Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

mobility in central Australia:

A sneak preview of spatial dynamics

in remote communities

Mike Dockery, CRC for Remote Economic Participation

&

Karl Hampton, Ninti One.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mobility

• From first engagement, mobility patterns seen

as ‘problematic’:

• Initially seen as random and unproductive

• The many policies to ‘civilise’ and ‘assimilate’ had

the deliberate aim of sedentisation

• Governor Macquarie (1816):

• “The natives (are exhorted) to relinquish their

wandering, idle and predatory habits of life and to

become industrious and useful members of a

community where they will find protection and

encouragement” (cited in Young and Doohan 1989)

2

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mobility

• To this day, mobility seen as inconsistent with

mainstream models of service delivery and

attempts to ‘Close the Gap’.

• Particularly in education, employment, housing and

health.

• Reinforced by geographic distribution

• One quarter live in areas classified by the ABS as

remote or very remote

• Compared to 1.7% of non-Indigenous Australians

3

Policy fluctuations

• ‘Protect and Uplift’ → Integration → Assimilation →

Self-determination

• Howard: ‘Practical reconciliation’ & the Northern

Territory Emergency Response

• Closing the Gap (Rudd/Gillard/Rudd) = assimilation?

• Current Abbott Government: continued emphasis on

‘mainstream’ socio-economic outcomes

• Indigenous Jobs and Training Review (the ‘Forrest Review’)

• Indigenous Advancement strategy:

(i) Jobs, land and economy; (ii) Children and schooling;

(iii) Safety and wellbeing; (iv) Culture and capability; (v)

Remote Australia strategies

• Withdrawal of funding and rationalisation of remote

communities4

Contemporary mobility:

key lessons from the literature

• The traditional drivers of kinship, culture and country

have proven to be extremely resilient

• “Attachment to place and community prevail, irrespective of a

history of changing government policies. There appears no

reason to expect that these attachments will change in the

foreseeable future.” (Memmott et al. 2006)

• “Even after 200 years of colonisation … involving radical

dispossession of Aboriginal groups and … severe curtailment

of their freedom to move around their country, nearly 70% …

recognised a homeland or traditional country” (Morhpy 2010)

5

Contemporary mobility:

key lessons from the literature

• Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

mobility is not ‘exogenous’ but is shaped by past and

current policies and events:

• policies of displacement

• policies relating to housing, transport, education and so on

significantly impact upon patterns of mobility

• health and incarceration

• Contemporary mobility must be understood in the

context of these impositions along with the enduring

and evolving aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander Australians.

6

… but limited empirical evidence

• “…policy makers who contemplate the effects of

temporary mobility on the spatial pattern of demand for

services do so in an information vacuum.” (Taylor: 2006)

• Virtually all ‘representative’ studies based on Census data

• Known to undercount Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

peoples (eg. Alice Springs Town camps)

• Use of culturally inappropriate constructs

• Case study evidence – limited and dated

7

Theoretical perspectives on mobility• Harris-Todaro model/neoclassical economics

• Gravity models

• Diversifying resource access across time and

space (McAllister et. al. 2009)

• Nomadism – moving into regions in resource-rich

times

• ABTSI mobility - Morphy’s (2010) three layered

model:

Sacred geography and associated settlements

Nodal individuals

Kinship networks

8

A reconceptualisation – a

wellbeing approach to mobility

Mobility is simply a means to accessing those

things that contribute to wellbeing and

avoiding things that contribute to illbeing

• Important in the context of minority groups and,

particularly, First Nations peoples:

• Aligns with policy objectives - objective of policy should be to

maximise wellbeing!

• Measures and constructs based around social norms, may be

inappropriate for groups of different cultures

• Statistical inferences (eg. gravity models) reflect choices of the

majority – mobility for a minority may appear invisible, anomalous

or dysfunctional

9

Reconceptualisating mobility:

A wellbeing approach

• Important in the context of minority groups and,

particularly, First Nations peoples:

• Example for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Australians

Cultural drivers

Constructs – ‘usual resident’, ‘visitor’, map boundaries.

