Aboriginal leader tells government to use advisory bodies over new proposal
The government should utilise more than 100 Indigenous-specific bodies and advisories already in use rather than attempt to create a new one in the constitution, Warren Mundine has claimed.
National
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The government should listen to the more than 100 official Indigenous-specific “voices” it already has at its disposal rather than attempt to create a new one in the constitution, Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine has said.
The comments come as the government’s push to guarantee Aboriginal consultation in the constitution hit new hurdles with anti-voice to parliament Senator Lidia Thorpe announcing she would leave the Greens to lead the “Blak Sovereign Movement.”
What is different about this voice? We’ve got hundreds of different advisory committees and bodies, and they’ve been around since at least 1973, and we’ve still got this mess we’re dealing with,” Mr Mundine told The Daily Telegraph.
“And now we’re going to do it again but put it in the constitution so we can’t get rid of it? The false premise is there is no voice but the government gets advice at all different levels.”
“What’s really ironic is that in the Northern Territory they have ignored real Aboriginal voices like Senator Jacinta Price and local Labor MP Marion Scrymgour about the situation in Alice Springs.
“These are two elected parliamentarians who come from one town of 27,000 that is the epicentre of all these problems we’ve seen on the new and they been ignored.”
An analysis of the existing Indigenous advisory bodies to the commonwealth seen by The Daily Telegraph shows that there are more than 100 separate groups already in existence devoted to providing advice on Indigenous policy development.
The document points out that the commonwealth is already represented by the Joint Council on Closing the Gap as well as the “Coalition of Peaks” which represent more than 90 top Indigenous organisations across the country.
Federally, national members of this group include a wide variety of prominent health and welfare advocacy groups such as the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association.
Its NSW members include a state-based “Coalition of Aboriginal Peaks” as well as various Land Councils and legal services group and the BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation which provides services to local Indigenous members of the LGBTQ community.
As well, the commonwealth also takes advice from the National Indigenous Australians Agency which partners with a further 22 separate organisations.
At last count, the NIAA alone had a staff of 1,317 and had received over the past four years to administer over $14 billion in funding.
A number of other federal government departments were also found to have their own in-house Indigenous voices including the departments of Health, Education, and Climate Change and the Environment.
The analysis notes that this list excludes various Land Councils as well as state and territory bodies, as well as private sector and union groups with their own Reconciliation Action Plans.
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