(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Ranking Aboriginal communities according to funding needs.
With support from corporate Australia, that's an idea being promoted by the federal government's top Aboriginal advisor Warren Mundine.
A prototype of what he dubbed the "Mundine Index" is to be presented at the G20 conference in September.
However, as Karen Ashford reports, not everyone's impressed.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Warren Mundine revealed the concept at a business lunch in Adelaide.
"And what we're looking at, and this is my title, I think it's a very sexy title, we're looking at a Mundine index."
The chairman of the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council has been working with ratings agency Standard and Poors, the four major banks and some big corporations to devise a system of better target spending for Indigenous communities.
Mr Mundine says his index is based on ideas being considered by the G7 and G20 global forums, and hopes to present his "indigenised" version to world leaders when they meet in Australia in September.
Mr Mundine says the details of exactly how communities will be assessed is still being worked out, but thinks the result will be a ranking system.
"For an organisation that is getting its KPIs and delivering on its services and outcomes, and at the same time having good governance, good financial institutions and so on, for argument's sake you'd call it a triple A, then you'd work your way down to a triple Z which would be the worst case scenario."
He says a low rating wouldn't mean a community loses funding, but it would trigger analysis of priority issues to move the community up the ladder.
Mr Mundine says his aim is to corporatise Aboriginal communities, with government getting out of providing funding and moving instead to investment.
"We're doing a lot of that type of thinking as well as about major changes in that how we get commercial activity and investment into areas, and get governments out of areas, so building the capacity of Aboriginal communities to run their own communities, run their own businesses, run their own organisations and move forward from there."
The proposal has received a mixed response from Aboriginal leaders.
Mr Mundine says he's discussed it with fellow members of the Prime Minister Indigenous Advisory Council, but several say they have not been briefed.
Queensland activist Sam Watson is concerned communities haven't been consulted.
"The actual process appears to be driven by the dollars and cents, about how much money is being invested and what cost it is to the Australian taxpayer, rather than looking at it from our community point of view about what the needs are and about our community having some ownership and participation in the process. That's critical, because our mob have to be able to own the process, have to be able to manage it, and have to drive it forward."
Mr Watson believes Mr Mundine has too much power.
"I am concerned that one person who was hand-picked and hand selected for his role, very high profile, very powerful role in Aboriginal affairs, has so much power, that he's come up with this idea for the Mundine index to try to shape and determine exactly how government money flows into Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander organisations and programs."
South Australian Aboriginal leader Klynton Wanganeen thinks elements of the Mundine plan might have merit.
Mr Wanganeen wants assurances the ranking system won't undermine communities, and thinks accountability ought to extend to service providers too.
"As long as it's not used to get rid of Aboriginal organisations, and they put the same measure on organisations that purport to offer a service to Aboriginal people, because they receive money earmarked for Aboriginal services and quite a lot of them don't do justice to the work they do, and they need to be accountable as well. Accountability can't just be put on to Aboriginal people, because there's a raft of people who get funds that's intended to service Aboriginal people. And government agencies should also have the same sort of Mundine Index or Warren Index."
Warren Mundine says bureaucracy and poor federal-state relations means 30 per cent of Indigenous funding doesn't make it out of Canberra or the capitals.
He argues there's little to show for $40 billion spent in the past decade.
"You can't tell me we're going to spend $40 billion and we've still got the same problems we've got today! Over a ten year period! That to me is a joke and no offense to the people who run those programs and do these things, I think it is a disgrace."
Mr Mundine says Aboriginal people want what economic ruthlessness, not cuddly treatment.
"It's the ruthless arsehole businessmen out there who are getting money for their shareholders. We don't want you to come into our communities and get naked and dance around fires hitting bongo drums - we want you to bring that ruthless arsehole bloody business nous with you, so that we can learn it and grow our communities."
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