It’s time Labor held Indigenous land councils to account

Representatives from the Anindilyakwa Land Council, Tiwi Land Council and Northern Land Council appear before Senate Estimates in October 2023. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

I firmly believe land councils can be valuable and meaningful bodies; places where traditional owners are informed and enabled to pursue economic development and independence on their land. But in order to function at their peak, land councils must be accountable. We must have an effective way to scrutinise and track both their governance and outcomes.

It is becoming overwhelmingly clear, however, that the Albanese government’s approach to accountability is severely problematic. Not long ago, the federal government commissioned the Australian National Audit Office to audit all four Northern Territory land councils. At the outset, that sounds like a positive step toward accountability. The usual process then followed in that the audit recommendations were left to be implemented by each council.

Now, in theory, those land councils were still subject to scrutiny because the Senate is entitled to interrogate their progress at Senate estimates. But I say “in theory” because it is remarkable how well and compliant an organisation can present itself to a committee at Senate estimates, and how different that presentation can be from reality.

The Anindilyakwa Land Council is a prime example of this. It came before the estimates committee I was on in June this year, and proudly announced in relation to the ANAO audit recommendations that it had “completed 85 per cent of the responses to those recommendations”. Great. But enter the report from an independent review of the ALC after estimates, and a starkly different picture emerged.

Of the 14 ANAO recommendations agreed to be implemented by the ALC, the independent review found none of them had been fully implemented or closed. None. The review found that the recommendations should be reopened until they had been implemented to an acceptable standard.

It was damning. Yet no one would have known that from the Albanese government’s system of auditing and self-reporting. All we would have known was the nice, neat picture given by the ALC at estimates.

And the problem is, technically, those assurances the ALC gave at estimates were true. Thanks to the self-assessment process, a land council can truthfully say it has fully complied with the audit recommendations because, according to its definition of compliance, it has.

This Albanese system of accountability is at best lazy and at worst encourages corruption to abound in organisations that are meant to protect and advocate for our most marginalised.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

But the Albanese government doesn’t care – even Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy’s recent announcement to withhold funding from the ALC due to the review findings was tokenistic. It didn’t address the underlying weak system of accountability, but it also came just before the council was to hold its election.

The self-serving timing was impeccable – if the board was returned to govern, then the ALC members had independently affirmed the failing leadership and the minister could step away from the problem; and if the board was changed, the ALC had taken steps to sort out the mess itself – both eventualities standing as the pinnacle of self-determination.

As recently as last week, McCarthy continued to tout the ANAO audits as the answer to providing “oversight and recommendations to improve internal governance of these bodies”. We are left only to imagine the situation of the three other Northern Territory land councils that haven’t been independently reviewed. But as the example of ALC demonstrates, the current system of ANAO auditing doesn’t reassure anyone of the good governance of these bodies.

That is why I will continue to push for a formal inquiry into land councils and registered native title bodies – an inquiry specifically focused on matters of governance, accountability and transparency, that wouldn’t rely on self-reporting and would afford the Indigenous Australians who these bodies are supposed to serve the opportunity to go on record about how those bodies have or have failed to serve their interests.

But aside from an inquiry into governance of these bodies, we desperately need to undertake an audit of the money being funnelled into these bodies, and the Aboriginal industry more broadly.

Senator Malarndirri McCarthy

Quite unlike the ANAO audits this government has commissioned that examine financial trails and ensure money is dealt with properly, I am calling for an audit that scrutinises the effectiveness of that money. An audit tasked with evaluating whether money is being spent where outcomes are being delivered and Indigenous lives are being improved, or where it is being wasted on unproductive projects.

Like me, I know most Australians want to see these bodies functioning at their best, and that requires close scrutiny of both their governance and their outcomes. But in order to do that, we need both an inquiry for governance and an audit for effectiveness.

The Albanese government has explicitly opposed an inquiry into land councils and registered native title bodies, and is content with its current method of auditing. Its obtuse attitude holds all Australians back – marginalised Indigenous Australians, the bodies that are supposed to represent them, and the rest of the country, who are lifted when our most vulnerable are lifted too.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman.