Government & Politics

Indigenous funding

Government & Politics

Posted by: mermaid

13th Apr 2010 05:51pm

There are many Indigenous and non indigenous Australians contributing to the betterment of Aboriginal communities Australia wide. Government funding is the primary support progressing new generations into employment within their own communities.

Whilst there are many positive outcomes, what are your thoughts on ensuring financial corruption is kept at bay?

What government process is in place to effectively to ensure the nominated service/s are lead by honest people?
What type of reference checks are conducted to safeguard financial support?
What government group are responsible for monitoring service/s who achieve funding?
If corruption exists, what government process is available to ensure the safety of whistleblowers?


Comments 4

elljay
  • 28th Mar 2016 03:30pm

Much money is funded but I wonder how much actually goes towards the need it applied for. Surely there has got to be a better way of ensuring accountability in organisations set up to help people.

col001
  • 4th May 2016 08:27am
Much money is funded but I wonder how much actually goes towards the need it applied for. Surely there has got to be a better way of ensuring accountability in organisations set up to help people.

The question Toot asked in 2010 forms the crux of the whole problem. I am not of Indigenous heritage, however worked in that area. There are many people who simply don't understand their culture, whether through ignorance of whatever, which can create the problem of accountability that you refer to.

The federal government, and I assume the state governments are committed to the "closing of the gap" policy. Unfortunately there are many of those that administer the policy who are the ones I refer too in my first paragraph. While we have ignorance we will never have accountability

I know a number of organisation that do their best with what they can get. Its not necessarily the organisations, its those that administer the organisations that lack the knowledge of indigenous culture.

Education through cultural awareness training is one program that is trying to make change, however we still have those that I guess feel they know better and prefer to remain ignorant. Maybe one day!

nessa7980
  • 12th May 2010 02:42pm

As a person who works for an aboriginal organisation i think more can be done to keep financial coruption at bay. The fianncial statements aren't looked at enough or they are just skimmed over not looked at in depth. No government aganecy checks that when a company goes for funding that the program they are wanting to deliver actually happens which is where I think some of the problem is. Anyone could say we want to start an aboriginal youth group and apply for funding, but once the funding has been given how do we know it's actually used for the youth group. I guess that's the downfall.

As for the government group which is resposnible for monitoring services that depends on what the funding was for. Where I work we have DHS who oversee some programs there's also Victorian Aboriginal Childcare Agency(VACA), Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Orgnisation (VACCHO), Department of Justice, Reconciliation Austalia and Aboriginal Affairs Victoria (AAV)just to name a few.

Hopefully one day we will make a difference.

toot
  • 23rd Apr 2010 01:57pm

Mermaid, I do not think there are any government processess in place to protect whistleblowers. We hear sometimes of people speaking out about things that they consider wrong in govt depts and the next thing you know they are sacked for very dodgy reasons.

who monitors the monitors? we are constantly told we are all australians, so why do we still have separate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander depts.

Everything should come under the same dept with maybe people working in those depts who are able to deal with the different attitudes to the different cultures.

Think of the financial savings that could be utilised in different ways if we only had one legal service, one medical service and so on.

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