Australian Indigenous Policy

This paper argues that white settler researchers seeking to engage with Indigenous sovereignty or contribute to antiracist and decolonising struggles should approach these critical encounters with and through awareness of our complicity in ongoing racism and colonialism, which involves appreciating our locations and limits. A discourse of colonizing white innocence circulates in policy, academic and other spaces to reinforce and obscure progressive white investments in maintaining power relationships generated by ongoing colonising racist violence through presenting particular individuals, groups and institutions as non-problematic, and so not complicit in historical and contemporary violence. This foundational assumption allows white settlers to assume that our contributions are benevolent or in the interests of Indigenous people and that we ourselves transcend our own locations within racist and colonising systems of rule, in so doing emphasising our legitimacy and authority in relation to Indigenous people. Complicity establishes both a political responsibility and an intellectual imperative to understand and contest systems of domination in which we are enmeshed through deliberate respectful engagements with those who have experiences, knowledges and forms of authority that we do not and cannot possess.

In this paper we use key learnings from the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC REP), Remote Education Systems and Pathways to Employment research projects to critique the white paper on Developing the North and the potential of such a future to unleash the norths potential. With very little about how to maximise the values of Aboriginal peoples or even a recognition of the availability of an Aboriginal workforce, we ask how this traditionally orientated development proposal will build strengths and capacities within the North, not simply contribute to Gross National Product (GNP). From a strong research base we highlight flawed assumptions behind current Aboriginal employment strategies and what does and does not work in terms of local Aboriginal workforce development. Through this we point to an extensive gap in innovation with industry and entrepreneurial activity limited to five growth sectors. Finally, drawing on the results and implications of our respective research projects, we propose some ways in which industries, regulators, legislators and government sponsored innovation initiatives could respond to better harness the latent potential of Aboriginal peoples and communities.

This article examines the nature of cultural genocide and recent efforts to stem its ongoing effects in the only four countries that voted against the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It gives a brief chronicle of the destruction and transformation of Indigenous cultures through a history of assimilationist schooling in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States from the nineteenth century to the present day, examining what aspects can be considered cultural genocide and what can be considered voluntary cultural change. It then examines current efforts to reverse assimilation and revitalize Indigenous cultures through immersion language programs and concludes with samples of the current rhetoric on the treatment of Indigenous peoples characterized by the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the recent apologies by the Prime Ministers of Australia and Canada. Polish scholar and attorney Raphaël Lemkin coined the word genocide in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe and defined it as, a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves…. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups…. Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. (Lemkin 1944 79) This definition includes ethnocide or cultural genocide, the destruction of a people's culture (see Nersessian 2005).

Alcohol Management Plans (AMPs) have become an important Australian government policy response to the harms from alcohol in Australian communities. Indigenous communities have been central to the development of AMPs in many communities, particularly throughout northern Australia. This paper explores the role and understandings of Alcohol Management Plans (AMPs) and related alcohol interventions in Indigenous communities in Australia. The paper discusses the preliminary findings from an ethnographic study of AMPs conducted in the Northern Territory, based on qualitative, semi-structured, in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted with a range of key stakeholders in Alice Springs, Darwin, Katherine and the community of Jilkminggan. Some of the key themes explored include: the problems associated with complex and intersecting, multi-tiered government policy and legislation; local issues related to the contested interests of industry, public health, communities and government; the absence of integrated, regional responses; and, some of the factors that have led to success within this increasingly volatile context. The paper concludes with an exploration of how these findings can inform State, Territory and Federal policy in developing 'best practice' pathways for communities to develop, implement and monitor AMPs.

Indigenous politics is possibly one of the most complex and misunderstood areas of politics in Australia. Indigenous issues are often presented as particularly contentious, and the divergence of interests between governments, business, the community and First Peoples themselves is frequently emphasised. We know that Indigenous issues do not have much salience in public opinion polls. Nevertheless, political leaders at both state and federal levels have often sought to use Indigenous issues to score points in public debates, demonstrating their ideological credentials. Many debates in Indigenous affairs are framed around deep-seated conflicts over values such as choice, equality, rights, responsibility, diversity, self-determination and sovereignty.

