There is only one federal indigenous agenda these days – the Indigenous Advancement Strategy.
It began last July, and has a four-year budget of $4.8 billion.
It replaces 150 individual programs and activities with five flexible programs:
- Jobs, Land and Economy
- Children and Schooling
- Safety and Wellbeing
- Culture and Capability
- Remote Australia Strategies
The Strategy aims to tap new ideas and joint development of solutions.
This is sensible stuff.
It is run out of the Prime Minister and Cabinet offices, where indigenous affairs were centralised following the change of government.
It has a strong regional delivery dimension.
Of the 2,500–3,000 staff involved, half of these are in 13 regional centres and 40 smaller offices around Australia.
Annual funding rounds are involved.
Departmental officers can’t confirm if $1.2 billion will be disbursed each year.
The first round opened on 8 September and closed on 17 October which was a fairly tight window.
However there were upwards of 4,000 applications.
If the success rate for applications conforms to the average across all federal programs, there might be 500–600 grants announced.
Announcements of the grants are expected from late March onwards.
There are likely to be teething problems given the breadth of the program, the staff restructuring, and the task of assessing so many applications.
Indigenous affairs officials tend to be pretty committed to the cause, albeit process-driven.
We hope they’re open to phone calls and meetings to bounce around ideas.
All projects with indigenous groups need heavy doses of consultation.
The Minister is Nigel Scullion, a NT Senator – 58yo and born in the UK.
He adopts a low profile, and seems a pretty decent and likeable bloke.
NT seeks a milk run
The NT Department of Transport recently sought expressions of interest from commercial operators for the provision of a trial air transport service(s) for an initial two-year period, linking Katherine and Tennant Creek to Darwin and Alice Springs.
The gist of the agenda is that airfares outside the normal trunk routes are very high, and they want to see if a milk run could build patronage and reduce fares by picking up and dropping off travelers along various points.
The Expressions Of Interest are currently being assessed.
The NT agenda aligns with complaints about high airfares shrinking local economies.
Labor’s candidate for Cook (Cape York) in the recent Queensland election said that “the costs of commercial flights have doubled over the past five years, with local one-way standard fares ranging between $350 and $550.”
This is an incredibly complex field, viz.
- A longstanding milk run along the Queensland coast (Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton) has its fans as well as detractors.
- Pockets of federal and state subsidies to deal with the worst affected areas.
- Cost pressures e.g. airline in northern Australia facing avgas costs of $2.42/litre; unwillingness of some local airports to trim landing fee charges.
- QantasLink, Rex Airlines etc. aren’t generating big profits.
As a Canberra Airport executive said recently:
“We are captive to our low population densities.
“Some of the best brains in Australia have been unsuccessful in finding a solution.”
We will however monitor developments.
In brief
Food labeling – the Government finally acted on country of origin labeling in the wake of the hepatitis A outbreak from imported frozen berries.
Our research reveals that (1) there is no freezing capacity in Australia for berries, (2) domestic berry prices will rise as consumers shift preferences, thus creating local berry freezing options (3) there is CSIRO snap frozen technology, (4) there is a federal program that could facilitate a pilot freezing plant.
If this interests, please contact us.
Job Services Australia – the recent Four Corners investigation exposed rorting of the scheme – forgery, manipulation of records, lodgment of inflated claims.
Some prominent people could be named in coming months.
The general consensus among Canberra hardheads is that there are too many unemployed facing too few jobs, especially as the government job market shrinks.
Submarines – the feds’ backtracking on the deal to buy a fleet of Japanese subs (vicinity of $25 billion) could get very sticky.
Unconfirmed reports are that the feds are now committed to the purchase.
This is a very important project for South Australia and will impact on five–six marginal federal seats in the next election.
Labor will play merry hell with this, presumably with the quiet involvement of Don Russell (PM Keating’s former chief of staff) who is now head of the SA Department of State Development.
National Archives storage – the feds have announced expenditure of $400 million to build, furnish, rent and maintain a new building for the archives in the Canberra suburb of Mitchell.
The high cost has drawn considerable criticism, but it transpires that this is a ‘whole of life’ cost including running costs.
Scope projects now
A federal election this year is entirely possible.
Politicians are amenable to quality projects that they can endorse in the run-up to the election.
The lead times in scoping and organising projects can be considerable, so you should be moving now.
Characteristics of a quality project are:
- has a demonstrable public benefit
- consistent with federal priorities
- capable of attracting at least 50 percent funding from other parties
- are reasonably shovel-ready
- big enough to generate interest, but not so big that it worries the bean counters – total budget should be in the $2-5 million range.
Please contact us if you need assistance.
Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant and lobbyist specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction and clusters, and accessing federal grants. He also runs the Cockatoo Network.
Phone: (02) 6231 7261 or 0412 922 559
Email: apdcockatoo@iprimus.com.au
Blog: www.investmentinnovation.wordpress.com (750 articles)
