Formidable Challenges Part One: The Commonwealth approvals process for the Winchelsea mine

 

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

Measure for Measure, Act two, Scene four

 

Under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA), Land Councils whose primary statutory responsibility is to protect the interests of Traditional owners, have responsibility for managing negotiations over consent and the terms of any mining. Additionally, Ministers have explicit responsibility to approve key elements of any negotiated arrangements in addition to their overarching responsibility to ensure accountability for agencies within their portfolio to the Parliament and thus the public.

The NIAA has now released in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) (link here) an updated version of a request for documents related to approvals by Commonwealth ministers under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) related to the proposed manganese mine on Akwamburrkba (Winchelsea Island) by Winchelsea Mining. The initial tranche of documents was released on 24 December 2025, and following a request for an Internal Review, an updated tranche of documents has recently been released. The documents released after the Internal Review are available on the NIAA FOI log and listed under FOI reference number FOI/2526/013IR.

Three documents within the scope of the initial request but not assessed in the initial release process have also been released under a separate FOI request (link here) and are available on the NIAA FOI Log under reference number FOI/2526/031.

The analysis below and the following post amalgamates both sets of documents. References to documents in the first tranche are identified as Document A#, and those in the second tranche as Document B#.

The released documents provide a comprehensive, but perhaps still incomplete account of the Commonwealth approval processes related to the fact that the proposed mine is on Aboriginal land which comes within the ambit of the Anindilyakwa Land Council based on Groote Eylandt in the NT.

This post comprises Part One of an analysis of the documents released under FOI and constructs a summary chronology of the salient events related to the Commonwealth side of the approval processes related to the proposal for the establishment of the proposed Winchelsea mine. A second post to follow will focus on analysing the major implications arising from the release of these documents, particularly focussing on the complex issues related to potential conflict of interest arising from the highly unusual governance structures adopted by the ALC in relation to the proposed mine.

Winchelsea Approval Summary Chronology

Ø  On 10 October 2017, the ALC wrote to Minister Scullion and NT Resources Minister Vowles updating them on the proposed Winchelsea project. This letter was not identified by NIAA in their FOI searches and thus is yet to be released. It is unclear whether this correspondence dealt with the issue of the proposed dual roles of the ALC Chair and CEO. This correspondence is mentioned in Document B1 at para 22 of Attachment B.

Ø  On 15 August 2018, the ALC wrote (in a letter jointly signed by Chair Tony Wurramarrba and ALC CEO Mark Hewitt) to the Minister to provide a further update (refer Document B1 Attachment B). This correspondence is important as it outlines for the first time (based on currently available information) the proposal for the ALC Chair and CEO to undertake dual roles within both the ALC and Winchelsea Mining. It also mentions a shareholders agreement between AAAC, Aus China and somewhat strangely Winchelsea Mining in its own right (at this point informally controlled by its two ALC associated Directors) and the existence within that agreement of a ‘fall back provision’ which deals with the possibility that AAAC equity in Winchelsea Mining may be reduced in the future.

Ø  On 6 September 2018, the ALC provided a further update to Minister Scullion (again jointly signed). Refer Document B1 Attachment D. This correspondence outlines in some detail the steps taken to mitigate the impact of the potential conflicts of interest arsing from the dual roles of the ALC Chair and CEO. The letter mentions the involvement of Melbourne law firm Arnold Bloch Liebler (ABL) and mentions the recommendations of the Independent Chair of the ALC Audit Committee. In neither case was there any reference to potential conflicts of interest which may have related to the consultancy work of either ABL or Enmark (the accounting firm owned by the Audit Committee Chair). Both these firms have been engaged by the ALC and/or ALC associated corporations in receipt of section 64(3) payments beyond their advice here. The accuracy of the Audit Committee Chair’s advice to the ALC is questionable (see para 16 (d)).

Ø  On 13 September 2018 the ALC wrote to Minister Scullion, NT Minister for Resources Ken Vowles, and Mr Dongfang Yu, Co-CEO of Winchelsea Mining notifying them that the Land Council had on 10 September consented to the grant of the relevant Exploration Licence under s.42 of the ALRA. Refer to Document A2.

Ø  On 18 September 2018, PMC provided a brief to Minister Scullion recommending he note the information provided by the ALC in the two previous letters and providing a draft reply which recommended he seek further information related to the remuneration of Mr Wurramarrba and Mr Hewitt related to their dual roles in the ALC and Winchelsea Mining. (see paragraph 9). As the released document is unsigned, it is unclear if the Minister noted the brief and sent the letter; he may have amended the letter (which in any case has not yet been released by NIAA). Refer Document B1.

Ø  On 12 October 2018, Minister Scullion consented to the grant of an Exploration License to Winchelsea Mining and approved the ALC entering into the Winchelsea Island Exploration Agreement. In doing so he explicitly agreed that he was satisfied that the ALC had complied with its statutory obligations under the ALRA. Documents A1 to A5 refer.

Ø  On 14 July 2020, the CEO of the NT Department of Primary Industry and Resources wrote to the Minister Wyatt supporting the Winchelsea project and mentioning the desire of AusChina International (then holding 40 percent ownership in Winchelsea Mining) to divest their shares in the joint venture, thus providing in his words ‘a significant opportunity for AAAC [the holders of 60 percent equity in Winchelsea Mining] to significantly increase their investment should they be able to access appropriate financing arrangements’. Document A6 refers.

Ø  On 16 April 2021, Mr Hewitt as CEO of Winchelsea Mining wrote to Minister Wyatt and the NT Minister for Mining regarding the nature of proposed works for the mine. Document A7 refers.

Ø  On 13 May 2021, NT Minister for Mining and Industry, Nicole Manison wrote to Minister Wyatt confirming that she had considered (under delegation from the Commonwealth) the proposal for the grant of a mining lease and as it was consistent with the previously approved Exploration License, she was required by the provisions of ALRA to grant the lease. She added a handwritten annotation: ‘A very exciting project!’ Refer Document B2 Attachment B.

