"Too much taxpayer money is spent on Indigenous people"
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“Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage comes at a price but let’s stop pretending that there’s ever been an investment in Indigenous Australia based on need, let alone on a vision of success." Professor Mick Dodson |
Most Australians have heard the myth about “too much money is thrown at Indigenous affairs". The reality is that Indigenous-specific funding represented 1.58% of total Australian Government spending in 2006-2007.27 As a percentage of GDP, Indigenous-specific spending is about a third of one percentage point,28 which is about the same amount as Australia spends on aid to foreign countries.
In the 2007 federal budget, $748.3 million29 is the identifiable amount being spent on Indigenous affairs - based on an Indigenous population of around 500,00030 this calculates to $1500 per person.
Professional organisations including the Australian Medical Association, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and Indigenous organisations point out that if Australia is serious about closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians a lot more money is needed. But even more important than that, the money needs to be spent properly with less of it channelled into expensive, inefficient bureaucracy.
It is true that you can’t solve problems simply by throwing money at them because you also need sound policy and effective administration to utilise the funding effectively.31
For example, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) recently established a trial site in the Kimberley to try and cut bureaucratic red tape. Media reports identified a government allocation of $1.3 million to run the trial, of which nearly $1 million was reported as being spent on salaries, travel and administration by federal government bureaucrats.32
Many Indigenous groups and individuals33 have called for an auditing office or some other independent body to track exactly where and how much money is being spent in Indigenous affairs, to monitor expenditure transparency, program success, increase accountability to the Indigenous community and to reduce the financial confusion and blaming that occurs between the state and federal governments.
As Mick Dodson maintains: “An investment in getting real results means hundreds of millions of extra dollars every year for at least a decade and perhaps more. It’s time we started telling the Australian people about the economics around not investing in this national effort because as parts of corporate Australia already know and are acting on, if a popular, well resourced government doesn’t do it now, the cost will skyrocket out of our reach."
27 Gardiner-Garden, J., Park, M “Commonwealth Indigenous-Specific Expenditure 1968 -2006
28 Ibid.
29 Minister Brough’s Media Release, 8/5/7 Budget Backs a Better Future for Indigenous Australians
30 2006 Census figures have the total Indigenous population at 517,200
31 Fred Chaney, National Press Club Speech, 4 July 2007
32 The Age 11/7/7 Bureaucrats must be held to account by Tony Cutcliffe.
33 Tom Calma speech 4 July 2007 – press club. p. 3 and Tim Goodwin’s thesis, to name two….
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