Serious Whitefella Stuff: When Solutions Became the Problem in Indigenous Affairs

by Mark Moran

How does Indigenous policy signed off in Canberra work-or not-when implemented in remote Aboriginal communities? Mark Moran, Alyson Wright and Paul Memmott have extensive on-the-ground experience in this area of ongoing challenge. What, they ask, is the right balance between respecting local traditions and making significant improvement in the areas of alcohol consumption, home ownership and revitalising cultural practices?

Moran, Wright and Memmott have spent years dealing with these pressing issues. Serious Whitefella Stuff tells their side of this complex Australian story.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2016

Reviews

[Elizabeth Watt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most heated Indigenous policy debates in the past 17 years have been philosophical. Should we be working to maintain Indigenous distinctiveness? Is it ethical to intervene in Aboriginal communities to curb alcoholism and violence? "Policy and politics in Indigenous affairs attract a great deal of attention", Noel Pearson notes in his introduction to Serious Whitefella Stuff, "Practice, despite its critical importance, does not."

The strength of Mark Moran, Alyson Wright and Paul Memmott's book is it focus on the practical questions that continue after these philosophical issues are settled. Drawing on their extensive experience as 'whitefella bureaucrats' (Moran in Doomadgee, Mapoon and Kowanyam, Wright in Ali Curong and Memmott on Mornington Island), they explore these messy realities of translating policy ideas into development realities.

In his conclusion, Moran summarises his four primary concern with the way Indigenous policy is conducted: it purges what has come before, it swings from one approach to the next, it mimics approaches that work in other contexts but may not necessarily translate, and contradicts itself as programs compete. While this assessment is useful, I feel it could have been improved if the authors had positioned the policies they implemented/ watched being implemented in a broad philosophical context. Instead, Serious Whitefella Stuff moves from discussions of ceremonial revival on Mornington Island to home ownership in Mapoon, without acknowledging the vastly different orientation of these policies.

[Olwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Academic text - skimmed only.

[T.S. Flynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Patronising dross.