From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. At one point during this term of government, Indigenous affairs dominated national debate. Politicians, pundits in the public couldn't stop talking about it. But after the Voice referendum failed, it became something of a taboo. Labor is keen to move on and the Coalition is focused on scoring points, not offering a plan. Now, with the election weeks away, there are glimpses of what might come next. Labour says it's
all about delivering jobs. The Coalition says it's all about cutting waste. Today contributor for the Saturday Paper, Ben Abbotangelo or what the major parties are really offering and what it all means for First Nations people around the country. It's Saturday, April nineteen been. Indigenous affairs has more or less formed by the way side since the referendum. What since do you get from both sides as to how they rate it as a priority at this election?
Yeah, I mean to answer this, I just go straight to their election platform.
So if we think back to the.
Prior election, you know, Labor was really forthright with their policy platform, specifically for Indigenous affairs. It started with their commitment to implement the Ullerra Statement from the Heart in full.
I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners that the land on which we meet, I pay my respect to their elders, past, present and emerging, and on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Ularus Statement from the Heart and.
Hole work towards closing the gap. Abolish the punitive community development program, improve housing, invest in First Nations management of land and waters, strengthen First Nations economic and job opportunities, and get rid of the private tires, cash list, debit cub So their platform ahead of the last election was really forthright, really transparent, and if you don't go into the detail of it, a neutral observer would look at
it as pretty aspirational. Now ahead of this election, if you go to Labour's platform, Indigenous affairs, Aboriginal people, just anything to do with that portfolio is completely missing. There is nothing on the flip side of that.
You know.
The coalition's approach to Indigenous affairs is much like yesteryear. It is consistent with I suppose how they approached the referendum, and that is from my vantage point or analysis, is to punish our Aboriginal people.
We have serious allegations of both corrupt and criminal behavior. Yes they are denied, but we need to ensure that this is taxpayers money that is being spent appropriately.
And if you look at the coalition's plan, it is you know, under taking a full audit of government programs and expenditure into indigenous affairs.
And isn't it refreshing though as well to have Peter Dutton as the alternative Prime Minister of this country and Senator justinternam for jimber Price as the alternative Minister for Indigenous Australians for the first time standing up and saying if we get elected to government Andrew, we will demand accountability.
It's launching a Royal Commission into sexual abuse in Indigenous communities, which is again not to actually tackle the challenges that many of our communities face, but it is to demonize them.
Yes, that individualist type language that was applied to Aboriginal communities in the leader to the intervention itself, and it seems that since the referendums failure, that that rhetoric has come back for political gain. We spoke to the Minister for Indigenous Australians Melanderi McCarthy after the terrible result for the Closing the Gap report that came out earlier this year, she talked about Labour's new mantra, which is jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
You've been looking into what that actually means. So what did you find, Ben?
Yeah, well, you know, Labour's commitment to abolishing the CDP has been years in the making. That's the Community Development Program, which was introduced by the Coalition in twenty fifteen.
Donovan is one of about fifteen thousand people nationwide forced into the Community Development Program. Participants lose payments if they don't attend for twenty five hours each week.
What it meant under the scheme was that remote Indigenous people were offered a really simple choice. It is find a job in places where they're often were none or in definitely do work for the doll five hours a day, five days a week, forty six weeks a year, year after year, with the majority of that income then being managed.
Through the cash List debit card.
And they were to work for an hourly rate of eleven dollars twenty which was well below that minimum wage of eighteen dollars twenty nine, so it is punitive. It is racist, it is akin to modern slavery, and it has been the subject of multiple class actions and every report that has been commissioned has indicated that it has just created misery within the communities that it is purportedly designed to lift up. So I suppose to round this
little piece out. Daniel on the history of the scheme is that when participants withdrew their labor, their income support was withdrawn under the mantra of the time of no work,
no pay. So if people in the desert had to drive four hundred kilometers to the nearest major city or center for a hospital appointment, for a doctor's appointment, for sorry business, and they didn't attend the standing around that was forced upon them because there was nothing really to do in these regions, their welfare would be docked and the cascading effects on the families magnified.
At least three hundred thousand penalties have been imposed in two years, including for people away at medical appointments or funeral.
In twenty seventeen, Labor First committed to abolish the CDP.
When they're in opposition.
The Community Development program put in place by the current government in remote communities is discriminatory punitive and ineffectual and a shortened Labor government will abolish the current CDP and replace it with a new program.
That commitment firmed head of the last election campaign, and in the wake of the defeated referendum, it was the first major policy announcement that they introduced.
As well as more remote housing, we're creating the new Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program with three thousand new jobs in remote Australia to build new skills and new confidence within communities.
But what this Australian National Audit Office report has found is that Labour's seven hundred and seven million dollar new program Remote Jobs and Economic Development is basically comprising of many of the same failures of yesteryear's. It is very much aligned, at least from my perspective, Daniel, with a lot of the neoliberal policy making that has dominated indigenous affairs in yesteryear.