It is difficult for a relatively small minority to gain a genuine voice for their issues in the mainstream media and government. It is also challenging to develop effective policies without an understanding of First Nations culture and communities. This chapter breaks down some of these difficulties by: exploring the identities of First Peoples and how they understand their place within Australia; considering the structural barriers to political participation by First Peoples; and briefly explaining the history of activism by First Peoples since colonisation.

We conclude by reflecting on whether there is one ‘Aboriginal movement’ or many, and considering the significance of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the return to nation-based identities.

Contemporary Australian Indigenous policy changes rapidly and regularly fails to deliver its stated aims. Additionally, political and social relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the Australian state remain complex and contested. This article draws on critical Indigenous theory, alongside the increasingly influential scholarly paradigm of settler colonialism, to draw these two elements together. It highlights the ongoing nature of colonial conflict, and the partisan nature of state institutions and processes. While policy is usually framed as a depoliticised, technical practice of public management for Indigenous wellbeing, I suggest that it also seeks to ‘domesticate’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, perform their dysfunction and demonstrate state legitimacy. This is especially the case in Australia, which has a long tradition of framing domestic welfare policy – rather than legal agreements – as the ‘solution’ to settler colonial conflict.

The dominant discourse surrounding education for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students uses a language of deficit, disadvantage and failure. Analysis of the CRC-REP’s Remote Education Systems project data challenges the validity of these descriptors on the basis that stakeholders of remote schools do not describe education in this way. How then do they describe it? Analysis of the data suggests that many stakeholders describe education in terms of complexity framed by the challenges associated with an array of student, family, community, cultural, school and teacher/teaching factors.
In this lecture the proposition of complexity and chaos in remote education is considered in the light of complexity theory. While education systems generally have been described as ‘complex’, the term may be more apt for remote education systems. Their tendency to operate balanced ‘on the edge of chaos and order’, the unpredictability of their behaviour, the array of elements in the systems, and the way the systems co-evolve with their environments all point to a neat fit with the idea of ‘complex adaptive systems’.
Given this fit, what might the implications for strategic policy be? Attempts to shift the system through means that are best suited to simple or complicated systems where inputs, outputs and outcomes are relatively predictable, have been tried over and over in recent years, but to little effect. The RES data provides clues as to why this is so and indeed what could be done differently, if in strategic policy terms, the system was treated as a complex adaptive system.
This lecture will be of interest to those with an interest in remote education, from strategic policy, teaching, leadership, teacher preparation, community development or administrative perspectives. There will be opportunities for attendees to ask questions and offer comments on the presentation.

The political philosopher Michael Sandel (2012) has recently argued compellingly for more attention to the moral limits of markets, arguing that market values can crowd out other values we should care about. Meanwhile, conservative advocates for welfare reform, such as the Australian Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, have raised concerns about the impact
of long-term welfare receipt on community values. Pearson’s argument about welfare can be articulated in similar terms to Sandel’s argument about markets. Pearson maintains that
in heavily disadvantaged communities – such as the Aboriginal communities of Cape York Peninsula – the state’s provision of non-contributory welfare can crowd out important values
such as trust, respect, care for the weak and mutual help as well as self-reliance and hard work. Though Sandel’s and Pearson’s arguments find receptive audiences on different ends of the political spectrum, the parallels between their arguments are striking. The article seeks to promote greater scholarly engagement with Pearson’s moral critique of welfare while expressing scepticism about one of the key correctives he proposes.

The key areas of development in this study were the criteria for the use of the Hua Oranga, an Indigenous mental health outcome measurement tool for use with Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand). The application of the Hua Oranga was expected to improve the care and treatment of tangata whaiora (consumers) in partnership with whānau (family) and clinicians. The Outcomes Recording Analysis (ORA) database (www.ORAdatabase.co.nz), which receives the Hua Oranga data and generates the Hua Oranga reports was essential to this improvement. This development contributes to the skill and expertise of clinicians in interpreting Māori health information that benefit Māori.

This article draws upon a ‘tale from the field’ (Van Maanen, 1988) to encourage New Zealand and Australian teachers of history and social studies to appraise how their own perceptions of place and teaching about Indigenous peoples’ histories impact upon their students’ learning. Moreover, it explains why Uri Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems model (despite its limitations) can assist the process of critiquing the teaching of Indigenous histories in schools on both sides of the Tasman Sea. It concludes that place conscious Indigenous land-based learning experiences, resulting from mutually beneficial collaborations with Indigenous communities, are needed to enhance the teaching of Indigenous peoples’ histories in both countries.

