Paper short abstract:

Morality is a key element in definitions of accountability and corruption in the Indigenous affairs policymaking arena. Yet moral-based policy in this sphere is marked by contradictions and expressions of hegemonic normativity, as ethnographic research in rural Northern Territory demonstrates.

Paper long abstract:

Amidst the dramatic public spectacle of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (aka the Intervention), another normalisation policy fuelled by moral principles was being implemented in the Northern Territory's (NT's) rural local government sector. In 2008 a major regionalisation reform occurred, in which 53 mainly rural and majority Indigenous community councils were forcibly amalgamated into eight regional shires. The new shires have remained trenchantly unpopular, and have been criticised for having undermined local control over government service delivery, employment and local governance practices in Indigenous communities. Yet policymakers have used a mix of administrative expertise and moral righteousness to justify the reform: as a necessary change to curb corruption and instil good governance into the sector. This mode of argumentation thus allowed for popular opposition to be effectively marginalised, by removing any moral alternative to the new shires.

This paper focuses on the Roper Gulf Shire region and the operations of the multi-billion dollar McArthur River Mine near Borroloola in order to explore moral-based policy definitions of accountability, corruption and the heterotopic overlaps in between. Why, for example, does government fund costly management structures to strictly monitor council vehicle use, but largely overlooks tax avoidance and environmental pollution by the mining industry? The deployment of morality as a justification for policy is interpreted here within a political context, as an expression of shifting normativity that serves hegemonic ends.