Cross-Cultural Communication for New Engineering Project Assessment Answer

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION- CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Native title is considered as the way to recognise aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. According to aboriginal and indigenous Australians have sole rights to their land and water. Traditional Australian Law has set its rights for securing natural properties. In order to build up an engineering project in native land in Australia, a company must maintain proper ethics and support the basic requirements of indigenous communities. 

This essay revolves around the fact that a lack of ethical practices and lack of communication with indigenous communities can be an effective issue for companies to sustain their engineering projects in native lands in Australia. Thus, this essay tries to prove that meeting requirements of indigenous communities in Australia can be helpful for business companies to utilize native lands in an ethical manner.

Indigenous Australians are the inhabitants of Australia for more than 65,000 years. It has been believed that these people come from Africa and have made the aboriginal communities in Australia. As mentioned by Blakemore (2019), indigenous people are the derived part of aboriginals’ communities and Torres Strait Islanders are another group of people from Australian aboriginals. From the time of emergence, these people needed to fight to retain their basic rights in Australia. The most striking fact is that the people are still involved in struggling to make their base in Australia. Such a kind of example of their struggle is to protect their rights on lands. As mentioned by Porter (2017), at present, the Government of Australia has made a strong legal structure to protect aboriginals’ interests in terms of securing their lands and water. A series of legislations such as Native Title Act 1993, Aboriginal Land Grant Act 1986 and Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 have been passed to support indigenous people in terms of their basic rights; but still, there are some prominent issues in terms of managing access over native lands.

Often it has been observed that a single native land is owned by several numbers of aboriginal individuals from both groups. Hence, there may be a chance of creating confusion to meet the rights of indigenous people in an effective manner. Thus, it can be mentioned that if a construction company wants to conduct engineering projects on lands which are previously native titled, they face a range of social and legal issues. In support of this statement, Reid (2019) mentioned that a number of mining companies face issues in Australia in terms of conducting projects in native lands of indigenous people. In order to establish resource ownership, the engineering companies may face issues as a single native land can be owned by several numbers of aboriginals. Thus, it can be mentioned that the prior requirement for constructing in a native land is to meet social criteria in a community. On the other hand, Goodman et al. (2017) commented that meeting individual criteria can never be effective for a construction company to conduct an engineering project in a land that has got native title status. In this respect, it becomes prominent that it is essential for the company to focus on the demands of a broad range such as political or legal level. Though the process of having legal support is lengthy and time taking it is essential to have effective community support. It can be highlighted that the management of construction companies needs to be bound to the indigenous community people in terms of providing them legal support to protect their natural resources. 

 Financial background can be one of the critical issues that need to be managed by the concerned company in a healthy manner. As the individuals from aboriginal communities want to secure their rights for lands and water, thus these are the sources of their economic valuation. Supporting this factor, Conde & Le Billon (2017) stated that providing proper economic support to the local indigenous communities can be effective for having a desirable environment based on the initiation of engineering projects. Throughout the time span, it has been noticed that maximum numbers of aboriginal people have got unfair treatment from Australian Government so that it is an obvious fact that they remain focused to snatching their rights of lands from project constructors. Providing proper compensation can be helpful to meet economic needs to aboriginal people that may enhance their satisfaction rate to give permission to different companies for accessing their native lands. As per the report published by Aboriginal culture (2020), the social structure of their community is ruled over by ahead of the religion. Thus, it can be stated that making private payment to those individual bodies can be effective to mitigate risks to access lands that have got native title status. In the views of Rudakova, Sannikova & Rudakova,  (2018), economic security is such effective support which motivates people to collaborate with others. Thus, the engineering company can focus on negotiation policy which will be ultimately helpful to have advanced support from aboriginal communities in terms of accessing their native lands to conduct an engineering project.

Often it has been observed that Government seems to be unreliable for the aboriginal community which has prominent negative impacts of their social and economic securities. Hence, I can mention that the engineers require an adequate amount of money and proper legal support to maintain the project process in native title lands. As per the thoughts of Ma et al. (2017), maintenance of continuity in the process of construction projects, constant supports from Government or social agencies is necessary. In support of this concept, the engineers need to gather proper knowledge regarding basic policies for encouraging indigenous communities to provide critical social support. Apart from this, it can be mentioned that engineers need to maintain the source of publicities that may be helpful to enhance the range of exposure of aboriginals mainly the indigenous people. Thus, I think that prominent media exposure and covering every key detail of the projects can be beneficial for the construction company to develop a better relationship with indigenous people, which will be helpful to overcome social barriers based on the use of native titled lands. On the other hand, Porter (2017) argued that financial support is the only thing which can be beneficial for both the aboriginal people as well as Construction Company to maintain project consistency in a supportive environment. It is an obvious fact that natural resources are critically valuable; so that this context may include owners’ conflicts in a prominent manner. 

Thus, it can be mentioned that the development of conflict situations among land authorities such as inner council battles may hamper the process of conducting engineering projects on native titled lands. Thus, it becomes evident that the company can contribute to society as well as the economic development of indigenous communities in a genuine manner. In addition to this, the requirements of adequate monetary investments along with following legal guidelines become prominent which can be helpful to serve Australian communities. Providing plenty of employment scopes, supporting educational and social needs along with assuring indigenous people with better quality care processes will help the project constructors of an engineering company to foster their mission based on using native titled lands for developing engineering construction sites.