Indigenous Affairs
The CIS has been publicly advocating for improving the outcomes of Indigenous Australians since 2004. Our work has spanned health, education, housing, private property rights, criminal justice, child protection and employment policy reform and had a direct impact on government thinking on Indigenous issues.
Our latest program is run by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, outspoken advocate for indigenous reform.
The program called Changing the Narrative aims to explain in straightforward language what is needed to improve social outcomes for indigenous people with a particular emphasis on indigenous women.
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Featured Publication
It’s The Economy, Stupid: Economic participation only way to Close the Gap
Nyunggai Warren Mundine
14 July 2020 | AP11
The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians exists for one reason — too many Indigenous people do not participate in the real economy. The key areas of economic participation are having a job and setting up a business. Both depend on commerce and private enterprise. The answer is the same…
READ MOREPublications
Changing the Narrative
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
01 June 2019
Prospectus for the CIS Indigenous Research Program Despite meaningful intentions by government and NGOs to close the gap, the billions of dollars spent have not achieved their goal. In order to begin to solve the issues faced by Australia’s most marginalised citizens, the narrative must…
Submission to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – Consultation Paper: COAG Closing the Gap Refresh
Charles Jacobs
30 April 2018
While the targets set in 2008 were ambitious, and the task immense, the failure to meet the majority of targets implies the need for a reassessment of the underlying principles and structures of the Closing the Gap strategy. The Centre for Independent Studies welcomes the…
Risky business: the problems of Indigenous business policy
Charles Jacobs
29 November 2017 | RR35
The Commonwealth’s Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP) has put Aboriginal owned small businesses at the heart of a renewed approach to Indigenous economic development. The IPP has irrevocably changed the space, and the Indigenous business sector has grown exponentially since its introduction in 2015. While the…
Impact Investing: harnessing capital markets to solve societal problems
Josephine Cashman
25 October 2017 | OP158
In the post GFC environment, with the risk and return matrix and reputation risk to corporations and financial institutions, capital markets are attracted to social impact investing. Impact investing, or social impact investing, offers opportunities for investors with a commitment to social responsibility to invest…
Submission to Productivity Commission - Draft report: Introducing Competition and Informed User Choice into Human Services
Michael Potter, Sara Hudson
14 July 2017 | CIS Submission
The Productivity Commission (PC) released a draft report proposing reforms to increased competition, contestability and informed user choice to human services. CIS responded to the PC’s report with a submission covering two issues raised in the draft report: social housing and remote Indigenous communities. In…
Media & Commentary
Evidence shows CDC works
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
06 November 2020 | Ideas@theCentre
The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) has long faced opposition from those who claim that not allowing welfare to be spent as recipients choose denies them ‘financial freedom’ and imposes unnecessary…
Cashless in Alice
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
22 October 2020 | Spectator
Income Management and the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) have long faced opposition from those who claim that not allowing welfare to be spent as recipients choose denies them ‘financial freedom’…
Feel-good measures will widen the gap
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
30 July 2020 | Daily Telegraph
There are glaring problems with Ken Wyatt’s Close the Gap targets. If you are going to set a (probably unachievable) target to reduce Indigenous incarceration by 15 per cent, then…
BLM’s inconvenient truth
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
16 July 2020 | Ideas@TheCentre
The greatest failing of the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia, and a complete contradiction to their cause, is that it ignores the lives taken at the hands of other…
Why drop the ball on our key indigenous targets?
Nyunggai Warren Mundine
15 July 2020 | The Australian
The COVID-19 pandemic — and government responses to it — has halted large sections of the economy, resulting in business failures and increased unemployment. With so many facing straitened circumstances,…