Only 70,000 aboriginal Australians are welfare dependent living on indigenous lands.
The balance of 480,000 are either in employment and living lives not noticeably different from the rest of Australia or are welfare dependent and live in urban and regional areas with other welfare dependent Australians;
So where does the 6 Billion $6,000,000,000 Dollars per year go? No one knows.
Stories abound .
$2 Billion $2,000,000,000 of federal funding to Indigenous housing associations in the Northern Territory between 2001 and 2006 under the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program could not be accounted for.
$672 million in the first 15 months of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program in the Northern Territory, but not one house was built in that time.
The most recent Mapping the Indigenous Program and Funding Maze. Research Report August 2016. Centre for Independent Studies by Sara Henderson confirms the report of the Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage 2014. that no one, including government can answer how much is spent ? !
Other questions are unanswerable too. How much did a specific department spend? ...• How effective is a service? ... • How much money was spent on Closing the Gap? ... • How much expenditure was related to provision as opposed to administration of Indigenous services? ... • How much benefit did Indigenous Australian get from the expenditure ...
We see massive duplication of services : Board development and review, Ethical standards, Related entity transactions, Remuneration, Internal management committees, executive committee, workplace health and safety committee, workplace consultative committee, scholarships committee, strategic economic development initiatives committee, valuation committee, portfolio review committee, senior executive staff remuneration committee, remuneration committee, Compliance assurance, Ethical behaviour and fraud control, Audit, Parliamentary and ministerial oversight, Freedom of information, Complaints handling, Judicial decisions and reviews by external bodies, Developments and significant events, Changes to disability reporting, Environmental performance, Capability development, Employee relations and so on.
Because of incomplete and unreliable data any reported improvements have to be taken with salt.
- There is virtually no change in the proportions of students achieving national minimum standards for reading, writing and numeracy.
- Relatively high rates of family and community violence are unchanged,
- There is little change in alcohol and substance use and harm over time.
- Relatively high rates of disability and chronic disease have not changed.
- Outcomes have worsened in some areas.
- The proportion of adults reporting high/very high levels of psychological distress increased from 27 per cent in 2004-05 to 30 per cent in 2012-13, and
- hospitalisations for intentional self-harm increased by 48 per cent over this period. The adult imprisonment rate increased 57 per cent.
- Juvenile detention rates increased sharply at around 24 times the rate for non-Indigenous youth.
The August 2016. Centre for Independent Studies by Sara Henderson recommends (page 26)
Funding details of Indigenous programs needs to be made publicly available
Indigenous programs must be linked to outcomes.
All program activities must be measured against agreed performance standards
All organisations must: - formally account for how the money has been spent; -
provide evidence of the program’s impact; and –
assess and report on whether the program is meeting its intended objectives.
Funding agreements must be flexible enough to allow money to be redirected from unsuccessful programs and activities to programs and initiatives achieving results.
Duplication in the provision and delivery of Indigenous programs must end.
Without high quality data, it is impossible to understand where we are headed in terms of overcoming Indigenous disadvantage.
John Bolton 24th August 2016