NT remote housing rent reversal: what are the policy ramifications?

O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant

Measure for Measure, Act two, Scene two.

A decision by the High Court yesterday (link here) overturned a series of ministerial determinations by the Former ALP Government in 2021, 2022 and 2023 which purported to introduce a new rent system for the 5000 plus remote social housing units across the NT. An associated decision dealt with an associated matter that had been incorrectly dealt with by the NT Court of Appeal (link here).

The ABC news article published yesterday (High Court strikes down remote NT public housing rent rises: link here) and a previous article published in 2022 (Rent hike looms for many Northern Territory residents under new remote rent system: link here) provide good and accessible summaries of the issues involved.

The High Court summary released yesterday is included below as an addendum.

The Decision itself is legally complicated and largely deals with the circumstances in which ministers and agencies are required to provide procedural fairness to individuals affected by government decisions. I wont attempt to summarise the decisions here and would merely note that the decision (which was unanimous) is reasonably easy to read and follow.

The following comments are observations on some of the policy issues that fed into and are likely to flow from the Court’s decision.

The former NT Housing Minister made an initial determination to change rental arrangements and a number of subsequent determinations which were required to either address errors in the original determination, and/or to make adjustments to the reach of the determination. There is a strong sense of administrative hyper-complexity exacerbated by a degree of administrative incompetence in the management of the rental system applying to remote social housing. The remote housing stock (which was the subject of this Court decision) is almost universally made available to Indigenous community tenants.

It is unclear how the current NT Government will respond to the Court’s decision. There are two obvious elements requiring attention:

First, how to retrospectively correct and make amends to tenants who have been charged rents collected on the basis of the determinations which have now been quashed (and presumably must be held to have been of no effect from the start).

Second, how to proceed going forward.

There are clearly a number of options available to the NT Government in relation to both these issues, include (a) retrospective legislation validating the determinations (although this would inevitably attract further litigation); (b) seeking to remake the determinations in some form following a process of procedural fairness though the fact that the Court identified that the circumstances of individual tenants were important factors would make such a process extremely time consuming, complex and expensive; and (c) deciding to adopt an identical tenancy and rental framework as applies in urban areas of the NT (though this too may need to involve the provision of procedural fairness to existing remote tenants (unless it was grandfathered); and (d) reverting to the status quo ante.

There are arguments for and against each of these options, and they all involve complex administrative and political factors. There may be elements of each that could be adopted.

The bottom line is that the NT Government cannot do nothing, it must act. The question for Indigenous interests is obvious: can they trust the NT Government to treat them fairly going forward in a context where both parties have demonstrated in recent years the capacity to ignore the interests of remote communities, and to pander to powerful interest groups such as mining and petroleum interests, gambling interests, the alcohol industry and the urban majority in Darwin, Katherine and Alice Springs in ways which systemically disadvantage Aboriginal Territorians.

The Commonwealth too has a stake here given that it has provided over $4 billion for remote housing and associated infrastructure funding over the past 15 years, and of course is the source of the bulk of the NT’s general-purpose funding via the GST and various special purpose funding arrangements.

My strong suggestion is that to protect its ongoing investments, the Commonwealth should get on the front foot here. In conjunction with the NT Government, the Commonwealth should convene a process that involves key Aboriginal interests linked to remote community housing (APONT and the four NT land councils and perhaps local governments spring to mind) to develop a way forward that both simplifies and strengthens the current policy arrangements governing remote housing provision and administration and importantly that treats all tenants respectfully and with fairness.

While the issues discussed in this post are an NT issue, the overcrowding crisis in remote Australia is not limited to the NT, and there is a case for the Commonwealth to step back into this policy space in a much more proactive way. There are no guarantees that the administrative and policy failures that have emerged in the NT and led to this litigation are not being replicated in one form or another in other jurisdictions.

One of the realities of remote service provision for Indigenous communities is that the risk that their real and substantive needs become invisible is ever-present. It is past time in my view that the Prime Minister and his Minister for Indigenous Australians asked themselves: what was the point of the 1967 referendum amending the Australian Constitution to grant the Commonwealth a head of power in relation to First Nations people?

 

Addendum (link here)

High Court of Australia 3 December 2025

Summary Note: BADARI & ORS v MINISTER FOR TERRITORY FAMILIES AND URBAN HOUSING & ANOR [2025] HCA 47

Today, the High Court of Australia allowed an appeal (in proceeding D7/2025) from a judgment of the Court of Appeal and the Full Court of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory (the "Court of Appeal"). The appeal was heard on 3 September 2025, together with a related application (in proceeding D1/2025) for special leave to appeal, in which the High Court delivered judgment separately.

The appeal concerned three determinations made variously by the Minister for Territory Families and Urban Housing and the Minister for Housing and Homelands – on 23 December 2021, 27 April 2022 and 2 September 2022 respectively – pursuant to s 23 of the Housing Act 1982 (NT). The determinations prescribed the rent payable for over 5,000 dwellings in various remote communities, and took effect despite anything to the contrary contained in existing tenancy agreements entered into in respect of those dwellings. The Ministers made the determinations without giving notice to any tenant or inviting any tenant to make submissions regarding the proposed change of rent.

The appellants, who each were party to tenancy agreements entered into in respect of dwellings affected by the determinations, applied to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory for judicial review of the three determinations on two grounds: first, that they were not afforded procedural fairness; and second, that each determination was legally unreasonable. The primary judge dismissed the application for judicial review, and an appeal from that judgment was subsequently dismissed unanimously by the Court of Appeal. The appellants appealed to the High Court.

The High Court unanimously held that the exercise of the power to make determinations under s 23 of the Housing Act is conditioned by an obligation to observe procedural fairness. The Court further held that the appellants were denied procedural fairness, and that the denial was material. Accordingly, the making of each determination was infected with jurisdictional error. Given that conclusion, it was unnecessary for the Court to address whether the determinations were legally unreasonable.

 

4 December 2025

Annual Report delays in the Indigenous Australians portfolio

"O, what may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

Measure for Measure Act three, Scene two.

