'Barking up the wrong tree' and 'copycatting Trump': First Nations leaders on the 2025 election

Australia Broadcast Center

30-04-2025

Wondering why critiques of Welcome to Country ceremonies are trending harder than actual policy ideas in the last week of the election campaign?
It's a frustration Australia's most prominent Indigenous leaders are feeling.
"There are far more important things to worry about," former social justice commissioner Mick Gooda told the ABC's Indigenous Affairs team.
"They're barking up the wrong tree."
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It's also sucked the oxygen out of an opportunity to talk about what desperately needs airtime in Indigenous affairs one week out from polling day.
First Nations Australians are dying earlier than non-Indigenous Australians, are sicker and more likely to take their lives. With only four of 19 Closing the Gap targets on track, mob deserve more than point-scoring over a five-minute ceremony intended to bring people together.
Professor Marica Langton says the most important Aboriginal policies aren't receiving the attention that they ought to.
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Professor Marcia Langton from the University of Melbourne said culture-war debates distract from the lack of suitable policies on offer for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people — a third of whom are the poorest in Australia, AIHW data shows.
"I despair about the most important Aboriginal policies receiving the attention that they ought to receive," Professor Langton said, adding that First Nations Australians want economic growth, stability, more housing, more jobs, and a future for youth.
"Only a stable government that bases its policy on good policy development and research will solve that problem."
Coalition 'copycatting' Trump
The opposition is promising a total rebuild when it comes to Indigenous affairs, saying it will encourage economic development and cut waste.
Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians and Government Efficiency Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has promised to "make Australia great again" and "get Australia back on track," although denied she was channelling US President Donald Trump.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and her husband Colin Lillie wear Make America Great Again hats.
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The opposition
Senator Price told the ABC the Coalition's plan was to conduct an "audit of all government programs and expenditure in Indigenous affairs" and re-prioritise "unnecessary funding towards frontline solutions."
It has clear echoes of what's happening in the US, according to Professor Langton.
"This copycat approach to Elon Musk being inserted into the Trump administration as the lead on the Department of Government Efficiency is alarming," Professor Langton said.
"That's what the audit slogan from the LNP camp is all about. It's a slogan to persuade people to think, 'Oh, the Aborigines are wasting money again'.
"The LNP has made a particularly nasty narrative about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people popular, and most of it is untrue."
The ABC reached out to Senator Price for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on the election trail.
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Senator Price previously said the Coalition's plan was not just about making sure the money was spent efficiently, but delivering practical outcomes for the most vulnerable.
"Despite the fact that we've spent billions of dollars in Indigenous affairs, nothing is changing to improve the lives of marginalised Indigenous Australians," she said.
"We're not just looking at whether there's a level of corruption that exists, but we're looking at where outcomes are being provided to further provide investment there."
Business owner and Liberal party member Sean Gordon agreed funding ought to be better prioritised but said audits were an overreach.
"If we know there's a failing, and if you think there's a failing, you don't need an audit to tell you that, you go away and make the improvements to ensure that we're going to get better outcomes."
Sean Gordon said it's difficult to see substantive policies from either major party this election.
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Mick Gooda said calls for audits were a political strategy.
"As soon as you mention auditing all of our organisations, that's dog whistling," he said.
"That's the signal out there that people are hearing. You're not saying 'corruption', you're saying 'audit', but their mind goes to corruption."
Gooda insisted Black organisations are the most audited in Australia but added that admin, different layers of governments and bureaucracy were "taking money along the way" and not reaching mob on the ground.
The surveillance of Aboriginal organisations was morphing from accountability to policing, he said.
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Government wants to manage the risk of Aboriginal people ripping money off, and Aboriginal people just want to manage the risk of dying early.
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The Coalition has also pledged to hold a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.
Former Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda is disappointed the remaining reforms of the Uluru Statement are not up for discussion in this election campaign.
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Mick Gooda ran the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory in 2016.
He questioned if a royal commission was the right platform to address sexual abuse in communities.
"I don't think it's going to achieve much," he said.
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Labor's 'broken' Uluru Statement promise
After making the Voice referendum a centrepiece of its 2022 election campaign, the government has pivoted to practical action, jobs and economic empowerment for Indigenous Australians.
Although Anthony Albanese in his election victory speech committed to the Uluru Statement in full — that is Voice, Treaty and Truth-Telling — the government has been timid to talk about the T-word reforms since the referendum defeat.
Albanese recently said on Q&A he doesn't regret "having a crack" at changing the constitution to include an Aboriginal Voice, that he "respects" what the country said and would concentrate on a "another direction".
The 2023 referendum asked Australians a question on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament — not Treaty or Truth-Telling.
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It left Mick Gooda, former co-chair of the Queensland Treaty Advancement Committee, deeply disappointed.
"Another broken promise … and when it gets a bit tough, people walk away," he said, adding that Australia did not vote on Treaty and Truth-Telling — only Voice.
"Politically, it makes sense because of the number of people who voted no, but what we need now is a bit of courage from both sides of politics."
Labor's focus on economic empowerment, jobs and housing is no doubt politically safer. It's investment without genuine power sharing: AKA what mob who've worked in policy for decades call the ye olde "pragmatic approach" and "practical reconciliation".
It includes $707 million for the Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program to create 3,000 jobs in three years and an $842 million investment for the NT for employment, women's safety, children's health, education and alcohol harm reduction.
Labor plans to expand the Indigenous Procurement Policy to 4 per cent by 2030.
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Both major parties have wrestled with economic empowerment and economic development for more than two decades and although it's failed to close the gap, there are areas of progress.
"I do hope that if the Albanese government wins power again, they continue with an economic development policy, because that's how jobs are created and these are the levers of closing the gap," Marcia Langton said.
"It does secure jobs for local Indigenous people to stay on their land, look after their families and look after their natural assets."
But Sean Gordon said creating 3,000 mostly entry-level jobs won't have the same impact as advancing Aboriginal staff that were already working in communities.
"We're not developing up the next generation of Aboriginal teachers to be able to take on the teaching jobs within their communities," he said, adding that Aboriginal assistant teachers aren't paid as much as teachers and often aren't nurtured to upskill.
"Why haven't we invested in developing those people up to be the teachers?"
Sean Gordon wants to see greater investment in Aboriginal teachers.
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The government has also boosted its target of Commonwealth contracts going to Indigenous-owned businesses from 2.5 per cent to 4 per cent by 2030.
Since the Indigenous Procurement Policy was introduced a decade ago under the Abbott government, the data has been encouraging, according to Professor Langton.
She pointed to research by the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership which found the number of Indigenous businesses doubled in 10 years and generated $16 billion in revenue in 2022.
Nailing 'issue of disparity'
These three former members of the Voice Referendum's Working Group still hope for an over-arching representative body for Aboriginal people.
Professor Langton believed there will eventually be legislated voices at state and territory levels.
"It is impossible to provide services to communities that are scattered right across the country without having good policy," she said, adding that "good policy comes from engagement with local populations," she said.
Indigenous leaders want better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
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Sean Gordon said, right now, there was no structure that gives voice to people at a local level that was then fed up to improve policy, programs, products and the way funding was rolled out.
"Rather than measuring Indigenous people against non-Indigenous people, I think we should be finding those pockets of success … and then understanding why there are pockets of success," he said.
"Why are people in one community living longer? Why are they healthier?
"If we can nail that, then I think we can address this issue of disparity."
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