Recently, we spent 10-days more than planned at a certain community, on account of a busted radiator, and a plane (bringing us a new radiator) that wouldn’t take off due to bad weather.
We’d had a good week of IT Training there, before we realised we’d be sticking round. The good thing about the telecentre there was that two anangu are employed to run it, which always makes our job much more rewarding in terms of having people we can focus on, work with etc.
But the second week, we didn’t do a lot of training. We had a bit of a break, and the life of the telecentre went back to what we assumed it was like when we weren’t there. We deferred to the leadership and decisions of the telecentre workers. We explained to people that our boss had told us to have a week off but that the telecentre workers were really the boss anyway and people could talk to them about opening hours etc.
I thought this was a good approach, that the visiting whitefellas shouldn’t automatically become the authority. But over that week, with much time for thinking on my hands, and seeing how the telecentre was used and the position the telecentre workers were in, I began to be concerned and sceptical about the situation.
As is often the case out here, I was able to recognise problems and flaws quickly, while offering solutions and alternatives often fails me. I am reminded of the complexities out here. Complexities that perhaps get lost in the slogans and phrases used as short-hand for talking about the ongoing consequences of colonisation and dispossession. For example, calls for investment into Aboriginal employment- a call which I of course support, and is vital to the empowerment and economic independence of Aboriginal people.
But here’s a thing.
The government (I’m not sure if it’s federal or state) has decided to provide a local Aboriginal media corporation with a certain amount of money to set up telecentres in each community across this, with satellite internet access etc.
The potential for these places is great I reckon. In theory, anangu can access government services and online media, control their finances through internet banking, etc, all without putting pressure on the already over-worked community offices.
It’s also generating Aboriginal employment, of sorts. Each telecentre has one or two local Aboriginal workers who open the centre, supervise them etc. And they’re paid real wages, again from the government via the contracted media organisation, rather than the controversial soon to be phased out Community Development Employment Program.
In practise there are huge problems, as with most well-meaning programs out here. While we on the left call for real jobs for Aboriginal people in these places, in this instance the government can say it is providing real jobs. But I think aspects of this program are a huge step backward in terms of empowering Aboriginal people, treating them as adults, giving communities control etc.
For example, the telecentre workers are paid for 20 hours a week. There are certain things they’re meant to do in those 20 hours. Menial but necessary things, I guess. Open at 9. Close at 5. Keep the dogs out. Etc. But there is no supervision, support, or training. There is no employer-type person acting like they give two hoots whether these people work or not, or supporting them when something goes wrong, or training them for the basic skills that they’d need to feel they’re doing a good job (surely our annual one-week visit isn’t adequate?!).
They are left to their own devices. Telecentre workers tend to be young people who have better English and basic computer literacy. Of course "we", the whitefellas, the government, the trainers, prefer to work with people more savvy in "our" ways. Much easier than learning theirs, right? For "us", that is.
But these very same people, according to their culture, don’t have a lot of authority or rights to tell people what to do. In a way, they are set up to fail.
There are situations where everybody knows a job isn’t being done properly, the computers are being used inappropriately, the community isn’t happy with the arrangement. But there are no consequences. The government is happy with the arrangement, because it apparently is providing 20—odd Aboriginal people with real jobs, real wages.
Effectively, the government says “you’re Aboriginal people, we have low expectations. We don’t expect you to do what we’d expect non-Aboriginal people to do. We’re going to let you do what you want, but we reserve the right to occasionally tell you off, disconnect your internet or maybe even sack you for doing the wrong thing. But this won’t happen very often because basically we’ll ignore you.”
I can’t see how this helps the self-respect of the person with the job, helps them take their responsibilities seriously or helps the community respect the worker’s authority viz-a-viz the running of the telecentre.
So the telecentre workers who open the room, leave it open 24/7 while they’re away, come back to (surprisingly enough) broken computers, shitloads of downloaded porn and a very uncomfortable community, gets paid the same amount as the worker in another community who works long hours, keeps the place locked up at night, calls community meetings to develop a grassroots response to the porn issue… all in the name of “investing in jobs for Aboriginal people”.
Giving Aboriginal people “real jobs”, without training, support, consequence etc, is just as problematic as all the other paternalistic policies, I reckon, though I’m sure that’s controversial. In the end the government will no doubt say, “well look, we tried. We paid you good money. And what happened? You trashed computers, downloaded porn in front of kids, etc etc…”
And another service will be taken away, again without people really understanding why, although they will understand that somehow they have failed another mystifying whiitefella test.
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