6.2 Where does culture fit in your governance rules?
Caption: Wunan Foundation
- Building cultural legitimacy into your rules
- Community and cultural rules
- Corporations and cultural rules
Culture lies at the heart of governance. It shapes a group’s rules by identifying the ‘right way’ of using authority and governing, and the ‘wrong way’.
Culture includes:
Indigenous Australians know the value of rules—they have them in their oral traditions, codes of behaviour, ceremonies, dreaming stories and laws, and kinship.
Today, they have to function under two very different sets of governance rules—their own, and those of non-Indigenous Australia.
Many organisations and communities are exploring ways to renew their governance rules from the inside.
Building cultural legitimacy into your rules
Governance rules with cultural legitimacy are ones that:
- have 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
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[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 (former chairman of the Northern Land Council), ‘Land rights, the Northern Territory and “development” into the 21st century’, Charles Darwin Symposium series, 18 July 2003, Darwin. |
Indigenous organisations need to create culturally legitimate governance rules for:
- how people are elected onto the governing body - and who they are
- who can be members of the organisation
- how memberships can be cancelled - of both the governing body and members of the organisation
- how the governing body makes decisions
- how the organisation's leaders behave - codes of conduct for the governing body, managers and staff
- how and when meetings are held
- how disputes are resolved
- how the organisation consults with the community and how it communicates its decisions.
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Thamarrurr Regional Council's vision for its governance, Wadeye, NT. Today, we are beginning to regain control of our lives. We want to be regarded and treated as able-bodied citizens of Australia. This symbol shows how we are moving to have a 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:
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See: Resource 6.1 What can we do?—Cultural legitimacy in governance rules and policies
Community and cultural rules
Getting ongoing support and cultural legitimacy from community members can be difficult, especially when so many communities now have a mix of cultural traditions.
That is why many Indigenous organisations consult the whole community when they create new governance rules and processes.
Gender issues also often reflect cultural traditions in governance rules. Some organisations have developed specific rules for the culturally different roles, knowledge and leadership responsibilities of men and women.
Some organisations appoint cultural advisors or Elders to provide advice and guidance for the organisation on cultural matters and give their decisions cultural legitimacy. For example, Wirrimanu Aboriginal Corporation in Balgo, WA established a permanent circle of Elders, 4 senior men and 4 senior women, to sit alongside the board directors and give advice on land, law and cultural matters. This function is written into the corporation’s rule book.
Corporations and cultural rules
The Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 sets out how corporations should create their rules. It includes modern standards of governance and accountability, but it also allows people to make some of their rules more relevant to their own culture.
For example:
Non-Indigenous directors
Corporations can choose whether to allow non-Indigenous people—for example, experts, spouses and step children—to be members or directors. Indigenous people must always be in the majority so even if a corporation chooses to allow non-Indigenous members the corporation will always be controlled by Indigenous people. It is not compulsory to allow non-Indigenous people to be members or directors; it just gives corporations a new option.
Eligibility of members
All corporations must have a rule book which sets out its aims, its name, a process for resolving disputes and any other matters the corporation wants. Eligibility, such as a member must live in a particular region, is an example of a matter that the corporation may want to include in its rule book.
Who appoints the chair
A corporation 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 corporations or for those whose directors cannot easily read and write English. Meetings can also be held in language so long as some parts can be translated later if required.
Check out The Rule Book on ORIC’s website.
Read next: 6.3 Policies
Read previous: 6.1 What are governance rules?