Commonwealth statutory entities are obliged to prepare annual reports including audited financial statements. These requirements are normally found tin the relevant legislation establishing the entity and in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act (2013) (PGPA Act). These reports are required to be tabled in Parliament. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet prepares Tabling Guidelines which outline the processes expected to be followed in relation to the tabling of such documents. The most recent Tabling Guidelines were issued in July 2024 (link here). The relevant section relating to annual reports states as follows [emphasis added]:

Annual Reports

It is expected Annual Reports are tabled prior to the start of the Supplementary Budget Estimates hearings each year and immediately published on the Transparency Portal after tabling occurs. This ensures Annual Reports are available for scrutiny by the relevant Senate standing committee. To facilitate this, documents can be tabled in the Senate on any business day in October excluding any Thursday when the Senate is sitting. The Department of Finance is responsible for establishing the requirements for annual reporting by Commonwealth entities and companies. Enquiries about the preparation, content and reporting timeframes should be directed to the Department of Finance: PGPA@finance.gov.au. Relevant guidance for Commonwealth entities and companies annual reporting requirements can be located at https://www.finance.gov.au/government/managing-commonwealth-resources/planning-and-reporting

Annual reports are periodic reports under section 34C of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (AIA). In the event that an appropriate deadline for a report cannot be met, an extension must be sought in accordance with relevant legislation or subsections 34C(4) or (7) of the AIA, as appropriate. Whether a report is overdue will depend on the particular circumstances of each Commonwealth entity or Commonwealth company. Statements relating to extensions for overdue reports which are required to be ‘laid before each chamber of Parliament’ will be tabled as deemed documents in the House of Representatives and Clerk's documents in the Senate.

The Senate Estimates hearing for the Indigenous Australians elements of the Prime Minister’s portfolio are being held today and tomorrow (1&2 December 2025). As of this afternoon, the 2024-25 Annual Reports for two portfolio entities (Aboriginal Investment NT (AINT) and the Anindilyakwa Land Council (ALC)) had not been tabled and are not available on the Transparency Portal, and as far as I can determine, no statement by the Minister approving an extension of time for the tabling of these reports has been tabled.

While this might seem to be a comparatively trivial oversight, both the Aboriginal Investment NT and the ALC are responsible for the allocation and investment of scores of millions in funds appropriated to the Aboriginals Benefit Account. Over the past three years the ALC has been the subject of a slew of accountability concerns and there are serious doubts related to the probity surrounding the allocation of over $100m in royalty equivalents in recent years (link here).

AINT in its response to the Senate Order requiring a listing of entity contracts (link here) revealed that it has paid CIML $19m for the management of an Investment Trust. CIML, or Channel Investment Management Limited, is an Australian company that acts as a responsible entity and trustee for various managed investment schemes. CIML provides responsible entity services to funds that invest in areas like fixed income, Australian and global equities, and private debt. I have no reason to question this contract arrangement but mention it to make the point that there are serious large financial transactions in play within AINT that deserve serious oversight by the Senate.

The similar Senate Order report for the ALC (link here) reports expenditures in excess of $500k related to an Independent Board Advisor, communication services, and planning and reporting services.

Clearly both organisations have the capability to engage external consultants if necessary to ensure that their obligations to the Parliament for annual reporting are met.

This raises the question then whether the delays in tabling have been the result of directions by the Minister rather than an inability to finalise a draft.

This afternoon the ALC appeared along with the other three NT Land Councils before a desultory hearing of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee. Each of the other three land councils were asked a few questions based on their annual reports, and they largely agreed to take them on notice. The absence of a tabled annual report from the ALC was not raised by any of the Senators present. Aboriginal Investment NT is scheduled to appear before the Committee tomorrow; I am not holding my breath.

Readers can draw their own conclusions; for what it is worth, my take is that the Parliament’s appetite for ensuring substantive accountability by the Executive is close to zero.

 

1 December 2025

 

Pathways toward Indigenous self-determination: hollow constructs and managed illusions

 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

 For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."

Hamlet, Act one, Scene three.

A recent post on the ANU Development Studies Blog examined the structural basis of regional autonomy in Indonesia (link here). Reading it suggested largely unacknowledged parallels with Indigenous aspirations in Australia for greater self-determination. Hence this post.

First Nations aspirations for greater self-determination are most often articulated in calls for adherence to  international law and informal proclamations (such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples); for the implementation of policies and programs that require community-controlled service delivery; and for the negotiation of treaties and other agreements related to land rights, water rights or other property rights. To be clear, these are all legitimate aspirations, although the devil is often to be found in the detail of the substantive terms of the arrangements put in place, and especially in the implementation phase of these arrangements. Of course, there are always opportunities for First Nations to exercise various cultural and other rights vis a vis their own membership that can be conceptualised as the assertion of parallel or shared sovereignty, a concept referenced in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Neil Westbury and I explored the scope for greater acknowledgment of shared sovereignty in our 2019 CAEPR Policy Insights Paper titled Overcoming Indigenous Exclusion: Very Hard, Plenty Humbug (link here; pp 78-81).  

Close readers of this Blog would be aware however that I am sceptical that these aspirations for greater self-determination on their own offer a viable pathway to greater Indigenous autonomy. There are a range of reasons for my scepticism, which I won’t seek to lay out comprehensively here. But a key element underpinning greater First Nations autonomy continues to be the retention by governments of formal and often informal constraints over independent Indigenous agency. While not the only mechanism, perhaps the most common control mechanism is the retention by governments of authority over the allocation of funding even in contexts where Indigenous interests appear to have independent powers of decision making. 

The Development Policy Blog post was titled How fiscal centralisation undermines Indonesia’s regional autonomy and provides a detailed description of the operation of Indonesia’s fiscal federalism. It concluded as follows:

Indonesia’s decentralisation is thus a story of political empowerment without fiscal substance. The illusion of autonomy persists, but beneath it lies a structure of dependency reinforced by discretionary transfers. If Indonesia is serious about strengthening its regions, it must redesign its fiscal architecture to include predictable, rule-based sharing of national taxes, … granted not as temporary grants but as earned entitlements tied to governance performance. This would create a genuine incentive structure for local governments to innovate, attract investment and compete productively.

Until such reform takes place, Indonesia’s regional autonomy will remain a hollow construct. Local leaders may hold the wheel of governance, but Jakarta still controls the engine, and as long as that remains true, decentralisation will be remembered not as a triumph of empowerment, but as a managed illusion of freedom [emphasis added].

One does not have to look far to find examples of governments retaining fiscal control, and increasingly exercising influence through the use of implicit threats of funding cuts and the selective rewarding of organisations that operate within self-imposed constraints. I don’t propose to provide a list of examples here, although I have discussed several examples in posts in this Blog over recent years. While accepting or acceding to this type of government pressure is a legitimate and often a rational choice for First Nations interests, its adoption will rarely allow or lead to the development of effective advocacy pressure on governments to drive structural or systemic change aimed at enhancing Indigenous inclusion and/or self-determination.

For these reasons, I argue that one of the most worthwhile strategies available to First Nations involves building their organisational and analytic capability for public policy advocacy.  Effective advocacy involves building broad policy alliances and developing the capacity to identify emerging issues (often beyond the narrow remit of Indigenous specific policy issues). It involves engaging transactionally with other mainstream interests. It involves identifying policy priorities and a capacity to both publicly and privately make the case for the adoption of those priorities over extended periods (sometimes years).

