Because one cannot simply demarcate the colonial past from struggles in the present, the contemporary exercise of Indigenous governance is a process that must constantly attempt to renegotiate the balance of domination, subordination and contestation in its interactions with the Australian state (Pels 1997: 163). Furthermore, ‘the state’ does not sit in splendid isolation in the nation’s capital. Nor is it homogeneous. In its governmental, departmental and bureaucratic guises, the state daily manifests itself in Indigenous communities and organisations. The governmentality of the state can be understood as a pattern of power and set of supporting institutions that are dispersed—and not uniformly so—through the Indigenous social body. Contestation also highlights relationships between sets of individuals, as well as systems. These relationships may vary from local, familiar and seemingly benign, to distant, alien and antagonistic.

A broad perspective running through this book is that we must therefore study Indigenous governance as relationships between and among Australian governments and Indigenous groups, and as contestation and negotiation over the appropriateness and application of policy, institutional and funding frameworks within Indigenous affairs. The self-determination policy initiated various government experiments with community management, service delivery and institutional mechanisms for Indigenous-specific funding. More recently, a dominant mode of the state has been increased unilateral intervention into the political, social, family and economic lives of Indigenous communities. This has been particularly evident with the exercise of Commonwealth powers in the Northern Territory (NT).

There is little doubt that the difficulties of Indigenous governance in the context of extremely limited self-determination have long been apparent to those who study the aftermath of Indigenous struggles in the post-colonial world. In Australia it is evident, for example, in lost economic and resource rights, ruptured social fabrics, diminished law, language and ceremony, ill health, broken families and extreme welfare dependency. It is not surprising then that some commentators, including influential Indigenous spokespersons, argue that direct intervention by the state is long overdue and is justified to end dysfunction. But in these unilateral interventions, government support for Indigenous self-governance and related capacity-building is noticeably absent.

Indigenous self-determination in Australia is now widely disparaged. It has failed to deliver expected improvements in socioeconomic outcomes and has been poorly implemented by governments (Hunt this volume, Chapter 2). While there are some examples of outstanding Indigenous governance success (Reconciliation Australia 2006, 2008), there are also examples that have tragically failed to provide for the most basic rights of the people they are meant to represent. A preoccupation with Indigenous governance failure and dysfunction, however, has taken hold among policy makers and commentators alike, to the point that Indigenous institutions and capacity are now commonly seen through the lens of a deficit model of, and a problem for, ‘good governance’.

Within this environment, Indigenous peoples in Australia have also been determined to increase their authority and capacity over their own affairs, resources and futures. They also point to the dysfunction and lack of governance capacity within governments as being equally relevant causal factors contributing to their poor community governance and socioeconomic disadvantage.

Partly as a result of these outcomes and public debates, the issue of governance and more particularly ‘good governance’ has come into greater prominence in Australian Indigenous affairs. As the concept of ‘good governance’ has rapidly transferred from the arena of international development and corporate management into policy making and bureaucratic language, some State and Territory governments have shown an interest in paying attention to Indigenous governance, but have found implementation difficult; their own capacities have been challenged by the task. The issue of governance also preoccupies Indigenous communities, organisations and leaders who have been bitterly disappointed with the political rhetoric and institutional failures of the Australian state over many decades. Indigenous groups are increasingly considering whether governance offers them an avenue to greater self-determination, when the official policy by that name did not, and while many remain so dependent on the state.

Getting governance right is gradually being recognised by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians as fundamental to improving Indigenous well-being and generating sustained socioeconomic development. But its introduction into Australia has been loaded with unrealistic expectations and contradictory assumptions. There is little critical understanding or consensus about its meaning, or how effective governance in Indigenous communities and regions might be developed, so that people talking about governance are often ‘talking past each other’, as Thorburn’s chapter (Chapter 13) in this volume illustrates.