Highlights of 2008/09

• Our wide-ranging research geography covered four jurisdictions and a large number of communities and service users. The Centre for Appropriate Technology conducted surveys of Lajamanu residents, and CP5 engaged in practical discussions on services with governments. This work shaped outputs that are valued and usable by Aboriginal people, government agencies and business.
• Researchers from the University of Queensland continued to work with people in Dajarra to examine the background, causes and potential improvements to the long-standing problem of poor water quality and insufficient supply to the township.
• Fieldwork was carried out in WA by AIATSIS to analyse the realignment of service responsibilities between Ngaanyatjarra Council and the Aboriginal-controlled Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku under the Regional Partnership Agreement signed in 2005.
• Aspects of services that are proving to be most useful as a focus for research outcomes include:
• • the role of services in achieving longer-term development outcomes (such as our research in Dajarra and around housing and local government reform in the NT)
  • work on conceptual thinking around service delivery to encourage a focus on the ways that services should be delivered and the role of residents as consumers (exemplified in our research with Martu people in Western Australia and in western Queensland with Myuma Pty Ltd, an Aboriginal service provider)
  • community engagement with Aboriginal people — not just communication by service providers across culture and language (our research on service models provides insight on this subject, especially where combined with analysis such as that from the PY Ku program).
    

• CP5 researchers continued our relationships with government and policy-makers, particularly those within the Northern Territory Government and with key staff in South Australia and Western Australia. The arrival of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) National Partnership Agreement as the major policy development in 2008–09 led to work with FaHCSIA. We were able to share observations from our research on ways to improve quality of interaction between service providers and users.
• The implementation of the PY Ku Network on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in South Australia created rural transaction centres as ‘onestop shops’ for a range of internet-based, financial, Centrelink, employment and other services. This work enabled the UniSA team to work in partnership with PY Media to evaluate an initiative that offers great potential to users and will yield insights relevant to future service planning.
• CP5 researchers conducted a ‘health check’ of community relationships through a monthly teleconference of researchers, which showed that we are employing up to 10 Aboriginal community researchers in four sites.
• Mapping of policy environment built a picture of the influences on service development and linked together trends between jurisdictions and at federal level. We completed and published a comprehensive report on housing and local government reform in the NT.
• A computer-based model of services is being produced by CSIRO that will enable service providers to understand and analyse more readily the performance of different approaches to services.