Indigenous Coordination Centres
Questions and Answers
Page Contents
- New Arrangements in Indigenous Affairs[includes]
- What are the new arrangements in Indigenous affairs?
- Why does the Government want to work this way?
- How will these new arrangements work? [end includes]
- Shared Responsibility Agreements
- What is a Shared Responsibility Agreement?
- What kinds of things can go in an SRA?
- How do we get started?
- What can communities expect from government?
- What does Government expect from communities?
- What is an ICC and where are they? [end includes]
- Regional Representation Arrangements
- Who will represent us at the regional level when Regional Councils go? [end includes]
New Arrangements in Indigenous Affairs
What are the new arrangements in Indigenous affairs?
The Government wants to find better ways to work with Indigenous people, and knows that it alone cannot make life better for Indigenous communities and families. Both governments and Indigenous people have rights and obligations and all must share responsibility for making real and beneficial change in people’s lives.
Under the new arrangements, the Government has established Indigenous Coordination Centres (or ICCs). Each of these ICCs coordinate Australian Government program funding and services to local Indigenous people.
By working this way, the Government wants to coordinate the funding and help cut the red-tape that communities have faced.
Why does the Government want to work this way?
Despite best intentions, over the last 30 years, programs and services have been delivered in ways that increase dependence on government and welfare, rather than building on the creativity and self-reliance of Indigenous people.
Now the Government understands that it has to work differently - in partnership and sharing responsibility with Indigenous people - not just providing project money and walking away from communities. This new approach gets community members working towards common community goals that improve outcomes for people in the community.
How will these new arrangements work?
Government knows that the first part of good communication is listening not talking. It wants to listen to communities about their priorities and work out how, together, improvements can be made.
ICCs will coordinate Indigenous-specific programs in their regions. They will work with local Indigenous communities and negotiate regional and local agreements for effective partnerships based on shared responsibility.
Government will stay committed to providing ongoing support to communities to reach their goals.
The Government wants to work in partnership with communities through what it calls Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs). Ideas for Agreements and community priorities will come from communities and Indigenous groups and will be developed in partnership with ICCs.
SRAs are voluntary. They are a way to make sure everyone is committed to making worthwhile changes that address community priorities.
Shared Responsibility Agreements
What is a Shared Responsibility Agreement?
When communities know what their priorities are, and have ideas about what they and others need to do to make change happen, the government and community will talk about how to make it work and formalise what all the partners will agree to do in an SRA.
An SRA is an agreement between government and a community or some other kind of grouping, like a family or clan. It is focused on improving outcomes for Indigenous people and describes what all partners will do differently to make this happen.
The Government will make an SRA with anyone with the authority and capacity to carry it through. This might be a family, clan elders, a community council or a community organisation. People who negotiate an SRA must have the authority, given to them by their group or community, to make an agreement on their behalf.
A group does not need to be an incorporated body to make an SRA. In SRAs where the Government contributes money, arrangements can be made with an incorporated organisation to contract with the Government to provide the services and administer and account for the funds identified in the SRA.
SRAs can include other partners, besides Government and Indigenous groups. SRAs might include State/Territory Government, local governments, businesses or non-government organisations - if the community thinks they can help them get to where they want to go.
What kinds of things can go in an SRA?
SRAs are about the Government listening to your ideas and giving you the support you need to achieve your community’s goals. Community people know best what they need to help the people who live there - there could be things that need doing right now, but that also build towards the kind of future the community wants for its kids and elders. SRAs start with community priorities.
There are many ways the Government can help and the example below tries to show how communities and Government can come together
to achieve better results.
SRA Example
A community knows that people are not eating enough good fruit and vegetables for a healthy diet. They also know that this is the same in many nearby communities. Distance and cost may prevent fresh vegetables coming to the country. When the truck does come, there may be little room for vegetables in the cool room at the community shop. A couple of the nearby communities may not even have a shop or a cool room. You decide that you need to do something about this problem for the long-term health of your kids and have some ideas on how to improve things.
The Aboriginal Health worker in your community talks to the council about it, and together you approach the ICC Manager. Through an SRA, the community commits to expand its small vegetable garden and get more community members involved in maintaining it. The Government commits to provide a much larger cool room for vegetables in the shop. The community will also arrange for regular deliveries of vegetables now that it has room to store them. Finally, the community will order enough vegetables from town for the outlying communities, as well as selling vegetables from the garden. Outlying communities will pick up their orders on their regular weekly fuel runs. The results from these changes can be checked by health workers who will find out if people are eating more vegetables and are more healthy.
Community people might also want to have cooking classes and commit to ensure that people in the community will attend. The Health Department runs the classes, if people in the community attend.
How do we get started?
Once your community or group knows its priorities, has thought about how to work towards them, and wants to work with Government, you can talk to your local ICC Manager straight away. If you need help to work out priorities or to bring community people together, then talk to your ICC Manager about the kind of help you need to get started.
The Government can also provide assistance to develop Indigenous leaders and facilitators who will be able to help communities identify their priorities and to help negotiate and manage their SRAs.
What can communities expect from government?
SRAs are about partnership. The Government wants communities to take responsibility for determining their own priorities for change and to work out what they can contribute to making things better. This contribution could involve using community assets, such as a community centre, upgraded sports facility or tourism business; or it could be a commitment to invest time and energy towards outcomes. For real change, the community is expected to actively contribute, in some way, to achieving better outcomes for its people.
What does Government expect from communities?
Government expects that communities will offer commitments and undertake changes that benefit the community in return for Government funding. The Government will not impose new conditions on the provision of citizen entitlements and essential services that all Australians are entitled to. Rather, shared responsibility is about ensuring that existing and any new resources invested in the community meets the short and longer-term priorities determined by that community.
What is an ICC and where are they?
Each region in Australia now has an Indigenous Coordination Centre or ICC, headed by an ICC Manager. Each ICC has people from many different government departments all under the one roof. It is the ICC Manager’s job to talk to Indigenous people about their ideas and to negotiate SRAs. The ICC Manager also has to make sure that each government department works cooperatively to support a community or group in implementing their SRA.
Each ICC also has a number of other staff that they can call upon to help with community discussions.
Regional Representation Arrangements
Who will represent us at the regional level when Regional Councils go?
Better ways of representing Indigenous interests at the local level are fundamental to the new arrangements. The Government is talking with Indigenous people in each area about local and regional representative arrangements. It is expected that these will be different in each area, reflecting the preferences of Indigenous people themselves. Indigenous people will decide on their own representatives, whether they be at a clan/family, community or regional level.
Your ICC can tell you about the consultation arrangements in your area..
Regional bodies may also work with Government on Regional Partnership Agreements, which will guide Government interventions and investment across a region.