A new report shows Indigenous businesses are major employers, highly competitive, and delivering strong outcomes – often without reliance on government procurement.

There are a couple of certainties about many attitudes to Indigenous policies and programs. The first is the tendency to highlight problems and ignore successes and what works. The second is that a key lens for analysis is often welfare-based rather than business-based.

A new report from the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership at the University of Melbourne paints a dramatically different – and very encouraging picture. In its latest report it finds that: “The Indigenous business and corporation ecosystem is a major employer of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people nationally. In 2021-22 it is estimated to employ 135,733 people nationally, 46,718 are Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders. This represents around 13 per cent of the working age (25-64) Aboriginal and Torres Strait population, or 20 per cent of the employed population on the 2012 Census night.”

The research is undertaken in partnership with the ABS, Indigenous business........

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