title: The More Things Change ...: Continuity in Australian Indigenous Employment Disadvantage 1788 - 1967
Creators: name: Norris, Rae
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: Australian indigenous employment disadvantage
subject: Australian Aborigines
subject: colonial Australia
subject: Australian Aboriginal employment
subject: econoscape
subject: reguloscape

description: The extent of Australian Indigenous employment disadvantage has been quantitatively established by researchers since the 1970s. Indigenous Australians have higher unemployment and lower participation rates, they are occupationally concentrated in low skill, low paid jobs, and their income is significantly lower on average than that of other Australians. The explanations given for this disadvantage largely focus on skills deficit and geographical location of Indigenous people. However these explanations do not stand up to scrutiny. Indigenous employment disadvantage remains irrespective of where Indigenous Australians live or how well they are qualified. Alternative explanations are clearly needed. A clue to the direction of research is given by the same researchers who acknowledge the legacy of history in creating the situation of disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians. However, to date the nature of this legacy has not been explored. It is this history which is the focus of this thesis. The research questions which the thesis addresses are: 1. Are there identifiable 'invariant elements' which underpin the institutional forms which have regulated the treatment of Indigenous Australians within the economy, particularly in relation to employment, from colonisation until recent times? 2. Do these invariant elements help explain the continuing employment disadvantage of Indigenous Australians? To examine the history of the treatment of Indigenous Australians in relation to employment, four concepts were developed from the regulation school of economic theory and the work of Appadurai. These concepts are econoscape, reguloscape, invariant elements and institutional forms. The notion of 'scape' allows for recognition that when Australia was colonised, there already existed a set of economic arrangements and social and legal system. The conflict between the introduced economy and legal and social systems can be conceived as a conflict between two econoscapes and reguloscapes. Analysis of the econoscape and reguloscape from international, national and Indigenous perspectives for the period from colonisation to 1850 has enabled the identification of 'invariant elements' which describe the ways of thinking about Aborigines brought to the Australian colonies and adapted to the realities of the Australian situation. The four invariant elements identified are summarised as belief in 1) Aboriginal inferiority; 2) Aboriginal laziness, incapacity and irresponsibility; 3) the need for white intervention in Aboriginal lives; and 4) disregard for Aboriginal understandings, values and choices. The fourth invariant element is conceptualised as the foundation on which basis the other three developed and were able to be perpetuated. Analysis of the laws pertaining to Aborigines promulgated between 1850 and the 1960s in four jurisdictions shows that the same invariant elements influenced the nature of the institutional forms used to limit the freedom of movement and of employment of Indigenous Australians. Although during the period from the 1850s to the 1960s there was ostensibly a change in policy from one of protection to one of assimilation of Indigenous Australians, in fact little changed in terms of perceptions of Aborigines or in the institutional forms which, by the 1920s in all jurisdictions surveyed, controlled every aspect of their lives. Confirmation of the influence of the invariant elements was sought through closer study of two particular cases from the beginning and end of the above time period. These case studies involved examination of the institutional forms within the context of the econoscape and reguloscape of different times, in the first case in Victoria in the 1860s-1880s, and in the second case in the Northern Territory in the 1960s. The analysis indicates that the invariant elements had a continuing influence on perceptions and treatment of Indigenous Australians at least to the referendum of 1967. This thesis establishes, through rigorous analysis based on a robust theoretical and methodological foundation, that identifiable ways of thinking, or invariant elements, have underpinned continuous Indigenous employment disadvantage and help explain this continuing disadvantage. The common explanations of Indigenous disadvantage are also consistent with these invariant elements. The thesis concludes by recommending further research based on the findings of this thesis be conducted to scrutinise policy and practice over the last three to four decades in relation to Indigenous employment. It also emphasises the importance of redefining the problem and finding solutions, tasks which can only be done effectively by Indigenous Australians.