Political activists exploit Indigenous Australians for their own ends

Is it any wonder Indigenous disadvantage is so entrenched, when the rich and powerful see something like the Barossa gas project as a greater environmental threat than an opportunity for Indigenous economic advancement, writes Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: Getty Images

There may have been some people surprised to hear a Federal Court judge describe a “cultural mapping” exercise and other key components of the Environmental Defenders Office case against the Santos Barossa gas project as “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them” and tainted by “confection” and “construction” of evidence. But I wasn’t one of them. Using Indigenous Australians and our history to push a particular agenda is nothing new; indeed, the whole country witnessed the practice on its biggest scale yet during the 2023 voice referendum.

The euphemistically named Environmental Defenders Office, which has received more than $8m from the Albanese government, knew exactly what it was doing when it was, in the words of Federal Court judge Natalie Charlesworth, “distorting and misrepresenting” the words of traditional owners. The “subtle coaching” of Indigenous Australians, and the attempts to “encourage and hint” to come to particular conclusions, are common examples of activists trying to manipulate and use Indigenous Australians to pursue their own agendas, regardless of the best interests of those they are using.

This is all too common in Indigenous Australia: activists, academics and bureaucrats, with good education, opportunity and financial security, pursuing their own agendas, with complete disregard for and indifference to the genuine challenges being faced by Indigenous Australians in remote and rural Australia. Organisations such as the EDO, and the individuals who run them, are only too happy to use the plight of some of our most marginalised Australians to further their own ideological or political agenda.

It’s difficult to say what the most damaging part of this sort of behaviour is: the legal damage, the economic deprivation or the division and hurt it causes among all Australians. In the case of the EDO against Santos, distortion and misrepresentation were used, as Tasmanian senator Jonno Duniam put it, as a form of “environmental lawfare’’ that frustrates the courts, brings important projects to a standstill, and puts vital industries – and the thousands of Aussie jobs they create – at real risk. As even a former Labor MP, Joel Fitzgibbon, said following the Santos decision: “Hopefully the broader community is beginning to see activist lawfare for what it is, ideological and a threat to our living standard.”

The absurdity of the Albanese government funding an organisation hellbent on undermining government processes beggars belief and points to a government that is both out of touch and out of its depth. The claims that these activists are working for Indigenous communities while pushing their radical environmental agenda is likewise absurd. We know the quickest and most effective way to permanently improve the lives of our most marginalised is to encourage and facilitate economic advancement. However, as West Australian Labor Premier Roger Cook said: “We now see environmental groups undertaking that same strategy that we all condemned in the early 2000s, where they pull people away from the group and use that to undermine their own self-determination in relation to projects.”

Indeed, far from wanting to help, activists attacking mining and energy companies – attempting to stymie new development and trying to revisit and change past decisions – are actually hurting investment and depriving Indigenous Australians of those economic opportunities. We now find ourselves in the incredible situation where the federal government is actually funding organisations pursuing the deprivation of Indigenous economic participation, while simultaneously spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to implement ill-conceived, silver-bullet policy solutions to Indigenous disadvantage.

Is it any wonder Indigenous disadvantage is so entrenched, when the rich and powerful see something like the Barossa gas project as a greater environmental threat than an opportunity for Indigenous economic advancement. I believe we must also consider the damage these acts do to the goodwill of so many Australians towards Indigenous issues. A recurring theme of the 2023 referendum was the amount of taxpayer money being spent, both directly and indirectly, on Indigenous issues, and its efficacy.

At a time when Australians are struggling with a cost-of-living crisis, finding out millions of dollars in taxpayer money is going to an organisation filled with radical environmentalists, which seeks to obstruct progress and opportunity, and exploits Indigenous Australians to do it, only damages that goodwill and stokes more division.

The Coalition has repeatedly called for an audit into spending to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where the waste is – calls routinely rejected by the Albanese government. That Anthony Albanese and Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek would continue to allow taxpayer money to be wasted like this is simply astonishing. It begs the question: is this all just a thinly veiled attempt to, as Queensland senator Susan McDonald puts it, “secure votes in inner-city seats under threat from the Greens”? This was on display on Wednesday when Solomon MP Luke Gosling fell into line, saying he “still sees a role for the EDO”.

The truth is that what was uncovered by the Federal Court is not uncommon. Instances such as Santos’ Barossa gas project and the “white hands on black art” exercise are just the tip of the iceberg. The EDO needs to be defunded not just because it is a proven bad actor, but also to send a clear message that the age of exploiting Indigenous Australians to achieve political goals is at an end. This is what Peter Dutton and the LNP are ready to do, and what Albanese and the Labor government are incapable of doing.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians.