Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator Nampijinpa Price, move:

That the following matter be referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report by 30 June 2024:

(a) the role, governance and accountability requirements of Aboriginal Land Councils and/or similar governing bodies across Australia, their respective members and how these are maintained;

(b) the scope of services funded by the Australian Government and delivered by Aboriginal Land Councils or similar governing bodies and Aboriginal organisations, and how they are impacting the communities they act on behalf of;

(c) how services are delivered, their effectiveness and whether other opportunities exist to provide greater community-led benefit to Traditional Owners;

(d) how Traditional Owners are consulted in making decisions that impact on the entire community;

(e) how Aboriginal Land Councils and/or similar governing bodies and Aboriginal Organisations assess applications for funding and development and any reasons for delays;

(f) how the future of Aboriginal Benefit Account funding will benefit communities; and

(g) any other related matters.

Transparency, accountability and outcomes: these three words should underpin everything, and they should be the words that underpin the way taxpayers' dollars are spent by the many organisations for the purposes of which they are intended. But, unfortunately, we know this is not always the case. For too long we have turned a blind eye to their lack of reporting, their lack of accountability and, without a shadow of doubt, their lack of outcomes. If there are exceptions, then let's hear about them, but the people for whom these organisations exist to benefit should also know that they are not perpetually destined for much of the same. I'm not talking about all organisations, but I am talking about exploring how all organisations can do better and to understand their commitment to working towards doing better. Some of these organisations I expect should appear are in charge of millions of dollars meant to be directed to the most vulnerable in our communities. Others are small, but their responsibility to deliver positive outcomes for those most vulnerable is not less important but more necessary.

I've heard many stories and seen it for myself—organisations must be under greater scrutiny. They need their leadership under greater scrutiny if there is any hope of ending this self-interested power play, corruption and collusion. Organisations that are doing the right thing have nothing to fear from this. Today, Senator Nampijinpa Price and I are calling for better outcomes for individuals and communities. It is time to take a serious look into these organisations and find out what's really going on—the good, the bad, the ugly, the very ugly.

No referendum, no voice can fix the problems that are plaguing Indigenous Australia. The solution starts with looking at self, not at others. Two reports have increased my frustration and concerns. Indigenous Australians—in fact, all Australians—have an interest in these reports. The ANAO independent performance audit of the National Indigenous Australians Agency, known as NIAA, and the Productivity Commission's draft report of the review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap are the two reports, if you need more evidence. In fact, if you are objecting to this then you are simply ignoring the facts and protecting the status quo, and that is far from good enough. Stop this absurdly racist double standard. The highest expectations for the most vulnerable in Aboriginal communities are a minimum. We're hearing about accountability in a major consulting firm—we just heard about that—so what is different here?

The two reviews cast a very dark cloud over how the rivers of money are being managed. The alarm bells have been ringing loudly for a very long time. It is not a short list. The audit found the NIAA, the organisation that the minister is responsible for, is not meeting legislative requirements for risk and fraud management. Raising the biggest red flag is the NIAA's failure to commence even a single fraud investigation in 2020-21. The NIAA has handed out more than $1 billion in funding to more than 1,000 external providers but has failed to properly detect or manage any fraud. Its management of provider fraud and noncompliance risk is partly effective, although it is not consistently or sufficiently considered as part of grant design and establishment processes, so frameworks for managing provider fraud and noncompliance are not fully fit for purpose. That's a lot, isn't it? But wait, there is still more.

The NIAA's arrangements for the prevention, protection and referral of potential provider fraud and noncompliance were only partly effective. The NIAA's triage, management and resolution of referred matters related to potential provider fraud and noncompliance were also partly effective. Of the eight new revised or extended grant opportunities at February this year, just one had a finalised risk assessment that considered fraud risks. The NIAA's program compliance and fraud branch has not provided adequate monitoring, review or reporting on forward risk assessments. Relevant, mandatory and nonmandatory training is offered; however, it is out of date. And there was no corruption control testing between July 2020 and December 2022. Let's stop and think for a second about what I have just outlined. Not a single fraud investigation, practices that are out of date, not consistent or sufficient, only partly effective.

This behaviour is occurring within an executive agency that operates under the Public Service Act, and it is the lead agency for Commonwealth policy development, program design, implementation and service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. How is that even close to leading practice? How is that anywhere close to demonstrating operating standards in action? High expectations, and who is responsible? Well, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Minister Burney, the assistant minister Senator McCarthy and, ultimately, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The NIAA's partly effective practices, out of date training, failure to investigate and other shortcomings are just simply not acceptable. They're not acceptable to me and should not be acceptable to anyone in this chamber, this parliament and certainly not to Indigenous Australians or Australian taxpayers.

But listen, do you hear the Albanese government demanding for a fit-for-purpose risk framework and for the enterprise group fraud and program risk assessments to be aligned, even though this is not occurring at present? No, you don't. Wake up, Australia! This type of accountability is becoming standard, and the Albanese government prefers instead to talk about other things. Despite being directly responsible for the NIAA, the minister chooses to prioritise other stuff. Add to that the many examples of outstanding annual reports and other governance compliance not being met by government funded Indigenous bodies and service providers, and it is easy to see why we have a glaring problem. Millions and millions of dollars are flowing down the river without question—no checks, no balances, just partially effective. We don't even really understand the extent of it, because nobody has the frameworks in place to properly assess risk, to properly manage issues, to even properly manage complaints, let alone the response time it takes to consider, to look at and to investigate when there are questions raised. I actually agree with Senator Hanson, who said in an interview in July:

How can we have confidence our taxes are going where they should if the NIAA is not following the rules to guard against frauds?

