Traditional authority structures in Australia gave meaning to community life over millennia, maintaining cultural practices which ensured Aboriginal people were able to cope successfully in their environments.  These practices had not evolved to cope with the unprecedented pace of change that followed European settlement.  As with colonies everywhere, a new system of authority was imposed, and a master-servant relationship developed between the colonists and Aboriginal people whose land desired by the colonists.  In time, state governments began to impose and enforce assimilationist practices. Traditional culture was progressively weakened, and the roles that supported a hunter/gatherer culture began to disappear.  Symptoms of loss, such as substance abuse, chronic illness, family dysfunction and incarceration increased with loss of land, culture, roles, identity and spirit.

The evidence is fairly conclusive that modern Australian governments can’t fix this colonial legacy.  Walk Together Design is based on the belief, and a considerable amount of evidence, that Aboriginal people probably can, if they are given the authority to make decisions about how it is to happen.  As one Aboriginal man in the Northern Territory said recently to a gathering of government people, “What have you got to lose?  We couldn’t possibly do a worse job than you’ve done!”

He was responding to the way government people often feel compelled to make decisions for communities, or do things to them.  This way of doing things entrenches on-going dependency with all its symptoms, costs huge amounts of money, and offers little hope that anything will change in a hurry.

Aboriginal people freely acknowledge that many communities are not in a position to manage their own affairs at this time. But they still express the desire to do things with other stakeholders, because they feel an equal or equitable partnership offers them the chance of a respectful relationship. It also offers the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way to decisions that will enable the preservation of those aspects of their culture which they want to preserve, and adapting aspects that may not be helpful to their futures.

Currently, a lot of consultation with community people is persuading them to agree to decisions that have already been taken. This is tokenism. In the Walk Together Design, the decision-making process is facilitated to begin with to ensure the process is shared.