THE POLITICS OF ROAD FUNDING: REMOTE ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES AND FEDERALISM IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Abstract: This paper illustrates how remote Aboriginal communities shape rural road classification and funding policies in three Western Australian shires. The Australian federal system is characterised by a complex range of commonwealth and state governmental agencies competing for political space within different localities. Because Aborigines are constituents of the commonwealth and the state, a distinction is drawn between local government political activity, and politics that occur within the locality of a shire.
Success in influencing policy-making processes throughout the federal system stems from the participants' ability to exploit the system. The Aboriginal impact on road policy-making within remote localities is linked to electoral, bureaucratic, and sectional interest politics. These are features of governing and they provide a conceptual framework for the organisation of political activity by commonwealth, state, and local agencies, and Aboriginal communities.