Indigenous policy: Canberra consensus on a neoliberal project of improvement

Abstract

This chapter does four things. First it provides a brief history of Australian Indigenous affairs in the modern policy era that began with a 1967 Constitutional Referendum. Second, it looks at contemporary Indigenous policy, in particular so called ‘Closing the Gap’ strategies, and its unrelenting focus on convergence and structural adjustment based on Western economic institutions, norms and values as measured by statistical social indicators. Governments of all political persuasions and other powerful interests in Australian society favour such an approach. Next it outlines how this approach, increasingly based on paternalistic intervention is applied to remote living Indigenous peoples especially in the Northern Territory who are both more readily targeted owing to high state dependence and who are also most culturally different. Finally, alternatives better suited to the diversity of Indigenous circumstances and aspirations are outlined.

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