Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Stan Grant says Indigenous leaders must rise to challenge of public service


Indigenous journalist Stan Grant has called on government departments and Indigenous leaders to reverse a generational lack of representation within the bureaucracy.
Mr Grant, who addressed the National Press Club on Monday, said the lack of Indigenous voices within the bureaucracy was hurting public policy.
"This is why we have a sorry legacy of government failure to this day," he said.
"How many prime ministers are going to leave office and say that their biggest regret would be that they didn't do enough for Indigenous affairs?
"We've heard that from Bob Hawke, from Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. Is Malcolm Turnbull going to leave office and say the same thing?"
Late last year, the federal government renewed a commitment to boost Indigenous representation in the public service. Employment Minister Michaelia​ Cash said the revised strategy would make representation targets "robust" and "achievable".
Almost all federal departments have missed representation targets in previous years; only 0.3 per cent of Department of Treasury employees are from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island backgrounds.
Indigenous public servants make up between 2.4 and 2.6 per cent of the workforce, but retention is a major problem. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees are much more likely to quit their jobs or be fired than their non-Indigenous colleagues.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which is responsible for the Indigenous affairs portfolio, is the best performing agency at 15.6 per cent representation.
"Of course [the departments] need to be more engaged, but it is also incumbent on us as Indigenous people to rise to that challenge," Grant said.
"We can't sit on the outside and screaming from the fringes which is heard in opposition and protest forever."
He said Indigenous leaders needed to accept the challenge of public service and "become capable, qualified and equipped".
"We need to get involved in bureaucracy and government, standing for election and getting elected," he said.
"We need to be going to Canberra, getting involved in policy, advocating and shaping debate, not from the fringes but from within."
In Grant's newly published book Talking to My Country, he referenced the work of American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates who argued many civil rights writers and activists glossed over historical abuses by focusing on a hope for change.
"Let's not confuse hope with the reality of our history," Grant said. "Let's not allow hope to obscure that hard work that still needs to be done.This is actually something that requires real work and you don't want hope to obscure that."
Grant said the Australian media had routinely failed to cover Indigenous affairs with complexity and understanding, given it was continually attracted to crisis.
"The media exist in the moment and once the moment has passed the media move on, but the problems remain," he said.
"I think also there is a real failing of generations of reporters to actually – and Australia writ-large – to see us as human beings in our own right, to see us as fully formed individuals in communities with the right to determine our own destiny."


http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/stan-grant-says-indigenous-leaders-must-rise-to-challenge-of-public-service-20160218-gmxzrq.html

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