Ø  On 18 June 2021, NIAA provided a brief to Minister Wyatt recommending he confirm that the national interest provision of the ALRA mining regime does not apply to the Winchelsea proposal, thus clearing the final hurdle for the grant of a mining lease by NT Minister Manison. Document B2.

Ø  On 30 June 2021, Minister Wyatt provided his consent under s47 of the ALRA. This is a precondition to the consideration of the Mining Agreement. The substantive content of the determinations is not evident from the documents released. Document A8 refers.

Ø  On 30 June 2021, an official of the ALC (either the then Chair or the Mining Manager; the name has been redacted) emailed the Minister requesting his approval of the Winchelsea Island Mining Agreement. Documents A9 and A10 refer.

Ø  On 20 July 2021, the NIAA briefed Minister Wyatt recommending he agree that he is satisfied that the ALC has complied with its statutory obligations in seeking consent and approval for the grant of the relevant Mineral Lease to Winchelsea Mining and providing consent to the ALC to enter into the related Mining Agreement.

Ø  On 2 August 2021, Minister Wyatt accepted the NIAA recommendations that the ALC had complied with its statutory obligations and that he should consent to the grant of the Mineral Lease and to the ALC entering into the Mining Agreement. Document B3 refers. Minister Wyatt also wrote to the ALC (presumably the Chair, but perhaps the Mining Manager) and the NT Mining Minister advising his approval of the proposed Mining Agreement. He also wrote to Mr Hewitt, a Director of Winchelsea Mining advising Winchelsea that he has given his consent to the mining agreement. Documents A11, A12 and A13 refer.

Ø  On 2 November 2022, a representative of CDM Smith, an environmental consulting firm wrote to Minister Burney updating her on the ongoing consultations with relevant stakeholders regarding the preparation of the EIS for the project. Documents A14 and A15 refer.

Ø  On 28 February 2023, Minister Burney responded to CDM Smith noting the consultation process, and noting that royalties for the project are proposed to replace royalties from the existing GEMCO mine which is expected to cease operations within five years. She also noted that AAAC ‘ownership of the mine’ [sic: of the joint venture company Winchelsea Mining] has increased to 70 percent. Document A16 refers.

Ø  On 23 August 2024 the Chair of the ALC wrote to Minister McCarthy seeking additional funding for a range of projects due to the cessation of s64(3) payments arising from the impact of Cyclone Megan on GEMCO operations. Document A17 refers.

Ø  On 30 January 2025 [five months later!] the Minister responded to the ALC Chair politely refusing her request and redirecting her elsewhere. Document A18 refers.

 

Reflections on transparency and accountability

I am cognisant that very few readers will have the time or inclination to read the chronology outlined above and cross reference or access the actual documents. I have included it nevertheless to demonstrate the significance and extensiveness of the engagement between the ALC and the Commonwealth (PMC and NIAA). Yet over that period there were no ministerial media releases by the Commonwealth related to the development of the mine. There was a highly curated public relations narrative on the ALC web site, but minimal attempt to provide the transparency one might expect from a Commonwealth agency. There remain unanswered questions.

The transparency and accountability issues related to the proposed mine arising from the direct involvement of Commonwealth Ministers over the period from 2017 to the present, and which are embedded and identified in the documents released under FOI discussed in this post have not previously been disclosed. Moreover, they are extremely unlikely to have seen the light of day except for the existence of the FOI Act. The Executive dominance over the Parliament and an apparent consensus shared by both ALP and LNP that any exposure of the issues involved would be politically harmful has meant that the Senate Estimates process since 2017 and particularly since 2023 when the ANAO performance report on the ALC was tabled has failed to consistently ask and follow up the hard questions (link here).

The ALC Annual Reports which are required by the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act) and PGPA Rule 2014 identify a range of high-level requirements for Annual Reports including audited financial statements, annual performance statements, a significant issues report, and governance structures. Agency Annual Reports are provided to and approved by the portfolio minister for tabling in Parliament. Yet over the period since 2017, neither the portfolio agencies (PMC and NIAA) nor any portfolio minister ever took action to ensure core information regarding the potential conflicts embedded in the dual employment relationships of the ALC Chair and CEO were included in the ALC Annual Reports notwithstanding that they were all aware of the existence of these issues.

Along with ensuring a wet blanket was placed over successive Senate Estimates discussions and failing to ensure that ALC Annual reports were fully transparent, the current ALP Government has pursued a determined and ongoing strategy to distract and obscure attention related to the accountability issues on Groote. This has been aimed at downplaying the knowledge and involvement of Commonwealth Ministers and their agencies in facilitating the development of the Winchelsea Mining proposal and in oversighting the (mis)use of section 64(3) funds intended to benefit Aboriginal people on Groote for mine related purposes. This strategy included the refusal to investigate the underlying issues raised in the 2023 ANAO performance audit of the ALC (link here) instead engaging a consultancy firm to review the implementation of the ANAO recommendations. As I have previously pointed out, that review was far from independent despite NAIA claims to the contrary (link here).

Following a media story in the SMH and Age by investigative reporter Nick McKenzie sourced to an ALC whistle-blower which alleged that the former CEO was seeking to be granted up to ten percent equity in Winchelsea Mining by AAAC, the NIAA (presumably with the Minister’s approval) referred the matter to the National Anti-Corruption Commmission. The NIAA then (again almost certainly with the knowledge of the Minister or her Office) directly injected itself into internal ALC affairs and played a prime role in the meeting of the ALC (without any ALC staff present) where the ALC Board terminated the former CEO Mr Hewitt (link here). One might surmise that the foundation is being laid to place the primary blame on the former CEO for any maladministration that may be found to have occurred by the NACC. Such a framing would in my view be deeply dishonest and would be extremely problematic insofar as it would necessarily leave deeper systemic accountability shortcomings (that apply well beyond the ALC) unaddressed.

