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  • 01 Understanding governance
    • 1.0 Understanding governance
    • 1.1 The important parts of governance
    • 1.2 Indigenous governance
    • 1.3 Governance in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations
    • 1.4 Case studies
  • 02 Culture and governance
    • 2.0 Culture and governance
    • 2.1 Indigenous governance and culture
    • 2.2 Two-way governance
    • 2.3 Case studies
  • 03 Getting started
    • 3.0 Getting started on building your governance
    • 3.1 Assessing your governance
    • 3.2 Mapping your community for governance
    • 3.3 Case studies
  • 04 Leadership
    • 4.0 Leadership for governance
    • 4.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership
    • 4.2 The challenges of leadership
    • 4.3 Evaluating your leadership
    • 4.4 Youth leadership and succession planning
    • 4.5 Building leadership capacity to govern
    • 4.6 Case studies
  • 05 Governing the organisation
    • 5.0 Governing the organisation
    • 5.1 Roles, responsibilities and rights of a governing body
    • 5.2 Accountability: what is it, to whom and how?
    • 5.3 Decision making by the governing body
    • 5.4 Governing finances and resources
    • 5.5 Communicating
    • 5.6 Future planning
    • 5.7 Building capacity and confidence for governing bodies
    • 5.8 Case studies
  • 06 Rules and policies
    • 6.0 Governance rules and policies
    • 6.1 What are governance rules?
    • 6.2 Governance rules and culture
    • 6.3 Running effective meetings
    • 6.4 Policies for organisations
    • 6.5 Case studies
  • 07 Management and staff
    • 7.0 Management and staff
    • 7.1 Managing the organisation
    • 7.2 The governing body and management
    • 7.3 Managing staff
    • 7.4 Staff development and training
    • 7.5 Case studies
  • 08 Disputes and complaints
    • 8.0 Dealing with disputes and complaints
    • 8.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous approaches
    • 8.2 Core principles and skills for dispute and complaint resolution
    • 8.3 Disputes and complaints about governance
    • 8.4 Your members: dealing with disputes and complaints
    • 8.5 Organisations: dealing with internal disputes and complaints
    • 8.6 Practical guidelines and approaches
    • 8.7 Case studies
  • 09 Nation building and development
    • 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development
    • 9.1 What is nation rebuilding?
    • 9.2 Governance for nation rebuilding
    • 9.3 Governance for sustained development
    • 9.4 Networked governance
    • 9.5 Kick-starting the process of nation rebuilding
    • 9.6 Case studies
  • Glossary
  • Useful links
  • Acknowledgements

6.2 Governance rules and culture

 06 Rules and policies

What is culture?

Different cultures have different rules for how they govern.

Culture informs a group’s rules for determining what constitutes the ‘right way’ of exercising authority and making decisions, and what constitutes the ‘wrong way’.

Problems and conflicts arise when very different governance rules, having contradictory values and types of accountability are imposed on people.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today live under two very different sets of governance rules—their own, and those of non-Indigenous Australia.

A common challenge facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is how to manage and align the often competing demands placed on them by these different sets of rules.

Many organisations are responding by exploring ways to renew their governance rules from the inside. Uppermost in their minds are issues of internal legitimacy and accountability.

6.2.1 Building cultural legitimacy into your rules

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Martumili staff member Kathleen Sorensen with artist Mabel Warkarta in the painting shed at Parngurr. Image, Wayne Quilliam

Redesigning governance arrangements is a sovereign decision.

From this viewpoint, the practice of developing and enforcing capable rules, on a daily basis, is actually what ‘self-determination in action’ is about.

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people voice the common and deep concern that their cultures must have a place in their governance arrangements, and that this has to be respected and workable in today’s world.

Culture is not seen as a problem, but rather as a source of strength and innovation.

“Innovation and creativity are not new to our Indigenous cultures; all our cultures have traditions
where people experimented, did things differently, made innovative changes.

We can take that model and use it to continue to adapt into the future.”

(Manu Barcham, Comments at Common Roots, Common Futures: Different Paths to Self-determination, International Conversation, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, February 2012)

The cultural foundations of Girringun’s governance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v334KJLL1_I&feature=player_embedded

Girringun Aboriginal Corporation was awarded Highly Commended Category A in the 2014 Indigenous Governance Awards. Here CEO Phil Rist describes how Girringun’s cultural and spiritual foundations underpin the organisation’s success.

NPY Women’s Council’s guiding principles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XBoLNCKy4s&feature=player_embedded

Listen to how the NYP Women's Council has built cultural values into their constitution and how these guiding principles are the spirit of the organisation and foundation of their governance.

In general, governance rules that have cultural legitimacy are ones that:

  • assert and protect values that are important to you
  • reflect your ideas about how power and authority should be shared in your organisation
  • have the support of your people because they have helped develop them.

There are several critical areas where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations can strengthen their governance through creating culturally legitimate rules.

