The Coalition’s push for an audit of government spending on Indigenous Australians is set to fail, with Labor, the Greens and the senator David Pocock opposed.
Even the independent senator Lidia Thorpe, who has backed a more limited review of the “governance processes of organisations that are meant to represent” First Nations people, has distanced herself from the Coalition’s call for a broader review of all spending.
Parliament resumed on Monday after Australians decided in the referendum not to entrench an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution.
Throughout the referendum campaign, the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, called for an audit of spending on Indigenous Australians.
The opposition used the referendum result to pressure Labor to adopt the idea. In a motion at the end of question time it called for a royal commission into alleged child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities and an audit of spending.
Earlier on Monday, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said “the prime minister says he doesn’t believe in a royal commission, doesn’t believe in an audit”, arguing that stance means “we’ll continue to repeat the same mistakes of the past”.
The deputy opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said there needed to be “a renewed focus on much of the spending that has happened”.
“I don’t step back from the need for that spending to be solid, to be high, to be committed,” she told reporters in Canberra.
“It needs to be, it always has. But there are always ways that spending can be made better and more directly linked to outcomes.”
Thorpe told Guardian Australia: “What Senator Price talks about is demanding an audit of the money spent on First Australians.”
“I think it is not about the spending but looking into the governance processes of the organisations that are meant to represent us,” she said.
The Australian National Audit Office has already conducted an audit of the National Indigenous Australians Agency, which found its frameworks for managing provider fraud and non-compliance were “not fully fit-for-purpose”.
The Anao’s report on the governance of the Central Land Council found its governance arrangements are “largely effective”, but it made several recommendations for improvement.
Thorpe said the “governance challenges” outlined in the latter were “just a small glimpse into what is actually happening on the ground”.
“All too often, representative bodies act on behalf of themselves rather than the interests of the traditional owners they are supposed to represent,” Thorpe claimed.
Thorpe accused some land councils and native title bodies of “making deals with mining companies or other project proponents against the wishes of traditional owners”.
Thorpe has controversially joined the Coalition in previous attempts to establish a Senate inquiry into governance of Indigenous organisations, which have been narrowly defeated by Labor, the Greens and Pocock. All are still opposed.
Les Turner, the chief executive of the Central Land Council, has previously rejected a Senate inquiry as “wasteful”, arguing it would only duplicate existing independent audits.
A government spokesperson told Guardian Australia that “Peter Dutton is more interested in playing politics than finding solutions”.
“After nearly a decade under the former Coalition government, the National Audit Office found previous compliance systems were clearly deficient,” the spokesperson said of the NIAA audit.
“Strong governance and accountability are vital to ensuring delivery of high quality services and better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.”
The spokesperson noted the NIAA had accepted and is implementing the audit’s recommendations, while the minister for Indigenous Australians had asked it “to establish an integrity branch to prevent and detect fraud and compliance issues”.
Senator Jacqui Lambie backed the Coalition’s call, telling Sky News “there is a lot of spend … that money needs to be accountable, and we need to make sure it’s making positive change, and we’re not seeing that”.
Lambie claimed that “nothing is being done” in the Indigenous affairs portfolio.
“And, actually, we’re getting more kids in detention – that tells me that money is not being spent wisely, and we’ve got to be brutally honest about that.”
