Tania Major

Sydney Morning Herald

Why has indigenous policy in this country failed? The federal government must realise that what looks good in Canberra looks very different in Kowanyama or the Kimberley.

To answer that question, it would be all too easy to list the usual suspects, such as fluctuating political will and commitment, dependence on the political cycle, the lack of consultation, inadequate, mismanaged or misdirected service delivery, failure to tackle root causes and a focus on symptoms, and so on.

But the answer might be something deeper. When considering the purpose of indigenous policy as it has been framed by successive governments, invariably policies at all levels and by all political parties have been formulated to deal with "the indigenous problem". This mindset may well be at the heart of the question of policy failure — indigenous people have been, and continue to be defined as problems for governments and even our wider society.

Whenever I wrestle with indigenous issues to which there are no simple solutions, I am drawn back to my own people in western Cape York. Until fairly recent times in our 40,000-year history, we owned our land and had sovereignty over it. It was our economic, cultural and spiritual foundation. It was the alpha and omega of our existence. It defined us and shaped our identities. It was both our strength and our weakness - yes, a weakness because, as hunter-gatherer peoples, it was all we had. Without it we had nothing.

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