This paper arose from discussion and review of claims made by Keith Windschuttle in the third volume of his 2003 'The Fabrication of Aboriginal History', most specifically seeking to refute arguments about the treatment of Aboriginal peoples outlined in the 1997 'Bringing Them Home Report', and in particular rejecting the direct likening of the forced removal of children from their families to the practices of Nazi Germany.

Houses dilapidate, deteriorate and decay, managing waste as they move toward its status. Repairs and maintenance (R&M) of anticipated or manifest points of failure can help stave off this entropy. Drawing on literatures of infrastructural breakdown and repair to complicate theories of use and waste, this chapter examines policy cultures surrounding Indigenous housing and maintenance. It objectifies the property and tenancy management systems recently introduced to govern Indigenous public housing in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia, which is an area of high housing need and erratic housing attention. The absence or delay of R&M under bureaucratic regimes responsible for maintaining the productivity of NT housing stock is itself a matter (and cause) of waste-of time, resources and effort.

This article explores how current policy shifts in British Columbia, Canada highlight an important gap in Canadian self-government discussions to date. The analysis presented draws on insights gained from a larger study that explored the policy contexts influencing the evolving roles of two long-standing urban Aboriginal health centres in British Columbia. We apply a policy framework to analyze current discussions occurring in British Columbia and contrast these with Ontario, Canada and the New Zealand Māori health policy context. Our findings show that New Zealand and Ontario have mechanisms to engage both nation-or tribal-based and urban Indigenous communities in self-government discussions. These mechanisms contrast with the policies influencing discussions in the British Columbian context. We discuss policy implications relevant to other Indigenous policy contexts, jurisdictions, and groups.

This article questions the foundational binary ‘anarchy–bureaucracy’ and the multiple articulations at play in the state’s refraction of anarchic qualities onto Indigenous Australians. Launching from the Northern Territory Emergency Response of June 2007, in which the Australian government assumed direct control of 73 Aboriginal communities in the north of Australia, it asks why bureaucracy is considered the antonym of anarchy and not its synonym. In mobilizing accounts of anarchic Aboriginal depravity to authorize an ongoing bureau-professional presence in Indigenous worlds, links to other matters of interest, such as the state’s dependence on mining revenues, let alone any account of the affective dimension of policy life, were removed from view. Reconsideration of the anarchy–state binary offers a lens to explore the emotional compulsions that are suppressed in the work of upholding the myth of a rational state and how this suppression further authorizes ongoing (anarchic) interventions into Indigenous worlds.

The ‘paperless arrest’ scheme in Australia is a detention regime in which motion and documentation are central to crime control and community protection. This article interrogates paperlessness as a political fantasy for policing alongside the routine documentary practices of police administration, including their effects on the movement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Operative since 2014 in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT), the paperless arrest scheme provides police with the power to take an individual into custody for up to four hours if they believe, on reasonable grounds, that the individual has committed, or was about to commit, an infringement notice offence. This article frames paperless arrests as an instance of preventive detention continuous with the long-term regulation of alcohol consumption by Indigenous people in Australia, in relation to racialised norms of public propriety in urban space. It considers preventive detention beyond issues of legality and efficacy, examining local and material relations that organise the everyday governance of preventive detention in Northern Australia.

Combining 2016 Census and 2016 Education Department data, and adding an estimate for 2017 graduate numbers, total Australian Indigenous graduate numbers are now about 54,000, rising by about 3,000 per year.  Projections suggest 64,000 by the end of 2020, 85,000 by end of 2025, 120,000 by end of 2030.  Two-thirds of graduates currently are women;  graduates are overwhelmingly from urban backgrounds, graduating in mainstream awards.  About 90% re-enrol in higher awards within two or three years.

