There is a new organisation to represent the interests of Aboriginal Australians, but just a day into its existence, questions are being raised about just what it will do.

Human rights groups have hailed the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples as a turning point in Australia’s reconciliation process, but sceptics say the body has limited financial and political power and may follow the same fate as other peak Indigenous bodies.

The congress is the latest incarnation of a national Aboriginal representative group and follows the controversial demise of ATSIC amid corruption scandals in 2005.

ATSIC was succeeded by the advisory National Indigenous Council, which was scrapped in 2008.

Wesley Aird, a former member of the National Indigenous Council, has questioned the purpose of the new organisation.

“Now we’ve got something else and I find myself sort of saying, ‘oh, here we go again’,” he said.

“The Government made an election promise. It has set up a body, so we can tick the box for the election promise that’s been fulfilled. But the big question now is what is this body going to do?

“We know that it’s not going to represent all Indigenous people. It doesn’t have funding to hand out which is a good thing, so we avoid the Indigenous parallel of pork-barrelling.

“But there is a question around its relevance when what we should be doing is spending government money wisely, not on separatist convoluted processes. The money should be going into service delivery on the ground.”

Mr Aird says the biggest challenge is for the congress to stay relevant in a way that encourages the Government and its departments to keep coming back for meaningful advice.

“When you’re relying on government funds as a fallback position, you have to wonder, does that make it too easy and does that mean that they’re able to slacken off a bit, knowing that they’ve got a bit of money in the bank and that they’ll be OK for a while?”

“Whereas some other lobby groups, industry representative groups, they have to work damn hard to make sure their members keep paying their subscriptions and that means they have to keep doing a good, relevant job to those people that they want to influence.”

Structural concerns

The Australian Human Rights Commission has described the congress as groundbreaking and praised the establishment of an Ethics Council to ensure the highest levels of professionalism.

But Dr Thalia Anthony, who has published widely in the area of Indigenous people and the law and is based at Sydney’s University of Technology, is concerned about the structure of the congress.

“It made it very clear at the outset that there can be no national elections,” she said.

“It’s not going to administer services and it’s not going to do what the national steering committee, that recommended this body, wanted it to do, and that’s to provide a future funds to guarantee ongoing income for the body.”

Dr Anthony says the congress is a lesser version of ATSIC.

“[The Government] has put limitations from the outset in order for it to not have a role that it relates to service delivery or relates to election, so a separate governance role.

“I don’t see how it could ever attempt to fill that gap that ATSIC left when it was dissolved.”

Congress co-chairman Sam Jeffries says the political agenda is yet to be established.

“We would certainly need the assistance from, not only Government, but from corporate and philanthropic and private sector groups etcetera to work in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres-Strait Islander people to,” he said.

“[We'll] certainly deal with … social issues in the community [and] economic development matters – those sorts of things.”

Mr Jeffries says the congress should be up and running by the end of 2010.

“That will be the measure or be the benchmark of our success,” he said.

It might not have any responsibility for programs in Indigenous communities, but many are hoping the congress can help Government and agencies close the gap of Indigenous disadvantage.