Participants of the 2014 Indigenous Governance forum, convened by AIATSIS and the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute.
At a forum in Canberra last week, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Chairperson, Professor Mick Dodson said he believes the challenge and key to good Indigenous governance is self-determination.
“We’re here to talk about the ideas and issues that persist in Indigenous governance in this country, and with participants from overseas we can also examine what happens in other countries as well,” Professor Dodson said.
“Governance is the key to achieving Indigenous outcomes, including those relating to education, health and social and emotional well-being and employment outcomes. This means not only Indigenous governance but also the governance of governments and the decision-making process of both.
“I’m interested in self-determination because I think that’s the solution to governance – in an Indigenous sense – that actually delivers power and decision making to people, enables them to manage and organise, to be in charge of their social and economic development and to maintain their cultural values.
“Indigenous governance is being practiced in a wide range of sectors across Australia, but is dispersed and often carried out in isolation and we have gathered here in Canberra in an attempt to address this issue.”
The workshop, co-hosted by AIATSIS and the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute (AIGI), brought together a diverse group of over 40 participants from across Australia working in Indigenous governance at local, regional and national levels across a range of sectors.
Participants included researchers from a number of universities, trainers, consultants, and bureaucrats including representatives from PM&C, the Australian Leadership Centre, the Productivity Commission, ASIC, National Congress, the National Native Title Council and ORIC.
AIGI CEO, Robynne Quiggin believes the diversity of work and research being done across this wide range of sectors is one of the strengths of the Indigenous governance landscape, and that there are real benefits on creating an opportunity for people to come together to talk about that work,
“When AIATSIS and AIGI started planning the workshop we were conscious that one of the challenges is that lots of people are working on different projects separately and independently,” Ms Quiggin said.
“We felt it was important to bring people together and share knowledge, experiences and to build on their work.
“There are also stories of excellence, incredible resilience, innovation and creativity out there to be told, they’re stories that we really want to bring to prominence, to balance out the reporting of compliance difficulties. AIGI is really interested in changing that public discourse away from the negative.
“We achieved our goals with this workshop, the next steps are to identify particular issues and hone down some specific priorities we will pursue in the future.”
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