While identifying which priorities are most important is for Indigenous interests to determine, I argue that one of them should be a focus on achieving and sustaining fiscal independence wherever possible. Step one is for the core advocacy organisations to find ways to be fiscally independent of government. Step two is for their ongoing advocacy to progressively free key Indigenous organisations of the (often hidden) fiscal constraints and controls retained by governments.

A key rationale used by governments to retain control over financial arrangements and funding is the argument (rarely admitted publicly) that they do not trust Indigenous organisations to operate accountably. The only effective and sustainable response to this argument is for Indigenous interests to ensure that they prioritise financial probity and accountability, and more importantly, that they insist that governments establish effective and independent regulatory oversight where significant funding flows benefit Indigenous interests and/or flow via community-controlled organisations.

Without a sustained commitment to full transparency and effective regulation, both on their own part and in turn from governments, First Nations interests will never surmount the arguments against the retention of government controls over funding. In other words, a focus on transparency and accountability by both governments and by First Nations interests is the sine qua non for greater self determination of key First Nations organisations and institutional frameworks. I canvassed related aspects of this argument in a recent post on Integrity in Public Policy (link here)

Crucially, if Indigenous interests cannot surmount governments’ arguments for retaining financial control over key institutional policy frameworks, they will never break free of the ‘hollow construct’ and ‘managed illusion’ of independence that infects most of the current and developing institutional frameworks across Indigenous Australia that are asserted to constitute or contribute to self-determination.

 

28 November 2025

The angels weep: an update on ALC issues

 

… but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
…
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep

Measure for Measure, Act two, Scene two

 

I previously provided an update on matters related to Groote Eylandt, the ALC and related corporations over three months ago on 27 July 2025 (link here). With the end of the year and the next Estimates Hearings fast approaching, it is worth highlighting developments that have come to light (or not!) over recent months and revisiting some older answers to Questions on Notice. This update post complements in certain respects my previous post on the ALC Corporate Plan 2025-26 (link here) which identified the apparent recent shift in the ALC strategic directions away from their previous ‘all in’ support for the development of the proposed Winchelsea mine.

Answers to Questions on Notice

Senator David Pocock placed several ALC related questions on notice last year. I don’t propose to deal with all of the questions and their answers, only those that appear to me to be particularly salient for the ongoing and unaddressed issues within the ALC.

Question NIAA 0020 (link here). Senator Pocock asked:

In relation to the ALC meeting of 16 October 2024, will the ALC provide the Committee with copies of any briefing papers it received from the Minister, NIAA Integrity Group or other government official prior to the meeting, along with the minutes of the meeting and other relevant papers considered at or following the 16 October meeting [emphasis added].

The answer provided by the ALC states:

The ALC reads this question as requesting the ALC Board meeting agenda item that dealt with the employment termination of Mr. Hewitt. The relevant sections of the ALC Board meeting minutes is provided at attachment 1. There were no briefing papers received from the Minister, NIAA Integrity Group or other government official relating to the employment termination of Mr. Hewitt. Attachment 1: Extract from ALC Board meeting minutes dated 16 and 17 October 2024. The attached extract reads as follows:

9. CEO Proposal Letter. Sean Worth NIAA

The ALC Board considered the options outlined by the NIAA attendee for the CEO’s position. The Board reviewed the risks associated with each option. The Board discussed that the option with the fastest outcome, with the lowest risk, was termination on notice and noted that this would incur a substantial payout. The payout was estimated at $500,000.00.

Board Resolution: The Board unanimously resolved to terminate, on notice, Mark Hewitts employment in line with his employment contract. 

Comment: It appears from the heading to the agenda item that there was correspondence of some kind from Mr Hewitt proposing terms for his departure. While this appears to be the case, we do not know whether the proposal was made of his own volition, or because of prior communications with the Minister or her agent. The ALC has not provided that communication notwithstanding it was clearly a relevant paper and thus fell within the terms of the question. The ALC Board Minutes (which I haven’t quoted) make clear that no ALC staff including their in-house legal adviser were present for the Board discussion, yet a senior NIAA officer was given access to that discussion. More strangely still, there is no record in the meeting minutes of the reasons for the termination nor any record of discussion around why the ALC should terminate Mr Hewitt’s employment. This parallels the absence of any reason for the termination from either the ALC Board or the Minister in their subsequent media statements. It goes without saying that within the Commonwealth, a voluntary separation would not normally be accompanied by a payout estimated to total $500k.

A suggestion in the NIAA briefing notes for Estimates made public in response to an earlier FOI request noted that the Minister may be required to approve additional section 64(1) payments in relation to the CEO’s termination (notwithstanding that land councils have the ability to expend up to 20 percent above approved estimates). This suggests that the Minister or NIAA may have initiated or supported the proposal to terminate Mr Hewitt since if the termination was done at the request of the Minister, the ALC Board may have requested that any termination costs would be additional to current budget approvals. The rationale provided in the Board minute regarding speed of execution and minimising risk make no sense in the absence of any reasons being provided.

Of course, the Minister has considerable leverage over land councils by virtue of her responsibilities under the legislation and had already provided only partial approval for the ALC 2024-25 budget. If the real reason for the termination was that the Minister wanted the CEO to be terminated before the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) finalises the as yet unreleased report into its ALC related investigation (this is only my surmise), then the ALC Board may have felt that they had no option but to accede to the request. This would be a problematic scenario for many reasons, not least because it would almost certainly have required the provision of separate incentives or assurances to Mr Hewitt. It may also be relevant to note that released ALC Board papers also confirm that Mr Hewitt’s performance was rated as excellent at the end of 2023, and there were expressions of full support by the Board in early 2024. It is unclear what transpired to change that assessment by the ALC Board.To be clear, there is no evidence that the Minister did initiate the termination, merely evidence that doesn’t rule it out.

Question NIAA 0026 (link here)

In this question, Senator Pocock asked about the total amounts of section 64(3) royalty equivalents distributed by the ALC over the past 5 years, and the amounts directed to supporting the Winchelsea mine.

The answer identified total distributions by the ALC to associated corporations between 2020-21 and 2024-25 of $204 million. Of this $19.34 million was allocated to the Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC) for the development of the mine, while $39.94 million was allocated to Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC) for infrastructure that benefitted the proposed mine. Total payments over the five years linked to the development of the Winchelsea mine thus totalled $59.28 million.

Question NIAA222 (link here)

This question asks a slightly different question: in essence for a breakdown of all funds and the value of in-kind support provided by the ALC for direct or indirect assistance to the Winchelsea mine.

The answers provided (which unhelpfully are not summed) go from 2018 through to June 2024 and include amounts totalling $6,985,093 sourced from NT Economic Stimulus Package funding (which was provided via NIAA). The amounts provided are split between direct support through AAAC totalling $27,532,850 and indirect support through GHAC totalling $43,737,577. The combined total is $71,270,427 in assistance to the Winchelsea mine from 2014 to June 2024.

