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The NCARA–State Accord is the first multi-regional Accord in New South Wales (NSW), making it an important milestone under the Local Decision Making (LDM) initiative, a key initiative under the OCHRE plan for Aboriginal affairs in NSW. It commits the NSW Government and the New South Wales Coalition of Aboriginal Regional Alliances (NCARA) to work together to support, renew and return Aboriginal peoples to prosperity. The NCARA–State Accord is a principle-based agreement centred around self-determination which provides a framework for collaboration between the two parties. The NCARA–State Accord Evaluation Report is an outcome evaluation. It investigates if and how the NCARA–State Accord is achieving ‘what it set out to do’ in relation to transforming government and transforming relationships under the LDM initiative. The first part of the report examines the outcomes of establishing a separate Aboriginal governance body, known as NCARA, at the state level under the LDM initiative and its role within the broader LDM governance network. It also evaluates the outcome of signing the NCARA–State Accord. The second part of the report focuses on findings relating to transformational change around reclaiming, renewing, and returning Aboriginal people in NSW to prosperity, and transforming Aboriginal service delivery in NSW. It examines the outcomes of the NCARA–State Accord in terms of transforming government, including improving working relationships, sharing decision making, improving service delivery ownership, and sharing data. It finds that the NCARA–State Accord has fallen short in practice, particularly with respect to public sector engagement with NCARA. The report recommends improvements that would strengthen the way that NSW Government agencies engage with NCARA to achieve the intent of the NCARA–State Accord.

Local Decision Making (LDM) is a NSW Government initiative that aims to transform the way that NSW Government agencies engage with Aboriginal communities regarding service delivery. The aims and approach of the LDM initiative are characteristic of the contemporary emphasis on partnerships, agreements, and accountability structures in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public policy in Australia. This report presents the overarching preliminary findings of the OCHRE Local Decision Making Stage 2 Evaluation. It considers those findings in the context of the evaluation’s primary goal of understanding the operation of the OCHRE LDM initiative in order to improve its processes and outcomes. The report presents case studies that illustrate how communities are strengthening their leadership and governance around service delivery through regional governance bodies. It discusses how regional governance bodies are providing NSW government agencies with a key point of access for community engagement and advice, and examples where regional governance bodies are instrumental in securing improvements around community control over service delivery. It describes occasions where regional governance bodies have worked with NSW Government agencies to secure new innovative approaches to the way that government does business with them. While highlighting these examples of success, the report finds that progress under LDM has been ad hoc. LDM is not implemented well across the board. There have not been systematic transformations of relationships between Aboriginal communities and the NSW Government under LDM. The report discusses areas where the design and implementation of LDM are falling short. It provides evidence and recommendations that may be used to improve outcomes under LDM in future.

The paper analyses the quantitative findings of a three-year mixed-method research project developed in partnership with six urban First Nations organisations in the Australian state of New South Wales. The research is designed to engage with Closing the Gap 2020, and past policy, in relation to the positioning of First Nations organisations in relation to the delivery of government services to First Nations people. As part of this research, a survey was developed based on the observations, questions, and concerns of our partner First Nations organisations and wider First Nations Discussion Circles. This paper speaks back to a longstanding policy position about the role and function of First Nations organisations in the Indigenous service market, which discursively positions First Nations organisations as service providers, by using the findings of the survey that identify an alternative Indigenous perspective about the distinctive role of urban First Nations organisations in society.

The report presents the findings of an evaluation of the Barang Regional Alliance Accord Negotiation. This evaluation was conducted by researchers from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), and its findings are based on their independent assessment of the data collected. This included a series of discussion circles with six Barang Regional Alliance Negotiators; five in-depth interviews with NSW Lead Negotiators, and one with an Independent Facilitator; minutes from meetings held as part of the Accord negotiation process; and documents published by the NSW Government about the Opportunity, Choice, Healing, Responsibility, Empowerment (OCHRE) and Local Decision Making (LDM) policies

The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research was commissioned by Aboriginal Affairs NSW (AANSW) to evaluate Accord negotiations in three Local Decision Making (LDM) sites (represented by three Aboriginal Regional Alliances). Accord negotiation is part of the New South Wales (NSW) Government’s LDM initiative, which is itself part of the broader OCHRE (Opportunity, Choice, Healing, Responsibility, Empowerment) plan for Aboriginal affairs in NSW. LDM aims to redefine the relationship between NSW Aboriginal communities and the NSW Government, based on a new emphasis on partnerships, agreements, and accountability. LDM and the Accord-making process is currently taking place in several regions across NSW. The research team was commissioned to evaluate Accord negotiations in three LDM sites (represented by three Aboriginal Regional Alliances) over a period of five months. The evaluation focused on the three phases of Accord negotiation outlined above: the pre-negotiation phase, the negotiation phase (including pre-Accord workshops and formal Accord negotiation), and the post-negotiation phase (including Accord implementation). Findings from the evaluation are presented in site-specific reports for each LDM region, and in this synthesis report. The commissioned LDM Accords Negotiation Evaluation had two main goals. The first goal was to increase understanding of the three phases of Accord negotiation (pre-negotiation, negotiation, and post-negotiation). The second goal was to identify the strengths of the Accord negotiations processes, the challenges encountered, strategies for addressing these challenges, and opportunities for improvement. Those two goals were to be achieved via interviews with Regional Alliance Accord Negotiators, NSW Public Official Accord Negotiators, and Independent Facilitators, as well as the analysis of various documents (see below). This synthesis report compares the findings of the CAEPR Evaluations with previous Evaluations and situates the

