The Queensland Indigenous driver licensing project: 'a new way of doing business'?

Abstract

The Queensland Aboriginal peoples' and Torres Strait Islander peoples' Driver Licensing Program is a 'whole of government' initiative to reduce the incidence and severity of incarceration and road trauma among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by increasing the rate of driver licence-holding among them. One level at which the initiative involves partnerships is intra-governmental. It is framed within the partnerships policy enunciated by COAG (OIPe, n.d. b) and in Partnerships Queensland (DATSIP, 2005), and entails collaboration across two policy departments and six 'service delivery' departments. A second level at which the program entails partnerships is the relationship between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This is built around the identification of communities' own senses of what is needed in relation to driver licensing, and working together to develop means to address those needs.