Can quality independent research in Indigenous affairs be influential? Personal reflections on the Reeves Land Rights Inquiry and its aftermath.

Altman, Jon

Abstract: This article raises, but far from definitively answers, a fundamental question that academic anthropologists often ask: how can they ensure that their research has beneficial policy influence? This general issue is examined with reference to one particular example, the Reeves Land Rights Inquiry of 1997-98 and subsequent events, including a conference convened in 1999 by concerned social scientists, many of whom were anthropologists, that was highly critical of the Reeves Review's scholarship; and a Parliamentary Inquiry into the contentious review that after prolonged deliberation was dismissive of its recommendations.

The article is somewhat reflexive: it laments the very different standards that are applied to academic research on the one hand and to government-sponsored inquiries on the other, but emphasises that academic adherence to the three principles of scholarly excellence, transparency and peer review must be maintained. With specific reference to Aboriginal land rights law in the Northern Territory, the article also laments the considerable efforts that must be expended by anthropologists in protecting long-established rights rather than in constructively streamlining statute to deliver better outcomes for Indigenous people.

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A fundamental question that academic anthropologists involved in Indigenous policy must address is how to ensure that quality independent research has a beneficial influence on policy making processes. The converse question can also be asked: are ideological and political forces so powerful as to override academic effort irrespective of its quality and objectivity?

This issue is addressed here with reference to recent historical events: the Reeves Land Rights Inquiry of 1997-98 and a subsequent House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Inquiry into the Reeves recommendations (HORSCATSIA 1999; Reeves 1998). Input to both was a significant component of the research effort of both the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) and myself in 1998 and 1999: my somewhat reflexive views here focus primarily on my experiences and engagement with both inquiries, but also refer to inputs from my colleagues at CAEPR. This paper concentrates primarily on the processes rather than the content of the two inquiries.

Academics providing input to public inquiries have an expectation of intellectual engagement with their research and recommendations. One of the very puzzling results of these inquiries is how quite similar research could be interpreted in almost diametrically opposite ways. A brief attempt will be made in conclusion to analyse such divergent interpretation of research and to highlight what academic researchers can do to ensure that their research results are not abused.

Historical and political contexts

The immediate historical and political context for the Reeves Inquiry is important. In 1996, a conference was convened at Old Parliament House in Canberra to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. This remains a high-water mark statute in the Australian Indigenous affairs context that arguably has not been surpassed, even by the Native Title Act 1993, in the last three decades. The Land Rights Act did many things that anthropologists would regard as beneficial, including:

* the vesting of former reserve lands, comprising 19 per cent of the Northern Territory, in Aboriginal lands trusts;

* the provision in statute for Aboriginal traditional owners to claim unalienated Crown land before an Aboriginal Land Commissioner, with claims to be lodged by 1997;

* the establishment of statutory authorities--Aboriginal land councils--to represent Aboriginal people on land matters;

* the provision of requirements that traditional owners consent to commercial developments on their land, the so-called `right of veto'; and

* financial provisions, which dated back to the early 1950s, that reserved payments for commercial activities on Aboriginal land (especially mining royalties) for Aboriginal use.

The mood at the conference (Land Rights Past, Present and Future: 20 Years of Land Rights) was both celebratory and apprehensive. On the positive side, there was a view that a great deal had been achieved in terms of land rights and Aboriginal prerogatives. On the other hand, there was recognition that, with the anticipated end to the claims process after 1997, the raison d'etre of the statute would either need radical change or it could be vulnerable to statutory change. This view was politically predicated on the actions of the then new federal coalition government that was clearly ambivalent about the Native Title Act and perceived special Indigenous rights; that had just substantially reduced the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission budget; and that had, as its leader, a prime minister who was openly hostile to what he termed a `politically correct black-armband view of Australian history'.

I made an invited contribution to this conference, entitled `Aboriginal Economic Development and Land Rights in the Northern Territory: Past Performance, Current Issues and Future Options'. This presentation was neither politically correct nor black-armband: it documented problems in the financial operations of the Land Rights Act and outlined how these might be addressed. This presentation was received very tolerantly by land councils and conference organisers and was subsequently published in the conference proceedings (Altman 1996).

Less than a year later, from July 1997, the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs incrementally announced a wide-ranging review of the Land Rights Act. The review was to be headed by John Reeves, who was perceived by the land councils to be an inappropriate and partial appointment. By the time the review got under way in October 1997, Mr Reeves had been appointed a QC by then Northern Territory chief minister (and now Liberal Party president) Shane Stone.