So tell me about that ben Labor replaced the CDP with their own jobs program and now this audit report has come out which assesses how effective their scheme is. What did it say.
It spoke about the fact that when the program was announced by Anthony Albanesi in February twenty twenty four that the advice to the government to support that announcement was just not clearly informed by evidence. Labour had promised to develop a new program in partnership with First Nations people, and on top of that, had spent the first two years its term talking about the need to listen to
Aboriginal people in order to get better outcomes. But the a ANDAO report found that the National Indigenous Australians Agency hadn't actually established a governance structure to ensure that Indigenous people were included in decision making until a month before the Prime Minister announced the new program. So it's a
pretty scathing assessment. And if we were to think about I suppose the expenditure items within the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, this would have to be up there on the podium as one of the most significant investments.
The a and AO report, when you take it in full, speaks.
To how this is another program that has largely been conceived by bureaucrats top down and then hastily rushed together and once again superimposed on these communities that I suppose it really looking to bounce back from a couple of decades of policies that have dispossessed, displaced and dehumanized.
These communities.
Coming up after the break the Coalition's plans in Indigenous.
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Been The Coalition chalked up at Big Win with the failure of the voice referredom. So what have we seen since then? In terms of their vision for improving lives of Aboriginal people.
The headline from the Coalition is practical solutions. You know, we want to ensure that we are pursuing practical solutions to improve the lives of Indigenous people.
My goal is the halt the pointless virtue signaling and focus on the solutions that bring real change that changes the lives of Australia's most vulnerable citizens, Solutions that give them real lives.
You know.
I tried to probe Senator price On, I suppose you know the coalitions what they mean when they talk about practical solutions when it comes to Indigenous affairs, but she never responded to those questions. She was clear that in the sense that she believes, you know, Labour's new remote jobs and Economic Development program is akin to a broken election promise and that it's been hastily put together and
that there's still many missing pieces. She also said that they're committed to encouraging economic independence for Indigenous Australians through the private sector and ensuring that a mutual obligations program does exist.
So these are basically announcements. Have they actually put any policies out to back up some of these announcements to create jobs for First Nations people to private sector, private enterprise, What does that actually mean in a policy sense? Do we have any idea what the meat is on the bone here?
There's no meat on the bone as far as I can say, And this is what I've tried to probe. All of the researchers found that mutual obligations and the scheme that it sounds like the Coalition wants to revert back to US costs five times as much per participant as the mainstream Job Active program and twice as much as the scheme it replaced, and as importantly that those
under mutual obligations also take longer to find work. So it very much contradicts the narrative of efficiency that the Coalition is running with and importantly also undermines their purported commitment to practical solutions in alivation indigenous peoples, particularly in remote and rural areas.
And I'll be.
Interested to get your perspective on this as well, Daniel, but I think one key point is worth noting is that there's a strategy behind I suppose putting Senator nappinginpro Price as the de facto head of the government's magaspin off of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, and that is to just position Indigenous affairs as a proxy, as
a battleground that they can wedge labor to. And the expectation is that Senator Price will hold up Indigenous peoples as a punching bag, and the Coalition party and it's people who are out on the front line selling their message, are able to just lay some cheap shots when it's politically expedient and when they think, you know, it can rally the base and be a motivated for their cause. So that's kind of my lens on it, But I
know that you cover this heaps as well, Daniel. What's your kind of take on the coalition stance for Indigenous affairs.
Yeah, the strategy just down line proved to be very effective for them, and it was the strategy they used using Aboriginal people basically as a punching bag pointing to waste in programs and in remote communities. When you look across the entirety of government and society, the waste that
happens in Aboriginal communities is minuscule as a comparison. But I think you're right the Coalition opposition is trying to wedge labor out because of their success during the referendum, But so far, my reading opposite, they haven't really been
able to lay any punches yet. Given the multitude of issues facing Indigenous Australia, things like incarceration rates, life expectancies, suicide rates, ostensibly the failure of the closure and the gape of gender, what sense do you have of whether either side really has a plan to address this devastating reality.
I don't know if there is, if there's ever been a plan.
I feel as though that when you interrogate the detail of what has been proposed, you know, throughout the last couple of decades, nothing that I've seen that has been put forward I can see being significant in the schemes of closing the gap or you know, emancipating Indigenous peoples from you know, the chronic illness and disease, the hopelessness that you know exists.
In many of our communities.
It just feels like a kumbaya when the statistics continue to show that mainstream communities continue to break away from ours that you know, are very much stuck in the recesses of a really violent past.
Ben, It's always very nourishing to talk with you. Thanks for coming on seven Am again.
Thanks Daniel, always a pleasure.
Seven Am was a daily show from Sports Media and The Saturday Paper. It's made by Attigus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Christine Gate, Eric Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah mcveee, Travis Evans, zom Vecchio and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Portio. Thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll see you Monday.