ABSTRACT
Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people have experienced significant marginalization as a result of the British invasion of Australia and the manner of continued colonization. This chapter examines the deficit discourse constituting 'Indigenous disadvantage' and informing Australian Indigenous Affairs policy development and implementation. It also examines the key policy initiatives and reports between the 1890s and 2017. The chapter argues that deficit discourses and the concept of 'wicked problems' are a major component of Australian Indigenous policy development and implementation. It explains the role of prevailing discourses in Australian indigenous affairs policy development and implementation by identifying racialized language and assumptions of whiteness and wickedness as key policy framing devices. This dominant policy language situates 'Indigenous disadvantage' as broadly defining the identity of Australia's First Peoples. Policy discourses frame Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identities in circumstances of "deficiency and disempowerment".
