Empowering the Indigenous Estate

By Ky Chow

Indigenous entrepreneurs and investors speaking at the FSC Leaders Summit say it’s time to turn to the private sector, rather than Government, to tackle issues in indigenous health, education and employment.

Just one of the Federal Government’s Closing the Gap targets is on track this year. Big River Impact Foundation Executive Director, Josephine Cashman, says this is due to political disputes and the short-term focus of Australian election cycles.

“The private sector’s opportunity is in the deep thinking outside the small political cycle. Unfortunately, the politicisation of Aboriginal affairs has led to a lack of results, because a lot of it is short term,” said Ms Cashman.

The opportunities of Native Title payments and commercialisation, she says, are restricted by red tape.

“We have 40% of the land is this country that’s held by fewer than 300,000 Indigenous Australians,” Ms Cashman said.

Once the government relaxes its grip and gives full commercial ownership, she says, Australia’s financial services sector is well placed to make an impact by investing in Aboriginal communities.

Promise in the private sector
 

Australian financial organisations are “used to dealing with different groups... and can give a proper analysis of where the gaps are in terms of skills,” said Ms Cashman. She said in comparison, Commonwealth entities focusing on Indigenous disadvantage “are a big fat failure.” 

“Out of more than 1,000 Indigenous-focused programs, only eight per cent are being evaluated,” said First Nations Foundation CEO Amanda Young, citing research by the Centre for Independent Studies.

“So the Government is not investigating whether this is working.”

While Perpetual has worked with Indigenous communities for more than 20 years since compensation payments were first issued, the past five years have been particularly promising, according to the company’s General Manager for Community and Social Investment, Andrew Baker.

“We’ve started to see some really great outcomes. Indigenous future funds have really started to step away from a passive asset allocation philosophy to some active investments in the impact space.”

Are millennials the answer?
 

Dean Foley, the CEO and founder of business accelerator Barayamal, said Indigenous millennials are a particularly promising target for impact investors, as the best educated Indigenous generation so far. More than 700,000 Indigenous people are under the age of 25.

“There’s a ton of very smart Indigenous millennials. What’s driving them is most of them come from poor families, and really want to break that poverty cycle and become successful,” he added.

Josephine Cashman says financial advisers can also play a crucial role in preventing exploitation.

“Among Aboriginal people, there are a lot of dodgy people and financial schemes around. We need the financial sector to come in, empower Aboriginal people with choice, and make sure they’re there as partners along the journey.”
 

This conversation was part of the 2017 FSC Leaders Summit in Sydney, on July 25 and 26.