Promoting indigenous trade and investment
Australia’s commitment and advocacy for a rules-based international order goes directly to the national interest as a relatively small, middle-ranking, island economy, interlinked with larger trading blocs in the region and across the globe. Defence and security are rightly framed within these parameters because the safety and stability of the nation is the umbrella under which peace and prosperity are sustained. Australia will advance and shape its national interest when it advances First Nations interests in concert. That is both an opportunity and challenge.
If matters of trade and investment are about Australia’s national interests in business, then it’s in Australia’s national interest to develop and deploy every policy lever that makes Australia’s trade more inclusive of Indigenous interests. The Albanese government’s new policy setting, which specifically mentions promoting Indigenous trade and investment as a key foreign policy objective, also opens-up some of the greatest opportunities for non-indigenous interests.
Deploying a trade-led strategy
In Australia’s public policy stance, equal weighting, attention, and resources should be given to both social policy and economic policy. If the colonial experience for Indigenous interests has taught us anything, surely it’s that economic exclusion and exploitation creates poverty, alienation, and monumental social costs. To get there, Australia will have to chart a commitment to Indigenous economic policy development equal in magnitude to that of social policy.
Doing so means the government will need to deal directly with Indigenous industry peak bodies, Indigenous company owners, and Indigenous chambers of commerce as a high priority. These Indigenous interests all exist outside of government agencies. Supporting industry engagement is something DFAT does well in other spaces, so there’s no reason why the same level of attention and financial support couldn’t go into ensuring that the Indigenous architecture is fit for purpose.
I believe there is real merit to support the opportunity to pursue an Australian trade-led strategy for Indigenous economic development. A trade-led strategy provides the means to secure commerce and business outcomes for Indigenous interests. It has the potential to deliver improved commercial outcomes for Indigenous interests in trade, business, and increased investment that is measurable in contract value, GDP, and export dollars.
There is a difference here between a trade strategy and other strategies, such as legal, scientific, or academic strategies. For example, a legal strategy will yield legal outcomes, such as legal status, legal standing or legal rights, or avenues for legal remedies in the event that those ascribed legal rights are perceived to be impaired or breached. Claims for patents and trademarks are legal rights that afford the holders legal recourse. As important as these legal outcomes are, legal outcomes are not commercial outcomes.
If its commercial outcomes that Australia seeks, then the best path is to chart a trade-led strategy. In order to create market-based economic opportunities for Indigenous interests and lift peoples out of poverty, then Australian policymakers better chart a trade strategy to those business outcomes. To advance the Australian national interest in matters of trade and export markets, Australia needs an Indigenous-led and focussed trade strategy designed to create commercial outcomes for Indigenous-owned companies and businesses.
There are many export markets worth hundreds of millions of dollars that have yet to be capitalised on that present key market opportunities for Australian regional and rural economies. Many of those economic and commercial opportunities derive from Indigenous plants, botanicals, and knowledges. To shift the dial on Indigenous poverty and disadvantage, a more balanced policy approach that gives equal weighting and resources to economic policy should be enacted.
On the world stage
The moral weight of arguments made on the global stage are measured against how a country resolves issues within. It is for this reason that there is a nexus between a state’s conduct on the global stage and its domestic policies.
Dick Woolcott’s philosophy comes to mind: “you deal with countries as they are, not as you wish them to be.” Australia’s abilities to influence and shape affairs in accordance with its national interest are measured in the outcomes secured. At the heart of these elements is the art of diplomacy – in the soft power sense.
The world sees Australia “as it is” – including the unresolved affairs with First Nations peoples. For Australia to continue its contributions to the global community, the nation will be well served to address the challenges of Indigenous peoples’ unresolved interests, including on matters of sovereignty. This is an opportunity for Australia.
The means for redress are through diplomacy and negotiation to arrive at honourable agreements between individual sovereign First Nations and the modern state of Australia. Substantive elements of such a process have been spelled out in the current proposition for Voice, Treaty, and Truth. The Albanese government has committed to this set of policies.
Minister Linda Burney has already countenanced the crossover between the government’s foreign and domestic policies. She said last year:
Appointing an Ambassador for First Nations People is an opportunity to ensure the unique perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are included in our international engagements.
“An Ambassador for First Nations people will be supported to engage with likeminded countries to share our commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and experiences of treaty and truth telling processes.
To achieve against this policy objective “to progress First Nations rights globally,” Australia’s foreign affairs professionals will do well to support both domestic policy in this space and to pay attention to the policy shifts in Indigenous affairs.
Opportunities abound
Just as the domestic landscape of Indigenous affairs is shifting, the same is happening at the international level. Indigenous peoples are becoming more active in matters of investment, trade, and commerce. Indigenous peoples are becoming proponents of their own development interests.
The shifts in the economic landscape toward a low-carbon economy is opening all manner of economic opportunities on the lands and seas of Indigenous peoples. In the same vein, greater Indigenous inclusion is cause for Australian interests. Again, Indigenous peoples are not going anywhere – literally. If Indigenous Australians are boosting their wealth and prosperity, then rural, regional, and remote economies across Australia are being presented with an opportunity to boost their resilience and growth in ways that are sustainable and sustaining. This is an opportunity for Australia.
Australia will be better placed to boost its contributions to international deliberations on First Nations rights after the government has delivered on the current set of policy objectives. This means meeting Indigenous sovereignty in ways that upholds the place of individual sovereign First Nations, yet allows mutual and honourable agreements.
If the power of the market can lift hundreds of millions of peoples out of poverty in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China, then it’s about time that power was deployed for Indigenous peoples in Australia.
This article was published by the Australian Institute for International Affairs.
Darren Godwell is chief executive officer at i2i Global, which supports DFAT’s efforts to promote Indigenous commercial interests in Australian trade negotiations.