Governments across Australia have grappled over many years with how to enable Aboriginal people to succeed. Despite increasing levels of investment, and more services being funded by government agencies, there is little evidence of significant long-term change.

The experience in Western Australia has been no different. For example, during       2012–13, government expenditure (State and Commonwealth) on services for Aboriginal people in Western Australia was $4.9 billion, or $53,000 per Aboriginal person, a figure that had grown 20 per cent over the previous four years. By contrast, combined government expenditure on services for non-Aboriginal people in the State in 2012–13 was about $20,000 per non Aboriginal person, a figure that had grown 0.3 per cent over the same period.[3] State Government analysis suggests that expenditure on services for Aboriginal people is higher in regional areas of the State than in metropolitan areas.[4]

Australian governments at all levels have struggled to work effectively with each other and Aboriginal families and communities to achieve better outcomes. A large part of the challenge is that governments have applied most of their resources to dealing with acute and immediate symptoms of disadvantage and dysfunction, such as law enforcement and crisis services in response to violence, child neglect, substance abuse, and self-harm. These problems cannot, and should not, be ignored.

However, government services have been less successful in addressing the causes of the disadvantage and dysfunction experienced by Aboriginal people. The result has been an array of uncoordinated services, which are expensive and difficult to deliver but do little to support individual and family success. Importantly, the design and delivery of services, in combination with government policy settings, often disempower and disengage Aboriginal families and reduce the incentives for those families to take up school, training and job opportunities. For example, until a change of policy in 2010, low income limits for accessing public housing, combined with expensive or non-existent private housing markets, meant that in some locations in the Pilbara and Kimberley a person could be faced with a stark choice between being unemployed and housed or employed and homeless.

Effective human services can assist families to navigate difficult circumstances and build resilience. However, recent reviews have reported limited human services effectiveness in regional and remote areas of Western Australia, with many providers delivering an array of services with little or no coordination between funders or between providers.

For example, a 2014 study looked at government and non-government funding and services in the town of Roebourne and three Martu communities in the East Pilbara. In Roebourne, there were 63 government and non government providers delivering over 200 services to about 1,400 people. Other issues identified in government reviews include:

• A lack of coordination has caused under- servicing and over-servicing, duplicated efforts, and an inability to prioritise funding towards critical need.
• State-wide programs are not being effectively translated into place-based services that focus on individual families or communities.
• Funding and outcomes are set centrally at a program-level based on episodes or events, and lack the flexibility to be tailored (and measured) to a family’s needs and circumstances.
• Many services contracts do not contain meaningful performance or outcome measures.
• Services are almost exclusively developed and delivered within single agencies, with relatively few cross-agency service models.
• Agencies typically only work together in critical situations that require a statutory (e.g. police or child protection) response and which are driven by urgency and immediacy.
• There is relatively little focus on prevention, and secondary and earlier intervention services that can prevent critical situations and deliver better outcomes for a lower long- term cost.
• Community input on the design and implementation of services is rare.
• There is a ‘long tail’ of small, short-term programs and services that consume a substantial amount of funder and provider administrative effort for limited or no outcomes.