Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

In my contribution I will not recount some of the known challenges that we as a nation face in ensuring that our Indigenous brothers and sisters achieve all that they are capable of doing. I hope to point to some opportunities that would bring about the kind of change that we all aspire to but in some respects the Closing the Gap account provided to the parliament reflects modest progress in these areas.

The speeches delivered by the parliamentary leaders were excellent. I am reflecting primarily on the Leader of the Opposition's eloquent words about the importance of work. Some years ago I had the honour and privilege of being concurrently the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs with oversight responsibilities for AusAID and the Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Affairs. One thing that frankly bewildered me was why the two policy groups did not speak more with each other to learn from each other's experiences and draw insights and inspiration from what was succeeding. As I represented our nation at the millennium development goal discussions, I had the honour and privilege of speaking in Jakarta for our region and at the UN headquarters in New York about progress. There I could point to the hundreds of millions of citizens in our region that had lifted their lives out of poverty. There was no magic bullet to doing that. It was enabled by the only durable strategy in human history that has ever worked—that is, sustainable economic growth.

One can transfer wealth between peoples or countries and that may mitigate some of the harm you see from abject poverty and many of the social challenges that have been discussed in this debate. But to achieve a durable lift in opportunity, in quality of life, in incomes and in living standards there is no substitute for economic growth. That was clear when we applied our policy minds and rigour to our overseas development assistance, but it seems to be something that we were not prepared to talk about in our own poverty alleviation and hardship challenges here. It was as if what worked for the away game we could not talk about for the home game. To this day, I remain bewildered about that disconnect—where the learnings are not cross-pollinating between our poverty alleviation and hardship actions overseas and what we do at home.

As I listened to the eloquent words of the Leader of the Opposition, it reminded me of a few insights that I gained over that time—insights that I urge the government today to embrace with much more vigour than I have seen to date. They were simple concepts that there is more opportunity to contribute to the economy than simply working for someone else. The Leader of the Opposition spoke eloquently about FMG and Twiggy Forrest's strategy, where he said, 'If I have the jobs I can train people for them.' That was an excellent insight into the matching exercise that is so crucial to having people see a pathway for their own improvement—in fact, how they can achieve their own sense of economic independence and individual self-determination.

It was contrasted with some of the aid initiatives, particularly in the Pacific, where we were training people for jobs that did not exist. It was a cruel hoax on people, to urge them to engage in study and training for years when there were no economic opportunities for which those learnings and skills could be applied when they completed their courses of study. Twiggy Forrest's and FMG's approach says, 'We have jobs; we will prepare people for them.'

But one thing that I am urging the government to take a look at, recognising the resourcefulness and resilience of Indigenous people and Indigenous communities, is the delicious opportunity for self-employment and small business formation. I know through my travels that major investments in communities with significant Indigenous populations would be welcomed more warmly where there were Indigenous economic opportunities arising from that investment. I know that even from CDEP programs, where you see Indigenous people engaged in support for their communities, they are using the very same skills which, if supported by appropriate guidance, advice and qualification recognition, could see those very same participants transform themselves into small business people—to be self-employed. This could transform, say, some home maintenance work in a CDEP program into a home maintenance business. Yet where is the support for that kind of transformation? Where is the effort for the Indigenous community to activate and to make their own self-employment and small business opportunities in our country and, in particular, in our regions?

I am concerned, and I think a lot of it is because the government, through its own rhetoric, often would not know enterprise if they fell over it. There is this conception that the only modality of economic contribution is a person working for somebody else. Yet we know that the entrepreneurs, the self-employed and the independent contractors are crucial to our economic prospects—the courageous men and women of small business who take risks to create opportunities for themselves and for those around them, and who add an economic vitality to their communities.

That is why I pay tribute to Debbie Barwick—she is the chairperson of the New South Wales Indigenous Chamber of Commerce—and to Professor Dennis Foley. He is a professor of Indigenous research at the University of Newcastle. They have been onto this for some time, and I hope their efforts get more encouragement than has been seen to date.

There is scope for it within existing funding. I am not here saying that there needs to be more money thrown at a policy solution that is not proven: no, that is not right at all. There are resources available—there is a head nod to this opportunity—but it is all backswing and no follow through. There is a need to follow through on some of the glib terminology that surrounds some program description that talks to self-employment, enterprise and entrepreneurship but then does not result in any meaningful and sustained engagement and support to see it actually materialise.

