First Nation Perspectives on a Universal Basic Income
As the inquiry into Robodebt reveals the depth of Australia’s shame over its treatment of welfare recipients, Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng, Wakka Wakka Wulli Wulli woman, academic, unionist, former public servant and proud grandmother, answers the question: ‘What opportunities and challenges does a universal basic income (UBI) present for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities?
The Colours of Uluru - OneINMA Global Logo ©Tjanara Goreng Goreng Wakka Wakka Artist Australia
For First Nation communities in Australia, income support has gone from being important and vital welfare support system to a punitive system of shaming and blaming. This happened alongside a growing conservatism in Australian governments, where First Nations communities have become practise targets for changes to income and welfare to reduce the national budget and create a surplus budget economy.
It is obvious from the statistics reported annually in the Closing the Gap Reports and Productivity Commission data that the current systems and social policy in Indigenous Affairs are not working and are making no difference to this generation of Indigenous peoples. We need a new road and a new vision. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) could begin that process.
Past conditional programs give clues as to how UBI could be a mechanism for First Nations social and economic justice, particularly for remote communities.
More than twenty years ago Australia introduced a system to First Nations communities called the Community Development Employment Program. Over time there was evidence of great entrepreneurial ability through CDEP in First Nation’s communities. Although conditional, it was an economic, social, and cultural investment for communities with no real access to mainstream employment.
As a basic income for work system, communities used their skill base and workforce to undertake all types of clever adapted employment and work programs, some of which led to successful business developments, as well as other social and environmental outcomes. The same could occur with a UBI system.
A UBI would:
Provide income that will be socially supportive and economically viable to Indigenous communities where paid work, entrepreneurship, business and strategic investment are currently non-existent
Enable individuals and families to support themselves and each other and provide for the necessities of living which current welfare does not.
Take away the shame and lack of dignity that comes with having to live on a Basics Card.
Assist Indigenous people in remote communities use their cultural traditions and knowledge for livelihood development. With the right support, they have the capacity to employ community members and engage a wider section of the hospitality, tourism and business sectors in their communities, their environmental knowledge, and the development of scientific research around plants and medicines and a myriad of other industries.
Enable a population riven by discrimination, racism and prejudice a platform on which they can stand and build social, civic, and environmental foundations to better not only individuals but families and entire communities and regions.
The challenges of a UBI for First Nations communities are to:
Ensure it is not punitive or conditional; that it is free, available to all and unconditional - therefore the architecture needs to ensure this and the bureaucracy must have strict controls to ensure it does not create it through lack of cultural understanding, systemic racism or the old behaviour of government bureaucracy relating to those in need of welfare support such as shaming, blaming, treating people as ‘less than’ because they do not have employment
Educate and inform communities prior to its introduction on how it operates and how it is used, and that this information be translated into all First Nations languages but particularly where English is not a community’s first language.
Another point that requires consideration is that many Indigenous people are suffering generational trauma. This impacts our emotional and mental capacities to engage in work or the education system. This is a social crisis and needs to be addressed, not in a punitive way, but in a compassionate, empathic, and socially just and socially conscious way. Providing a UBI could do this in addition to supportive social programs to enable recovery, to enable a person to work towards working, community engagement and development, cultural maintenance and creation, and environmental stewardship. It gives breathing space to enable an individual to do what is necessary, to get well and to deal with the myriad of social issues that impact their families, so that they can return to health and wellness.
A UBI would enable any first Nations adult to survive above the poverty line on a guaranteed income that could give them the necessities of life to live with dignity in our society where they are still mostly considered third class citizens. A UBI is a common goal of humanity to lift people who live in poverty with no capacity to achieve their goals politically or socially themselves through lack of capacity and deliberate government policy that oppresses them. A UBI can do this, and so I advocate aligning ourselves with those people in our parliaments with legislative power to implement a workable UBI to do so and begin that with our communities.
These remarks have been extracted and edited from panel talks given by Dr Goreng Goreng at last year’s Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress, held in Brisbane, Australia.