Lack of transparency over success of multi-million spend on indigenous justice in Victoria

The Victorian government has spent millions on addressing ­issues with Indigenous inter­actions with the justice system.

The Victorian government has spent millions on addressing ­issues with Indigenous inter­actions with the justice system through the state’s Aboriginal Justice Agreements but there has been no public evaluation since 2012.

The 2012 evaluation called for greater accountability of the outcomes listed in the agreement and an improvement in data.

The evaluation found the progress reports of the second cycle of the agreement “highlighted significant weaknesses”, with 63 per cent not establishing any output measurements and therefore no tracking against them.

The report concluded that none of the 103 initiatives reported on outcomes and 81 per cent of the 103 projects never listed any status other than “green” (complete), including programs that stopped.

Since the report, the Andrews government has spent millions on programs, and meetings of the ­Aboriginal Justice Caucus regarding the agreement continue infrequently and in secret.

Under the current agreement, two cycles later, improving collection of Aboriginal justice data is listed as ”in progress”.

The current cycle includes 86 outcomes from improving the Indigenous garden at Parkville youth detention centre to assisting Aboriginal women with bail.

In 2018, the state government announced the new cycle would include $40.3 million, including: $15 million for a range of community-led self-determination initiatives; $12.3 million to expand Koori Courts in the County, Magistrates’ and Children’s courts and to strengthen the Koori Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal list; $10.8 million for several Aboriginal youth justice initiatives; $2.2 million to expand the statewide Indigenous Arts in Prisons and Community Program; and a further $600,000 to begin developing a new non-custodial facility to help Aboriginal women get back on track.

An extra $11.8 million was announced in the 2020-21 state budget for Aboriginal community-led responses within the youth justice system.

The caucus referred The Australian to the Justice Department and refused to be interviewed.

A Department of Justice and Community Safety spokesman said the AJA was the longest running agreement of its kind in Australia and had self-determination at its core. “We are working with Aboriginal communities to listen, support and deliver real and lasting change – building a stronger, fairer and more accessible justice system,” he said.

“We’re breaking cycles of offending and connecting people with culture, country and community through a range of initiatives led by Aboriginal Victorians.”

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Edward O’Donohue pointed to imprisonment data from the report on government services showing a 55.6 per cent increase in the rate of Indigenous adults from 2013-14 (the last full year under the Coalition government) to 2019-20.

In comparison, the non-­Indigenous rate increased by 16.9 per cent.

“It’s a disgrace that Daniel Andrews and Labor are locking up more Indigenous Victorians than any government in modern Victorian history,” Mr O’Donohue said.

“It’s critical for public con­fidence that there is transparency and accountability for all taxpayer-funded programs, particularly those that are designed to address such an important issue as Indigenous incarceration and recidivism.

“Important Closing the Gap and other targets will never be met if the Andrews Labor government continues to act in such secrecy without accountability.”