In the area of the Indigenous employment program there was a notional thought that about 80 per cent of that funding should go to employment and about 20 per cent to economic development—supporting the infrastructure that enables Indigenous people to create their own opportunities and their own businesses, and to give method and structure to their own instinctive entrepreneurial characteristics. We believe that, instead of that 80 per cent to 20 per cent split, about 97 per cent of that funding is going to employment programs and a small fraction, around three per cent, is going to economic development. Yet—I go back to my original observation—economic growth has been proven throughout the ages to be the only durable way of sustainably lifting economic opportunities and alleviating poverty.

Why has the government frozen some Indigenous economic initiatives? Organisations have gone through extensive tender processes to get on panels, to have someone to hear them, only to be told that the government is not in a position to support them, and that there has been overspending in some areas—an excessive commitment of resources to employment and nothing left in the cupboard to support economic development. Big, profitable companies have been supported in implementing employment strategies, yet we have not seen any support of substance going to organisations like the New South Wales Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, a trusted, active and proven organisation to which Indigenous people can turn to support their own small business formation and self-employment opportunities.

Parliamentary inquiries have identified this opportunity, yet the support is not there. Even the 2008 draft, through to the 2011-18 Indigenous Economic Development Strategy under priority 4, supported the need for a commitment to organisations and agencies that could provide a one-stop shop to support Indigenous people in organising themselves and engaging with commercial opportunities, with self-employment and with small business start-ups. Yet that head nod, that acknowledgement, has not been followed through with resources. This is not to discount the action needed to alleviate the harm that others have talked about. This is about constructive steps to restore the hope that things can be better, to provide a purpose for learning that might see academic participation increase and to provide context and meaning to the encouragement from, for example, the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in his observation about joining up the Closing the Gap education initiative to encourage a greater degree of vocational and higher education participation.

It is about saying enterprise and self-employment is crucial to the economic future of the Indigenous community but it needs support. There is chapter and verse on how—and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, in their inquiry into being 'open for business', developing Indigenous enterprises in Australia, showed this—big corporates would love to interact with Indigenous enterprises as part of their rounded approach to their economic life and to the key performance indicators they communicate to their shareholders, and on the idea of Indigenous business chambers, hubs and one-stop shop models. This is supported by the Minerals Council, which points to that very policy measure as being crucial in ensuring that small businesses are run, owned, operated and guided to the benefit of Indigenous people and in ensuring that Indigenous people are able to take up economic opportunities.

In Message Stick's submission to the committee inquiry, Michael McLeod and Dug Russell, talk about the need for government to understand business and entrepreneurship and to put in place support programs that would see young Indigenous people not only recognise sporting excellence as a way out or an opportunity for individual self-determination and economic independence but also celebrate the heroes of Indigenous business. Young Indigenous boys and girls would be able to see someone had already walked that path and created opportunities for themselves and their communities. It is a grossly underdone area of the suite of policy tools that are broadly badged as the Closing the Gap initiatives. I urge the government to get behind that excellent work that Debbie Barwick and Professor Dennis Foley have undertaken.

In the few minutes that are left I want to point to another area where I think there is great hope, and that is private sector collaboration. I touched on it in terms of enterprise, entrepreneurship and self-employment, but I will go further. In my own community, two outstanding local people, Mr and Mrs Paul Williams, are providing Indigenous education opportunities through their philanthropic efforts in the Woomera Educational Scholarship Trust. This is a remarkable, selfless and generous statement by two local members of our community who have been very successful in their business careers and accumulated wealth that they want to put to virtuous and worthy causes. They have chosen to provide outstanding educational opportunity for young Indigenous people at some of the nation's leading schools, in particular the Peninsula School in my electorate of Dunkley.

They provide for tuition support where Indigenous people, largely from the north-west of Western Australia, come as boarders. The private trust also has to fund travel home for students who would otherwise be eligible for ABSTUDY and therefore able to reach out for travel expenses to return to their families with stories of their educational success and to reconnect with their communities where they are outstanding role models and inspirations. Yet if that same opportunity was funded publicly that travel expense would be funded and supported by the taxpayer.

I think that private philanthropy which provides world-class education opportunities for Indigenous students should be supported, whether it is funded by the taxpayer or by remarkable individuals like Mr and Mrs Williams. I have written to Minister Garrett saying this has to be a bureaucratic oversight, that surely we want to support this sort of private initiative. Doing so would open up an opportunity to provide another scholarship for another young Indigenous person to go back to their community as a remarkable role model and a statement of what application and commitment and making the best of the opportunities within your reach can do for you. That is a message I would like to see more of in Indigenous communities. There are some examples.

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