Developing effective emergency management partnerships in remote north Australian communities - final project report

This project explored community governance issues and aspirations among Bininj and Yolngu in two major communities of central and east Arnhem Land NT. In recognising persistent and systemic marginalisation issues, such as poor communication and engagement, both Ramingining and Galiwin’ku project leaders sought to provide a stronger foundation for partnerships at community level and a clear direction to Emergency Management (EM) and other agencies to adopt for more effective and mutually beneficial partnership arrangements in service delivery.

One identified key EM issue for remote communities is the need to be able to empower customary governance structures as a basis for developing and articulating community priorities and needs. To complement this, an identified key issue for EM agencies is to better understand how to effectively engage with community governance arrangements. This publication concludes that currently the relationship between agencies and Bininj is best described in this little story where a representative of each group goes on a journey together. It is time for agencies to acknowledge that they are on this journey together with Bininj, and that Bininj may actually bring something valuable to the table. For now, the agencies hold all the cards, and until and when they are ready to really engage, communities will remain silent passengers in EM.