The literature on scientific-Indigenous ecological knowledge collaborations rarely analyses programmatic efforts undertaken by multi-disciplinary research groups over very large geographic scales. The TRaCK (Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge) research program was established to provide the science and knowledge needed by governments, industries, and communities to sustainably manage northern Australia's rivers and estuaries. A number of policies and procedures were developed to ensure that the needs of Indigenous people of the multi-jurisdictional region were addressed and to enhance the benefits they might derive from participating in the research. An overarching Indigenous Engagement Strategy undergirded the program's engagement activities, providing guidance on matters relating to the protection of intellectual property, negotiation of research agreements, remuneration for Indigenous expertise, and communications standards. This article reviews the achievements and shortcomings of the TRaCK experience of Indigenous engagement and highlights lessons for researchers and research organisations contemplating applied environmental science initiatives of this scale and scope.

Questions of data governance occur in all contexts. Arguably, they become especially pressing for data concerning Indigenous people. Long-standing colonial relationships, experiences of vulnerability to decisionmakers, claims of jurisdiction, and concerns about collective privacy become significant in considering how and by whom data concerning Indigenous people should be governed. Also significant is the on going need on the part of governments to access and use such data to plan, monitor, and account for programs involving Indigenous people.

Indigenous people in Panama do not enjoy full autonomy within their comarcas (traditional land reserves): they only control surface resources, while the state retains control of underground resources. This article analyses direct action by the Ngäbe-Buglé, who successfully defeated the latest attempt by the government to exploit underground resources within their comarcas. It describes government strategies for retaining control over Indigenous people's land and analyses how the Ngäbe-Buglé counteracted these strategies with support from burgeoning civil society movements. We argue that this is due to an unprecedented alliance between Indigenous people and other social movements in Panama, as well as to the fact that Indigenous people have succeeded in federating all major civil society organizations around their discourses and actions.

"The introduction to this report suggested that ‘looking back’ allows us to recall legacies of strength and oppression within the community and to track longstanding aspirations and concerns within the community. Aboriginal people were the original ‘urban dwellers’ in the place now known as Geraldton and have remained and returned: not as a passive presence, but with agency and voice. Throughout the century, Aboriginal voices have called for more equitable and just housing outcomes in Geraldton. Though this progress has been undoubtedly slow, progress at any speed is cause for optimism about what is possible in the future. Housing supply and housing size have been of foremost concern within the local Aboriginal community for over 60 years. Yet they remain unresolved despite progressive policy reform, due at least in part to complex socio-cultural, political, and economic factors and circumstances informing both housing supply and design.

Though supply and design appear straightforward, they are not. One of the complicating factors is the complex and regularly changing Federal, State and local housing policy landscape. The analysis presented shows that local conditions in Geraldton are influenced by policy directives at all three levels of government and a command of these directives is essential to meaningful and informed dialogue regarding productive ways forward for Aboriginal housing in Geraldton."

Collaboration is held to be an essential element of addressing complex problems. However, it is difficult to achieve, as it is often in tension with bureaucratic mindsets and traditions. Recently, Williams (2013) has suggested that all policy bureaucrats and program managers required to be involved with collaboration need to 'span boundaries' -to develop the capacity to build effective relationships, be able to engage 'deeply' with different parties, and understand and value multiple perspectives. A recent government initiative to improve Indigenous wellbeing in remote Australia had a strong emphasis on collaboration and partnership. However, policy actors involved in implementation resisted attempts to make them work differently, resulting in reversion to the status quo. Consistent with social practice literature, I contend that openness to changed ways of working is a critical element for success. Drawing on interviews with elite policy actors involved in the development and implementation of the initiative, the analysis finds that career public servants appear to be less open to collaboration than those who have worked outside. While I agree that boundary spanning capability is important for overcoming the pull of the status quo, the analysis suggests that diversifying the public sector workforce should supplement training efforts.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart [ http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2017/05/26/uluru-forum-constitutional-reform-not-priority-willpursue-treaty ] was a powerful step forward for Australia, and I respect those involved in the process that led to this historic declaration on 27 May 2017, the day of the 50th anniversary of the Australian '67 Referendum [ http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/explainer/explainer-67-referendum ] , marking a new chapter in our country's ongoing journey.

Expanding on Jon Altman's hybrid economy model to explore a the non-market values in Aboriginal cultural activity, this paper proposes an approach testing the trade-off and tensions between paid employment and cultural activity in a remote setting.

