In recent times, there has been much questioning of the (in)ability of government to transform Indigenous social conditions, with calls for the corporate, philanthropic and social enterprise sectors to take greater charge of social policy. Yet for all the critique, there is a lingering hope beating in many hearts that the government is the logical place to turn to for leadership and reform.

The 20/20 Summit which ushered in the new Rudd Government with such media fanfare captured these contradictions: for every call for action to remedy past failures, there was an expectation that ‘the government’ should do something, fund this, inquire into that, establish a centre for something else. Somehow, despite the gathering of some of Australia’s most independently minded protagonists, the solutions were exactly what the government is perfectly orchestrated to deliver.

The process did not release innovation but enervation; yet the force of the process was so powerful we participated anyway. We complained among ourselves, yet we upheld it. And we called for interventions and programs to be designed by the very people whose singular competency lies in creating formulaic policy setting processes such as these. In other words, it was a voluntary technique of bureaucratic perpetuation, sustained by people who are otherwise regarded as fierce intellects, independent reformers and community activists.

Indigenous health suffers from exactly this ventriloquism. Far from being democratic, the workshop process exerts a stranglehold on analysis. Yet try getting anything done in the fiercely democratic Indigenous health arena without convening a group process first, and see how far you get!

The take home message for health advocates is that disrupting these deeply internalised processes requires more than public health urgency, well-worded ‘Close the Gap’ strategic papers or even new funding.

An entire cultural order is in place which is designed to reproduce approaches and analyses that are familiar and known. Innovation gets captured and crushed, while logic and that elusive thing called ‘evidence’ cannot permanently rupture bureaucratic practices and institutional routines – especially when the ostensible system radicals are holding the whiteboard markers.

So is there an alternative to workshops? Can they be made useful?
What do you think would help? I’d love to hear about your favourite workshop vignette or most ridiculous workshop drill.

Associate Professor Tess Lea is a former senior bureaucrat who directs the School for Social and Policy Research at Charles Darwin University. Her new book is Bureaucrats & Bleeding Hearts: Indigenous Health in Northern Australia.