‘KEATING government minister Gary Johns has castigated the Gillard government for relying on old policies that stop indigenous Australians from being part of the mainstream economy in its draft Aboriginal economic development strategy.
Professor Johns, who is associate professor of public policy at the Australian Catholic University’s Public Policy Institute, has submitted a paper to the government’s review of its indigenous economic strategy in which he argues that the government should not be delivering goods and services to indigenous people where they presently live. “Too much of the old paradigm remains in the paper,” Professor Johns writes.
….Professor Johns argues that having indigenous people waiting for opportunities to be delivered to their door is not what they need.
“This has been occurring, especially in northern Australia, without success or benefit for the last 40 years,” he writes.
Professor Johns says any policy that seeks to artificially create an economy without skills and habits of work or genuine local economic activity being present, will fail.’
There are too many very comfortable career bureaucrats making a great living out of these policies, for them to allow things to change. The infrastructure supporting them is massive and hugely expensive.
