Essential policy reforms for Northern Australia policy

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?"

The Tempest, Act one, Scene two

 

According to the Commonwealth Office of Northern Development (OND) (link here), Northern Australia can be characterised (inter alia) by the following ‘quick facts’:

• Northern Australia comprises 53% of Australia's land mass [see the map at the link above].
• It is home to 1.4 million people or 5.2% of Australia's total population.
• It has an Indigenous population of over 230,000, which comprises 17.4% of northern Australia's population, compared to 3.1% nationally.
• Indigenous rights and interests cover 78% of the north's land mass.
• The cattle industry represents the largest economic land use, covering around 60% of northern Australia's land area.
• 7.7% of northern Australia's workforce is employed in mining compared to 1.9% nationally.
• There are 8 world heritage sites in northern Australia.

A Walking Shadow has addressed numerous issues related to northern Australia over the past decade. While my posts have generally focussed on remote issues as opposed to northern issues the two institutional and policy frames are largely, but not entirely, isomorphic. Northern Australia includes several major urban centres (Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Hedland) and remote Australia as defined in say ABS statistics or the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program excludes urban areas and extends well to the south of the notional boundaries of northern Australia. Clearly, the demographic and economic geography of the two frames are quite different, especially when considering Indigenous policy issues (although it must be remembered that many Indigenous citizens are resident in northern urban areas).

The wider formal policy context is laid out in the Government’s Northern Australia Action Plan 2024–2029 (link here) published in November 2024. The Action Plan updates the 2015 White Paper on Northern Development Our North: Our Future (link here). The policy architecture for northern development remains essentially unchanged since 2015: a ministerial forum with representation from the relevant states, the Northern Territory and the Commonwealth (link here); an Office of Northern Australia located within the Infrastructure Department (link here) and an Indigenous Reference Group (link here). There is a Minister for Northern Australia, currently Madelaine King and an Assistant Minister for Northern Australia, currently Senator Nita Green.

The Minister for Northern Australia released her annual statement on Northern Australia on 24 November (link here) which doubles up as the Government response to the NAIF review undertaken over the past year or so. My assessment of the review (link here) was very critical and worth reading (or even rereading) if you wish to properly contextualise the most recent ministerial statement.

The Minister’s Annual Statement on Northern Australia (link here) accompanied the publication of the Northern Australia Action Plan 2024-2029: Annual Progress Report 2025 (link here). The Annual Statement is a slick exposition acclaiming the government engagement with northern Australia across the breadth of the policy domain.

On NAIF, the Minister exudes positivity:

Our main vehicle for investment is the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, or NAIF. It has proven to be a catalyst in getting crucial projects off the ground. NAIF now has an impressive portfolio of 32 project investments — fourteen in Queensland, ten in Western Australia and eight in the Northern Territory. This represents more than $4.3 billion in approved loans to projects which are forecast to generate more than $33 billion in public benefit and support thousands of jobs across the north. By the end of October, around $2.8 billion in NAIF funds had been drawn down to progress these projects.

She proceeds to briefly comment on NAIF support for projects in agriculture (the Kimberley cotton gin), renewable energy (Arafura Rare Earth’s Nolans project north of Alice Springs; and the Alpha High Purity Aluminium smelter in Gladstone) before pivoting to extolling the (national, not northern) critical minerals strategy and the signing of the ‘historic’ Australia-US Critical Minerals and Rare Earths Framework where ‘together, our nations committed to mobilising at least AU$1.5 billion each towards an AU$13 billion pipeline of priority projects over the next six months’. She omits mentioning how the government will measure and report on progress on this commitment.

On NAIF itself, the Minister announced — in response to the most recent NAIF Review and the ‘overwhelming support for NAIF across government, industry and from the public’ — the Government’s intention to legislate an additional ten-year lifespan for the facility thus ensuring greater certainty for the current flow of potential projects seeking support. This makes sense, but implicitly signals more of the same rather than any major change in emphasis. This is a lost opportunity.

On First Nations’ participation in NAIF, the Minister stated:

NAIF-funded projects are supporting almost 1400 Indigenous jobs and over $200 million in Indigenous procurement.

Unfortunately, as I noted in my previous post on the Review, the NAIF does not publish aggregated tables of Indigenous employment, and potentially conflates permanent and casual, and construction and operational jobs. Similarly, there are no aggregated data on Indigenous procurement. Assuming the Indigenous Procurement Policy framework is applied, a $200m spend will likely mean around $100m is directed to First Nations corporation owners (who are not necessarily resident in the North).

The web page for the Indigenous Reference Group on Northern Australia lists the meeting dates and communiques, along with the IRG’s submissions on various topics over the past five or so years. I think it is fair to say that the IRG has been largely silent in public discussion of northern policy issues related to Indigenous issues, and there is not one issue which springs to mind where the IRG has led or shaped the wider policy discussion. I will leave it to readers to consider why that might be.