While the documents released under FOI reveal the extent to which potential conflicts of interest were embedded within the ALC and its associated corporations funded under s64(3) of ALRA, they do not shed light on the deeper reasons governments since 2017 have been determined to turn a blind eye. That is a matter that will hopefully emerge from the shadows over the course of the next year or so.

In the second part of this post, I seek to explore in greater detail the extent to which the potential conflicts of interest embedded within the processes described the documents released under FOI were created and granted legitimacy.

 

29 March 2026

The Policy Analyst’s Eye

Thou blind fool, [redacted], what dost thou to mine eyes,

That they behold, and see not what they see?

Sonnet 137

In recent weeks, one area of focus in my reading has been various aspects of the Indigenous art sector. As I read more widely and deeply, it struck me (and this seems obvious in retrospect) how diverse, complex and dynamic the sector is, and that this is in many respects a microcosm of the wider policy context which policymakers, Indigenous interests, and policy analysts operate within.

One of the insights to emerge from my reading has been the disparate ways issues are seen, observed, and interpreted by different authors, and by their subjects. The titles of two excellent books I have read in recent months even reflect this framing: Quentin Sprague’s What Artists See: Essays (link here) and Drusilla Modjeska’s A Woman’s Art: Her Eye (link here). Not only is art open to alternative interpretations and ways of being seen, but there is often no single best way of seeing and interpreting a work of art, or the artists motivation, or the context within which the artist lived and worked. So too with policy — policy analysis, policy development, and policy evaluation.

This is not an argument for analytical anarchy, but a recognition that there are legitimate alternative perspectives that invariably exist and should be considered and weighed in exercises aimed at evaluating policy. Ideally, good analysis will transparently acknowledge the existence of alternative perspectives and provide a rationale for why those alternatives are set aside or not given primacy.

Unfortunately, neither governments, interest groups, nor academics and independent analysts invest enough attention in identifying, understanding and explaining the nature and/or existence of alternative ways of seeing the policy world. Part of the reason for this is the way governments in particular frame policy issues, increasingly without engaging in good faith dialogue across the community and developing alternative options in secrecy and without open engagement. Critics too can be so focussed on tearing down a policy framework for either ideological or self-interested motives, that they fail to see either the elements of the policy that are worthwhile or under-invest in identifying what would be required to replace the extant policy framework.

This broad-brush description leads me to make the case once again for the importance of governments engaging in substantive dialogue with the wider public and for much greater transparency around government activities. This is not just a pre-requisite for improved democratic cultures in a global environment where these cultures are under increasing and direct threat, but they also contribute to the more mundane, but still important task of making policy initiatives and frameworks more effective. Without substantive wide-ranging dialogue and transparency, alternative policy options don’t obtain the oxygen necessary to be more than stillborn.

The Indigenous policy domain (like most other policy domains) is increasingly disconnected from the ongoing and underlying intellectual currents that shaped out nation and its social and economic institutions. The institutionalised default within Australian government is increasingly to rely on secrecy and non-disclosure of salient information rather than a preparedness to engage in open discussion. My forthcoming posts based on the use of FOI provide more than enough evidence for this. Debates are pursued by specific interests utilising ideological arguments frameworks that are contrived to exclude wider and more inclusive democratic input. Government adopt simplistic nostrums and refuse to engage in open discussion about what they are doing. This occurs on both the left and right of the societal spectrum (though a binary characterisation is itself a simplification), and across the indigenous non-Indigenous divide (again a divide that ignores the ubiquity of intercultural identities in modern Australia). The result is incoherence in both macro and micro policy settings, and the concomitant development is that policymaking becomes transactional and invariably benefits stronger over weaker interests. I see these developments as inherently unsatisfactory and arguably proto-authoritarian.

Returning to the Indigenous art sector (where the issues I have just discussed are themselves apparent and deeply embedded), I recently came across a link to a web site that I once read every day. It was written by a US based art collector, Will Owen, who developed an extraordinary insight into the texture and breadth of the Indigenous art sector in Australia. His blog was titled Aboriginal Art and Culture: an American eye. The sub-heading was Indigenous Australian art, culture, anthropology, music, politics, literature…

It struck me that the broader Australian Indigenous policy domain has never had a non-Australian policy analyst writing regularly about developments. Of course, there is no reason why there should be such person writing, but it points to yet a further gap in the potential perspectives that are brought to bear on the policy process in this area. Whether the onset of ubiquitous AI will address this gap is perhaps moot.

In any case, Will Own died suddenly in late 2015 and his blog ceased. It remains available online and is worth a visit or revisit (link here).

In 2008, he published a post reviewing a book which sought to assess the state of play across the remote Indigenous policy domain in the early 2000s. The review, titled Engagement Not Intervention, is recommended (link here); reading it in 2026 suggests that notwithstanding the extraordinary changes in Australia and the world over the past two decades, many of the issues and policy conundrums identified then in the book under review continue to frame, shape and permeate today’s policy challenges.

It is past time that we continue to look at these challenges through the same eyes. As a nation we need new ways of seeing to assist us to shape and formulate new ways of doing.

 

27 March 2026

Pause for thought: the ILSC sale of the Ayers Rock Resort

                               [Go] Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast

Romeo and Juliet, Act two, Scene three

 

The ILSC has now finalised the sale of the Ayers Rock Resort (ARR). According to this week’s media release (link here):

The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (“ILSC”) is pleased to announce, the successful completion of the sale of its subsidiary, Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia Pty Ltd (“Voyages”), operator of Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara and Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre (MGCC) in Far North Queensland to Journey Beyond, effective 27 February 2026.

