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An Indigenous-controlled health research institute has expressed alarm over "misleading" claims about Indigenous funding being circulated in the lead-up to the national Voice to Parliament referendum.
Earlier this month, singer Kamahl suggested $40 billion a year was given to Indigenous people during an interview with Channel 10's The Project.
It's a figure that appears on the website of the No campaign's Fair Australia organisation, which describes it as "direct government funding for Aboriginal Australians".
RMIT ABC Fact Check has found the estimate is based on a similar claim by former prime minster Tony Abbott, who said $30 billion was going directly to "various Indigenous programs".
Its analysis found the figure likely came from a 2017 Productivity Commission review which found around $33 billion in 2015-16 was spent on First Nations people — but the vast majority (around $27 billion) of that was mainstream spending on things like schools, hospitals, welfare and defence.
For comparison, around $556 billion was spent on non-Indigenous Australians under the same criteria.
On average, the Productivity Commission noted, per-person direct expenditure was roughly twice as high for Indigenous than non-Indigenous Australians — largely due to higher levels of disadvantage among First Nations people.
Writing in the Conversation about a related claim in 2016, ANU's Professor Nicholas Biddle also noted that "around one in five Indigenous Australians live in remote areas, where the cost of providing many services is significantly higher".
"So, much of the spending is to achieve the same level of services that others are accustomed to," he said.
Lowitja Institute chair Selwyn Button said he was disturbed by the $40 billion funding claim, which he believed was being used "deliberately to mislead the community".
"Because what they wanted to do is to ensure that there's continual misinformation and distrust and to continually paint the picture that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been given billions of dollars to improve outcomes yet they haven't been able to achieve it," Mr Button said.
"The public dialogue around this particularly piece has been very much focusing on the fact that this money is in the hands of Indigenous people and that is certainly not the case at all."
Fair Australia stands by figure
When contacted for a response to Mr Button's concerns, Fair Australia accused him of "talking divisive rubbish".
"He knows full well the $40 billion is correct and his report confirms it," a spokesman said.
He said Fair Australia had never claimed the funding was exclusive to Indigenous people and the figure included individual welfare payments, government programs, and other grants to Indigenous groups.
Voice could help identify better solutions to close the gap, health group argues
A Lowitja Institute policy paper released this week outlined economic opportunities it said would result from a constitutionally embedded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.
Mr Button said the Voice could save Australia up to $10 billion a year in health costs.
"If you look at the overall expenditure that goes into public hospitals across the country, that's around $82 billion," he said.
"One of biggest factors, leading causes of disease for Indigenous people is what's called avoidable admissions.
"So these are complications with chronic diseases, with diabetes, with heart diseases etc, these things can all be sorted out in the local community controlled health clinic, in a primary care setting away from hospital settings.
"If we reduced that and closed the gap between avoidable admission rates for Indigenous people the same as non-Indigenous people because Indigenous people are three-and-a-half times the rate of non-Indigenous people, if we reduced that gap, that's a $10 billion saving to the Australian economy."
Mr Button singled out Queensland's Indigenous-developed and led Birthing in Our Community (BiOC) program, which he said had delivered significant health and financial benefits.
"We need to be able to use those stories to then scale up to a national level and the only way we're going to do that is scaling it up to through a national Voice."
Earlier this month, more than 50 health groups rallied in Melbourne to show their support for the Voice, which they argued would boost health outcomes for First Nations people.
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