‘Fraud on the nation’: Call for reforms at way city vs. remote Indigenous people treated
‘Fraud on the nation’: Yothu Yindi Foundation chief executive Denise Bowden has called for Indigenous funding reforms saying it is wrong to treat Indigenous people in cities the same “as the needs of an Aboriginal person in Papunya or Wadeye”.
The Federal Government is under increasing pressure to withhold millions of dollars in funding to states and territories if they fail to deliver on Closing the Gap outcomes to the bush.
Aboriginal leaders have used this year’s Garma Festival to push Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to review GST payments and to prioritise tied funding to the states and territories in the light of another damning Closing the Gap report.
Last week the annual report confirmed that Australia was set to miss 16 of its 20 targets to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2031.
In her opening Garma address Yothu Yindi Foundation chief executive Denise Bowden said decades of inaction in meeting the Closing the Gap targets represented a “fundamental failure in the structure of the Australian Federal system”.
“Our people suffer because of these failures of governance that are imposed upon us,” she said.
“Reform the way money is paid by the GST formulas.”
“Reform the way states and territories spend the money.”
Ms Bowden accused governments of prioritising the priorities of the cities over the “needs of the bush”, saying it was a “fraud on the nation” to treat Indigenous people in cities the same “as the needs of an Aboriginal person in Papunya or Wadeye”.
Both the NT Aboriginal Affairs Minister Steve Edgington and NT Opposition leader Selena Uibo cautioned against tying GST funding to specific Closing the Gap outcomes.
Ms Bowden told the 3500 visitors — including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — that they should not be deceived by the beauty of Miwatj Country, with the NT once again recording the worst rates of Indigenous inequality in the nation.
“You will leave behind a world that remains in a crisis,” Ms Bowden said.
“We will return to a life dominated by the simple fact that Aboriginal people in remote areas of Australia are the most marginalised people in the country.”
The Territory went backwards on eight of the 15 recorded targets, with Aboriginal women dying earlier, more children born at unhealthy birth weights, lower preschool and school enrolments, and fewer post-school training and education, while more adults and children spent their days in a prison cell.
Ms Bowden’s calls were echoed by both the Northern Land Council and Central Land Council who called for greater accountability from the NT Government to the agreed targets.
CLC Policy Director Josie Douglas said despite all governments signing up to the Closing the Gap targets and receiving significant Commonwealth funding to address the divide, it was at the NT government level that the implementation and ambition was “falling down”.
“We would like to see that money being put to good use for what it’s being given for, rather than having that money be used to the absolute disadvantage of Aboriginal people,” Ms Douglas said.
“To be progressing an agenda where you are punching down on our Aboriginal people in the NT.”
NLC chair Matthew Ryan criticised the current NT Government for failing to listen to Aboriginal leaders, whether in law and justice, youth, or land rights issues, stating: “No one is listening in this current government, we are fed up with the failed policies that are affecting our people”.
“Our people are hurting in here...we’ve been targeted, plainly,” Mr Ryan said.
“We will take this fight straight to Canberra, to make sure that our voices are heard”.
The Territory receives 80 per cent of its budget from the Federal Government, with Mr Edgington emphasising the role of the NT government was to direct money “to the areas of need” as they emerged, rather than at the whim of Canberra.
He highlighted more than $5bn in pre-existing tied Federal grants to the NT, including the $4bn remote housing, $1bn to education and $842m in remote investment deals.
Ms Uibo agreed that Territorians wanted their government “ whichever political colours we wear” to be able to respond to the needs of “our own backyard”.
She said tied Federal funding risked turning the NT into the “poor cousin... always waiting on that Commonwealth tied funding that we can only ever use in this way.”
But Ms Uibo also acknowledged that Labor — having run the NT for all but four years of the past two decades — “absolutely” took responsibility for the damning outcomes in the latest Closing the Gap report.
“We were focused on those medium and long term strategies, and on the engagement with Aboriginal leadership in our land councils, in our Elders and in our communities,” she said.
“It’s quite complex when you’re changing decades and decades of the way that government does business, particularly with Aboriginal leaders and community members who know that every four years the work that they’ve done may disintegrate, may deteriorate because of a political cycle.”
Federal Indigenous Australians Minister and NT Senator Malarndirri McCarthy did not confirm if the GST funding to states would be tied to Closing the Gap outcomes.
Ms McCarthy recognised the calls from her colleague Marion Scrymgour and others for an audit of Commonwealth money given to the Territory for Indigenous affairs issues, following years of poor outcomes.
“It’s actually a call that’s growing much louder now in regards to even the Indigenous organisations calling for where is the money that’s supposed to go directly to family and domestic violence services?,” she told Sky News.
“Where’s the money that’s supposed to go to the policing numbers? Where’s the money that’s supposed to go to the reinvestment in terms of justice issues?”
However she said with 80 per cent of the NT budget flowing from the Commonwealth she said the Federal Government had to be “responsible... in the way we respond to those particular calls”.
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Originally published as ‘Fraud on the nation’: Call for reforms at way city vs. remote Indigenous people treated