Foreshadowing the review's focus on financial issues, in October 1997 I gave a seminar at CAEPR entitled `Financial Aspects of the NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act: A Critical Evaluation and Proposals for Change'. The discussant was Mr Barry Vellnagel from the Minerals Council of Australia. Subsequently, in November, CAEPR staff participated in a small workshop that sought to discuss these issues with staff of the Northern and Central Land Councils. Simultaneously, Mr Reeves sought written comments on these financial issues from me for a discussion paper he was preparing as a precursor to undertaking community consultations and the commissioning of research. These comments were published in the discussion paper (see Reeves 1998:B36-B39).

So far, all seemed to be open and very bipartisan. Subsequently, I was informally approached to provide consultancy services to land councils, the mining industry in the Northern Territory and to the Reeves Inquiry. Initially, an offer to work as a consultant to Reeves was accepted, but then withdrawn when the scope of time commitment required became apparent. Subsequently, a scaled-down consultancy was negotiated that focused on `Financial Aspects of the Land Rights Act in the Northern Territory'.

This work was undertaken by David Pollack and myself, with the proviso that we retained intellectual property rights in the material produced. It was subsequently published by CAEPR (Altman and Pollack 1998). At the same time, Julie Finlayson was commissioned by the Northern Land Council (NLC), via CAEPR, to undertake literature-based research on the purpose and effectiveness of Northern Territory land rights. Finlayson's material that directly addressed one of the review's terms of reference was transparently appended to the NLC submission to the Reeves Review and also subsequently published by CAEPR (Finlayson 1999).

A brief chronology

The Reeves Review ran from October 1997 to August 1998 and is reputed to have cost well in excess of $1 million. Its findings were published in August 1998 in a two-volume report, Building on Land Rights for the Next Generation, that totalled 1130 pages. The preparation of the report had been shrouded in secrecy; it contained many recommendations that, if implemented, would have fundamentally changed the Land Rights Act. The report was criticised from the outset and `stirred considerable controversy', as noted by HORSCATSIA (1999:154). It was also criticised for its length and complexity and inaccessibility to the people potentially most affected by its findings.

The Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) in its annual meeting of October 1998 in Canberra was at the forefront of the critics, with grave concern being expressed about the quality of the anthropological research undertaken by the Reeves Review and of the selective quoting, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of anthropological research submitted to, or referenced by, it. Subsequently, on 2 October, the society decided to develop a submission to government critiquing the anthropological basis of the review.

CAEPR was similarly concerned that its research on the financial aspects and socioeconomic impacts of land rights had been selectively and inaccurately used. To personalise this very considerably, there was no reference in the Reeves Report to the consultancy report that David Pollack and I had prepared and no reference to me as a consultant among a long list (Reeves 1998:8-9). The recommendations made with respect to altering financial aspects of the Land Rights Act bore no resemblance to the various options we had recommended after careful analysis of a very complex statutory framework and historical legacy (Altman and Pollack 1998).

The second Howard government (re-elected at the time of the 1998 AAS conference) must also have had concerns about the review's recommendations, because on 10 December 1998 terms of reference for an inquiry into the Reeves Review were referred to HORSCATSIA. This transparent process, which invited written submissions and oral evidence, provided an immediate opportunity for critical evaluation of both the Reeves Inquiry and its recommendations.

Early in 1999, the ANU Department of Archaeology and Anthropology and CAEPR decided to convene a conference (Evaluating the Reeves Report: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives), subsequently held in Canberra on 26-27 March. This conference was convened for a variety of reasons, outlined in the preface to the proceedings (Altman et al 1999). Foremost among these was an opportunity for papers, most later submitted to the HORSCATSIA Review, to be publicly presented and peer assessed.

Simultaneously, from March to June, HORSCATSIA conducted its hearings, where many of the published submissions from academics were debated and cross-examined and a transcript of all hearings recorded by Hansard for the public record. In June, Land Rights at Risk? (Altman et al 1999) was published, a volume openly described as `a comprehensive and informed critique of the Reeves Report'. In August 1999, HORSCATSIA published its report, Unlocking the Future. Despite its somewhat misleading title, this cross-party parliamentary review thoroughly discredited the Reeves Review with an astonishing degree of consensus.

Some reflexivity about academic issues

What are the appropriate levels of academic engagement with public policy making? What are the appropriate boundaries between academic endeavour and public policy? What are the scholarly returns over time from engagement with politicians and practitioners? These sorts of questions constantly animated researchers even at CAEPR, a policy-oriented research unit, during these two inquiries. As academic researchers we are trained and committed to exploring new intellectual boundaries. But an analysis of the presentations and publications made both to the Reeves Inquiry and to HORSCATSIA indicate tedious revisiting and attempted simplification of complex issues, a form of forensic anthropology where researchers had to be careful not to get caught out in cross-examination.

