The Royal Commission,ATSIC and Self-Determination: A Review of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

The National Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, in recommending fundamental reforms of government policy, proposed a primarily political and administrative notion of Aboriginal empowerment or ‘self-determination’. That is, the Commissioner argued the fundamental importance of publicly-funded Aboriginal organisations and urged governments to relax financial accountability requirements imposed on them. The paper quotes extensively from the National Report to argue that this, rather than ‘land rights’ or ‘economic independence’ is what the Commissioner meant by ‘self-determination’. But what is the place of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in such a view of Aboriginal and Islander political development? The paper demonstrates the Commissioner's ambivalence about ATSIC, and his failure consistently to project ATSIC's role when making his recommendations about health, alcohol and housing policies. It concludes by citing Commonwealth responses which indicate that ATSIC is likely to emerge as an obstacle in the Commissioner's scenario of Aboriginal and Islander political development.