Australia’s decade-old Indigenous Procurement Policy has been hailed by both sides of politics as a success in Indigenous economic policy.
Started in 2015 as a way to address under-investment in Indigenous businesses when the federal government awards contracts, it’s maintained bipartisan support. In ten years, around 80,000 government contracts worth a combined A$12.6 billion have been awarded to more than 4,400 Indigenous-owned businesses.
But my new research – based on freedom of information requests released by the National Indigenous Australians Agency – shows half of the $7 billion spent in the first eight years of the policy went to just 18 businesses.
It also found contracts have flowed mainly to businesses based in major cities – led by Canberra.
These findings are timely, as the federal government is already scaling up its targets for Indigenous procurement between now and 2030, from 3% to 4% of government contracts.