Accommodating Indigenous processes of decision making For a negotiation process to be successful, it needs to satisfy Indigenous processes of decision- making. Understanding the local cultural attributes, protocols, histories and political relations of the Indigenous group concerned will be crucial. For this reason, an essential prerequisite for a resource company entering agreement-making is sourcing the expertise of an individual or organisation with a good understanding of the Indigenous parties to the negotiation. Having obtained this expertise, the next important ingredient is to ensure that the negotiation process is designed in a way that is sensitive to the particular decision-making processes of the Indigenous parties. While every Indigenous group is different, for Australian Aboriginal groups there are some common attributes that the process will need to take into account: Aboriginal politics is characterised by a high degree of ‘localism’, with primary allegiance to local kin and family groups, with allegiance to a community or a broader region being of a lower order. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that an individual from a particular Aboriginal community who is appointed to a negotiating team will be able to represent the interests of all kin groups in that community, nor that the person will effectively communicate information back to all groups within the community. The individual is likely to have a much more family-centric perspective. Aboriginal politics also highly values the principle of individual and local group autonomy. For this reason, an Aboriginal person will be reluctant to speak on behalf of anyone but himself or herself, or in some instances, the person’s family group. It cannot be assumed therefore that an Aboriginal negotiating team structured on the basis of individuals representing communities or regions will have requisite authority or legitimacy. Local Aboriginal ‘representative’ organisations, such as community councils or service delivery organisations, may therefore have limited legitimacy or authority to speak on behalf of the traditional interests in land of residents of the community. While Aboriginal people may tolerate having broader community or regional representative structures for local government or service delivery purposes, representation in relation to land interests is solely the domain of local Traditional Owner groups and families. Due to the difficulties of representation alluded to in the last three points; there has been a tendency to re...