• Exposes the prism through which Indigenous mobility is seen as

‘problematic’

Focusses attention on needs of those people and the

contributing factors to their wellbeing that motivates their

mobility patterns.

10

The CRC-REP’s ‘Mobility Project’:

Objectives

• To enhance economic participation and livelihoods and

address disadvantage faced by Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islanders in remote Australia through:

• better understanding of the factors driving temporary mobility

• empirical estimates of the extent and patterns of temporary

mobility.

• Development of a computer-based model with capacity for

prediction and scenario planning

• Improved planning and decision-making by communities,

service providers, policy-makers and employers.

11

The ‘Mobility project’ - methodology

• Two stage sampling frame:

• Sample of 25 remote communities in which

residents would access Alice Springs as regional

service centre

Stratified by language group, region, distance, population

• Sample of individuals aged 15+ within communities

• Stratified by gender and age according to 2011 Census

• Within-community sampling ratio declining by population

to give total of 1,500

• One ‘baseline’ survey with four quarterly follow-up

surveys to capture seasonal variation in mobility

• Ultimately a ‘convenience sample’ to some extent

12

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Survey development

• Focus groups

• Community

workshops (Ntaria &

Ltyentye Apurte)

• Piloting by ACRs and

further workshops

• Refinement of follow-

up surveys with ACR

feedback on initial

survey

14

Demographic characteristics: 751 respondents

to initial survey across 20 communities

• Relatively young, respondents disproportionately

female, two-thirds partnered

• An average 1.6 Aboriginal languages spoken, but as

many as 9. Warlpiri (35%) and Pitjantjatjara (28%) the

most commonly spoken

• Average adult occupancy of 4.4 adults per house

• Greater detail on household composition being collected in

follow-up surveys.

• 98.8% report living on their homelands!

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Trips away from the community

to access services

• People felt things were generally available in their

community.

• Services people reported leave the community for

were:• Shopping for food & groceries – average 9.6 times per year

• Other shopping – 9.0 times per year

• Banking - 3.0 times per year

• health - 2.2 times per year

• Once per year or less: visiting Centrelink, housing agencies, getting

cars serviced or repaired, looking for work of for education and

training.

16

Trips away from the community

to access services

• Mostly travel to Alice Springs (by design)

• Distances by road to Alice very from 85 kilometres for Ltyentye

Apurte to 883 kilometres for Lajamanu.

• Residents of Lajamanu mostly travel to Katherine.

• Overall, how often do you travel away from your

community to access services?

• Modal response: ‘Every couple of months’

• Mean response ≈ 19.5 times per year (or once every 2-3

weeks)

• For those who travel to Alice Springs, mean distance travelled

to access services is 852 kms per month

Maximum = 15,000 kms per month.

• People generally happy to go: didn’t mind going (36%),

or felt good (47%) or very good (8%) about going.

17

Trips involving an overnight stay outside of the

community – activities undertaken

18

Trips involving an overnight stay

outside of the community

• For those who make those trips, they make

around 24 such trips per year.

• The main methods of travelling were:

driving - 33%

getting a lift with others - 29%

and by bus - 24%

Not all communities have a bus service

• On average, people reported staying away for 4.5

nights on each trip

• People mostly stayed with family.

19

Barriers to mobility

• Of persons aged 17 and over, only 41% held a current driver’s license.

20

Can you always get access to a vehicle if you need one?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Yes Most of thetime

Sometimes Not veryoften

Only in anemergency

No

Pe

rce

nt

Barriers to mobility

• 1 in 3 wanted to make a trip but couldn’t in the past 12 months.

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What stops you travelling?

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Children/kids

Family reasons

Busy working

No licensed driver

No safe vehicle

Culture

Can't get a ride

Not enough money

Per cent

Labour market characteristics

• 36% reported that they were working for wages (13%

full-time, 24% part-time).

