Published works

Natural hazards in the remote Northern Territory such as cyclones have arguably been managed as best as possible given the typically insubstantial relationships emergency management agencies have with traditional Aboriginal landowners and their wider communities. Preparation and response to the two cyclones, Lam (Feb. 19-20) and Nathan (March 22), that struck east and central Arnhem Land in 2015 are a case in point, prompting practical research into how we can strengthen existing governance arrangements in remote areas to promote and enrich such relationships. This project extends a suite of projects hosted by Charles Darwin University under the Northern Hub of the Bushfires and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, collectively addressing ‘building capacity in north Australian remote communities.

Under the collective theme of developing effective emergency management partnerships, the project focused on two of the several communities in Arnhem Land struck by cyclones Lam and Nathan – Galiwin’ku and Ramingining.  Indigenous leadership in these communities were again struck by underlying issues effecting cultural authority, including poor consideration of community members as core players holding significant knowledge and other assets valuable to hazard preparation, response and community reconstruction. Whilst Galiwin’ku residents, for example, greatly appreciated the effective response delivered by EM agencies, the events and their aftermath also brought to the surface issues of lost cultural authority, disempowerment, and disengagement within the community. They keenly sought support for practical local efforts to better understand and address the trend of marginalization and dependence on external agency management. Similarly, in Ramingining, the elders felt a sense of powerlessness and shame to be onlookers for response efforts that they wished to be active participants of.

NAILSMA (Indigenous research and service provider, co-partner in the Northern Hub of the CRC and project manager) was in a position to offer administrative, logistical, mentoring and other support to Galiwin’ku’s leadership. Yalu Maringithinyaraw is a local Yolngu organisation with research interests and capability that was the local host for the work.

ARPNet, an Indigenous research network of community based Aboriginal Research practitioners is hosted by RIEL at CDU. ARPNet researchers have worked together and developed an approach that emphasises putting the community first and have also adapted a set of PAR tools (the ARPNet Dilly bag) that they use. The Network trains, mentors and provides administrative support to a growing network of community-based Indigenous researchers, dedicated to relocating local research effort in local hands and improving the operation and outcomes of research for local communities and those that service them.      

It’s well recognised that strong similarities exist amongst communities across the NT and indeed the North, but that each place is unique. In this context, the projects at Galiwin’ku and Ramingining developed relatively independently but highlighted in their collective outcomes important messages for EM agency and others about navigating continuity and difference across Indigenous geographies in their policy making and operations.

It was broadly concluded that government and other agencies need to change the way they do business with Yolngu/Bininj by helping empower traditional owners and clan leaders and improve community engagement to produce more effective service delivery.

Concomitantly, NAILSMA, ARPNet and CDU sought to engage EM leadership across the North and in the BNHCRC community with the research developments as they unfolded in Galiwin’ku and Ramingining, and to inform the local researchers of the perspectives and logic driving EM organization in relevant jurisdictions. This parallel effort strengthened the strategic need to come together ‘at the table’ to work through practical, fundamental change in the way agencies and communities do business – a process anticipated as ongoing.

Recognising the resource-intensive nature of the work, connections were made with related projects to provide mutual support for project activities and partnerships.  The overall objective of the project was to inform effective EM agency community partnership arrangements in remote communities based on enhanced understanding and empowerment of underlying community governance structures. Lessons learnt from the undertaking of this project were used to develop a ‘protocols framework’ to help inform the development of effective agency-community EM partnerships in remote community locations across northern Australia.

This research has identified a common set of core governance issues (see Findings below) and priorities needing to be acknowledged and addressed to improve implementation of emergency risk management arrangements in remote communities. This work has helped these remote communities, and hopefully others, find voice to more effectively engage in the emergency management conversation, and in partnership building at local and national levels. It has also shown that most agencies involved are open to, if not keenly interested in greater equity with communities in engagement but are uncertain and/or systemically blind to how they may initiate and progress real and effective change in remote EM. There is strong interest from the participating communities to continue their work and engage with other end-users in for example, enhanced local and regional-scale planning; the dissemination of quality, relevant and timely information; building partnership support for community level risk mitigation, disaster management and response. These projects provide a conceptual model and approach for scaling up the project of partnership building to other communities in the NT, WA and Qld, and a basis for understanding the costs and benefits involved in broadscale implementation. Project partners are seeking to progress current projects and offer their experience, skills, tools and relationships developed in these two community endeavors to other community groups seeking to improve the way they, EM and other agencies work together. Project partners believe this to be a good foundation for a regional and national framework approach for EM agency/community engagement and relationship building.