Summary of Submission to ATSIC Review
Access the Social Justice Commissioner's submission to the ATSIC Review, addressing governance and representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Summary of Submission to ATSIC Review
- Social Justice Commissioner calls on government to strengthen ATSIC
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Dr Bill Jonas has called on the government to strengthen the monitoring role of ATSIC at the national level as well as provide it with enhanced powers at the state and regional levels. Dr Jonas is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. His comments were made in a submission made on behalf of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and lodged with the ATSIC Review this week.
In the submission, Dr Jonas argues that in order for ATSIC to represent Indigenous peoples effectively its current powers must be enhanced at the each of the national, state/territory, and regional levels. What is required to make ATSIC more effective is not a redistribution of ATSIC's current powers from the national to the regional level but instead an enhancement of the existing powers at all levels.
The submission recommends that particular attention should be devoted to:
- strengthening the overall role of ATSIC at the national level in monitoring service delivery by all government agencies and setting the national policy agenda;
- enhancing the capacity of ATSIC regional councils to undertake an expanded role in regional planning and service delivery by providing additional powers to enter into agreements on a regional or state-wide basis; and
- providing flexibility to adjust the structure of the regional council to best meet local needs (for example, through providing the capacity to develop alternative governance arrangements such as a regional authority or other suitable structures).
Dr Jonas has indicated that he supports the maintenance of a ‘separation of powers' between the elected and administrative arms of ATSIC, but does not support the continuation of a separate agency such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services to manage ATSIC's programs. A unified ATSIC structure that has functions of advocating for Indigenous peoples, setting policy objectives and priorities, and delivering services and programmes is feasible, achievable and the preferred option. Dr Jonas has also indicated to the Review Team that he considers that it would be a retrograde step to ‘mainstream' programs currently delivered by ATSIC/ATSIS, such as CDEP and CHIP, to other Commonwealth government departments.
The submission to the ATSIC Review argues that ATSIC's powers at the national level should be enhanced to provide increased ability to set national objectives and to monitor and evaluate the performance of other government departments in addressing the service delivery needs of Indigenous peoples. Dr Jonas advocates amendment of the ATSIC Act to authorise ATSIC to issue legally binding directions and to require the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs to table these in Parliament as disallowable instruments. ATSIC should also be provided with subpoena powers and the ability to call government departments to appear before the ATSIC Board to account for their performance on delivering services to Indigenous peoples.
Providing ATSIC with the power to create legally binding directions, subject to parliamentary scrutiny, would create a direct relationship between the ATSIC Board, the elected representatives of Indigenous peoples, and the federal Parliament, the elected representatives of the whole Australian community.
The submission also argues that ATSIC should have an enhanced monitoring role at the inter-governmental level to address the ineffective monitoring framework currently in place.
At the state and territory level, Dr Jonas recommends that ATSIC's State Advisory Committees be provided with additional powers to support agreement making and partnerships with state and territory governments. This should include the ability to enter into service delivery agreements to deliver state programs and pool funding with Commonwealth programs. It should also be accompanied by an enhanced role for ATSIC's internal evaluation and audit office so that it can monitor state and territory government service delivery; identify best practice and transferable models between states; and more effectively feed into regional planning processes.
The submission agrees with the focus of the ATSIC Review's discussion paper on the need for enhanced powers at the ATSIC regional council level to ensure that decisions at the local level are better able to inform policy development and decision-making processes at the state / territory and national levels.
Dr Jonas states that the need for greater powers for regional councils in terms of setting funding priorities, determining outcomes, entering purchaser/provider agreements, developing more representative and effective regional governance arrangements are fundamental and significant issues that deserve serious consideration from the Review Team.
The submission supports the ATSIC Review Team's ‘devolution model' for ATSIC regional councils, with some qualifications. The submission recommends that:
- regional councils be provided with the ability to enter into agreements to introduce more flexible funding arrangements and to implement an outcomes-based funding approach and longer-term funding frameworks;
- ATSIC's role at the state level be strengthened as an essential component of strengthening regional planning processes;
- the ATSIC Act provide greater flexibility for regional councils to adapt to their local needs through developing alternative governance arrangements.
The submission recommends that consideration of alternative governance arrangements must not be restricted to one model, such as the regional authority structure adopted in the Torres Strait. The submission supports the inclusion in the ATSIC Act of an ‘opt-out' mechanism to vary the structure of individual regional councils according to the needs of the particular region.
Dr Jonas' submission to the ATSIC Review Team is available online at: http://www.humanrights.gov.auhttps://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/commission-general/broken-link
Last updated 22 August, 2003.