Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I recognise the member representing the minister in the House today, although I am not sure what expertise he actually brings to the matters being examined. Let us hope he has been briefed well by his colleague in the Senate.

I do not need to explain to this House the perilous situation that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities find themselves in today. We know from the Closing the gap report earlier this year that things are not getting any better. Nor do I need to explain to the chamber the history of dispossession, injustice and discrimination experienced by first peoples in this nation, and the enormous personal costs. And of course, I do not need to explain that, remarkably, this government cut half a billion dollars out of the Aboriginal affairs budget. But it may come as news to the member here today that in February this year, the Australian National Audit Office found that this government's Indigenous Advancement Strategy was an absolute failure—useless, actually. Its implementation was utterly botched—not my words, the words of the Auditor-General, whose report said that the administration of funding for this program:

…fell short of the standard required to effectively manage a billion dollars of Commonwealth resources.

The Aboriginal community has been saying exactly this for months, but their complaints were all either ignored or not heard. For all the talk of those opposite about their commitment to Indigenous affairs, they simply were not listening, and still have not heeded the call for change.

The Australian National Audit Office found that the Indigenous Advancement Strategy did not involve any consistent assessments of funding applications against the relevant guidelines. It found that there was a total failure to establish performance targets for programs, and that there was no evidence that programs which received funding delivered the outcomes that they were supposed to. Most predictably, the Auditor-General found that there was no proper communication or consultation with the organisations involved. The government simply was not listening and, apparently, neither was the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The Minister for Indigenous Affairs later dismissed the damning ANAO findings by saying:

This is a bureaucratic report, a very important report for bureaucrats about what box was ticked and what box was not ticked.

Let me say that this is not academic. I am very aware of the Indigenous Advancement Strategy; in fact, before becoming a member of this place, I was the chairperson of a small organisation that applied for funds. I understand the toing and froing, and some of the decisions that were—remarkably—made in relation to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy. The very fact that the ANAO has been so critical of the implementation of the report speaks volumes for me. It is not just a report for bureaucrats, as the minister called it. It is a report that means a great deal to the Indigenous community. Many organisations have had to close down. Many vital services do not exist anymore. Those services were on-the-ground services. They were not based in a government agency; they were on-the-ground services that, through some botched effort of evaluation and decision-making in relation to the IAS, did not receive funding. This could well mean services into communities that the member for Lingiari represents, and into many communities across this country.

The government has committed $40 million to evaluate this project; the member said that, but this money is for bureaucrats and big corporate agencies to run evaluations. It will not deliver any additional services to Indigenous communities or Indigenous people on the ground; it will simply be $40 million going to the likes of Ernst & Young and many of those other big organisations, and to the government itself. It is like the government is paying itself for this. My question is: why is the government continuing with a flawed project, spending money on bureaucrats and not on services for Indigenous people? Why won't the government sit down with Indigenous people and design a grants program that meets their needs and their aspirations? That is my question. I do not need to hear fuddled messages from you; I just want those two questions answered. When are you going to actually talk to Aboriginal people about the design and the implementation of these programs?

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