Comment: The ALC answer fails to include any contributions from the Anindilyakwa Royalites Aboriginal Corporation (ARAC) (which early on provided a loan for the mine development itself sourced from 64(3) funds). This loan remains unpaid by Winchelsea and is listed in ARAC’s 2024 financial statements as a $4.2m asset (see note 13). Nor does it include the indirect in-kind support provided by the land council which admittedly would be difficult to estimate but should be acknowledged as it was likely considerable. The Aboriginal community on Groote has thus contributed at least $75 million to the development of the mine as all the payments directed to the mine would otherwise have been required to be directed to other beneficial purposes on Groote. It is unclear whether AUS China International Mining Pty Ltd (AusChina), the owners of 30 percent of the mine have contributed a pro-rata amount to the mines development (though it seems unlikely). In February 2024, Mr Hewitt advised the Senate Estimates Committee that AusChina had contributed $11m to the establishment of the mine.

If this hypothesis is in fact the case, then the following analysis applies: A core function of the Land Council is to protect traditional owner interests, and thus the internal commercial arrangements between AAAC and AusChina become highly relevant. The Land Council had considerable leverage to obtain information from AAAC by virtue of its processes for determining payments of s.64(3) funding to AAAC in support of the mine. In practice, the mining agreement negotiated by the ALC was entirely and fundamentally conflicted. The mining agreement was negotiated between the Land Council and Winchelsea in circumstances where the ALC Chair and CEO were also senior officers in Winchelsea Mining. In these extraordinary circumstances, the ministerial consent required under the ALRA, and provided by a former Minister, will prima facie have struggled to ensure that the Land Council exercised its powers in a way consistent with protecting traditional owner interests. In approving this commercial agreement, the Commonwealth has ventured chest deep into a quagmire of its own making.

However, we do not need to consider hypothetical scenarios to confirm that the Land Council was not protecting traditional owner interests. Even if AusChina made pro-rata contributions alongside AAAC, the funds provided to GHAC for logistical and infrastructure support related to the mine were not matched by AusChina. Such investments are normally made by the resource developers. Instead, the ALC established a separate entity (GHAC) which was provided funding by the ALC to undertake this work thus in effect subsidising the development of the mine infrastructure. Neither AAAC nor AusChina were required to contribute. This represents a clear transfer of funds allocated for the benefit of traditional owners to the owners of AusChina. It is difficult to see this as being consistent with the statutory function of the land council in section 23 of the ALRA to ‘protect the interests of traditional Aboriginal owners of, and other Aboriginals interested in, Aboriginal land in the area of the Land Council’. Section 23AA (3) makes clear that protecting traditional owner interests must be a priority for the land council. In my view, the section 64(3) payments to GHAC in support of the proposed mine are likely ultra vires and inconsistent with the legislation. In turn, this raises the question: where was the regulator while this was occurring?

Question NIAA221 (link here)

In this question, Senator Pocock requested a list of the remunerated roles of Mr Hewitt and Ms Sophie Liu (his spouse) at the ALC and associated entities over the terms of their engagement.

The answer provides three tables identifying the roles and remuneration of these two individuals at the ALC going back to 2012-13 in the case of Mr Hewitt and then two separate tables identifying respective roles for each of them in associated entities. For Hewitt, these included GHAC and Winchelsea Mining. For Liu, she worked with several entities from 2014 onwards. For simplicity, I analysed the figures for both individuals from 2018-19 when the Winchelsea mine proposal began to obtain traction. In that period Liu worked for GHAC and Winchelsea Mining (simultaneously) as well as in the ALC Royalty Development Unit full time till 2022 and part time till 2024.  Hewitt worked for the ALC, for GHAC (pro bono) and as a Director of Winchelsea Mining simultaneously.

While the answers provided are not summed, I have calculated the total remuneration for each of them over the six-year period to June 2024.

For Mr Hewitt, his ALC remuneration over the six-year period from 2018 to 2024 was $2,721,553 and from Winchelsea Mining was $1,522,224. His total remuneration over the period was thus $4,243,777. This equates to an average annual total remuneration of $707,297 over the period.

For Sophie Liu, her ALC remuneration over the period was $587,006. Her GHAC remuneration was $494, 826 and her Winchelsea remuneration was $543,189. Her total remuneration over the period was $1,625,021. This equates to an annual average of $270,837.

Over the six years, Mr Hewitt and his spouse together earned $5,868,798.

Comment: there are numerous issues raised by these arrangements that require deeper investigation than I can bring to bear. Issues that occur to me include the following:

·         While clearly the ALC CEO had much wider responsibilities than the implementation of the Winchelsea mine, it is also clear that a substantial element of the joint remuneration of Hewitt and Liu was tied up in the mine proposal proceeding. It is unclear to me whether the ALC Board were apprised of the extent of these payments and in effect gave informed consent.

·         Nor is it clear whether the NIAA and Ministers had a line of sight to these issues (ie the doubling up of remunerated employment, and the potential facilitation of conflicts of interest). However, the link between the quite significant joint incomes of Hewitt and Liu (and indeed several of the ALC Board members) and their reliance on the mine proposal progressing whether or not it was commercially viable created a deeper and wider systemic conflict of interest that went beyond particular decisions. It strikes me that the NIAA and perhaps Ministers had a blind spot in relation to this level of systemic conflict and given their regulatory and ministerial responsibilities should not have allowed it to occur let alone continue for six years.

·         Whether the assistance envisaged by section 23(ea) of the ALRA which has been used to justify the CEO working for GHAC (pro bono) and Winchelsea Mining (a subsidiary of AAAC) is legally justified when that assistance involves remunerated work that involves a systemic conflict of interest that undermines the ALC core function that is the rationale for the assistance. After all, a core ALC function is to protect the interest of traditional owners, yet if the ALC assistance is the mechanism that facilitates a conflict of interest that undermines that protection, then it seems unlikely that such assistance can be a valid exercise of land council power. Of course, if I am correct, where was the NIAA regulator as this occurred?

It also seems possible that there may have been other sources of income for Lui related to the Anindilyakwa Shoppa Warehouse (ASW) retail outlet on Groote. In the past, there were reports that ASW sourced whitegoods from China. As I have previously written about (link here), the royalty distribution arrangements on Groote injected a bias towards the use of the royalty shoppa card at selected retail outlets on the Island and elsewhere. I strongly recommend readers look at that post. I have no information on the ownership and financial arrangements of the various retail outlets on Groote, but this is an issue that deserves closer regulatory scrutiny.

