Ending the disadvantage for Indigenous people requires an economic transformation driven by land rights and justice, a new report launched on Thursday has said.
Launched at a Healesville summit by the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations (FVTOC), the Victorian Traditional Owner Economic Development Roadmap, developed with Traditional Owners and SGS Economics & Planning, provides a blueprint to help address systemic barriers locking First Peoples out of the economy and preventing communities from determining their futures.
"Economic independence as outlined in the Roadmap will drive generational change for First Nations communities and help realise justice for our people," FVTOC chief executive Paul Paton said.
"Programs and services alone won't undo dispossession – we need an economic transformation that puts mob back in control of our futures."
The roadmap calls on the Victorian government to recognise the rights and opportunities that facilitate First Nations' economic activity, reform relationships on a Nation-to-Nation basis, invest in cultural strengthening activities, accelerate the development of Traditional Owner Corporations' governance skills and capabilities, and improve access to capital, markets, and business development.
It also outlines 11 steps to create independent wealth for First Nations communities, as well as unlocking $1 billion in benefits for the Victorian economy.
These include establishing the foundational legal and policy settings that underly a self-determined economic future for Traditional Owner Corporations, reforming the fiscal relationship between governments and Traditional Owner Corporations, and enacting a statewide Treaty.
"Real change begins when First Nations communities can determine our own lives, and that change requires economic independence," Mr Paton said.
"Strong First Nations means prosperity for all Victorians. Where we're strong in culture and on Country, our people are thriving, and our untapped potential is fuelling economic growth across the board.
"Today, we're one significant step closer to that reality."
The Yoorrook Justice Commission last year heard First Peoples in Victoria received none of the $83 billion in water revenue the government received over 13 years.
The Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos also acknowledged royalties agreements were intentionally legislated and designed to effectively exclude Aboriginal people from their share of more than $1.5 billion in land use revenue.
"How can we build intergenerational wealth when we are continually shut out of the system?" Commissioner Travis Lovett asked at the time.
The FVTOC said implementing the roadmap would strengthen Country, culture, laws, knowledge, and well-being; improve economic development, wealth generation, identity, social capital, and cohesion for First Nations community members; and bring about a healthy and more resilient ecosystem because of exercised Indigenous knowledge and land management practices.
Furthermore, it would deliver an estimated $1 billion in benefits to the wider Victorian economy, the FVTOC says, from a $300 million investment in the Traditional Owner group economy over the next 40 years as recognition of the "unique and under-examined value of collectively held rights for collective wealth creation".
Mr Paton said the roadmap was a "high-water mark" for how Indigenous prosperity is recognised in Victoria.
"It's not just ideas on a page – it's recognition of our inherent right and ability to make decisions about our own lives and [the] vital role played by economic justice in realising First Nations' self-determination," he said.