The ILSC announced the agreement for the sale in December 2025. The media release (link here) outlines the broad structure of the sale agreement that has now been finalised and is worth reading in full. The purchaser, Journey Beyond, issued a shorter media release at the same time (link here). The sale encompasses two separate Voyages operations / assets, the ARR and the Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre (MGCC) in North Queensland. This post focusses on the ARR which is the largest element of the transaction.

The key elements of the transaction are laid out in the ILSC media release announcing the sale. I recommend reading the full media release, but key elements include:

[The agreement] …is to be completed by the sale of the shares in Voyages currently held by the ILSC and is the first in a series of transactions that will, once completed, formalise the transfer of land and buildings at both sites for the benefit of the respective Traditional Owners;  Anangu  Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara of Yulara and the Kuku Yalanji of Mossman Gorge.

The new partnerships between the Traditional Owners and Journey Beyond will bring significant ongoing economic benefits to Indigenous communities at Yulara and Mossman Gorge. Later, following the transfer of land to the Community corporations, both communities will be paid rent from Journey Beyond’s leasing of the sites under 90 and 10 year leases respectively….

… The sale agreement between the ILSC and Journey Beyond will only pass control of the operational assets of Voyages to Journey Beyond. Land and buildings at Yulara and Mossman Gorge will ultimately be transferred to the appropriate Community corporations representative of the relevant Traditional Owners. The ultimate transfer at Yulara will mark the largest single return of land to Traditional Owners in the ILSC’s history in terms of both value and area.

For those interested in understanding of the detail involved in the transaction, the discussion in the Senate Estimates Committee hearing on 10 February 2026 is essential reading (link here). The ILSC discussion is at pages 12 to 18. It is, in my view, one of the best examples I’ve seen in recent years of how an Estimates Committee discussion can add value. I should also add that the design and structure of the transaction is clearly commercially sophisticated, highly innovative and in some respects counterintuitive. For those interested in reading my own comparatively simplistic 2021 prospective analysis, I refer you to this previous post (link here).

The Estimates Hearing transcript covers issues such whether the ARR transaction clears the outstanding ILSC debt (it does); the transition process before finalisation of the divestment of the underlying land, infrastructure obligations after divestment, the impact of ongoing native title claims, the future of the National Indigenous Training Academy that operates from Yulara (it will continue), the cost of the consultants used in the transaction, and the major achievements of the ILSC over its almost thirty year history. On this latter point, the ILSC CEO Joe Morrison noted the size and significance of the Yulara divestments and pointed to a recently released web summary (link here). The media release celebrating the 30^th anniversary noted that the ILSC had over its history  invested more than $1.48 billion through 323 acquisition projects and 1,052 management projects which delivered cultural revitalisation, economic development, environmental stewardship, and social connections (link here).  

There is absolutely no doubt that over its thirty-year lifespan the ILSC has much to celebrate, and much has been achieved.

As Mr Morrison suggests in his Senate Estimates evidence, the ARR transaction and its concomitant divestment represents an enormous outcome for the traditional owners insofar as they and their descendants will gain ownership over land which they failed to obtain in an earlier native title claim and yet is of enormous significance to them.

Balanced against this and not mentioned in any of the discussions of the sale has been the enormous costs of the initial decision to purchase the ARR in 2010.

In 2020, in an academic volume focussed on Indigenous self-determination (link here), I wrote about the challenges facing the ILC (as it then was) and inter alia identified the ARR acquisition as one of two major strategic mistakes made by the ILC over its life (the other was its retreat from assisting pastoral enterprises across northern Australia):

…  the architects of the ILC’s initial and amended legislation intended that any subsidiaries would work in partnership with Indigenous groups of landowners.

 The most egregious example of the ILC’s misplaced confidence in operating unilaterally via its subsidiaries has been the $300m acquisition of the ARR. The ILC paid a price above commercial valuation for this asset and borrowed significant sums to finance the acquisition. Servicing this debt has effectively crippled the ILC’s ability to fulfil its primary legislative remit. Even if the ARR eventually becomes commercially successful, and the ILC’s outstanding bank borrowings are repaid, there will have been an effective 20-year hiatus in land acquisition and management across the nation, with all the opportunity costs which that entails.

I do not have the space to recount the details of the political and policy conflicts that emerged following the original acquisition, but this article (link here) from The Saturday Paper in August 2015 titled Fresh calls for inquiry into Ayers Rock Resort purchase provides a sense of the issues in play.

A Question on Notice from Senator David Pocock following an Estimates Hearing in December 2025 requested advice on the sale price negotiated with Journey Beyond and information on the accumulated net profit of loss arising form ownership of the ARR from 2011 through to the present, as well as the accumulated capital expenditure invested in the asset over the same period.

The answers provided (QoN 1820: link here) are eye watering. The answer does provide several caveats that aim to dissuade those inclined to make simplistic comparisons, and argues such comparisons are problematic. For example, the current transaction is for the shareholding in Voyages held by the ILSC and not the asset per se, some existing loan liabilities remain in Voyages and are taken into account in the sale process, and of course the price paid by Journey Beyond excludes any freehold land acquired by Voyages which the ILSC note has been independently valued at $215m; a valuation that I find questionable, but which is somewhat moot insofar as the land will likely never be sold as it will be transferred to the traditional owners when the land is divested.

The answer goes on to provide the information requested. The purchase price payable to the ILSC by Journey Beyond for Voyages is $123.5m. This will allow the ILSC to repay external debt currently recorded at $122.4m. The ILSC is left with $1.1m cash in hand.

The accumulated net loss over the fifteen years of ILSC ownership was just under $101m, and the accumulated capital expenditure on the asset over the period was $250.5m. Much if not most of this capital expenditure was sourced from the ILSC. These are nominal figures and thus do not reflect the real value of the losses and expenditures in 2026 dollars. It is unclear whether the costs of negotiating the transaction are included in these figures; in an answer to a Question on Notice from Senator Liddle, (QoN NIAA 1766: link here), the ILSC advise that the total costs of negotiating the transaction were $15m, including $13m for consultants and professional costs.