Finally, the answer to the question reveals that Ms Lui was employed within the ALC Royalty Development Unit (RDU) from 2016-17 to 2024, with her last two years part time. This is significant as this position would have been crucial in managing the allocation, distribution and bookkeeping associated with the distribution of section 64(3) payments for funded corporations. I have long argued that there appears to be elements of the exercise of effective control by the ALC over key funded corporations (see the Royalty Shoppa post referred to above). The RDU would be a crucial cog in the wheel were such control being exercised by the ALC. The answer also confirms that Ms Lui was in a key position which will have overseen the accounting arrangements that managed the ARAC finances. Readers may recall an earlier post (link here) which analysed the payment of $41m from the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust to ARAC, and which does not appear to have been recorded as received in the ARAC financial statements. A convincing explanation as to the treatment or whereabouts of those funds has never been provided. Again, I recommend interested readers re-read that post.

To be clear I am not making any allegations against Ms Lui in relation to either the Royalty Shoppa arrangements or the AMT payment to ARAC as there is no evidence of impropriety on her part; my point is merely to identifying potential mechanisms that could skew the allocation of financial resources at the margins of the ALC. In my view, these risks underpin the need for a detailed and public forensic audit of the ALC and its associated entities over the past decade. The Commonwealth reluctance to initiate such a forensic audit is to my mind both inexplicable and irresponsible.

AAAC financial reporting

In my previous ALC update post I noted that Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC) which owns 70 percent of Winchelsea Mining had not published its financial statements for 2024 and due to the delay appeared to be in breach of CATSI Act requirements. This remains the case. Of course, the deadline for publishing the 2025 financial statements is also fast approaching. It is still unclear whether the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations has taken any action.

Concluding comment

The value of this update post is not so much in new revelations as in the documentation of the ongoing and synergistic accretion of multiple issues of concern. If the Winchelsea mine does not proceed in the manner previously planned, the investment of over $75m in funds appropriated by the Commonwealth (s.64(3) royalty equivalents and NIAA economic stimulus funding) will likely turn out to have been substantially wasted. The continued failure to identify what transpired in relation to the payment of $41m paid by the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust (AMT) to ARAC is inexplicable. Together these represent well over $100m in potential losses arising essentially from systemic conflicts of interest that successive ministers and the NIAA have known about since the ANAO report in 2023, and probably before, and yet appear incapable of addressing.

One might reasonably ask: how many tens of millions of dollars intended to benefit Aboriginal people on Groote can in effect go missing or be negligently misallocated over an extended period before the probity of those formally responsible for regulating the safeguarding of those funds is called into question? Over this period, there may well have been transgressions by individuals on the ALC Board, or in the employ of the ALC, and if so, they should be held to account through due process. Without an independent forensic audit of the ALC and its associated entities this will never be possible in any comprehensive form.

Ultimately however, it will be the wider Aboriginal community on Groote who bear the cost. Not only the financial costs, but the opportunity cost of forsaken policy initiatives that might have (inter alia) improved life opportunities for children, contributed to strengthening education and health services, and strengthened cultural resilience. Given the prima facie existence of serious and ongoing regulatory failure, the appropriate remedy for the ongoing  imposition of these costs will not be found by pursuing individuals who are alleged to have transgressed, but requires ministers and the bureaucracy to take responsibility and find ways to ensure that their regulatory failures are reversed, that the funds that have been misallocated on their watch are reinstated, and that reforms are made to ensure what has transpired and developed on Groote cannot re-occur.

A first step would be to review the ALRA legislation in the light of contemporary policy needs, identify necessary legislative reforms, and to put in place an independent and robust regulatory mechanism at arm’s length from ministerial interference to oversight the key ALRA institutions including the ABA, the land councils, and the recently established Aboriginal Investment NT(AINT).

If some version of this roadmap for the future is not implemented, the likelihood of future litigation against the Commonwealth either at Groote Eylandt, or elsewhere, built around some version of fiduciary duty will be virtually inevitable. In the meantime, the angels will continue to weep.

 

 

14 November 2025

The 2025-26 ALC Corporate Plan: a new strategic direction?

 

Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake.

Hamlet Act four, Scene four.

 

For reasons that will become apparent, the following post focusses primarily on economic development issues, and particularly the proposed development of the Winchelsea Mine on Aboriginal land in the Groote Eylandt archipelago. I have added bolded text to extracts from the Corporate Plan and elsewhere for emphasis.

The Anindilyakwa Land Council Corporate Plan 2025-26 (link here) identifies five key activities: Caring for country; Economic and community development; Monitor mining and mine closure; Preserving culture; and Governance. I will focus here on just one: economic and community development.

In relation to economic and community development, the plan identifies (page 7) the following activities:

Work collaboratively to pursue commercial and community development outcomes that builds a prosperous future for the Traditional Owners of the Groote Archipelago.

1.      Distribute mining royalties to support the growth of a culturally informed, diversified and sustainable post mining economy in line with the wishes of TOs.

2.      Support the implementation of the Local Decision Making Agreement (LDMA) across housing, education, economic development, law, justice and rehabilitation, health and wellbeing, and local government to achieve self-determination.

3.      Provide appropriate support structures including the operation of the Finance Committee and the Royalty Development Unit to build capability and capacity of Anindilyakwa-led Aboriginal Corporations.

4.      Work in partnership with Aboriginal Corporations to strengthen Traditional Owner led commercial and community development activities.

5.      Work with stakeholders to build the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust (AMT) investment to support a perpetual future Groote Archipelago cultural economy.

6.      Deliver a community support program to improve Traditional Owners wellbeing, address community needs and to work collaboratively with community service providers.

7.      Build Anindilyakwa data sovereignty to support informed and evidence based local decision making.

In relation to the ALC’s operating context, the Corporate Plan notes (page 12) the following developments in relation to the oversight of section 64(3) payments of royalty equivalents to Aboriginal corporations representing TOs and affected communities:

The ALC has appointed a Finance Committee under ALRA section 29(A) to review matters pursuant to ALRA section 35(2), 35(4), 35, 35B and/or 35C and where applicable, make recommendations to the ALC Board.

It also notes that the ALC does not have any subsidiaries.

Under Economic Transformation (page 13), the Corporate Plan refers to enterprise developments focussed on seafood exports but makes no mention of the Winchelsea mine. In relation to infrastructure there is mention of the Little Paradise developments, but without mentioning their linkage to the proposed mine. Also mentioned is that the ALC has a service agreement in place with Anindilyakwa Royalties Aboriginal Corporation (ARAC) to project manage and support delivery of some infrastructure projects on the Groote Archipelago.

In a section headed Significant agreements- Mining and Exploration, which deals primarily with South32’s GEMCO mine, the Corporate Plan adds a short paragraph:

 Winchelsea Mining. The ALC will be reviewing arrangements with Winchelsea Mining to ensure Traditional Owner's interests are met and that the principles of free, prior and informed consent are adhered to.

There is no reference to the fact that Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC) owns 70 percent of Winchelsea Mining, nor any reason provided for initiating the review. The substantial previous allocations to AAAC and GHAC in support of the mine are not mentioned. AAAC and GHAC are both corporations to which activity 4 above refers.

