An assessment of planning for government-funded land use development projects in Australian aboriginal communities

Abstract

In Australia, official Federal and State government policies towards Aborigines promote self-determination. In part, these policies seek Aboriginal socio-economic equality with non-Aboriginal Australians, and consequently, various government agencies implement land use development programmes in Aboriginal communities. A large component of programme funding is directed towards the design and implementation of rural enterprise projects. These projects generally fail to achieve commercial viability and other agency objectives. This often results in deleterious impacts upon Aboriginal communities. A review of the planning and development literature suggests that land use development project outcomes depend on the quality of the planning processes involved at the policy, programme and project levels. Planning theory recently has turned away from the view of planning as a purely technical, scientific process designed to achieve government policy ends. It is now well understood that planning must adequately incorporate client participation as well as continue to improve its technical precision. Given that self-determination policies seek to assist Aboriginal communities to determine their own future, the latter view of planning is essential. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Aboriginal land use development project outcomes are influenced by the nature of participatory and technical planning at the policy, programme and project levels. It also explores how outcomes depend on the integration of participatory and technical planning. To do this, the characteristics of contemporary land use development planning for Aborigines have been examined. In particular, the thesis focusses upon planning for the design and implementation of the Federal Aboriginal Employment Development Policy (AEDP) and its associated programmes and projects. AEDP is the key policy responsible for the implementation of land use development projects in Aboriginal communities across Australia At the policy level, this thesis finds that despite the use of strong participatory and technical planning procedures in the design of the AEDP, policy-makers failed to set specific implementation guide-lines. Programme design was left to a government departments that encouraged little input from their clients and from technical experts. This resulted in programme guide-lines that were inappropriate for both Aboriginal communities and commercial rural enterprises. This thesis also finds that planning for programme implementation is not driven by clients as originally intended by AEDP policy-makers. Instead, it is driven by a convoluted , agency-based system of corporate, strategic and operational planning. At the project level, twelve government-funded land use development projects were examined in three areas of Aboriginal settlement in eastern Australia: Aurukun, Woorabinda and Tamworth. These case studies were selected to encompass the variety of physical and cultural environments in which Aboriginal land use developments operate. Most of the projects examined failed to achieve the commercial and other policy objectives of the government funding agencies. This was found to have arisen from the ineffective technical and participatory project planning procedures used and from the inappropriate application of these procedures to the actual planning context. Those projects thar did display long-term viability were found to have. resulted from the effective application of appropriate technical and participatory planning and from the close integration of these procedures. By exploring the influence of planning on the common failure of government attempts to implement land use development projects for Aborigines, this thesis suggests that planning for such projects is either grossly deficient, or that the rhetoric of self determination actually cloaks hidden policy agenda. In a general assessment of the possibility that such hidden agenda exist, the thesis suggests that the motives informing such agenda could range from the perpetuation of bureaucratic structures to the transformation of unwilling Aborigines to European ideologies and economies. Like the application of poorly planned but genuine self-determination processes, hidden agendas result in unrealistic policy statements, programmes and projects. However, where hidden agenda exist, improvements in policy, programme and project planning can not resolve project failures; this requires revolution against the contemporary policy stance. Having assessed the possible existence of hidden agenda, this thesis recommends that if AEOP is serious about achieving its stated policy objectives, then the entire planning system tor policy implementation needs to be revised. It suggests that policy, programme and project planning needs to be turned from a purely top-down approach to an approach that successfully marries both top-down and bottom-up planning. Government agencies need to encourage and support more clearly defined Aboriginal communities to adopt integrated, holistic community-based planning. Community based plans should eventually drive project planning in Aboriginal communities. Further, agency-based policy and programme planning procedures need to be able to negotiate equitable responses to community-based plans. This will require the development of more coordinated and effective systems of corporate, strategic, operational and budget planning within government agencies. This thesis recommends that community-based planning processes need to be determined and conducted by communities. It suggests that the resultant community based plans need to belong to these communities. However, this thesis also finds that, to remain effective and appropriate, community-based planning needs to incorporate three basic principles: (i) it must optimise and facilitate the effective and appropriate participation of all groups with an interest in project outcomes; (ii) it must remain technically competent; and (iii) it must facilitate effective bargaining and negotiation processes among interest groups. With new moves in the Federal government to adopt a commitment to community-based planning, the government's provision o,f effective and appropriate planning support for these principles may be used as an· indicator of real government commitment to self-determination. The structure of this thesis has broader implications for a re-assessment of development policy and land use planning in both first and third world situations. Calls for such a re-assessment have arisen from the current debates surrounding ecologically sustainable and culturally appropriate development and from growing demands for local participation in development planning processes. This thesis has only focussed on Aboriginal land use development as a theoretical test-case in the establishment of a general framework for assessing contemporary development policies and iand use planning systems Show more