I acknowledge the significant contributions Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have made to Australia and highlighted the failure of the Closing the Gap initiative, with only 4 out of 17 targets being met, with some even worsening.
I recommended that resources should be directed straight to communities, bypassing the various entities within the Aboriginal Industry that thrive on perpetuating the Gap for their own benefit.
Despite receiving $4.5 billion for the 2022-23 year, the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) has little to show for it. It raises questions about where the money has gone.
I questioned why the Albanese government is refusing to conduct a full audit of government spending in this area. What are they trying to conceal?
Transcript
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are hugely talented in the NRL, the AFL, arts, business, science, sport and politics, with a higher proportion of Aboriginal people in the Federal Parliament than across Australia. I’ve driven to all Cape York communities twice and some three times. I’ve flown or boated into Torres Strait Island communities where people really care for each other, but government control removes meaning from life and suffocates that care. I have enormous faith in Aboriginal and Islander people. Why doesn’t the government? Aboriginal people are resilient after surviving Australia’s harsh environment for thousands of years. They don’t need mollycoddling.
The Closing the gap annual report is clear—a total failure in closing the gap. Only four of 17 targets have been met or have achieved goals, and some gaps are actually worsening. Labor-Greens and Liberal-Nationals governments fail to listen to or meet people’s real needs. Patronising paternalism and top-down approaches suppress, torment and destroy Aboriginal people. In reporting to parliament on closing the gap, successive prime ministers and opposition leaders duck and weave, using broad, fluffy motherhood statements to portray vague, insincere aspirations devoid of data and specifics—lies. The governmental view that it knows best is clearly wrong.
So where’s the solution? For the 2022-23 financial year, total resourcing for the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the NIAA, was $4.5 billion on programs. The result was rank failure. Where did the money go? This government continually refuses to audit government spending in this sector. Why? What’s being hidden from scrutiny? Last October in Senate estimates hearings, I asked whether money would be more effective if it went directly to Aboriginal communities. I meant it. The NIAA said that it sometimes allocates money to communities. I meant directly to communities, bypassing agencies for direct allocations to communities via a transparent, objective formula.
When I travel across communities in Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory, listening to local Aboriginal people, it’s clear they know the answers. I was told that many, many activists, advocates, consultants, lawyers, academics, contractors and public servants rely on keeping the gap wide open, because they work the system, and their livelihoods depend on the program’s ongoing failure. They depend on the gap being maintained, not closed, to perpetuate the need for their roles and accompanying salaries.
Reportedly, Mr Ian Trust chairs Empowered Communities, an Aboriginal organisation and alliance of 10 Aboriginal regions that lobbied hard for the opportunity to review funding decisions with government. In 2017, more than half of the funding considered was found to be duplication and misdirection. Of $1.98 million spent, $1 million was wasted. With sensible local representatives in charge, this model develops responsibility and ownership. Mr Trust supported the cashless debit card and objected to the Albanese government’s capricious decision to take it away without consulting the people. Despite extensive evidence of alcohol related harm to Aboriginal children, the McGowan Labor government ignored his calls for severe alcohol restrictions in his home town. Why won’t governments listen and learn?
The Australian people spoke decisively when we overwhelmingly rejected the divisive Voice referendum 60-40. We, the people of Australia, do not want race to decide rights that should apply to all Australians, yet some states and territories are still actively considering introducing voices and/or treaties. That’s a big middle finger to the Australian people’s decision. South Australia’s One Nation MP, Sarah Game, is sponsoring a bill to repeal the South Australian voice legislation, which clearly has no public mandate. I applaud Sarah Game’s initiative.
When will this government accept the advice from grassroots Aboriginal groups as to what does and does not work based on real-life experience and go beyond that to give communities real autonomy? It’s time that leeches and bureaucrats sucking on the teats of the Aboriginal industry realise that their time is up and that we’re coming for them. Senator Pauline Hanson opened this debate 27 years ago and remains at the fore of pushing for equitable treatment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the same as for all Australians. Now in the Senate we have Senators Nampijinpa Price and Kerrynne Liddle joining us in speaking common sense and truth.
The government needs to consider bypassing state and agency grants to fund communities directly to develop autonomy for real improvement. As a senator to the people of Queensland and Australia, I serve the people of Queensland and Australia. I support it as the quickest and most powerful way to develop responsibility, ownership and progress. This solution is based on autonomy, human community and responsibility being keys to closing the gap.
Question agreed to.
Keep going Malchom the Originals need you.
Dear Malcolm, You are control by greater powers beyond your control. Until good men like your self deal with bigger forces of evil nothing will change. We need to attack the bigger issues before any real changes are made. Australia is a point of no return because the elitist have the Government and us by the throat with little or no room breeve. .
It’s not half obvious that millions of dollars are going elsewhere and have been for decades , Albanese and his malfunctioning deteriorated malignant political party along with the Greens are tight lipped and doing everything in their power to keep the codependent voters to keep voting for them ,,,
Thank you Malcolm, keep on their case
It is time this government stop feeding the top of the Aboriginal tree and give the money to the people that desperately need it. i know this government is useless and I believe we should be allowed to vote them out when they make so many mistakes, they only line their own pockets not the people who need it the most.
Malcolm albo got penny wong to sign us up to the evil W.H.O plandemic trreaty this is illegal what albo is doing without a referendum.to give this criminal organisation power over our sovereignty and all our freedoms.by this foreign.entity is absolutely illegal we must stop.these traitors.and hold them accountable other wise australian will suffer at the hands of these criminals which america is leaving.thank you malcolm.
Malcolm, achieving an audit for monies given to indigenous people as about as optimistic as the Coalition is about achieving discussion rd nuclear.
Neither will ever happen .
We nned audits into any agency or grop that gets funding from the Government,
especially the NIA, & Noel Pearson.
Go get’em Malcolm.
This audit and review is vital to get to the bottom of the black’ hole of Aboriginal fundings. There is no doubt vast expenditure is wasted within the Aboriginal industry as you surmise.The honesty and integrity of these organisations is in great jeopardy, no wonder they don’t want to be scrutinised.
Of course this is the same issue with the scientific agencies support for the dreaded Climate change, they don’t want a funding cut for their ideological obsessions about dirty human emissions. Bloody green bureaucrats! They are the bane of our lives.
It’s astounding, and absolutely mind boggling that no one in government has the guts to investigate exactly where this outrageous amount of money for less than 3% of the population is going.
The best and cheapest way to close the gap is make the children go to school. I served in the air force in the 1950s and 60s with 3 Aborigines. One an aircraft mechanic ,a very responsible job, one a carpenter and the other a lady in the office at headquarters. A mate of mine at the time had been a school teacher in an outback community, he said they were lucky to get 50% attendance.
What a rude and disgracefull thing that no one is in the room to hear Mal.
“One of the most insidious features of the referendum campaign was the repeated claims of ‘fact-checking’ by the political class, media, and elites to silence the views and opinions of mainstream Australians they disagree with,” said Daniel Wild, Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs. IPA analysis undertaken earlier this year (2023) found that when the Productivity Commissioner’s report is adjusted for inflation (to September 2022 dollars), the amount of spending directed towards Indigenous Australians equates to approximately $39.5 billion over one year. It absolutely beggars belief that 1) this has been concealed from the Australian public and 2) Australians are homeless and dying for lack of ambulance services. 3) Soaring cost of living. Please, will someone start a Royal Commission into this ongoing outrageous mismanagement of Australian funds?
20 yrs of ece – loosely used word – repetitive but not embedded . longest bridge ever talked about – let’s get over it so build the freaking thing !! Have a go you mug!