In a section headed Cooperation (page 21), the Corporate Plan states:

Aboriginal Corporations operating on the Groote Archipelago are the recipients of ALC's ALRA section 64(3) royalty distributions and play a crucial role in supporting ALC's purpose to invest in the present to build a self-sufficient future for Traditional Owners. The ALC works closely with local Aboriginal Corporations to implement the LDMA to transfer the control of services and assets to Traditional Owners in the areas of economic development, education, housing, health, law, justice and rehabilitation and local government. The ALC offers support services to Aboriginal Corporations and enterprises to enhance governance and business management. A services deed is in place with ARAC, for the ALC to provide business administration services, project management and program delivery.

Implicit in the text of the recent Corporate Plan is a significant shift in emphasis and presumably strategic intent away from framing the proposed Winchelsea mine as the mechanism for creating a self-sustaining Fund which will underpin the economic and social development of Groote in perpetuity.  The salience of this shift is evident when the previous ALC Corporate Plan (2023-24) is compared.

In that document, the section headed Significant agreements (page 14) stated (inter alia):

 As mine closure approaches in 2030-31, … Working groups have been established to provide focus on a range of considerations including … opportunities for Winchelsea Mining Operations.

Winchelsea Mining is a joint venture that is majority owned by the Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation and that has been purposefully established as a future Groote enabling project with a core vision to raise enough revenue to support the economic and social future of the TOs of the Groote Archipelago. Capital construction of the Winchelsea mine is expected to commence in 2025. The mining venture will provide annual fixed payments to impacted clans, provide guaranteed payments into the AMT and surplus profits will be reinvested into major projects for the benefit of TOs. It is proposed that the Winchelsea mine closure plan will include re-purposing the mine site to scale up aquaculture operations post mining.

The ALC Strategic Plan 2023-33 issued in January 2024 was even more explicit regarding the ALC involvement in driving the Winchelsea mine. The overview stated (page 5):

By taking a strategic holistic perspective captured within the Strategic Plan 2023-33 the ALC enhances the administration and decision making relating to the distribution of ALRA S64(3) royalty monies which forms a significant function of the ALC. The Strategic Plan 2023-33 seeks to maximise the economic opportunities available while mining is taking place on the Groote Archipelago by resource companies South32 and Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd, and to utilise the royalties received to stimulate and grow a diversified, culturally informed, and environmentally sustainable post-mining economy.

On page 26, the Strategic plan states:

The ALC actively advocates for an economic development landscape that is diversified and that stimulates establishing and running enterprises that meet the principles listed above. The ALC provides Aboriginal Corporations on the Groote Archipelago with support to build capability, governance and viability to operate enterprises that achieves positive outcomes for their businesses and the Groote Archipelago communities.

It goes on to describe the activities of Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC):

In February 2021, Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC) commenced operations and will play a significant role in the delivery of the Economic Development Implementation Plan. GHAC has been established to benefit all clans of the Groote Archipelago and structured to facilitate the delivery of major projects and to hold assets and infrastructure that benefits the Groote Archipelago. GHAC’s main area of focus is on the Little Paradise Development which includes a suite of projects pursued by TOs on their land to support their future economic prosperity.

The document identifies the Little Paradise hub as (inter alia) the logistics and base camp for Winchelsea mine operations and workers accommodation.

At pages 34-36, the Strategic plan outlines the proposed operations of the Winchelsea mine. Selected extracts include:

The role of the ALC in relation to Winchelsea mining is to carry out the ALC’s functions under ALRA S23(ea) and to support TOs of the Groote Archipelago to pursue commercial activities, which includes resource development. The ALC’s role has been to consult with TOs and to support TOs to pursue the commercial opportunity in line with their wishes, to distribute royalty monies to support standing up the project, to support TOs to establish the commercial arrangements, regulatory and government approvals and enter into the ALC and Winchelsea Mining Agreement. Winchelsea Mining Company is a joint venture between Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC) and AUS China International Mining Pty Ltd, with AAAC holding a large majority (70%) of the interest in the joint venture. While TOs have long held the position that mining on the Groote Archipelago should not and will not last forever, there is an acceptance of the economic benefits that extracting the resources held on their lands can provide.

Winchelsea mine is positioned as a future Groote enabling project with a core vision to raise enough revenue to permanently support the economic and social future of the TOs of the Groote Archipelago. A 30-year mining lease was granted by the NT Government for the Winchelsea mining operations in March 2022. Once the mine goes into production it is expected to be operational for at least 10 years. A significant milestone was achieved in March 2023 with the completion of the Winchelsea Joint Ore Reserves Committee Reserve Statement (Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd, 2023) which provides an independent sign-off, of the environmental reports, geology, ore reserves, purchasing agreements and other pertinent factors and which is a requirement before obtaining approval to mine. The mining venture will provide annual fixed payments to impacted clans, provide guaranteed payments into the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust and surplus profits will be reinvested into major projects for the benefit of TOs….

At pages 41-42, the Strategic Plan states in relation to the role of GHAC:

GHAC has been established to purchase and own major assets to facilitate transportation and access to major economic development locations. By utilising economic stimulus funding from NIAA, GHAC has purchased vessels and provides services (at cost) to support major economic development projects by providing transportation of goods and personnel to support the construction of the Boarding School on Bickerton Island, the Winchelsea mining operations, and the Little Paradise Development.

GHAC was also funded from the economic stimulus package to extend the jetty at Winchelsea Island, establish a new jetty at Little Paradise and to establish a new ramp on Bickerton Island. The jetties and ramps are critical to the commencement of mining at Winchelsea Island, the Little Paradise Development, and the construction of the Boarding School on Bickerton Island, respectively.

Not only was the ALC driving the development of the Winchelsea mine, but NIAA COVID era economic stimulus funding was utilised for the development of the jetties on Winchelsea Island and at Little Paradise.

Comment

The key take out from the latest Corporate Plan is the significant shift away from the centrality of the Winchelsea mine as the potential future cornerstone of economic development on Groote. The latest corporate plan does not rule out future support by the ALC (via section 64(3) allocations) for the mine, but neither does it suggest that such support will be automatically forthcoming.

While it is a much more coherent and sensible approach than previously in place, it suffers from the same lack of underlying explanation and rationale that infected the previous strategic documents. In short, there is a disturbing lack of transparency in the failure to explain why the ALC has shifted direction. It is unclear whether the ALC has undertaken new analysis that it is not prepared to reveal, or whether the ALC’s shift is based on external factors it is not prepared to reveal.