The bottom line here is that over the 16 years since the ARR was acquired, the ILC put up $300m; lost a further $100m, expended $250m in capital expenditure and has been left with $1m in the bank. The net cost of the acquisition to the ILSC over the sixteen years was $650m but is likely closer to $700m in 2026 dollars.

While the enormous financial costs of this investment will be offset by the divestment of the land involved to its traditional owners, this is not what drove the initial decision in 2010, and nor would the ILSC today likely make a similar investment for any other First Nations community. The valuation of $215m for the land involved is a benefit for the APY traditional owners but does not mitigate the financial losses (and concomitant constraints on new activities) carried by the ILSC.

We can contextualise this by remembering the Land Fund was established by the Keating Government following the passage of the Native Title Act in recognition of the fact that based on the High Court decision in Mabo No.2, much of settled Australia would not be subject to claim given that native title would have been extinguished by grants from the Crown. The fund was appropriated on ten years and totalled $1.4bn. The Fund has since grown to $2.43bn, and under a legislated formula a varying amount (initially designed to maintain the Fund in perpetuity) currently provides for a drawdown of around $65m per annum to fund the operations of the ILSC. In other words, the losses involved in the ARR acquisition amount to almost one third of the total amount set aside nationally in perpetuity as a compensatory mechanism to acknowledge the limits of the High Court’s decision in Mabo.

This framing also suggests that the Land Fund corpus, notwithstanding being very substantial and historically unprecedented, was fundamentally inadequate from the start, but that is a subject for a different discussion.

The real cost of the acquisition of the ARR however is not the financial losses, but the opportunity costs which fell (and continues to fall) directly upon numerous — unknowing — Indigenous groups which meant that very many land acquisition and land management projects across the nation were unable to be funded. Or to put it another way, the very considerable achievements of the ILSC over the past thirty years, and particularly the last 15 years, would have been considerably and tangibly greater had the then ILC Board not decided to ignore the written warnings of then Ministers Wong and Macklin, and locked in a decision to proceed with the purchase of the asset in the lead up to an election that many expected the Labor Government to lose.

The ILC decision in 2010 benefited the former owners of the Ayers Rock Resort (as it dug them out of a hole with a premium price), and indirectly the NT Government which had invested millions in Yulara. It solved an expected problem for the NT Senator who expected to be Minister for Indigenous Affairs within months and was contemplating the potential insolvency of the most significant tourism enterprise in his electorate.

The current ILSC Board and staff have in my view pulled off a major achievement in finalising this transaction. They deserve all the accolades that come their way. I am not at all critical of the choices and decisions that they have made. They have drawn a line that staunches ongoing losses, and in effect have achieved a positive (or perhaps least negative) outcome from a potentially disastrous starting position not of their making.

However, while I understand the desire to place the most positive spin on this possible, there are serious lessons that should be considered and remembered. Foremost among them is the Government’s comparatively recent pivot towards Indigenous economic empowerment (link here) thus legitimising widely held expectations that commercial investments are the panacea for Indigenous disadvantage.

The ILC Board which decided to purchase the ARR in October 2010 was not short of commercial acumen and expertise, but they allowed hubris and perhaps encouragement from political quarters in the Northern Territory to blind them to the risks involved. And the risks of any commercial investments are always considerable and often enormous. Some investments succeed, some spectacularly, but many fail. The ARR acquisition failed spectacularly. Strong governance, strong risk management, and an ability to identify challenges as well as opportunities are the key to sustained commercial success. Moreover, every decision to invest in a commercial opportunity represents not just a decision not to invest in an alternative commercial opportunity, but a decision not to invest in a social or cultural investment such as improved healthcare, improved education, or language maintenance. In my view, particularly when legitimised by government, these lessons too often run the risk of being ignored or underappreciated.

For Commonwealth Ministers, and their bureaucratic advisers in Treasury, Finance, NIAA and PMC, and the Opposition Shadow Ministers who aspire to one day sit on the Treasury benches, and indeed anyone else inclined to uncritically promote Indigenous economic empowerment as a policy panacea, the history of the acquisition, operation and sale of the Ayers Rock Resort should give pause for thought.

 

6 March 2026

 

Declaration of interest: I was an officer in PMC involved in oversight of the drafting of the ILC legislation in 1994-5; an adviser to Minister Macklin in 2010 when the ARR was purchased by the ILC; and was the CEO of the ILC for a number of years in the period 2013-2015.

The broken Closing the Gap machine

 

The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite

That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let’s go together.

Hamlet, Act one, Scene five.

 

Ten days ago (on 12 February 2026) Prime Minister Albanese delivered the annual Statement to Parliament on Closing the Gap (link here). Simultaneously the NIAA released the Commonwealth Closing the Gap 2025 Annual Report and 2026 Implementation Plan (link here). I urge interested readers to take the time to have a look at both documents as I cannot give either the justice they deserve.

It would be churlish not to acknowledge that both documents make a strong case for a range of positive initiatives which will make tangible differences to the lives of many Indigenous Australians. These include initiatives related to housing, food security, hospitals and Indigenous health, remote employment, and clean water infrastructure in remote communities, and increased funding for PBCs, the corporate entities that hold native title on behalf of native title owners. 

The Prime Minister’s speech is a well-crafted list of achievements and ongoing work, albeit without key details and history that would provide adequate contextualisation to enable a critical assessment of the Government’s performance in addressing this policy agenda. For example, the inclusion of the section recounting the important and creditable investments in water infrastructure omits both the salient fact that this was previously announced in 2023 by Minister Burney (link here) and that it is part of the funding operations of the National Water Grid Authority (link here) and is in effect a carve out of normal and ongoing mainstream funding, and thus may not involve additional fiscal effort. The data point cited by the Prime Minister (40 clean water projects delivering for around 34,000 people in 110 communities) is not available on the National Water Grid Authority web site or fact sheet (link here) on First Nations projects, though the fact sheet does mention that the initiative will contribute to target 9b under Closing the Gap. The Productivity Commission dashboard (link here) indicates however that there is no data source currently available which includes all required data elements to enable reporting against this target (a larger problem than just data on clean water provision).

