Government Thrilled To Announce $5.88 Million For First Nations Nutrition – Paid Mostly To Non-Indigenous Organisation

CANBERRA – The Australian Government has announced nearly $6 million in First Nations funding to improve food security in remote Indigenous communities – with the bulk of it flowing to a non-Indigenous not-for-profit to deliver a program that an actual Aboriginal corporation already invented.

The National Indigenous Australians Agency confirmed this week it will provide $5.88 million over three years to Community Enterprise Queensland – a not-for-profit that will partner with Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation to roll out ALPA’s own “Good Food People” model through CEQ’s store network.

To be clear – ALPA is the Aboriginal Corporation that developed the program. CEQ is the organisation receiving the government money to deliver it.

“This is a partnership

” said a spokesperson for the partnership.

Sources close to the situation noted that ALPA has been running Good Food People successfully within its own remote store operations for years without a $5.88 million federal arrangement. The Australian Government looked at this and thought – great – now let’s add a middleman.

CEQ says 90 per cent of its remote workforce identifies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander which is genuinely good and also does not explain why the government cheque was made out to CEQ.

The program will initially train seven “Good Food People” supported by one nutritionist – a staffing ratio that works out to roughly $840,000 per entry-level employee before the scale-up kicks in.

By 2028 the target is 35 Good Food People and three nutritionists. The closing-the-gap paperwork will be immaculate.

Senator Malarndirri McCarthy welcomed the initiative as a step toward building a genuine nutrition workforce in remote communities – which it may well be.

An elder in a remote community welcomed the idea of more fresh food.

“You don’t need $6 million to know people need to eat” she said.

Nobody wrote that down.