This gap is of concern, because without being transparent about why the shift in strategic direction was required, and what are the specific issues which have led to this significant change of strategic direction, the ALC Board is effectively announcing that it is prepared to continue to pursue strategic pathways based primarily on the degree to which they meet the political imperatives of the moment. In turn, this severs the link between developing a culture of hardheaded analysis of the risks they are facing, the opportunities that might be pursued, and the costs of the alternative choices available to the ALC in the pursuit of those opportunities. In other words, while the new strategic directions appear to be an improvement on the past choices made by the ALC, there is no guarantee that the new choices will be the best strategic choices available, and nor is there a guarantee that the ALC will not revert to the poor decision making practices that have led them to the (belated) realisation that a change of strategic direction is required.

Of course, if the ALC now understands that the Winchelsea mine will not provide the post manganese mining sustainable economic future that was the putative rationale for ALC support, does the ALC have an alternative pathway in mind to such a future? Or does the ALC recognise that such an aspiration is (and arguably always was) a chimera? If the former, the ALC owes it to its constituents to lay out that pathway backed by rigorous analysis and data. If the latter, it owes its constituents both an apology and as much advance warning as possible of the impending cessation in the almost fifty-year flow of royalties and royalty equivalents to Aboriginal people on Groote.

A second take out which is graphically demonstrated by the involvement of NIAA in funding infrastructure directly related to the proposed Winchelsea mine through the economic stimulus funding provided by NIAA during the COVID epidemic is that the NIAA has dropped the ball and is both conflicted in terms of its regulatory responsibilities, and unwisely implicated in implicitly encouraging implementation of the previous strategic approach that the ALC has now determined requires drastic revision or perhaps complete disposal. Whatever the failings of the ALC in pursuing what appear to have been deeply flawed strategic objectives, the responsibility for those failing is shared with the NIAA, and arguably, the NIAA should be held to a higher level of responsibility. This insight begins to make transparent just one of the potentially multiple reasons the Commonwealth and its agency the NIAA have adopted a position of radical secrecy over all that has transpired on Groote Eylandt over the past decade.

My next post will provide an update on information that has recently come to my attention regarding the management and strategies of the ALC in recent years and in addition (and of most relevance to the issues discussed in this post) an indicative assessment of the direct and indirect costs incurred to date on the old, and apparently discarded strategy of shaping the ALC strategic agenda around the Winchelsea mine proposal.

 

12 November 2025

Domestic and Family Violence and Closing the Gap

Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

 Remorse from power.

Julius Caesar Act 2, Scene 1

The National Agreement on Closing the gap sets out 17 targets and four priority reforms. Target 13 relates to domestic and family violence (link here).

Target 13 is specified as follows:

By 2031, the rate of all forms of family violence and abuse against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children is reduced at least by 50%, as progress towards zero.

The following text is taken from the Productivity Commission dashboard:

Nationally in 2018-19, 8.4% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females aged 15 years and over experienced domestic physical or face-to-face threatened physical harm (figure CtG13.1). There is no new data since the baseline year of 2018-19.

The national data point of 8.4% incorporates varying jurisdictional data points rangeing from 10% in NSW to 6.4% in Qld.

If we unpack the specification of the target, it becomes clear just how meaningless it is. The benchmark data have not been updated for six years. More problematically, the AIWH (link here) cites research from 2011 that found that ‘around 90% of violence against First Nations women and most cases of sexual abuse of First Nations children are undisclosed’. [Willis M (2011) ‘Non-disclosure of violence in Australian Indigenous communities’ Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 405, AIC]. Moreover, multiple instances of family violence against an individual are recorded as equivalent to one instance and thus embed the potential for systemic undercounting into the target specification.

The PC Closing the Gap dashboard section on Target specifications for Target 13 notes, inter alia:

Experiences of harm are likely to be under‑reported. Due to the sensitive nature of the questions, responses were not compulsory, and a person may have chosen not to answer some or any of the questions.

The physical and threatened physical harm data collected in the 2018–19 NATSIHS is not comparable to other ABS data sources collecting similar data, including data from: the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey; the General Social Survey; the Personal Safety Survey; or, Recorded Crime – Victims.

And also, in relation to Future Reporting:

Future reporting will seek to include the following additional disaggregations: remoteness areas and other small geographic areas (where available); disability status; gender; age; and Indigenous status.

Yet there appears to be no progress whatsoever in measuring the target trajectory, let alone updated disaggregation. Importantly, the PC dashboard also notes that comparable data on non‑Indigenous people is currently not available. Given that the problems with the target specification mean that the benchmark data points are essentially meaningless, this is perhaps not surprising.

The FDSV Summary on the AIHW website (updated July 2025) reports (link here) the following data on mainstream domestic and family violence:

Results from the 2021–22 PSS showed that an estimated 3.8 million Australian adults (20% of the population) reported experiencing physical and/or sexual family and domestic violence since the age of 15. It is estimated that of all Australian adults:

·         11.3% (2.2 million) had experienced violence from a partner (current or previous cohabiting)

·         5.9% (1.1 million) had experienced violence from a boyfriend, girlfriend or date

·         7.0% (1.4 million) had experienced violence from another family member (ABS 2023c).

Clearly this is substantial issue across all demographic segments of Australian society. The AIHW notes (link here) that:

Comparable national data are not available to compare the prevalence of FDV among different population groups.

This may be a deliberate policy by ABS and AIHW to avoid the potential misuse of such data to typecast and/or demonise ethnic groups in Australia. It does mean however that the fundamental conceptual basis of ‘closing the gap’, namely decreasing the variation in rates of domestic violence between mainstream population and First Nations populations cannot be applied to the issue of domestic violence.

There is a strong sense from the AIWH and ABS discussion of family violence that the rate of Indigenous family violence is higher than the rate in the mainstream. Yet there is no direct data available. One way to get a better sense of this is to consider national homicide rates. Intuitively, homicide rates are a function of numerous factors, but one of the obvious factors would be rates of family violence. Thus, by looking at the extreme outcomes of family violence, we can get a sense of the comparative significance of family violence within Indigenous and non-Indigenous contexts.

The Australian Institute of Criminology report Homicide in Australia 2023–24: Statistical Report 53 (link here) reports 55 intimate partner homicides nationally of which 46 were women (page 11) in 2023-24. The following extracts have been selected to shine more light on the potential significance for comparative rates of family violence, and bold text added for emphasis. The authors note (page 11):

The [national] female intimate partner homicide rate in 2023–24 was 0.43 per 100,000 female population aged 18 years and over. This is a marked increase from the rate of 0.32 per 100,000 recorded in 2022–23 and the second highest rate of female intimate partner homicide in the last 10 years.

In terms of geographic location, they note (page 14):

Excluding Western Australia, the homicide rate for incidents in regional and remote areas exceeded the national incident rate for 2023–24 (1.08 and 3.51 per 100,000 respectively vs 0.98 per 100,000), while the rate of incidents in major cities was lower than the national rate (0.77 per 100,000) [emphasis added].

