Moving Forward: Indigenous Investment, Trade and Commerce

In 1937 an Aboriginal man in the Gulf country of Queensland applied for a "certificate of exemption" in order to marry the woman he loved. As did his finance, as she too was Aboriginal.

They needed the permission of a bureaucrat in far off Brisbane. Not because they didn't know how to love. Nor that they weren't qualified to care. Their lives, as were all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives in Queensland, were regulated and controlled by the State of Queensland. Permission to work, to travel, to visit family and to marry - were all decided by bureaucrats in Brisbane.

The prospect that by 2037 the same State may have entered into Treaties with those same Indigenous citizens will take some by surprise - it may be beyond the imagination of some today.

As Australians, all of us, we should be imagining the day when Indigenous peoples will again be successful in business, enterprise, commerce, trade and investment.

Indigenous Peoples of Australian will be managing significant assets and resources of the great Indigenous estate, again. Free of the requirement for permission of bureaucrats in far removed cities and departments of government.

That's precisely the imagination we'll need as we come to grips with the true scale and import of Indigenous peoples restoring their rightful place as the managers of their estates - the lands, the seas, the rivers and all that is above and below them.

As we continue to move through this century the realities of Indigenous people making decisions over economic and business development will become more prevalent. This, in turn, sees Indigenous executives and entrepreneurs launching new ventures. Enterprises and commerce with in-direct and direct Indigenous benefits expanding. And, inevitably, international trade and investment between entities controlled by Indigenous peoples whether they be executives, managers, bankers or Boards of Directors.

I've written previously about the emergence of impact investors and their enthusiasm for lasting impact and financial returns. That total pool of capital under management is increasing exponentially. Its investment capital that is seeking a home that returns financially and social impacts. These global agents of change are impatient.

Their capital, like all capital, must be invested in a new venture or a growing business. It is restless. There is an impatience driven by commercial realities of internal rates of return, return on investment and internal hurdles for returns. More can be done to assist fund managers in their responsibilities to locate, assess and invest into new Indigenous enterprises.

Decades ago in Western Australia a younger Italian migrant and academic tested new ideas in sustainable community development. Now that Ernesto Sirolli's TED Talk has been viewed over 3 million times his lessons are in global circulation.

"Only go where you are invited and work with passionate self determined peoples" -Dr Ernesto Sirolli

Sirolli speaks to the requirement that change agents listen first. Ironically, Indigenous peoples of Australia are still making efforts to be heard.

Maybe this is why many Indigenous entrepreneurs are taking new ventures, new social enterprises and deploying new economic architecture directly to market? Maybe capital markets are better at listening than Parliaments, politicians and public servants?

In the 17 short years between today and 2037 Australia's Indigenous entrepreneurs and business leaders and Boards of Directors will find appropriate investment capital to build and expand their companies.

We will pioneer appropriate, responsive avenues of international trade.

We will link with supporters that are better suited to lifting our commerce and enterprise as investors.

We will build enterprise architecture to support other Indigenous entrepreneurs as peers.

We will re-equip ourselves for the responsibilities of managing the Indigenous estate because those obligations have never left us.

I'm confident Indigenous Australians will do all of these things because any people that have survived the Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act will tackle the challenges of international trade and commerce as if it was a walk in the park.