INCREASING THE NUMBERS OF INDIGENOUS PARLIAMENTARIANS
INCREASING THE NUMBERS OF INDIGENOUS PARLIAMENTARIANS How recent diversity management theory can be applied to the goal of increasing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Parliamentarians in the CPA Australia Region.
Dr Chris Bourke, MLA is a Member
of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory. He is a Government Whip, Assistant Speaker and Chair of the Standing Committee on Health, Ageing, Community and Social Services. First elected in 2011, he has served as ACT Minister for Education and Training, Industrial Relations, Corrections, and Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Affairs. Prior to entering politics, he ran a successful dental practice and graduated from Melbourne University as the first Aboriginal to complete a dental degree.
Introduction This article considers contemporary diversity management theory and how it could be used to support calls for more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Parliamentarians in Australia. Despite making up 3% of the Australian population, only 17 of the 822 MPs in Australia’s Parliaments are Indigenous (Gobbett 2015). This significant underrepresentation is a poor outcome for Indigenous peoples who are entitled to a fair go in our democracy. It is also a poor outcome for Australia as our political parties and Parliaments miss out on the input of Indigenous perspectives on public policy and administration. The New South Wales deputy opposition leader, Linda Burney, has listed respect, grace, the capacity for narrative and a desire for consensus as the qualities she took into the New South Wales Parliament as an Aboriginal woman. Indigenous MPs can also leverage their impact by advocating for cultural capital to develop better services for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians through the use of Indigenous social concepts. An example is the Aboriginal Medical Service, which was founded more than 40 years ago to tackle the medical aspects of disease in a comprehensive and holistic manner, they also engaged with the social determinants of ill health. The recent development of Medicare Locals and Super Clinics emulate this Indigenous approach to holistic health.
Diversity management theory and evidence Diversity management research looks at diverse and inclusive workplaces and their effect upon organisations. A diverse workforce can provide competitive advantage to an organisation by improving reputation, enabling access to culturally diverse clients or customers, and improving effectiveness (Kramar et al. 2013, p. 293). Recent evidence supports the theory that diversity management delivers strategic benefits. In the US, managerial racial diversity delivered better outcomes for companies with a bigger market share and above average stock returns (Andrevski et al. 2014). Workforce diversity was found to be ‘particularly valuable in complex environments, such as diverse communities’ in a study of 56 US chain restaurants (Gonzalez 2013). Public servants in the Netherlands improved their performance with increased affective commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour when management diversity increased (Ashikali & Groeneveld 2015). The literature also indicates that poor implementation of diversity recruitment can lead to problems. Organisations with inclusive processes do well. Leadership that is committed to supporting inclusion, individual employee empowerment, and an organisational culture focused on results, improve performance with diverse workforces (Sabharwal
2014). Culturally diverse teams are effective when they work together to achieve a common goal with low interpersonal competition (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg & Van Dierendonck 2013). It is important to clearly link diversity efforts to the strategic goals of the organisation (WyattNichol & Antwi-Boasiako 2012). Recruitment for diversity The largest hire car company in the world, Enterprise Rent-A Car, has 74,000 employees in 12 countries. When Enterprise wanted to improve capability by recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce it asked three questions. 1. How do we attract applicants from all walks of life? 2. How do we reach out to different people and retain them? 3. And, how do we make sure all of our employees on the ground remember to do this with each and every new appointment? Enterprise created a diversity scorecard to highlight that diversity was ‘a critical element of our business success’ to all employees (Lafever-Ayer 2013). Other organisations have not been so adept. In New York, the city’s administrative departments were found to be inefficient in recruiting diverse employees (Guajardo 2015). Fragmented implementation is common and is usually unsuccessful (Martins 2015). Differences between policy rhetoric and implementation in a larger Australian Government
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