Treaties in New South Wales

Indigenous Invisibility in the City contextualises the significant social change in Indigenous life circumstances and resurgence that came out of social movements in cities. It is about Indigenous resurgence and community development by First Nations people for First Nations people in cities. Seventy-five years ago, First Nations peoples began a significant post-war period of relocation to cities in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. First Nations peoples engaged in projects of resurgence and community development in the cities of the four settler states. First Nations peoples, who were motivated by aspirations for autonomy and empowerment, went on to create the foundations of Indigenous social infrastructure. This book explains the ways First Nations people in cities created and took control of their own futures. A fact largely wilfully ignored in policy contexts. Today, differences exist over the way governments and First Nations peoples see the role and responsibilities of Indigenous institutions in cities. What remains hidden in plain sight is their societal function as a social and political apparatus through which much of the social processes of Indigenous resurgence and community development in cities occurred. The struggle for self-determination in settler cities plays out through First Nations people's efforts to sustain their own institutions and resurgence, but also rights and recognition in cities. This book will be of interest to Indigenous studies scholars, urban sociologists, urban political scientists, urban studies scholars, and development studies scholars interested in urban issues and community building and development.

The purpose of Discussion Paper is to describe the observations of the Tjillari Justice Strong Culture Strong Family program run for Aboriginal male detainees and their families in the Alexander Maconachie Centre, which is a prison and remand centre in the Australian Capital Territory. The paper aims to draw on the observations to examine and explain the program in the context of (1) parenting in prison and the creation of positive parenting experiences, (2) connecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander detainees to family, identity and culture in the context of desistance and restorative justice; and, (3) understanding the program as an innovative Indigenous justice program. The research also asks important questions about the policy and wider justice context in which such programs are developed and take place. The research is generated from a formalised collaboration and partnership between the two authors, Deborah Evans who is CEO of Tjillari Justice Aboriginal Corporation and Associate Professor Deirdre Howard-Wagner who is a Senior Fellow in CAEPR. This collaboration emerged from the researcher being approached by Tjillari Justice Aboriginal Corporation (‘Tjillari’) to assist with the research needs of the organisation. It is an example of community-initiated rather than researcher-led research.

This highly topical collection of essays addresses contemporary issues facing Indigenous communities from a broad range of multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Drawing from across the social sciences and humanities, this important volume challenges the established norms, theories, and methodologies within the field, and argues for the potential of a multidimensional approach to solving problems of Indigenous justice. Stemming from an international conference on ‘Spaces of Indigenous Justice’, Indigenous Justice is richly illustrated with case studies and comprises contributions from scholars working across the fields of law, socio-legal studies, sociology, public policy, politico-legal theory, and Indigenous studies. As such, the editors of this timely and engaging volume draw upon a wide range of experience to argue for a radical shift in how we engage with Indigenous studies.

Over the last 40 years, Aboriginal Community Based Organisations have played a distinctive role in society in relation to urban Aboriginal peoples and their rights to self‐determination and community development in the Australian city of Newcastle. They have proven essential to advocacy, the maintenance of community development, and the creation of new Aboriginal social infrastructure (community organisations, facilities, services, and supporting infrastructure). Autonomy has been empowering for local Aboriginal people. Major reforms to the delivery of government social services, particularly government enablement of a new social service market based on New Public Management principles, threaten this success. This interpretive, qualitative case study illustrates the effects of social service market enablement. It draws on a case study of the effects of social service market enablement on urban Aboriginal Community Based Organisations in Newcastle, showing the antagonistic relationship between social service market enablement and Aboriginal community enablement and development. It ends with a discussion of how Aboriginal community development in this city could be re‐enabled in light of the Prime Minister's arguments in his 2017 Annual Parliamentary Closing the Gap speech providing particular value in the context of policy discussions about moving from transactional government to enablement in Indigenous affairs.

Ten years on from the Council of Australian Governments committing to National Indigenous Reform Agreement – Closing the Gap, the Federal Government has announced the Closing the Gap Refresh. Five academics and visitors at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research made submissions as part of the Closing the Gap Refresh ‘Have Your Say’ process, engaging with the Closing the Gap Refresh from specialist disciplinary perspectives and with their grounded expertise. The views of these individuals have been consolidated into a single document to ensure their longer-term availability. Together, the submissions in this CAEPR Topical Issue paper argue that the failure of gaps to close is a reflection of a failed policy-making process. All five papers indicate the need for substantial change and structural reform, and express concern at the risk that the current ‘refresh’ will simply ‘paper over the gaps’. They identify a need for governments to do policy differently, and suggest avenues toward a reform of the policy-making process in Indigenous Affairs.