Tips: Issues that benefit from making culturally legitimate rules

  • Membership—rules for who can and cannot be a member of the organisation.
  • Representation—rules for who is eligible to sit on the governing body, and how people are elected to it.
  • Conduct—rules for how the governing body, managers and staff behave.
  • Decision making—rules for how accountable consensus-based decisions should be made.
  • Meetings—rules for how and when meetings are held and for addressing culturally sensitive issues.
  • Communication—rules for how members will be consulted and kept informed.
  • Mediation—rules for how disputes and complaints will be resolved.
  • Administration—rules to enable greater cultural flexibility in employment and human resources conditions.
  • Planning—rules that support future cultural vision and priorities.
  • Gender roles—rules for the different knowledge and leadership responsibilities of men and women.

Developing new or more effective governance rules does not mean ignoring the past. Nor does it require reinventing a cultural fantasy. It means building on the internal strengths and traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance.

It may also involve people rethinking their ideas of how to govern, and creating rules and procedures that meet their contemporary needs.

“The challenge is to develop new governance models which are based on the best of the Aboriginal domain and tools from the non-Aboriginal domain. This would involve marrying Aboriginal law and tradition with non-Aboriginal ways.”

(Galawarruy Yunupingu, ‘Land rights, the Northern Territory and “development” into the 21st century’, Charles Darwin Symposium series, 18 July 2003, Darwin)

This process of developing cultural legitimacy can be challenging and shouldn’t be rushed. It takes time, courage, experimentation and some hard-headed realism to work out what suits different communities and groups.

The trick is to design rules that can pass both tests: that are at once both practical and legitimate.

As such, it is not surprising that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations stress the cultural importance of broad community consultation when developing new governance rules and processes.

For all these reasons, your new governance rules should not be set in legal concrete too quickly—they need time to be road-tested with your members and should have sufficient flexibility to be refined over time.

Example: Thamarrurr Regional Council’s vision for its governance, Wadeye, NT.

“This symbol shows how we are moving to have strong, representative government. The symbol is about Thamarrurr – the traditional government of our ancestors and the building blocks of the future. Our new Thamarrurr Council is built on these foundations:
– 20 clans
– 2 representatives from each clan
– every clan is equal
Today, we are beginning to regain control of our lives. We want to be regarded and treated as able-bodied citizens of Australia.”

What can we do? Cultural legitimacy in governance rules and policies

PDF View/download

You can use this resource to help create culturally legitimate rules and policies. It also contains some great ideas that work from others.

6.2.2 Incorporation rules and cultural rules

The Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (Cth) sets out how incorporated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations should create their rules. It includes western democratic standards of governance and accountability, but also allows people some leeway to craft rules more relevant to their own culture. For example:

  • Non-indigenous directors. Organisations can choose whether to allow non-Indigenous people—experts, spouses and step-children, for example—to be members or directors. Indigenous people must always be in the majority so even if an organisation chooses to allow non-Indigenous members, it will always be controlled by Indigenous people. It is not compulsory to allow non-Indigenous people to be members or directors, but this gives organisations another option.
  • Eligibility of members. All incorporated organisations must have a rule book that sets out its aims, its name, and a process for resolving disputes and any other matters. Eligibility criteria, such as requiring a member to live in a particular region, is an example of a matter that an organisation can include in its rule book.
  • Who appoints the chair? An organisation can decide that instead of directors appointing the chair of a general meeting, the members can decide.
  • Holding meetings remotely. Meetings can be held by video or teleconference—this is important for very remote organisations or for those whose directors cannot easily read and write English. Meetings can also be held in the local Indigenous language so long as some parts can be translated later if required.

Remember, a governing body has the inherent right to collectively develop its own rules, and to design culturally informed procedures for putting them into practice.

6.2.3 Charity governance standards and cultural rules

Charity has a special legal meaning which can include a wide range of not-for-profits, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. There are a number of benefits of registering an organisation as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), including access to Commonwealth government tax concessions.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Act 2012 (Cth) sets out the obligations registered charities need to meet, including governance standards. The governance standards are general western principles of good governance, but are general principles that set minimum requirements for governance, rather than precise rules. This allows for flexibility and organisations can develop good governance practices more relevant to their own culture, size and types of activities.

The ACNC will not ask every registered charity to demonstrate they are meeting the governance standards, only those that the ACNC believes may be in serious breach of the governance standards.

Organisations that follow the rules under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (Cth) will most likely meet the governance standards. Organisations that use the tools and resources in this toolkit will most likely develop good governance practices beyond the minimum standards required by the ACNC.

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Case Studies

NPY Women’s Council – strong culture, strong women, strong communities

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NPY Women’s Council: Building your cultural guiding principles into your rulebook

The NPY Women’s Council became incorporated under new legislation in 2008. The council undertook a significant period of consultation with its members—spread across a large geographic region—in the lead-up to lodging its new rulebook (formally known as the constitution) with …

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The Australian Indigenous Governance Institute

The Australian Indigenous Governance Institute is a unique Indigenous led national centre of governance knowledge and excellence. We know that practically effective and culturally legitimate governance is the staple building block for delivering real change.

We assist Indigenous Australians in their diverse efforts to determine and strengthen their own sustainable systems of self-governance by identifying world-class governance practice, informing effective policy, providing accessible research, disseminating stories that celebrate outstanding success and solutions, and delivering professional education and training opportunities.

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