Indigenous Executive Position Criticized for ‘Truth and Healing’ Approach and $340,000 Salary

New South Wales (NSW) National Party Leader Dugald Saunders has criticized the state Labor government for its advertisement for a ‘Truth Telling and Healing’ State Executive position, claiming it is questionable timing given current economic circumstances.

“I know there’s already been some feedback from MPs in the Labor Party when he [Premier Chris Minns] announced a $5,000,000 listening tour. There was quite a bit of disharmony around this.

“At the moment, cost-of-living is everything to people. Truth-telling and healing at the moment is not the number one thing to focus on.”

Mr. Saunders also accused the premier of attempting to sweep the job listing under the rug.

“It’s a very odd time to be appointing an executive director of truth and healing when we’ve just had a referendum which gave a very definitive answer and the premier’s mentioned nothing about this at all.”

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The Minns Labor government is advertising a $340,000-a-year Executive Director of Truth and Healing position. The job is only open to Indigenous Australians and primarily involves influencing the state government based on the long-term economic and social aspirations of Aboriginal communities.

The successful candidate will “oversee and influence the Healing paradigm across the NSW Government.” Overarching responsibilities include the creation of a Healing Framework that will work to enshrine the voice of Aboriginal Australians into policy-making decisions for NSW.

The government has indicated that the role has nothing to do with the push for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament at the federal level, but is rather a continuation of a job offered by the previous coalition government, now under a different name.

Aboriginal Industries

The position would become one of many Indigenous executive and consultancy jobs in both the public and private sectors.

The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) is an organization established to provide formal advice to governments in constructing policies pertaining to Aboriginal communities. It was established by the Morrison Government in 2019.

It employs approximately 1,300 people with its CEO Jody Broun taking home a base salary of $218,602 annually. According to budget documents, the Albanese Government allocated $2.1 billion in funding to the NIAA in 2022-23.

In the corporate world, prominent professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) established an Indigenous consulting arm that is majority Aboriginal-owned, led, and staffed. The body specializes in providing advice and developing strategies to optimize commercial and government policies and initiatives surrounding Indigenous Australians.