It's hard to disagree with that. As I said, transparency, accountability and outcomes—that's what changes the dial. If we applied those principles to every one of the billion dollars spent by the NIAA in funding to the more than 1,000 external providers, I can guarantee that life for those marginalised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people among the 800,000 Indigenous Australians being targeted by the funding would be much better. It doesn't need further bureaucracy to tell you that.

There's no reason to expect anything less. The NIAA has a large national footprint, with more than 1,200 employees, including over 40 earning in excess of $220,000 a year, spread across offices in remote, regional and urban locations. That workforce should ensure the basics of management and good governance are carried out. As stated in one of the NIAA audit report's key messages:

Where programs involve payments going to providers, there should be organisational commitment to the prevention and detection of fraud and the identification and remediation of provider non-compliance.

Are you serious? That's what they say, and yet they're not doing it themselves. We must remember that every dollar spent by the government is a dollar earned by someone else. It's a dollar every Australian should be expecting should be spent wisely. Taxpayers deserve to have the government hold every dollar to account and make existing frameworks accountable. Even on its website, the NIAA states:

… our decisions must be transparent, our policies justifiable and our practices beyond reproach.

So why isn't it occurring? I didn't make this up; you can't make this up. It's there in a written report of one of our own agencies that looks at auditing. There's a frighteningly similar picture painted in the Productivity Commission's draft report of its review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. The draft report finds governments have made little progress towards the agreement and its four priority reforms, which is limiting improvements in life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It states:

Progress in implementing the Agreement's Priority Reforms has, for the most part, been weak and reflects a business-as-usual approach to implementing policies and programs that affect the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

That doesn't give me much hope. That's right—a business-as-usual approach. There's no accountability, no demanding of outcomes for every single dollar spent. For every night we go home and we sleep in a comfortable bed, when these programs aren't delivered to maximum effect, there is a victim. Sometimes they're invisible, but there is a victim. They're depending on us to do a better job, not absolve responsibility to someone else. That report goes on to say:

Current implementation raises questions about whether governments have fully grasped the scale of change required to their systems, operations and ways of working to deliver the unprecedented shift they have committed to.

Senators Nampijinpa Price, Thorpe and Hanson and I have been among the growing loud chorus asking why only four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are improving. Who is being held to account and where are the outcomes? Start looking at those 1,000 organisations. No constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament is going to fix the multitiered system costing billions of dollars yet failing to deliver those outcomes.

If you want an example of how service providers are letting making progress on improving the lives of Indigenous Australians fall through what is a chasm, look no further than your own town and community. These organisations exist to improve the lives of people who they deliver service to. This request is to give voice to those who know, who say, who can give examples of how it can be done better. What we need is to fix what is broken, and, to fix it, first we need to find out just what's going on. That's why this inquiry is so important.

We have an obligation to fix what's already in place. We have an obligation to consider common sense and commitment to ethical practice and to expect that the organisations themselves and those that fund them have checks and balances in place for the better. I've had constituents from South Australia talk regularly about what they view as maladministration, mismanagement, corruption and fraud—this from courageous people who speak up but who see nothing is really done in terms of change and reform. Indeed, when the Commonwealth does investigate, it can be two years before an investigation is completed, so, if there's an issue, nothing is done for the entire time while the organisation gets their act together. That's a lot of damage. That's a lot of lives impacted in that time frame, and not for the better, either. A quick read of the annual reports of these organisations will tell you something is wrong. It's an indication of issues of transparency, accountability and compliance, and yet some of these organisations haven't even publicly released their annual reports. It's a joke. It's simply ridiculous. It is taxpayers' money, and it's not an endless bucket. Consider the native title system. There were huge expectations then, too, for those lucky enough to be on land where there is development and resources. You don't hear much about that anymore. In some cases, the so-called intergenerational benefit is being sucked up by a single generation of greedy, aggressive individuals.

Now let's turn to land councils. You look at the ANAO report into just one of the land councils and the words used to describe what it has been doing: only 'largely effective'; 'could be improved'; and 'largely effective'. It says:

The CLC's—

in this case, the Central Land Council—

arrangements to promote the proper use and management of resources under the PGPA Act are largely appropriate, except for arrangements to manage the risk of fraud and conflicts of interest.

Are you serious? This is not new. Managing conflicts of interests and fraud—there's a recurring theme here. We need to demand better from these organisations. The next generations deserve better.

Prime Minister Albanese is in no way fulfilling his regular mantra of getting better outcomes and closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by listening. Why isn't he listening now? Without that action, Australians are being provided a front-row seat to a hazard that lies ahead. We need to stop talking, stop dancing around what is occurring under the government's nose and start doing what's right. We should begin doing the work that makes the change for the better. When you have many Indigenous organisations such as land councils failing to comply, you're not setting a very good example. We deserve better. Transparency and accountability right now.