He also includes a sophisticated argument about the inter-connectedness of socio-economic life as well as the potential life changing implications of a single event or action:

… one lifeline, one moment when someone recognises your potential and backs it, can change everything. Sometimes when we talk about Closing the Gap, we can be guilty of focusing on that first idea [the interconnectedness of everything] at the expense of the second. The challenges facing us are significant, complex and connected, with causes that reach back generations. But that does not render us powerless - it makes each act of change powerful. It means progress towards one target, will drive improvement in others.

This analysis is of course correct, but in the real world it can operate both positively or negatively, for better and for worse. Yet the Prime Minister wishes to focus only on the former and not the latter.

The Prime Minister’s speech includes a pre-emptive defence against nay sayers and critics built on that partial analysis and is reinforced by a Panglossian reliance on the psychology of positivity and optimism and interlaced with a generous dose of conceptual conflation. Excellent rhetoric, poor analysis. For example, I was struck by this segment of the speech:

We are now 5 years away from most of the target deadlines. We are clear about where there is more to do. We must also guard against talk of failure. Because talk of failure dismisses the aspirations and achievements of Indigenous Australians. It ignores the leaders and communities who are changing lives. Failure is a word for those who have stopped trying - or given up listening. I make this clear today: I am not contemplating failure. Our Government is not contemplating failure. We are determined to succeed. The Closing the Gap targets are a measure of our national progress. And there is real progress.

I too do not wish to contemplate failure, but I fundamentally disagree with the Prime Minister. The targets themselves are not ‘a measure of our national progress’, but if well designed and structured can be a way to measure progress or lack of it. Success in policy formulation and implementation is never guaranteed. It requires hardheaded analysis, a sense of realism, the establishment of a framework that does not raise expectations beyond the capacity to deliver, and balancing of available resources (financial, intellectual and human), the development of a workable and politically attuned strategy, and a commitment to staying the course. Indeed, it requires a real determination to succeed, and such determination can be strengthened and sustained by contemplating the consequences of failure. Importantly, success requires a preparedness to assess progress, to identify and acknowledge both successes and failures, and then a preparedness to refine — as necessary — the strategy, the resources, the implementation plan, the time frame, or all of the above. Unfortunately, neither this Government nor its predecessors have been prepared to be open and honest with the wider community and with First Nations. Instead, they have adopted the unstated and arguably deliberately dishonest strategy of deciding to muddle through, while avoiding being held to account.

The NIAA Annual Report is a highly sophisticated version of a classic glossy public relations product replete with good news stories. One must read through to page 78 (Appendix C) of the eighty-page document to get a high-level account of the progress against the 20 formal targets. There is no mention of the Priority Reforms, but the Productivity Commission dashboard tells us that no data is currently available to assess progress on these. Of the 20 socioeconomic targets, 4 are improving and on track, 7 are improving but not on track, 4 are worsening and not on track, 1is no change, and 4 have no assessment available. Note the embedded ambiguity: 11 are improving, with 9 not improving or unable to be determined; but only 4 are on track to meet their target with the balance not on track or unable to be determined. These are national level statistics. There is substantial variation across the states and territories, and of more significance, an analysis of the same targets for remote regions would be much more dire (but demonstrating this comprehensively is an exercise for another day).

Here is my high-level critique of the current strategy for closing the gap which to be fair to the current Labor Government, was negotiated and put in place by its LNP predecessor with the negotiation of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap in 2020. It has however been continued without change by the Albanese Government.

It was not based on an explicit strategic analysis and fudges the demographic and policy relevant data. The original impetus for the strategy was to close the socio-economic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, but the framework chosen by successive governments was never clear on why various socio-economic indicators were chosen as targets, and whether they were meant to be the primary areas for policy attention, or merely signposts or indicators of progress or lack of it in relation to wider policies addressing much broader socio-economic disadvantage. If the former, there was no comprehensive strategy employed to reach the targets. If the latter, it was not articulated. Of more significance however was the decision to not choose certain key social indicators, and no reasons for these omissions were given apart from vague statements about the desirability of relying on ‘strength based’ approaches and avoiding ‘deficit discourse’.

Moreover, in relation to most targets, the denominator is the relevant Indigenous population. In recent decades it has become increasingly apparent that the Indigenous population is demographically fluid, and the structural composition of the Indigenous population has been changing rapidly. This is an issue that raises fundamental questions regarding the conceptual underpinnings of the Closing the Gap policy and strategy; questions that are never asked, let alone answered.

Since the establishment of Closing the Gap in 2008, what has always been hidden in plain sight is that there is no alignment between the targets and programs designed to reach them. In a very real sense, the targets have always been aspirational, and governments have continued to do what they always do, devise and implement programs willy nilly to assuage the concerns and pressure of various constituencies. Government rhetoric has always emphasised that Closing the Gap is directed at meeting the needs and expectations of Indigenous interests. My own (admittedly heterodox) view is that this has always been disingenuous; in reality, for governments, Closing the Gap is fundamentally about assuaging the vague and intuitive concerns of the wider community that we as a nation have mistreated Indigenous peoples. In response, governments do just enough to demonstrate that they are acting/trying while not doing so much that scarce fiscal resources are wasted on regions or programs that are not electorally efficient in harnessing or maintaining votes.

The chosen targets have invariably been framed as partial: even if all targets were to be met by say 2031, the actual and real gap in socio-economic outcomes would still not be closed. The wider community does not understand this. I understand why governments may wish to be cautious in making commitments, but the partial nature of the Closing the Gap policy framework guarantees a day of reckoning when the wider community will realise the present strategy is not assuaging their diffuse concerns about giving all citizens a fair go, and yet the gap continues, and a populist consensus will emerge to try something else.  