For CAEPR, an important issue was how much research effort to put into this one, admittedly very significant, issue, given that the centre has a mandate to research Indigenous policy issues Australia-wide. There was a strong academic belief that the truth about the benefits of the Land Rights Act and the problems with the proposed Reeves Model should be exposed, but also an uncomfortableness about overcommitting scarce research resources just to the Northern Territory and to an issue that ultimately might be decided by political expediency rather than rigorous scholarship. The strategic question that needed to be constantly addressed was how to maintain influence over a politically charged issue: there were deeply entrenched and complex issues embedded in the Reeves Inquiry. Whether CAEPR got the balance right, only time will tell.

From an academic perspective, most of us are committed to three core principles:

* a high degree of scholarship, balance and objectivity in research;

* public scrutiny and transparency of research findings; and

* peer review for quality assurance.

It is deeply ingrained in academic culture that compliance with these principles will generate beneficial and lively debate that will ultimately, when applied to public policy making, also generate beneficial policy. During the Reeves Review, it became clear that adherence to these principles was not sufficient, especially if the review culture differed from the academic culture.

To provide some illustrative examples, the CAEPR research undertaken for Reeves thoroughly canvassed alternatives and carefully considered all stakeholder perspectives as well as historical, structural and statutory impediments to optimal workability of the Land Rights Act. Furthermore, CAEPR researchers worked both for Reeves and the land councils: this approach was taken to clearly demonstrate that we were not advocacy researchers, that we had no organisational view and that our research outcomes were fundamentally the same irrespective of who sponsored the research.

The Reeves Review sought to fundamentally alter the statute to suit what could be regarded as an ideological, predetermined view that the primary role of land rights was economic advancement, a view not shared by all, or even a significant representation of, Indigenous stakeholders. And, even if this were the primary role of land rights, there appeared to be no theoretical or empirical basis to assertions that proposed change would be beneficial.

CAEPR research was presented in public seminars and was predicated on agreement of transparency; the Reeves Review drafted its final report in secrecy and there has been no post-review commitment to transparency. For example, it is unclear where submissions and transcripts of community consultations have been lodged and whether they are publicly available. Finally, CAEPR sought peer review of research prior to publication, but the Reeves Review sought no such quality assurance.

A most telling comment, from an academic perspective, was the somewhat defensive introductory statement by Reeves (1998:13) that anticipated criticism but then dismissed any as merely emanating from disaffected vested interests: `I have no doubt that this Review has been full, fair and comprehensive. If, as I expect will be the case, no-one is completely happy with the outcome, I believe this will be the consequence of the fairness I have sought to achieve.' The Reeves team did not countenance that its proposed alternative model might be unworkable or poorly conceived or bad public policy; any criticism would be unjustified. Such a defensive position is difficult for academics to counter, because our work, by its very nature, is open to criticism and potentially to being mistaken or superseded.

A crucial element of academic culture is a commitment to intellectual engagement. One of the very frustrating features of both the Reeves Inquiry and the subsequent participation of the Reeves team at the Evaluating the Reeves Report conference was an inability or unwillingness to openly contest ideas. At times, for example during the conference, an academic member of the Reeves team attempted to incorporate CAEPR researchers as intellectual allies, referring to the enormous contribution that the published CAEPR corpus had made to the review process. At other times, CAEPR research was either selectively ignored or just asserted to be wrong on the basis of very limited intellectual debate (e.g. Reeves 1998:559-60, 571). Academic culture is uncomfortable with disingenuous flattery and selective use of research to suit predetermined argument.

Reeves was a political appointment by the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, to whom he was in the very powerful position of having direct access. Somewhat paradoxically, and a little inexplicably, just four months after completion of the Reeves Review, HORSCATSIA was asked to report on Reeves by the same minister, another political act. It is interesting to contrast briefly the HORSCATSIA review process with the Reeves process. Again, submissions were sought and witnesses called, but there was a far higher degree of openness and accountability in the HORSCATSIA process. This is partly because all submissions and all transcripts of oral evidence were published. But it was also because the parliamentary committee process appeared to be predicated on intellectual engagement that was, at times, tantamount to cross-examination.

HORSCATSIA recognised quickly that the Reeves model had little support and very little policy merit, and here academic input in submissions and in evidence before the committee did have some influence. This is evident in the report's very careful approach and sourcing of all material. Unlocking the Future, despite its ambiguous title, has integrity in fairly representing the submissions made by all stakeholders. The recommendations were moderate, sensible and constructive:

* the report rejected, after due consideration, almost all Reeves's recommendations;

* the committee recommended some careful further research on all the hard issues, and especially on issues where the committee itself could not reach consensus, via the establishment of project teams with broad representation; and

* very importantly, for a government majority committee, it enunciated a principle of informed Aboriginal consent to any amendments to the statute, a requirement not unlike the informed consent provisions of the Land Rights Act.