In the contemporary debate about remote Indigenous economic development, Jon Altman’s hybrid economy approach is the major alternative to the dominant neo‑liberal perspective. Altman’s approach emphasises the continuing customary economic activity of remote‑living Indigenous Australians and their legitimate aspirations to live and work
on their ancestral lands. Based on a close reading of Altman’s writings, this paper analyses the hybrid economy model – which is grounded in Altman’s observations of outstation life in Arnhem Land – and the approach to economic development Altman derives from it. It makes explicit the numerous assumptions underpinning the hybrid economy approach to
Indigenous development. Some of these assumptions are more controversial than others. It is argued that while Altman’s approach celebrates the unique skills and contributions of culturally‑connected Indigenous people, it is predicated on a pessimistic assessment of the likelihood of mainstream
education and employment ‘closing the gap’.

Indigenous people in Panama do not enjoy full autonomy within their comarcas (traditional land reserves): they only control surface resources, while the state retains control of underground resources. This article analyses direct action by the Ngäbe-Buglé, who successfully defeated the latest attempt by the government to exploit underground resources within their comarcas. It describes government strategies for retaining control over Indigenous people’s land and analyses how the Ngäbe-Buglé counteracted these strategies with support from burgeoning civil society movements. We argue that this is due to an unprecedented alliance between Indigenous people and other social movements in Panama, as well as to the fact that Indigenous people have succeeded in federating all major civil society organizations around their discourses and actions.

This article is set within the context of concerns about Indigenous workforce participation disadvantage. It discusses conflicting life-worlds relating to work of both Aboriginal and non-Indigenous residents in Ngukurr, a remote community in South East Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory. It contrasts an Indigenous social culture of kinship and relatedness to a Western 1 one where employment is central to identity and its formal rules shape behaviour. We investigate how these different social ideologies affect cross-cultural relationships and shape the formal employment domain in Ngukurr. Given that governments have moved to more assimilationist policies in recent years, there are important policy implications following from this mutual cultural incomprehension.

This paper examines the threats to Indigenous water rights and territories in the Andean countries. It analyzes how water and water rights are embedded in Indigenous territories, and how powerful actors and intervention projects tend to undermine local societies and indigenous livelihoods by developing large-scale water infrastructure. Three cases illustrate the encroachment process. In Colombia, the Embera Katio people's water territory is colonized by a large-scale hydropower development project. In Ecuador, large-scale drinking water development for megacities aims the water belonging to the Oyacachi community's indigenous highland territory. In Peru, communal water rights of the Colca Valley indigenous peasantry are under threat because of large-scale irrigation development. As the cases show, Indigenous peoples and communities actively contest the undermining and subordination of their water and territorial rights through a myriad of multi-scalar livelihood defense strategies. The challenges that indigenous peoples face to defend their water-based livelihoods are, however, enormous and growing every day.

Jon Altman has argued that an ideological commitment to the market has blinded many policy makers to the viable alternatives to market-based development in Australia’s north. This seminar examines the distinctive approach to economic development he advocates – the hybrid economy approach. This approach emphasises the importance of the customary sector of regional economies and the way the customary sector is linked to the state and market sectors. It is motivated both by scepticism that the market economy will ever deliver an adequate income for most Indigenous people in remote regions of Australia, and by fears that the transition from a kin-based to a market-based economy demands a profound transformation of Indigenous people’s values, desires and relationships. I argue that the concept of partial commodification is useful for grasping the appeal of the interaction between the customary, market and state sectors of regional economies, and thus appreciating the hybrid economy approach. The partial commodification of goods and services deriving from the Indigenous customary domain promises to create income-generating opportunities while supporting the continuation of distinctively Indigenous forms of personhood and sociality.

This research paper was commissioned by the SEU within the Equal Opportunity Commission of Western Australia. With a view to improve service outcomes for Aboriginal peoples and minority ethnic groups, this paper identifies the British Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) monitoring indicators and compares it with the types of data necessary to undertake similar monitoring for Substantive Equality in WA. This paper attempts to identify whether equality data captured for Britain can be easily readily identified and sourced by relevant government departments of WA. However, due to some constraints, this paper has selected a sample sized number of indicators in Britain to answer the research question.

