The federal government will boost Indigenous public sector jobs and commonwealth contracts through new enforced targets as part of its response to the Forrest review, the minister for Indigenous affairs has announced.
Nigel Scullion said on Tuesday the government would aim to increase its Indigenous public sector workforce by about 7,500 jobs, bringing the proportion up from about 2.6% to 3% over the next three years.
Another target aims to have 3% of government contracts held by an Indigenous business by 2020.
Non-Indigenous businesses might be unhappy about the new focus on preferencing Indigenous organisations for contracts but “I think they’ve been given a pretty good run for a couple of hundred years and it’s time for a bit of a change,” Scullion told the ABC.
“That’s my job, to ensure that they get the same, they get a better crack, because they certainly haven’t been getting anywhere near the opportunity that they should have in the past.”
He said the targets were achievable because right now “we’re doing nothing about it”.
The two new targets are in response to a review on Indigenous disadvantage by mining magnate Andrew Forrest. The Creating Parity review made 27 recommendations, including controversial social services measures like quarantining welfare payments. It has been criticised by social services and Indigenous groups, including an accusation that the review made recommendations beyond its scope.
“Indigenous businesses currently only secure a very, very small amount of government business – far less than 1%, or about $6.2m. This is despite existing exemption policies which make it easier for public sector agencies to purchase from Indigenous businesses,” said Scullion in a statement.
Finance minister Mathias Cormann said the new targets equated to around 1,500 business contracts and an increased proportion of annual government spending to around $135m.
“This is a massive increase from the commonwealth’s current Indigenous procurement spend,” said Cormann in a statement.
“There are many Indigenous-owned companies capable of supplying services to the commonwealth and winning a much greater share of commonwealth work.”
A spokeswoman for Scullion told Guardian Australia government agencies enter into “thousands of new contracts for goods and services” every year and contracts will be awarded to Indigenous businesses as opportunities arise.
“From 1 July 2015, commonwealth agencies will have to award 0.5% of their new contracts to Indigenous businesses,” she said, and the number will then rise each year until reaching 3% in 2020.
New reporting requirements would also see departments track their progress towards both targets each year, with employment disclosure to the Australian Public Service Commission.
The government would work with business procurement organisation, Supply Nation to increase its register of Indigenous businesses before making it public from July this year.
To register with Supply Nation for the government list a business must be at least 50% Indigenous-owned for recognition, or 51% Indigenous-owned, managed and controlled for full certification.
The federal government has come under fire over its Indigenous Advancement Strategy funding grants. The scheme sought to reallocate reduced federal funding to organisations which worked towards five broad areas of Indigenous affairs, including increasing employment, but it was heavily oversubscribed. About 1,300 programs missed out on funding with many predicting or confirming job losses as a consequence. An unknown number of other organisations only received partial funding to carry out the same or more work.