In terms of Indigenous status (page 20):

Of the 277 homicide victims in 2023–24, 44 (16%) were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and 226 (82%) were non-Indigenous (see Table 13) ….. Between 1989–90 and 2023–24, 14 percent (n=1,407) of homicide victims were Indigenous and 85 percent (n=8,637) were non-Indigenous

In relation to Indigenous victims (page 24):

The homicide victimisation rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in 2023–24 was 4.31 per 100,000 relevant population (see Table 17), a decrease from the rate of 5.36 per 100,000 recorded in 2022–23.

On page 26:

Around two-thirds of Indigenous female victims from cleared incidents were killed by an intimate partner (64%, n=9; see Table 20), almost double the proportion of Indigenous women killed by an intimate partner in 2022–23 (38%, n=5). Between 1989–90 and 2023–24, over two‑thirds of Indigenous women victims of homicide were killed by a current or former intimate partner (69%, n=337). In 2023–24, Indigenous women experienced an intimate partner homicide victimisation rate seven times greater than the rate for all Australian women (2.84 per 100,000 relevant population vs 0.43 per 100,000 respectively).

In relation to non-Indigenous victims (page 27), the authors note:

The homicide victimisation rate of non-Indigenous Australians was 0.88 per 100,000 (see Table 22), an increase from the rate of 0.74 per 100,000 recorded in 2022–23.

In relation to offenders, the authors note inter alia:

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander homicide offender rate in 2023–24 was 6.87 per 100,000 relevant population). Males comprised 78 percent of Indigenous homicide offenders (n=43) with an offender rate of 10.80 per 100,000. A fifth of Indigenous offenders were female (22%, n=12) with an offender rate of 2.99 per 100,000 (page 37).

Two-thirds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander [primary homicide offenders] … and 46 percent… of non‑Indigenous primary homicide offenders (excluding New South Wales) had a known history of domestic and family violence (page 44).

The AIC evidence that Indigenous female homicides occur at much higher rate than in the mainstream is consistent with the hypothesis that there is a very strong correlation between prior domestic violence and later homicides. While every homicide is a tragedy, my purpose here is to focus on family violence and the strong suggestions that it occurs as much higher rates within Indigenous households than mainstream households. The gap exists; we just do not know its depth and width.

Given that the current Closing the Gap target 13 is both only intermittently measurable, likely to be grossly under-reported, and deeply flawed conceptually, there is  an overwhelming case for the parties to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap to revise it into a form that both reflects the lived reality of Indigenous people’s lives and which allows progress or regression to be measured so that the results of government efforts to reduce the enormous adverse impact of family violence on Indigenous women and children will be transparent.

Last week, the Australian Government’s Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission handed down its Yearly Report to Parliament (link here). The report includes a number of recommendations relevant to First Nations (Recommendations 11, 12, 15, 1617 and 18). The report identifies the data shortcomings related to Closing the Gap target 13 but doesn’t criticise its inherent limitations as a policy target. It mentions some extraordinary statistics, for example, that in 2023-24, Indigenous women were 27 times more likely to be hospitalised for family violence than non-Indigenous women (page 33). Yet despite a detailed account of the issues confronting Indigenous families (pages 78 to 89), its recommendations were bound up in process: the establishment of more advisory bodies, more funding, and commitments to work with organisations implementing various action plans and the like. In short, more of the same.

While the DFSV Commission is clearly well-intentioned, there was no cut through policy agenda proposed despite the discussion appearing in a section headlined Priority Areas for Action. There was minimal discussion of the role of alcohol and drugs in creating the preconditions for family violence to occur, and no discussion of the desirability of constraining access to alcohol across the community at large. To be clear, I am not suggesting that alcohol use is the only cause of family violence, but it clearly of such importance that reducing and /or constraining access to it is a necessary if not sufficient policy action in addressing the epidemic of family violence in remote Australia, and probably beyond. If the argument for doing so requires further strengthening, then its complicity in contributing to Indigenous hyper-incarceration (link here) provides a rationale in its own right for taking action.

I discussed the systemic underpinnings of the domestic violence crisis in remote Australia in an earlier post this year (link here). That post argued that the domestic violence crisis in the NT is a symptom of a wider crisis, and that alcohol is a key element of that. In an even earlier post from 2023 discussing the withdrawal of alcohol controls  following the lapse of the Commonwealth Stronger Future legislation (link here), I pointed to the clear statistical links between alcohol and domestic violence:

To take just one data point, alcohol related domestic violence assault offences spiked in Alice Springs, Katherine, and outside major centres in the 12 months to March 2023 (link here). The only location where there was a decline in these offences was in Darwin. Across the NT, there were almost 1000 extra reported assault offences over the year coinciding with the nine months of reduced [alcohol] restrictions. With the majority of NT electorates in the Darwin region, it is not difficult to develop a hypothesis for why the NT Government may have been intent on removing alcohol restrictions in the bush. In the light of the issues outlined above, the unqualified confidence of the Committee (set out in para. 3.66) in the capacity and political willingness of the NTG to manage alcohol related harm astounds me. [note: the hyperlink above is to a web page that has been updated since 2023]

While alcohol is likely a key driver of the high rates of domestic violence across remote Australia (and possible more broadly) it may not be the only driver. Nevertheless, I suggest that in the absence of greater controls, domestic violence and other social dysfunction will continue unabated, and in turn this will open the flood gates for more punitive social and economic policies.

The deeper problem of course is that governments are adept at creating policy silos, commissions, action plans and advisory committees that provide a defensive fig leaf against criticism when some egregious event hits the headlines but are content to do nothing to address systemic issues facing the most disadvantaged members of the Australian community. The fact that we allow governments to pursue these fake strategies without holding them to account makes all of us complicit in creating and sustaining the existence of the conditions that engender violence against women and children.

Summing up, I see two specific policy opportunities which would make a tangible and substantive positive impact on the family violence crisis engulfing remote communities (and likely on communities beyond remote Australia). First, revise and reframe Target 13 in the Closing the Gap policy framework to replace the current unworkable and deeply flawed target with a target that is measurable and reflects the real world. Second, initiate a comprehensive policy shift based on the policy approaches recommended by experts and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to constrain and reduce unfettered access to alcohol in communities and regional towns (and ideally major cities). The adverse health impacts of alcohol use are well known, and the WHO now advises (link here):

There is no form of alcohol consumption that is risk-free. Even low levels of alcohol consumption carry some risks and can cause harm.

While the politics of controlling access to alcohol induced harm, and the consequential impacts such as family violence, are challenging, the objective case for doing so requires governments to take action even without considering the wider individual and societal costs of dealing with the fallout. These wider costs include the adverse impacts on the life opportunities of children born into families affected by alcohol abuse, family violence and whose parents are incarcerated, and the economic costs for taxpayers of excessive hospitalisations, and avoidable incarceration. Finally, what does it say about us as a nation when we can adopt without apparent remorse policies that create so much pain and harm. That truly is an abuse of our democratic power.

 

6 November 2025