The complexity of the Closing the Gap framework is mind boggling. I challenge anyone to have a close look at the Productivity Commission dashboard (link here) and not step away confounded. There are four priority reforms that are effectively treated as targets (I have argued elsewhere that seeking to measure them like targets is a mistake), 17 targets or outcome areas, three of which have two elements. In total, the nation is seeking to measure and assess progress against 24 effective targets.

The bulk of the targets relate to policy and program sectors that are traditionally state or territory responsibilities. So, for each target we have eight separate jurisdictional outcomes (changing year to year depending on data availability) plus the national outcome. Conceptually, anyone seeking to assess progress overall must consider a matrix with dimensions of 24(targets) by 9 (jurisdictions), a total of 216 separate cells each year. Each cell is further elaborated by a suite of varying supporting categories of disaggregated data. For example, target 3 related to early childhood education includes disaggregated data by sex, by remoteness area (five separate categories), by Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD) quintile, and finally by disability status.

Further, each target is measured using multiple data sources for both the numerator and denominator. The targets were chosen without first assessing whether the data to measure them is available, and in fact, in many cases it is not. Data is often unavailable, and/or collected only every five years in the census (link here).

The responsibility for collection of the temporal year by year performance data comprising what becomes a multi-dimensional matrix is the responsibility of multiple agencies across multiple jurisdictions, with the only high-level oversight being a sub-committee of the Joint Council which oversees the implementation of the National Agreement (see Appendix B to the NIAA Annual Report).   

Jurisdictional implementation plans are not consistent utilising different templates and often read more like lists of every Indigenous related activity a jurisdiction is undertaking and have little or no obvious link to the data being collected for each target (See Appendixes E, F & G for the Commonwealth’s current approach to reporting on implementation). Assessing all implementation plans for any one year would involve reading and comprehending hundreds if not thousands of pages of often unsourced initiatives described in bureaucratese (a language few Australians speak or understand).

The overall CtG framework was devised by senior and experienced bureaucrats, and therefore we can confidently assert the complexity was clearly deliberate; the result is a deep-seated avoidance of accountability. The Productivity Commission which oversights the data dashboard is also responsible for one of the regular reviews of the Closing the Gap process (and thus arguably has a conflict of interest in relation to some aspects of the National Agreements implementation), but Indigenous interests insisted that they too should commission a regular review. These reviews are the product of seemingly unending consultation and ‘co-design’ and end up being long and unwieldy documents spanning hundreds of pages which inevitably sink without trace and without any apparent political or policy impact apart from ephemeral mentions upon their initial publication in the daily media cycle (But see Appendix D of the NIAA Annual Report for the exception that proves the rule).

The National Agreement on Closing the Gap which was a truly innovative step forward in many respects (link here) involves the Coalition of Peaks, and the Coalition’s Secretariat is funded by NIAA. It appears that its staffing is about the size of a single branch in a large government agency. These limited policy capabilities are arrayed against the combined bureaucratic and policy heft of nine governments and span virtually the entire extent of government activity. If they are to have any substantive influence with government policy development, the Coalition of Peaks (and their state and territory components) must be experts on virtually every facet of government; an extraordinary ask for an impossible task. See Appendix E for a stocktake of the 50 odd partnerships that ostensibly operate in refutation of my assertions. I would merely note that while they give Indigenous participants the sense of interacting with government decisionmakers, in a complex and process-dominated policy environment, the power imbalance is huge. There is no line of sight which allows th effectiveness of these processes to be independently assessed.

Finally, notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers in relation to Indigenous matters, the Commonwealth refuses to step up and take a leadership or coordination role in relation to the implementation of the National Agreement. In a December 2025 Estimates Hearing, Senator Barbara Pocock asked Minister McCarthy a follow up question related to previous claims she had publicly made that she would consider aligning funding to the states and territories with progress on Closing the Gap targets (link here). Notwithstanding her recent comments (link here), the answer provided on notice (NIAA1743) is a lesson in bureaucratic fudging. The Minister’s idea (which was directed at assuaging concerns in the Indigenous community) will disappear without trace.

A cynic might think that the Closing the Gap framework is a machine designed to achieve the minimum necessary while giving the appearance of action. They would be wrong: for the machine does not work perfectly. Every component of the machine’s operations is subject to failure, and a single component failure can bring the machine to a halt. Bureaucratic delay, complexity, data constraints, inter-agency conflicts, and the myriad opportunities for implementation failure mean that this machine in terms of its ostensible aims is entirely ineffective. Any positive outcomes (and there have been a few) are the results of a rising demographic tide, th operation of pre-existing institutional frameworks such as exists for native title, and the innovation, experience and determination of a very few individuals within the system (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) who find ways to produce outcomes despite the machine’s built-in design constraints.

This critique is arguably too abstract to be persuasive. To address that deficiency, I will point to just one of the areas of egregious policy failure that the Closing the Gap machine fails to address: remote school attendance.

According to the agency charged with measuring national school attendance,  ACARA (link here):

In Australia in 2025:

• The attendance rate for [all] students in Years 1–10 was 88.8% …

• Attendance rates:

v  were higher among students in major cities than in remote areas;

v  were lower among students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds than for non-Indigenous students.  

According to ACARA (link here), the attendance rate for the NT in 2025 was 76.9%, a full 11 % below the national average.

The NT Education Department recently released attendance data for public schools across the NT (link here). It shows (Table 3) that in very remote areas, there were 6881enrolled Aboriginal students and 7886 non-Aboriginal students. The attendance rates for Aboriginal students averaged 40% compared to 80 % for non-Aboriginal students. In some of the larger remote communities, attendance rates dipped well below 40%.