This paper discusses attempts to define health within a public policy arena and practical and conceptual difficulties that arise. An Australian Aboriginal definition of health is examined. Although there are certain difficulties of translation, this definition is prominent in current Australian health policy and discourse about health. The definition can be seen as broadly holistic in comparison with other definitions such as that of the World Health Organisation. The nature of this holism and its grounding within the context of Aboriginal Australia is discussed. In particular, its implications for the phenomenon of medicalization, which may be associated with a holistic definition of health, is critically explored, as is the link of notions of health to culture and the question of the possibility of a universal definition of health. The question of to what extent a definition of health is inspirational or operational is also explored.

The term “research” means different things to different
people. In terms of outcomes, it is often associated
with purely academic formats – the journal article,
the chapter, the lecture. However, things are rapidly
changing, especially in the way knowledges are
generated and shared. So, what happens when we
grab some Indigenous legal and policy analysis and
mix it up with Web 2.0 design/development expertise?
What we get is an exciting pilot project that aims to
enhance research dissemination through digital video
and online interfaces. This paper shares insights
into the collaborative process of creating a pilot
research portal.

Initially introduced as part of Australia's Northern Territory Intervention in 2007, Income Management (IM) explicitly targeted inhabitants of remote NT Indigenous communities. IM is a form of welfare conditionality that involves compulsorily 'quarantining' at least half of individuals' social security income. It has been heavily criticised for being racist, discriminatory, and a violation of individual rights. The introduction of New Income Management (NIM) in 2010 extended IM beyond Indigenous communities and introduced a new set of eligibility criteria that shifted the focus of IM from Indigenous people to working‑age recipients of social security income. This in‑depth study of the early parliamentary debates on the compulsory IM programs traces the patterns of political discourse that led to IM coming to be seen by many policy makers as a normal and legitimate technique within Australian social policy. Situating the IM programs within neoliberal concerns about welfare dependency and active citizenship, this article argues that the introduction of NIM heralded a shift from a conception of IM as part of a focused social experiment targeted at remote Indigenous communities to a potentially mainstream social policy option.

Old sea dogs will recognise the term, "flag of convenience". One definition is as follows: Flag of convenience (FOC) is a business practice whereby a ship's owners register a merchant ship in a ship register of a country other than that of the ship's owners, and the ship flies the civil ensign of that country, called the flag state. What is this other country in Australia where we have to fly a flag with German colours? Shortly to be atop The Sydney Harbour Bridge, no less. What will the overseas tourists think? The NSW Premier might innocently have thought, while he is on a roll with all sorts of fancy "reforms" of not the slightest interest to all the punters whose jobs, livelihoods and lives generally damaged if not destroyed by his Government through Covid mandates, that he might slip in some virtue signalling to keep the metros on side. And perhaps, at the same time, to try and bury his appalling appointment of the endlessly underwhelming Pork Barrellaro to a sinecure in the Big Apple. One that will massively come back to bite him. With apologies to Oscar Wilde, to make one absolute clanger in a week might be regarded as a misfortune. To make two looks like carelessness.

The literature on scientific-Indigenous ecological knowledge collaborations rarely analyses programmatic efforts undertaken by multi-disciplinary research groups over very large geographic scales. The TRaCK (Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge) research program was established to provide the science and knowledge needed by governments, industries, and communities to sustainably manage northern Australia’s rivers and estuaries. A number of policies and procedures were developed to ensure that the needs of Indigenous people of the multi-jurisdictional region were addressed and to enhance the benefits they might derive from participating in the research. An overarching Indigenous Engagement Strategy undergirded the program’s engagement activities, providing guidance on matters relating to the protection of intellectual property, negotiation of research agreements, remuneration for Indigenous expertise, and communications standards. This article reviews the achievements and shortcomin...

This article develops a heuristic framework to help analysts navigate an important but under-researched issue: 'policy success for whom?' It identifies different forms of policy success across the policy making, program, political and temporal realms, to assess how a specific policy can differentially benefit a variety of stakeholders, including governments, lobbyists, not-for-profits, community groups and individuals. The article identifies a three-step process to aid researchers in examining any policy initiative in order to understand the forms and extent of success experienced by any actor/stakeholder. Central to these steps is the examination of plausible assessments and counter assessments to help interrogate issues of 'success for whom.' The article demonstrates a practical application of the framework to a case study focused on the Fixing Houses for Better Health (FHBH) program in Australia-a time-limited Commonwealth government-funded program aimed at improving Indigenous health outcomes by fixing housing.