Some lessons for anthropologists

Not all inquiries that seek academic input to public policy making are as politically fraught or complex as the two land rights inquiries examined here: from an academic perspective, the processes as described are probably a worst-case scenario. It is obviously never easy for academics to know, a priori, whether their research will be influential and a useful investment, or not influential and a waste of effort.

Ultimately, it is probably a fair assessment that independent and objective academic research had no influence in the Reeves Inquiry (although the very fact that this research was shown to be ignored served the purpose of exposing the review as at best incompetent, at worst biased), but considerable influence on the HORSCATSIA Inquiry. This may reflect, in part, the far greater transparency of parliamentary review processes, for any analysis of material submitted to both reviews will show little substantive difference in content. This suggests that academics can be fairly powerless in influencing policy reform processes that are predetermined. Under such circumstances, it is perhaps more important than ever that research remain scholarly, impartial, transparent and of high quality via peer review.

Unfortunately, the land rights review process has sent a very negative message to anthropologists, many of whom are reluctant to independently and proactively engage in policy-oriented research: it is far more typical for anthropologists to operate within existing statutory frameworks than to try to change them. Indeed, if independent and high-quality research influenced HORSCATSIA, as it undoubtedly did, it is still far from clear what the political response to this report's recommendations will be. In the year since the report there has been little open discussion about the direction land rights reform might take. The only press release to date, made by Minister Herron last year on receiving the report, suggests selective reading of the recommendations and a misguided willingness to give equal weighting to all recommendations, including those from the discredited Reeves Inquiry. Apparently, government officials have begun to prepare recommended amendments to the law, but without consultation with representative land councils or other important Aboriginal stakeholders and in a worryingly clandestine way.

Will academics need to continue to divert scarce research resources to counter potentially detrimental and uninformed amendment to the Land Rights Act? Will Aboriginal land councils be similarly diverted, thus ensuring that areas where workability of the statute could be improved remain unaddressed because so-called basic principles are being defended. It is a truism in Indigenous affairs policy formation that the disaffected can always be found, partly because of the structural nature of the Aboriginal polity. If these people are elevated to being representative, academics and others will need to remain vigilant lest past independent scholarship is conveniently forgotten. For how long will unsympathetic governments keep `trying trying' to make unilateral and poorly informed changes to the law? Where is the accountability for the expenditure of significant public moneys on unconstructive reviews in situations where statutory improvement is both necessary and desired by all stakeholders? Unfortunately, these are some imponderable rhetorical questions with which I end.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article had its origins in a Visiting Lecture, `Beyond the Reeves Inquiry: Can Quality Research in Indigenous Affairs be Influential?', delivered to the Centre for Indigenous Natural and Cultural Resource Management, Northern Territory University, 21 September 1999. I would like to thank participants at the lecture and the AAS conference for their input, David Martin and Melinda Hinkson for comments on an earlier draft, the AAS session organiser Kingsley Palmer, and David Martin for presenting the paper for me at the conference.

NOTE

One anonymous referee suggested quite properly that this article could be expanded to more broadly discuss the implications of the issues I raise for anthropological theory and practice more generally. After careful consideration, I have declined this challenge for two reasons. First, I wanted to leave the paper true to the AAS presentation of September 2000. Second, in my view, such an article would require a great deal more research than currently possible. This article, though, is intended to raise some issues for further consideration by other social scientists as well as myself.

REFERENCES

Altman, J.C. 1996 Aboriginal Economic Development and Land Rights in the Northern Territory: Past Performance, Current Issues and Strategic Options, CAEPR Discussion Paper no. 126, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

Altman, J.C., F. Morphy and T. Rowse (eds) 1999 Land Rights at Risk? Evaluations of the Reeves Report, CAEPR Research Monograph no. 14, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

Altman, J.C. and D.P. Pollack 1998 Financial Aspects of Aboriginal Land Rights in the Northern Territory, CAEPR Discussion Paper no. 168, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

Finlayson, J. 1999 Northern Territory Land Rights: Purpose and Effectiveness, CAEPR Discussion Paper no. 180, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (HORSCATSIA) 1999 Unlocking the Future: The Report of the Inquiry into the Reeves Review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

Reeves, J. 1998 Building on Land Rights for the Next Generation: The Review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, 2 vols, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra.

Jon Altman
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research,
Australian National University