Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs

About the MTF

The Taskforce is chaired by the Hon Mal Brough MP, the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, and includes as members:

• Minister for Transport and Regional Services
• Minister for Health and Ageing
• Attorney-General
• Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
• Minister for Education, Science and Training
• Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
• Minister for the Environment and Water Resources
• Minister for Justice and Customs.

Other Ministers are invited to attend meetings as appropriate.

The MTF coordinates the Government’s Indigenous policies and reports to Cabinet on directions and priorities. The MTF:

• provides whole-of-government leadership at the highest level
• sets directions and priorities for Australian Government policy and expenditure
• is responsible for improved performance in mainstream delivery of services including better coordination across government
• annually reviews a report from the Secretaries Group on the performance of Indigenous-specific programmes and funding
• recommends to the Expenditure Review Committee each year in the Budget process, the priorities for allocation of (quarantined) Indigenous-specific funding between programmes and across portfolios.

Each year the MTF oversees development of a single whole-of-government Budget in Indigenous Affairs.

Further information on the MTF’s role is provided in its Charter.

At its first meeting on 16 June 2004, the Ministerial Taskforce agreed to a 20-30 year vision for Indigenous Australians, that:

Indigenous Australians, wherever they live, should have the same opportunities as other Australians to make informed choices about their lives, realise their full potential in whatever they choose to do and to take responsibility for managing their own affairs.

The Taskforce is progressing strategies to support this vision.

Three areas were identified by the MTF at its meeting on 16 June 2004 for priority action.

Since this meeting of the MTF, the National Indigenous Council has had input to these priority areas and they have been sharpened to the following:

• early childhood intervention, a key focus of which will be improved mental and physical health, and in particular primary health, and early educational outcomes
• safer communities (which includes issues of authority, law and order, but necessarily also focuses on dealing with issues of governance to ensure that communities are functional and effective), and
• building Indigenous wealth, employment and entrepreneurial culture, as these are integral to boosting economic development and reducing poverty and dependence on passive welfare.

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Media Releases

• Ministerial Taskforce to Focus on Indigenous Families - 16 June 2004
• Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs - 28 May 2004