Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in the 21st Century: Beyond the Limits of Universalism in Australian Social Policy?

In the past two decades, Australia’s social policy approach to Indigenous people has been based on the overarching goal of striving for equality of outcomes, while also increasingly recognising difference. Such an approach is appropriate and allows for an amalgam of Indigenous citizenship rights, fully recognised since the late 1960s, and an expanding envelope of inherent rights, with the former being wedded to the equality agenda and the latter to difference. A fundamental principle of Australian social policy is universalism: ‘the idea that rules, written in general terms, can be equally and fairly applied to all people whatever their social identity or background’ (Sanders, 2001: 1). A problem with universalism as highlighted by Sanders is that it has difficulty recognising difference; logically the more different, the greater the difficulty.