Name: Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee (part 2 of 3)
Uploaded: 2026-10-26T03:50:00+00:00
Duration: 21600 s

00:00 - 00:54

Speaker 5

And the thresholds for the Indigenous Procurement Policy, which was previously 50% owned, now 51% owned and controlled, and that will be part of obviously what's administered as part of the reforms. In addition to that, there is obviously the three-part test which all government departments are required to look at in terms of how they administer their programs. You know, how they do that individually is a matter for each individual agency when they're looking at the administration of their own policies and programs. But I will get Mr. Dexter just to go through in a bit more detail because as I said, we're sort of looking at what we're responsible for most directly, and there are several things in addition to what I just said in terms of the strengthening of the thresholds, there's other things that we are also doing and looking at blackcladding specifically as part of the reform process. But Mr. Dexter.

00:54 - 03:07

Speaker 3

Thank you, Ms. Guivarra, and thank you, Senator, for the question. So blackcladding is a complex issue and there are various perspectives on what is and is not blackcladding and the best ways to address and prevent it. The National Indigenous Australians Agency considers blackcladding to include disempowering or disingenuous business practices or corporate arrangements and business structures that are intended to misrepresent a business as an Indigenous business when in fact it is not. One of the main things that the government is doing to address blackcladding is the strengthening of the criteria around the Indigenous Procurement Policy. The move from 50 to 51% might sound like a small shift, but I do want to emphasize that moving to 51% both owned and controlled makes sure that First Nations business owners who are able to access the IPP going forward are actually empowered to run their own businesses and to make decisions about how that business is operated in a way that the previous definition didn't require that to be a part of the test.

The NIAA is also engaging with the First Nations Economic Partnership, which has listed as one of its immediate actions about strengthening the IPP, and we presented to that partnership at the last meeting in September on what we were doing around IPP strengthening, and they've asked us to come back to do some more work with them around blackcladding as well. So it is something that the government is working in partnership with our partners, the First Nations Economic Empowerment Alliance, as well as the Coalition of Peaks, about how government can take more action to address blackcladding. I would also point to the fact that the NIAA is working with different regulators across the Commonwealth, who there are different regulators with different roles that they can play in this space. Certainly our current verification services provider, which is Supply Nation, can look at whether or not a business is meeting the definition or not, that is their role to do. But there are other regulators in this space, such as ASIC, who can look at breaches of the Corporations Law, the ACCC, who can look at misleading and deceptive conduct in terms of the trade practices law, as well as of course law enforcement agencies who can look into instances of fraud.

So if someone has, you know, said that they are an Aboriginal person when in fact they are not, that in some circumstances might amount to fraud, which is something that law enforcement agencies can look into.

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