of unevidenced rhetoric to describe a ‘reality disconnect’ is certainly paradoxical to say the least!!! Annie Farrell

By: ralph folds

ralph folds — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 08:28:38 +0000

‘you’ve got 60% of Aboriginal men of working age (in the NT) who have no income…’ this statement shows the disconnect between the ex Coordinator-General of Remote Services and the reality she is attempting to describe.

By: Kieran Finnane

Kieran Finnane — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 07:03:19 +0000

@ Olga and Hal. The ABS definition of NILF: “Persons Not in the Labour Force are people who are neither employed nor unemployed in a particular reference period.” That is, as I understand people who do not have a job of any sort and are not looking for work. But that does not mean they have no income support from Centrelink. They might, for instance, be receiving parenting or carer or disability payments. I have put in questions to both Centrelink and ABS to get further information.