The future of Australia depends up on a long overdue reckoning with our past. We need to be brutally honest about the complex facts of contemporary indigenous Australia. Most critically, the time has come for indigenous Australia to have a stake in power.
Together supports the Uluru Statement From the Heart. A physical presence and an advisory body, the Voice to Parliament – at federal and state levels, would be a practical and symbolic reminder of our past and an investment in a shared future. A Voice to Parliament must be written into our constitution and can also lead the process of working through treaties with the myriad First Nations of Australia.
Together advocates an Indigenous Future Fun supported by federal government taxation; levies, duties, royalties and taxed from the states; donations from the public and investments from superannuation funds and other institutions.
The Fund would be run by First Nations leaders from business and government, communities and the professions. Its would direct spending on key projects across housing, health, education, economic development, the arts and criminal justice. By consolidating and aggregating expenditure across these overlapping projects it would aim to maximise the economic and social returns.
“Housing is fundamental to a future for indigenous Australia,” Together founder and candidate for the Senate for NSW Mark Swivel said. “We must acknowledge the failure and waste of recent ‘mainstreamed’ government projects.
Indigenous leadership is required to roll out housing for remote and regional, suburban and inner-city indigenous people. Designing these communities must be led by the communities not Canberra. Property buying tax incentives must be shifted from private property into community housing, including indigenous housing.”
Health and Education
Indigenous health remains poor despite years of effort and funding. Infant mortality, life expectancy and incidence of disease is at odds with the prosperity and health of our general population. Our indigenous health budget is under a $1billion, this needs to be at least doubled, an investment that would be offset by savings in other programs that currently mop-up the consequences of this underinvestment.
Massive strides have been made in the inclusion of real indigenous history but curricula still need an overhaul to incorporate indigenous Australian culture and history – and education across the board to adapt to the needs of First Nations communities. Pathways for indigenous students into the professions, supported by industry placements and mentoring are key to maximising investments.
Business and the Arts
The starting point for business development is acknowledging that change is underway but it needs to be fostered to flourish – like business anywhere. This must be led by indigenous enterprises that are emerging all over Australia. The Indigenous Future Fund can provide seed capital and bridging finance to scale up existing businesses, connecting them with national and international markets, delivering tailored support from initiatives such as grants to micro-finance.
The arts lie at the centre of the identity and culture of indigenous Australia but they are also a key economic activity. At present too much value is extracted by non-indigenous Australia. Government must develop strategies to keep value in communities for artists and their families, for instance by strengthening community owned co-operatives
“Government needs to cooperate closely with the arts sector to access its supply chain and distribution networks both locally and internationally – with the overriding objective of ensuring financial dividend from the arts is retained to build First Nations communities” Swivel said.
Justice
The starting point to deliver genuine justice into the future. need to acknowledge that Australia has failed its First Nations people in criminal justice.
Criminal justice for our indigenous people remains a national and unacknowledged disgrace. Outrageous incarceration levels, continuing deaths in custody and police harassment in daily life are problems that must be tackled head-on. We need a program to ensure there are indigenous magistrates across our entire local court system together with more indigenous community policing, the mainstreaming of community justice conferencing and critical cross-cultural education for police and magistrates.
Northern Territory and Native Title
The paternalistic; Northern Territory Intervention must be stopped. It is a relic of an earlier, colonial time. Solutions must be developed in partnership with each community, not imposed as generic solutions. The Voices to Parliament and Indigenous Future Fund would lead the development of new approaches in the NT and other remote communities.
The Indigenous Future Fund would also lead solutions in the development of Native Title responses and compensation. The watershed Timber Creek decision is the first of many claims across Australia that should be engaged with proactively. Australia owes its First Nations communities and the approach should be orchestrated and future-focused rather than reactive and piecemeal. The IFF board would lead strategies for housing, health, education, economic development, the arts and criminal justice.
Indigenous Australia needs its say in power. Together supports putting a stake in the ground and offers to participate in the conversations to help make that happen.
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