The broader context left unmentioned by the Minister (and the IRG) is that there are upwards of 40,000 unemployed citizens across remote (and primarily northern) Australia, and over 90 percent of these are Indigenous. The Government’s Remote Jobs and Economic Development (RJED) Program (link here) is funding 1700 jobs across remote Australia and is aiming to lift that to 3000 jobs by 2027. Between them, RJED and NAIF are presently funding 3100 jobs and approximately 35,000 First Nations citizens are unemployed and on income support across remote Australia. This makes clear that private sector investment, even when subsidised by government, will not on its own solve the challenges of deep social and economic disadvantage across the north or Australia.

On present policy settings, this assertion will remain valid for at least the next decade and likely beyond. The case for doing much more is irrefutable, but it requires hardheaded policy analysis, policy advocacy and of course political commitment, all of which appear to be in short supply. The same cannot be said for political flim flam.

In a section headed Looking to the Future, the Minister stated:

we’ve made enormous progress on our northern agenda, but we know our job is far from done. Transport and connectivity, housing and health – these are challenges we must continue to tackle, so that northern communities can fully participate in the opportunities on offer, and to grow resilient northern economies.

She is correct of course. She mentions several useful and important initiatives the Government continue to support. For example, she notes that

Our Indigenous Biosecurity Program now partners with 67 Indigenous ranger groups and two Indigenous cattle stations along 10,000 km of northern coastline.

The biosecurity program and the associated ranger groups are clearly important and potentially pathbreaking programs which has been in existence for some decades. Yet there are no rigorous evaluations of the biosecurity program and its interaction with ranger groups that I am aware of, and it is unclear how effective the devolved governance of the program is, and whether there exists any effective regulatory oversight to ensure that it is delivering more than an income stream for local community residents and a PR opportunity for the interests involved including governments.

Finally, there is a short section headed A Safe and Secure North.  The minister notes:

our government is acutely aware of northern Australia’s strategic importance in our region – investing up to $18 billion in our northern bases over the next decade. Major projects include:

• upgrades at the Bradshaw Field, Kangaroo Flats, Mount Bundey and Robertson Barracks training areas in the Northern Territory, and

• upgrades to RAAF Bases at Tindal, in the Northern Territory, • Learmonth in Western Australia, and

• Townsville in Queensland.

Articles by John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (link here and link here) provide more information and detail and strongly support the Minister’s agenda on northern security. For my part, I am somewhat more sceptical, but this is an issue for another post.

However, I can’t resist comparing the quantum of funding currently available for remote community housing in the NT (some $4bn over ten years in joint NTG and Commonwealth funding) with the $18bn available over ten years to upgrade defence training facilities across the north. Clearly reasonable people will differ on what are appropriate responses to the respective budget pressures for remote housing and northern defence infrastructure, but I for one do not consider that the nation has struck the right balance here.

As I argued in my submission to the NAIF review (link here), finding a way to allocate NAIF funds to supporting remote Indigenous housing and associated infrastructure would be a game-changing initiative, with flow on advantages in facilitating better health, education and employment outcomes in remote Australia.

Properly designed, such an initiative would be the most decisive policy intervention available to the Commonwealth in terms of delivering a step change in the life circumstances and opportunities of remote Indigenous communities and underpinning the long-term inclusion of Indigenous communities in the future of the north. It would incentivise the states and territories to invest more in sustainable social and economic infrastructure in the north and would target the existing deficits that will continue to constrain the opportunities that must be grasped if northern Australia is to reach its full potential.

The second major opportunity that would drive a step change in reducing remote Indigenous disadvantage would be to massively expand RJED, the remote jobs program. As I have previously noted (link here , link here and link here), the Prime Minister stood up at Garma three years ago and claimed that the previous government’s remote income support program, the Community Development Program (CDP), was a failure, and committed to replace it with funding for real jobs. His Government has dropped the ball on that commitment, with less that two thousand RJED program jobs funded, and over 35,000 income support recipients on a program which can only be described as ‘CDP lite’.

While the RJED program falls within the PM&C portfolio, and is administered by the Minister for Indigenous Australians, I mention this issue here because the Minister for Northern Australia cannot responsibly avert her eyes from a program that is of such significance to the future of the north and is chronically underperforming. This is especially the case because of the potential synergies between NAIF funded projects and the use of RJED program funds. She should be advocating for its reform both inside the Cabinet room and more widely.

The failure to date of the Commonwealth to grasp the opportunities for reform of NAIF and the RJED program means we will continue to read stories like this one from Roebourne in Western Australia’s Pilbara (link here) for at least the next decade, and probably beyond.

 

30 December 2025