Courtesy of The Australian
10.06.2025
RELIANCE ON GOVERNMENT LEG-UPS HELPS NO ONE AND STIFLES AMBITION, WRITES LIBERAL SENATOR NAMPIJINPA PRICE
The Albanese government must prioritise private enterprise if it truly wants to support Indigenous economic independence.
We’ve heard a lot from the Albanese government about the promised 3000 new remote jobs, which were supposed to be a consequence of overhauling and replacing the Community Development Program. Aside from the Albanese government’s failure to implement this new program within its first term as promised, there’s no priority given to private sector jobs over government-created (and therefore dependent) ones. Further, the 3000 jobs are hard to pin down. When member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour was given a chance to pin them down on the ABC recently, she pointed to about 120 jobs in the Tiwi Islands and said “we’re seeing this” in Alpara.
The Albanese government just isn’t hitting the mark. And again, its initiatives to encourage Indigenous economic engagement like the Indigenous Procurement Policy are centred on government dependence.
The Albanese government is failing to encourage private enterprise; particularly in remote communities, where some of our most marginalised live. Because thanks to the economic and regulatory disaster zone it has created, it’s hard enough to set up a business in an urban area, let alone in a remote community.
Beyond mere isolation, many remote areas have to navigate complex bureaucracy to use or develop their land. You can’t blame marginalised Indigenous Australians for not wanting to dive headfirst into private enterprise; we’ve simply killed off any aspiration to engage. We cannot continue to have fly-in, fly-out tradespeople servicing remote communities because there’s no local ability to meet the need. We cannot continue to keep our marginalised in socialist enclaves dependent on government for their survival.
The Albanese government must examine the structural barriers that make private enterprise so hard for marginalised Indigenous Australians in the bush. It must reform land rights legislation and sort out the bureaucracy of land councils, which often seem more invested in control than economic independence.
Because entrepreneurship and business in the private sector provides the best platform for economic independence. Imagine communities being able to provide goods, services and trades for themselves. Not only is the community strengthened and employment increased, but aspiration is birthed and purpose revitalised. Future generations dream for themselves having been inspired by the examples before them.
The Albanese government must free marginalised Indigenous Australians from being dependent on it, and supporting private enterprise is where that must begin.
