Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander commissioner tells Senate inquiry there is a mismatch between what government and Indigenous people focus on

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The federal government has initiated two formal reviews into the Indigenous advancement strategy, after it underestimated the difficulty the application process caused for organisations, a Senate inquiry has been told.

The inquiry is examining the federal government’s Indigenous advancement strategy (IAS) tender process. There was confusion and criticism when thousands of applications for the federal funding – reduced by more than $500m in the previous budget – were rejected.

The Senate finance and public administration committee earlier heard from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, Mick Gooda, who told the inquiry the government is focusing on trying to prevent Aboriginal people wasting money, but Aboriginal people are more concerned with staying alive.

Addressing the committee on Monday afternoon, Liza Carroll, associate secretary, Indigenous Affairs in the department of prime minister and cabinet, revealed the department had initiated an internal review, to examine the processes, administration and communication within the funding grant round, as well as the IAS guidelines.

An external review will look at the post-implementation processes.

The department will then seek “to understand what kind of engagement obviously is wanted, what’s feasible from a government perspective and have those discussions,” said Carroll.

She told the inquiry department staff - unassociated with the assessment process - were on hand to assist any organisation having trouble, but “we recognise we had underestimated the breadth and difficulty for a number of organisations.”

The review consultation process will begin in July.

Earlier on Monday the inquiry heard from people within the Indigenous services sector, including Gooda, who told the inquiry the controversial policy should have begun by opening the first round of applications only to existing programs.



The government’s attempt to cut red tape by streamlining more than 150 Indigenous affairs programs into five key areas had disadvantaged Indigenous groups which did not have the resources to fill out the complicated and competitive tender applications, Gooda told the inquiry. He supported the move to streamline programs.



“Unfortunately this led the way for many non-Indigenous organisations to take advantage of the process, which meant that many major sporting, education, child welfare and even government agencies were funded by the IAS,” he said.

Gooda said although it was reassuring that nearly half of all funded agencies were Indigenous, an increase on previous proportions, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are best placed to deliver outcomes for our communities”.

He said particularly in the medical sector, non-Indigenous-specific organisations did not have as much “skin in the game”.

“There’s two types of risk being managed here,” he said.

“The government is trying to manage the risk of Aboriginal people … wasting money, [while] Aboriginal people are trying to manage the risk of dying early,” he said.

“Until there is some kind of coming together of that risk, I think we’re still going to have this mismatch of how things go.”

Gooda also pointed to the large number of organisations which lost existing funding, or found it reduced, while money was given to new proposals.

He told the inquiry he had suggested that the first round of applications be limited to organisations which were already funded.

“Work out the ones you don’t want to fund, find out where you are. We ended up with five times the applications,” he said.

Doing so would have “saved a lot of grief” for the department and the community.

Submissions to the inquiry from the federal government revealed about half the $4.9bn earmarked for the IAS had already been allocated to existing programs before the first round opened.

Gooda said he would like to see “respectful engagement with the community and the sectors”.

Anne-Marie Lansdown, deputy chief executive of Universities Australia, told the inquiry there had been poor consultation with its members, and that as the peak body it was not asked for input into the design of Indigenous higher education programs.

“We had no information whatsoever distributed to us about what was happening in the redesign of the Indigenous programs,” she said.

Senator Cory Bernardi asked why Universities Australia did not advocate on behalf of the 39 organisations if there was widespread confusion.

“It’s not unusual at all for individual universities to meet ministers,” Lansdown said. “We are not the only voice of universities.

“I think this was a layered problem. I think people weren’t quite sure what the machinery of government changes would mean. Then they heard all these things were going, but it wasn’t clear which programs would be going where, what would be quarantined.

“There was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what was happening. It’s hard to advocate if you don’t know what the issue is.”

Priscilla Collins, deputy chair of the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service (Natsils) described convoluted funding processes which were further confused by the IAS, as it wasn’t clear where funding for Natsils was coming from. In March, attorney general George Brandis reversed proposed cuts to legal services.

Lisa Briggs, CEO of the national Aboriginal community controlled health organisation (Naccho) said the organisation’s preference was always for health organisations to stay with the department of health, but this did not deter an initially positive reception to the announcement of the IAS.



However a survey conducted by Naccho of 92 member services and six jurisdictional affiliates found that most thought the tender process could have been handled better.