The Closing the Gap framework has no target related to school attendance. The bottom line: school attendance rates in the NT are well below the rest of Australia and Aboriginal student attendance is extraordinarily low. In very remote NT regions, the school attendance rate for Aboriginal children is catastrophic. Given that low school attendance has been a problem for decades, and will not be turned around overnight, it is safe to assert that we as a nation are allowing a generation of children numbered in the tens of thousands to reach adulthood without the basic numeracy and literacy skills that will allow them to engage with the modern world they will live in. In a recent media release (link here) the NT Minister for Education promised to continue to crack down on low attendance through the use of truancy officers and making parents responsible, but gave no indication that she understood that there was a major crisis ongoing in her portfolio.

The takeout from this example is that governments are deliberately ignoring the hard problems, and that the very hardest problems are in remote Australia. I have been banging this drum for a couple of decades with little success. It has been a consistent theme of this blog (for example: link here, link here, link here, and link here). If change for the better is to occur, clearly governments must do something different.

Reform options for Closing the Gap

Clearly the challenges facing the nation in terms of Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage are enormous and seemingly intractable. I do not consider them to be intractable, rather the evidence suggests that while the problems are complex, and not all the solutions are within the capacities or remit of government, the reality is that governments have not been prepared to put their shoulder to the wheel in ways that make a difference. Worse still, they have adopted a strategy of pretending to be concerned and pretending to act because the politics of being honest with the Australian community and with First Nations is too difficult.

There are ways forward, and there is no single lever to pull which will solve the policy challenges or even ensure we are on the right path. I do have some suggestions for how governments should proceed. Here are five broad suggestions that would be a good start.

First, acknowledge that the Closing the Gap machine is broken. It is too complex; it is too focussed on process. It lacks effective political leadership. It needs reform (not abolition, not disposal, not starting afresh). Reform would necessarily involve a radical rethink based on a critical assessment of the conceptual underpinnings. It would require a radical simplification to focus on what is important, to identify a limited number of strategically significant priorities (I would nominate education, employment, incarceration, housing and health; cross cutting priorities would include alcohol reform and disability access). It would require the ditching of the political correctness that fails to recognise that Closing the Gap is as much about the nature of mainstream Australia as it is about the future of First Nations interests.

Second, I would suggest that the National Agreement on Closing the Gap be reconstituted into two separate agreements: one for urban and regional Australia, and another for remote Australia. Indigenous Australians living in both domains have significant challenges to be included within the institutions that frame the daily lives of mainstream Australians, but they are fundamentally different in nature across a considerable number of domains.

Third, given:

·       the increasing political polarisation in modern liberal democracies;

·       the seeming intractability of the issues in play; and

·       the poor understanding of the experience and realities of life for many First Australians; and (frankly)

·       the policy illiteracy of most Australians based on the rise of social media and the complexity of modern government in a rapidly changing global world;

there is a pressing need for an innovative approach to the governance of the oversight of this policy domain. My suggestion is that key elements of its governance should be placed at arm’s length from Executive Government in recognition of the ongoing failure of Executive governments across the partisan divide to turn these issues around (while acknowledging that ultimately governments are elected to make final policy determinations). My suggestion is to build into the governance of a new Closing the Gap model scope for the extensive use of deliberative democracy and citizens juries to deal with major policy challenges (like remote education, and the regular oversight reviews of the process).

Fourth, while the states and territories have been and will continue to be substantial players in the Indigenous policy domain, the nation requires the Commonwealth to step up and ensure that these issues are considered from a national perspective. The 1967 Referendum passed with an overwhelming majority and gave the Commonwealth the power to legislate in relation to Indigenous affairs. The decision by Commonwealth governments over the past decade to step back and abdicate control and authority by effectively leaving responsibility for Closing the Gap outcomes with the states and territories has been both a gross dereliction and a policy disaster.

Fifth, the focus of reform efforts must be on institutional reform, not greater access to benefits for selected constituencies within the current framework. One example of institutional reform would be a comprehensive shift to ensure the greater use of needs-based allocations across the board thus ensuring that constituencies where disadvantaged Indigenous citizens are over-represented are allocated greater attention without framing the policy as an indigenous specific program. If implemented widely, this would do much to undercut the potential for populist backlash which has been a major constraint on Indigenous policy reform over recent decades.

Conclusion

The Closing the Gap machine is broken. It requires reform, not jettisoning or discarding. There are pathways forward. Unfortunately, I see little prospect that a critical mass of concern presently exists that might lead to such reform. From governments, all we get are words, words, words.

In remote Australia, largely out of sight of mainstream Australia, we are building another machine which is efficiently producing ongoing illiteracy, innumeracy, dysfunction, crime and hyper-incarceration. Tens of thousands of Australian citizens are being relegated to live shortened lives, often shaped by violence, family tragedy and despair. It is easy for some to blame the victims. Overwhelmingly, they are not responsible for the life choices available to them.

In 2007, I co-authored a book with Neil Westbury where we argued that remote Australia is in effect a failed state. The institutional frameworks that we take granted in non-remote Australia were under-developed and/or non-existent. The following two decades have seen some improvements, but in many respects, not much has changed. How can we accept a school system where for tens of thousands of students the attendance rate is forty percent. How can we accept a culture where alcohol and substance abuse are rampant, and governments fail to rein in the ability of liquor retailers to sell alcohol to vulnerable people (of all backgrounds) while they know that alcohol is an underlying cause of widespread health issues. The causes of state failure are complex and the solutions are complicated. But an absolute pre-requisite is for governments to do their job, acting in the public interest, and not at the behest of private interests. An essential part of the job for our political leaders is to focus on what matters for all Australians, not just some Australians, and certainly the job is not to deliberately obscure what matters.

The Closing the Gap machine is failing. Our leaders have stopped trying…and listening.

The times are certainly out of joint.

 

22 February 2026