• Of those not working 45% were looking for work.

• ‘Implied’ unemployment rate of 44%, and participation rate of

65%

• Among those who were looking for work, by far the

most common barrier to finding work was ‘not many

jobs available here’

• health reasons and looking after children a distant second and

third, respectively.

• 71% in receipt of welfare

22

Labour market characteristics

• Very low educational attainment:

• Only 9% completed Year 12

• 41% reported holding a ‘certificate’ (but only 4% a

trade)

• Less than 1% hold a degree.

• Effects of limitations to mobility:

• Has driver’s license: 55% employed

• No driver’s license: 23% employed, UR ≈ 61%

23

Low financial incentives to employment?

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Money situation by labour force status

Notes: 1=’ I often run out of money before payday’; 2=’ I sometimes have to borrow or bookdown’;

3=’ I keep just enough money to get us through to the next pay’; 4=’ most weeks there is money

left over, which I spend’; 5=’ I save up sometimes’; 6=’ I always save’.

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

Employed FT Employed PT Unemployed NILF

1

2

3

4

5

6

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Probability of being in employment – logistic regression results

Variable Odds ratio p>Chi sq.

Male 1.05 0.812 Age: 15-24 years 0.48 0.002

25-44 years — —

45-54 years 0.83 0.462

55-64 years 0.27 0.002

65 and over 0.26 0.017

Married/partnered 0.97 0.875 Number of additional adults living in household 0.88 0.003 Highest education level Never went/primary school 0.25 0.000

Some high school but not Yr 12 0.50 0.000

Finished Yr 12/post-school cert. — —

Trade qualification or diploma 1.42 0.468

University degree or higher 1.41 0.725

Has a current license 3.37 0.000

Vehicle access [1-6] 1.04 0.486

Log distance to Alice Springs 0.63 0.000

Observations 724

Log Likelihood 190.51 0.000

Some tentative/preliminary conclusions

• Initial picture is of a population who have low levels of

formal educational attainment, low rates of employment,

a high incidence of welfare receipt, and who travel vast

differences.

• Many also faced significant barriers to travel.

• Shared housing with 4+ or considerably more adults in

addition to themselves and their partner is common

• Substantial distances are travelled to access basic

services, notably shopping for food and groceries.

• But people also relatively satisfied with the availability of

services in their community and are content to travel the

distances they do.

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Preliminary conclusions/Policy implications

• Confirmation of findings of the previous literature in

identifying kin, culture and country as key drivers of

temporary mobility.

• Facilitated by reciprocal network of accommodation along

kinship lines

• Much has been made of the problem of high mobility –

focus needs to shift to the limitations to mobility

• Not having a driver’s license associated with dramatic fall in

the likelihood of a person in a remote community having a job

Issue identified in the Forrest Review

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Policy implications

• Assimilation/rationalisation of remote communities

• Effective policy-making requires understanding how people

respond to incentives and disincentives

In the context of mobility and spatial geography, need to view

mobility through a wellbeing prism to understand behaviour

• Aboriginal people in remote Australia will not sever

their connections to homelands, kinship networks and

cultural obligations

• These things are what their wellbeing is built around

• At best people will move to larger communities where

outcomes may be worse

Loss of social support networks

lack of jobs is the key issue

+ other barriers to employment

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Policy implications

• Models of service delivery/availability has a substantial

causal impact on mobility, and employment opportunity

falls off with remoteness

• the essence of distance is how it equates to costs – it is not

the physical space that matters.

• These ‘distances’ can be reduced:

• Public transport, sealing roads, telecommunications, vehicle

access etc.

• Further research

• Link between household occupancy and employment

outcomes

• Incorporation of more community level data

Eg. whether serviced by the Bush Bus

Cost benefit analyses

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Project Partners

• Australian Bureau of Statistics

• Central Land Council

• Charles Darwin University

• Curtin University

• Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet

• Northern Territory Government

• Tangentyere Council

• University of South Australia

• Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi

• Western Australian Government

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