Regrouping Indigenous Media

The Indigenous media sector is a diverse group with many different interests and objectives. It includes large, metro wide, full time indigenous community broadcasters; the remote BRACS (Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme) units which are predominantly based in central and northern Australia; Indigenous film and television producers; and print journalists. This diversity makes it an interesting and vibrant sector. But the challenges of representing such a diverse group unfortunately also contributed to the winding up of the National Indigenous Media Association (NIMAA) in 2001.

Now a new body, The Australian Indigenous Communications Association (AICA), is being established to represent the interests of Indigenous media workers and organisations. AICA will endeavour to represent all the different interest groups, and to help to move the Indigenous media sector forward. One idea they will be investigating is the possibility of a National Indigenous Broadcasting Service, similar to SBS.
None of this will be an easy task – but Wal Saunders, who has been given the job of Interim Co-ordinator of AICA, believes that if they look at the problems of the past, AICA will be able to overcome them and become a diverse, effective and exciting organisation.

The CBAA’s Troy Garner put on his press hat and spoke to Wal about AICA’s goals.
Garner: Wal , you’re setting up a new indigenous association for Australia’s media?

Saunders: Yes I’ve been contracted for three months to convene the conference of the Australian Indigenous Communications Association and to hopefully get it set up and incorporated during the three months and to convene it’s first Annual General Meeting in Sydney. Basically my main role is to convene the conference and to have as many examples of incorporation as possible.

Garner: So NIMAA is gone and this is an entirely brand new organisation? Are you confronting the problems of the past in the process of getting set up?

Saunders: Yes basically this is the replacement. The areas that it fell down last time are that it really wasn’t clearly defined who NIMAA was, plus NIMAA had difficulties in defining membership and who exactly it represented. So that created a lot of problems in regard to due process and so much of the AGM’s were bogged down with those issues. It also ended up competing against its fellow members -who it was supposed to represent- for contracts.

So it was very muddy and that’s not good governance. So we’re trying to start this off with good governance. What is exactly good governance? Hopefully Professor Allan Fels will attend to talk about good governance and perhaps give us some ideas about what kind of models for incorporation we could use that best suits our needs.

We are going to clearly define the membership question upfront and have a clear debate about it. Because the kind of people we represent ranges from print journalists, television producers, community broadcasters, commercial broadcasters, commercial television, film makers and writers, so it’s quite a large eclectic group of communications specialists so hopefully we are going to be truly representative of them all.

Garner: With such a diverse membership base, a big problem is of course relevance to all, like for example the BRACS stations and the bigger metro stations at the same time?
Saunders: The issues that affect the BRACS organisations are really that they lack a plug in the ground basically - to put it quite simply. Some communities don’t have a telephone, yet they’re broadcasting, so the notion of a National Indigenous Broadcasting service and broadcasting television is dependent on getting the plugs in the ground in remote communities. I think that if AICA was going to be relevant to the BRACS system, the way it would be really relevant and prove it’s relevance then is by lobbying to get those plugs in the ground and I think that would create a great deal of trust if there’s actual activity that works rather than just policy and to give lip service.

One issue is that there are a lot of broadcasters, and they far out weigh any of the industry sectors - and that’s what happened last time. It was the broadcasters who were more powerful than anyone else and the membership structure didn’t deal with that and didn’t cater for it! So groups like filmmakers, they incorporated themselves into their own organisation because they felt they weren’t getting properly recognised or properly represented; and the same with the BRACS communities, they felt they were being mistreated or weren’t properly heard under the NIMAA structure. So hopefully, we can get around those issues this time round

Garner: So has the support for the new organisation been quite strong - Are people telling you that they are missing NIMAA and having that body to represent them?

Saunders: Yes it’s gone back to everybody’s fighting for their own self, so a replacement organisation has been very well supported not only among past members of NIMAA, but very well supported by government and the Department of Communications, Information and Technology and the Arts. I know it might be preaching to the converted but it’s important to reiterate and remember exactly what it is we are doing here and hopefully out of that, people will be able to fully understand and agree on exactly what the role of AICA will be, what it’s relationship to the BRACS network is, what it’s relationship to the major organisations is. There’s an issue going around right now about getting some communities telephone lines and there’s nobody pushing that policy debate and there’s also what’s happening with the Free Trade discussions with America. If the Australian content standards disappeared well you might as well kiss the BRACS goodbye because that’s also part of the deal. So it’s very dangerous times and neither ATSIC or anybody is putting any of the issues up of what our concerns are, so it’s really vital that AICA does exist and that somebody does the writing and the arguments to maintain our services.

Garner: Is the feedback that you’re getting telling you that there’s a need to fast track the establishment of AICA in light of what’s happening with ATSIC?

Saunders: Yes - well again the same issue is good governance and that’s what’s effecting ATSIC and who do they really represent.

Garner: Three months doesn’t seem like a long time to get all this together. Is it going as you’d expected so far?
Saunders: Well, it’s happening alright! The work plan is quite an ambitious one and there’s not enough hours in the day of course but things are working out, we’re quite a way down the track. The conference venue is booked, the accommodation has been booked, we now just have to decide who we invite and who we don’t invite and how that will effect exactly everyone’s participation and we have the issue of Digitisation of Broadcasting in Australia particularly Television in 2008/2011, how that’s going to effect our long term ability to establish a National Indigenous Broadcasting Service or a third channel. So it’s moving along, it’s just bigger than Ben Hur at the moment and there’s one of me and I’m trying to find staff at the moment.

Garner: So how did you get the gig?

Saunders: (laughter) Well I don’t know whether anyone else wanted it! I just got an email and I put in an expression of interest so I did a phone interview and they flew me up almost the next week, so it was very rapid and I do miss my home.

Garner: A lot of the same groups and same people are going to want to be in the association, so how do you make the organisation something new and more effective and not NIMAA Mark Two?

Saunders: I see it as such and exciting organisation and I see it as a great way for cultural maintenance and cultural transfer. You see a lot of Aboriginal people are remote from each other and I see telecommunications, communications and the convergence of technology as a way of bridging that remoteness. For example, where I come from I’m in the footprint of Imparja Television and yet I can’t get the television and so I’m still on the feed from everywhere else, so that remoteness is a real critical point and I’d like to know what’s happening in Kunanurra or Turkey Creek and I’m sure they’d like to know what’s happening in Narrawong or Lake Conda and I think that that’s the excitement for me that we can all be talking together and there’s no reasons why it can’t be because the technology allows that, and I think we’ve all got to reinvigorate everybody with the dream again, but without making the dream so unattainable that we’ll never get there!

* Thanks to Koori Mail and Todd Condie for images.
AICA AGM details
The AICA Annual General Meeting will be held as part of a three day conference in Sydney between September 26 - 28. For more information contact AICA download the invitation to the conference here.  
Download AICA AGM details


Indigenous Media Links