The Abbott and his Missionaries announce their Tea & Flour rations

Welcome to the age of the Abbott Chain Gangs

The real owners of this continent are forced to go cap in hand to the missionaries as The Abbott amalgamates 150 First Nations programs into five broad areas

Oliver Milman The Guardian 8 October 2014

The Abbott government has opened up the first funding round of its streamlined $4.8bn Indigenous Advancement Strategy, with tough new guidelines for organisations wishing to access the money.

The new funding arrangement, which will run over four years, is an amalgamation of 150 Indigenous programs into five broad areas – jobs, land and economy; children and schooling; safety and wellbeing; culture and capability; and remote Australia strategies.

Money will be distributed for activities starting from January next year, with organisations told they will no longer get automatic renewal of previous funding unless they can provide clear evidence of improvement to Indigenous lives.

The Indigenous Advancement Strategy places focus upon getting Indigenous people into employment, ensuring children go to school and providing training and further education for children in year 12.

Senator Nigel Scullion, the Indigenous affairs minister, said the new regime would cut red tape.

“Funding agreements for successful organisations in this first round will focus on delivering measurable outcomes for Indigenous people in the government’s priority areas – getting children to school, adults into work and building safer communities,” he said.

“These new funding arrangements are intended to make funding more flexible and better designed to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“Funding for demand-driven programs such as those designed to generate specific employment opportunities will be considered as they are received throughout the year. However, I encourage service providers to look at the grant round and consider how their proposals may fit.”

From July, all organisations receiving grants of $500,000 from the government were required to incorporate under federal legislation. This is to provide a more “robust regulatory framework to ensure public confidence” in how government programs are delivered through third-party organisations.

The announced funding arrangements in Abbott's First Nations budget has elements of the Warren Mundine/Twiggy Forrest chain gangs call

Labor senator Nova Peris said the government had removed $500m from Indigenous programs, such as health, early education, legal assistance and family violence initiatives.

“There’s not much for organisations to cheer about when we see national programs with evidence-based history of success, such as the national family violence protection legal service, being dismantled,” she said.

“The guidelines on the new funding model for the Indigenous Advancement Strategy are symptomatic of a government that causes chaos and confusion and does not consult.

“Organisations have had little to no information on the process. There are no indications of how much funding is in the bucket and some programs, such as the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme, had no prior knowledge that they would be required to go through this process until very recently.”