Table Of ContentIndigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World
Series Editors: Sarah Maddison · Sana Nakata · Julia Hurst
Nikki Moodie
Sarah Maddison Editors
Public
Policy and
Indigenous
Futures
Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia
and the World
Volume 4
Series Editors
Sarah Maddison, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Sana Nakata, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Julia Hurst, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Editorial Board
Miriam Jorgensen, Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ,
USA
Sheryl Lightfoot, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Morgan Brigg, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia
Yin Paradies, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia
Jeff Denis, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Bronwyn Fredericks, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia
Libby Porter, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
The series, Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World, brings together
scholars interested in examining contemporary Indigenous affairs through questions
of relationality. This is a unique approach that represents a deliberate move away
from both settler-colonial studies, which examines historical and present impacts
of settler states upon Indigenous peoples, and from postcolonial and decolonial
scholarship, which is predominantly interested in how Indigenous peoples speak
back to the settler state. Closely connected to, but with meaningful contrast to these
approaches, the Indigenous-Settler Relations series focuses sharply upon questions
about what informs, shapes and gives social, legal and political life to relations
between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples, both in Australia and
globally.
This is an important and timely endeavour. In Australia, relations between Aborig-
inal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the state are at an impasse. In the wake of
the government’s rejection of the Uluru Statement in 2017 there is no shared view on
how Indigenous-settler relationships might be ‘reset’, or even if this is possible. The
contemporary Indigenous affairs policy domain is characterised by confusion, frus-
tration and disappointment that, despite a seemingly endless succession of policy
regimes, efforts to ‘close the gap’ between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples and other Australians have not resulted in progress.
It is into this contested space that the Indigenous-Settler Relations series seeks to
intervene with new, agenda-setting research. The series editors are based in a research
unit in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne—the Indigenous Settler
Relations Collaboration. The series will build on the work of the Collaboration in
bringing together scholars and practitioners from around Australia, and around the
world—particularly other Anglophone settler colonial societies such as Canada, the
United States and New Zealand—whose work is concerned with Indigenous-settler
relations across a range of disciplines. The multi-faceted approach to Indigenous-
Settler Relations that defines the series seeks to capture how the question of relation-
ality is already being asked by scholars across disciplines including political science,
history, sociology, law, media, and cultural studies.
Readers of this series will look to it for fresh perspectives and new ideas about
how to transform Indigenous-settler relations in Australia and elsewhere. They will
learn from the leading lights in an emerging field who will connect their rich,
multi-disciplinary scholarship to urgent social and political questions at the heart
of Indigenous-Settler relations.
·
Nikki Moodie Sarah Maddison
Editors
Public Policy and Indigenous
Futures
Editors
Nikki Moodie Sarah Maddison
School of Social and Political Sciences School of Social and Political Sciences
University of Melbourne University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC, Australia Parkville, VIC, Australia
ISSN 2524-5767 ISSN 2524-5775 (electronic)
Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World
ISBN 978-981-19-9318-3 ISBN 978-981-19-9319-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9319-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
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Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge that many individuals and communities have made this book
possible. Much of this work has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we
are especially appreciative if the patience shown by many of the people involved.
Many of the chapters in this collection were developed at a research workshop funded
by the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA), originally planned for 2020
and eventually held late in 2021. In particular we’d like to thank Elizabeth Strakosch,
who contributed significantly to the development of the volume.
Support for this work also came from the staff in the Australian Centre at the
University of Melbourne. Originally established in 1989, the Australian Centre has
a long history of supporting scholarship of colonial and contemporary Australian
society and culture. Since the beginning of 2022, the research programs of the Centre
have been revitalised under the directorship of Professor Sarah Maddison and deputy
directorship of Dr. Julia Hurst. The Australian Centre advances critical understand-
ings of how Australia’s founding as a settler colony continues to inform, shape,
and constrain our capacity to engage with the central challenges of our age, while
simultaneously recognising that “Australia” is not the first, the only, nor the central,
political organising principle of these lands and waters. The Australian Centre is
committed to research that works towards more just relations between Indigenous
and settler peoples, and currently supports the publication of the Indigenous-Settler
Relations in Australia and the World series.
The Australian Centre’s Research Coordinator, Eleanor Benson, kept all of us on
track during the process of developing this book, including organising the workshop
in 2021. Eleanor also provided outstanding editorial and proof reading assistance in
the final stages of completing this manuscript and we are deeply grateful to her for
the always exceptional quality of her work.
Most importantly, this book has been made possible due to the Wurundjeri peoples
of the Kulin nations upon whose unceded territories the Parkville campus of The
University of Melbourne resides. Our occupation of their land is an injustice that
v
vi Acknowledgements
will possibly never be made right. These words alone do very little to provide
deserving reparations for that irreparable loss. We sit with that discomfort daily
while working towards better relations between our institutions and First Nations
peoples everywhere.
Contents
1 Introduction: Public Policy and Indigenous Futures ............... 1
Nikki Moodie and Sarah Maddison
2 Indigenous Public Policy Futures: A Manifesto for Relationalist
Public Administration .......................................... 13
Mary Graham and Morgan Brigg
3 Success and Failure in Australian Indigenous Policy: Moral
Dynamics and Rhetorical Registers .............................. 27
Will Sanders
4 Caring for Country as Deliberative Policymaking ................. 51
Justin McCaul
5 Future-Proofing Indigenous Self-Determination in Health:
Goals, Tactics, and Achievements of Aboriginal Community
Controlled Health Organisations in New South Wales, Australia .... 73
David Coombs
6 Stepping Stones to Indigenous Futures: Rethinking Precarity
in Indigenous Education and Work .............................. 95
Nikki Moodie
7 Treaty as a Pathway to Indigenous Controlled Policy: Making
Space, Partnering, and Honouring New Relationships ............. 111
Sarah Maddison and Anya Thomas
8 Yes, The Time Is Now: Indigenous Nation Policy Making
for Self-determined Futures ..................................... 129
Miriam Jorgensen, Alison Vivian, Anthea Compton,
Donna Murray, Debra Evans, and Janine Gertz
vii
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Nikki Moodie is the current Program Director and Deputy Director of the Atlantic
Fellows for Social Equity at the University of Melbourne. Nikki is an Associate
Professor of Sociology and a queer Gamilaroi woman. Nikki holds a Bachelor of Arts
with Honours in Political Science from the University of Queensland, and a Ph.D.
in Sociology from the Australian National University. Nikki’s research focuses on
Indigenous education and social policy.
Sarah Maddison is a Director of the Australian Centre and Professor of Politics at the
University of Melbourne. With Associate Professor Sana Nakata and Dr. Julia Hurst
she edits the Springer book series Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the
World. She has published widely in the fields of reconciliation, settler colonialism,
and Indigenous politics. Her most recent book, The Colonial Fantasy, was published
by Allen & Unwin in 2019.
Contributors
Morgan Brigg The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Anthea Compton Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research,
University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
David Coombs School of Education, University of New South Wales, Kensington,
NSW, Australia;
The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), Carlton, VIC,
Australia
Debra Evans Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia
ix
x EditorsandContributors
Janine Gertz Nura Gili, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW,
Australia
Mary Graham The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Miriam Jorgensen Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ,
USA
Sarah Maddison The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC,
Australia
Justin McCaul Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Nikki Moodie The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Donna Murray University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
Will Sanders Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Anya Thomas The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC,
Australia
Alison Vivian Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research, Univer-
sity of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
