Corporate sector engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: an analysis of stakeholder submissions

Introduction

Colonisation has severely disrupted Indigenous societies worldwide, undermining cultural practices and fuelling persistent health and social inequities (Wispelwey et al., 2023). Australian governments have committed to a set of targets to close the gaps in health and socioeconomic outcomes between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Australians. At the international level, the Australian government has also committed to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, which align with the Closing the Gap agenda, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples (UNDRIP) (Schultz, 2020; United Nations, 2007, 2015). The UNDRIP asserts that Indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in all decisions that affect them (United Nations, 2007).

Australian government efforts towards improving health equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, hereafter, respectfully referred to as Indigenous peoples, centre on the social determinants of health; however, this may overlook other factors influencing health outcomes (Finlay et al., 2021), such as the commercial determinants of health (CDoH). This is an emerging field in public health research and policy (Lacy-Nichols & Marten, 2021), with CDoH defined as “the systems, practices and pathways through which commercial actors drive health and equity” (Gilmore et al., 2023, p. 1195). Commercial practices impact health through product design, supply chains, marketing, financial practices, labour conditions, reputational management, involvement in research and political lobbying to weaken public health regulation (Gilmore et al., 2023; World Health Organization [WHO], 2021).

Extant CDoH research has focussed on big business, including the tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food industries (Lacy-Nichols et al., 2023). However, the commercial sector also provides products and services essential to wellbeing, such as health care, education, housing, food and water, to which access is considered as a human right. Therefore, commercial actors have the power to either promote or harm health (Lacy-Nichols et al., 2023). This occurs through products and services driving health harm, including smoking, air pollution, alcohol use, obesity, communicable diseases, noncommunicable disease, traffic injuries, violence and mental health conditions (WHO, 2021). When these commercial interests are prioritised over health, social and environmental considerations, pre-existing inequities are exacerbated (Gilmore et al., 2023).

There have been some high-profile examples of large corporations causing harm to Indigenous communities in Australia. In 2020, the mining company Rio Tinto destroyed sacred rock caves at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia (Oliveri et al., 2022). In 2021, the Australian Federal Court ordered Telstra to pay AUD $50 million in penalties when it breached Australian Consumer Law by selling unsuitable contracts to over 100 Indigenous people (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, 2021). Also in 2021, Woolworths abandoned its plan to open a Dan Murphy’s alcohol superstore close to three alcohol-free communities in Darwin following a 5-year battle with liquor licencing regulators and Indigenous organisations (Crocetti et al., 2023). In 2022, funeral insurance company Youpla, collapsed leaving thousands of Aboriginal people out of pocket (Bainbridge et al., 2022). Youpla had been investigated for misleading and deceptive conduct since 1999, but continued to operate and market itself as an Aboriginal organisation (Bainbridge et al., 2022). All the aforementioned companies had corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements of commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous Australians.

CSR is the concept that companies have a responsibility to society beyond their economic and legal responsibilities to shareholders (Lee & Carroll, 2011). An existing CSR mechanism in Australia, designed to improve engagement with Indigenous peoples, is the development of Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs). The RAP framework, overseen by Reconciliation Australia, has four levels to reflect the various stages of an organisation’s progress towards reconciliation: Reflect, Innovate, Stretch and Elevate. After 15 years of the RAP programme, Reconciliation Australia reported that close to 4 million people were working or studying in RAP organisations (Reconciliation Australia, 2022). Although 88% of employees in organisations with Stretch and Elevate level RAPs believed their organisation had a clear public stance against racism, less than half (47%) of Indigenous staff in organisations with these plans believed their workplace was welcoming and respectful of new Indigenous employees (Reconciliation Australia, 2022). The aforementioned companies Woolworths, Rio Tinto and Telstra had RAPs, and Rio Tinto and Telstra at the highest Elevate levels, while undertaking deleterious activities in Indigenous communities.

In October 2021, following a series of high-profile media stories reporting unscrupulous corporate activities affecting Indigenous peoples, described above, the Australian Government Minister for Indigenous Australians requested a parliamentary inquiry, hereafter, the Inquiry, titled How the corporate sector establishes models of best practice to foster better engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers (Committee on Indigenous Affairs, 2022). The Australian Parliament’s House of Representatives Committee on Indigenous Affairs oversaw the Inquiry which aimed to “consider, report and where appropriate make recommendations on” the way the corporate sector engages with Indigenous consumers and how it develops and demonstrates cultural understanding, the impact of RAPs on corporate sector engagement and actions and other matters as required (Committee on Indigenous Affairs, 2021, para. 1).

The Inquiry had a narrow timeline (Figure 1) of 3 months, which included the Christmas period, before the final hearing was held in February 2022. An interim report was published in March 2022, which confirmed there would be no final report. The Inquiry ceased at the dissolution of the Australian parliament in May 2022 prior to a federal election.

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Figure 1.

Inquiry timeline.

With the Inquiry as a case study, this research aimed to investigate, with Indigenous peoples, the commercial determinants of Indigenous health (CDoH) through the following research questions:

Method

There have been numerous calls for greater transparency with regard to Indigenous engagement, involvement and leadership in research concerning Indigenous peoples (Lock et al., 2022; Maddox et al., 2023). This study was undertaken by a non-Indigenous social worker and public health research student (P.L.) with supervision support from an experienced Indigenous researcher (M.L.) and a non-Indigenous public health researcher (J.B.). Two additional researchers, one Indigenous (T.W.) and one non-Indigenous (A.C.) contributed to the analysis and preparation of this article. As an author team, we acknowledge the roles social work and research have played in Indigenous oppression, colonisation and disempowerment. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the custodians of the lands now known as Australia and commit to upholding the principles of cultural safety, equity, justice and strengths-based practice in our research.

A qualitative constructivist approach was applied, operationalised through focussed thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is useful for synthesising large volumes of text and focuses on making meaning from qualitative data under the assumption that researchers are only ever partially knowledgeable (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The study followed the thematic analysis process outlined by Braun and Clarke (2022), which includes familiarisation with the dataset, coding, generating initial themes, developing, and reviewing themes, refining themes and the final write-up.

Results

Participation in the inquiry

A total of 25 submissions, plus 5 supplementary submissions, were made to the Inquiry by 32 organisations (9 for-profit and 23 non-profit) from the finance, social, retail, telecommunications, education, government, media, legal and health sectors (Supplementary Material 1). The financial sector provided 13 (41%) submissions that covered the banking, superannuation, investment and financial counselling areas. There were submissions from 7 (22%) Indigenous organisations, according to those with an ICN, and all of which were non-profit organisations. The majority of submissions were made by non-Indigenous organisations (78%). Indigenous voices were not identifiable in most (60%) of the submissions (Supplementary Material 1).

Analysis of the submissions produced three overarching themes of (a) numerous commercial entities are causing harm in Indigenous communities, (b) unscrupulous commercial practices are harming wellbeing and (c) looking for solutions. Themes and subthemes are summarised in Table 1 and described in the following sections.

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Table 1.

Summary of key themes and sub themes.

Theme	Subtheme	Submissions
1. Numerous commercial entities are causing harm in Indigenous communities	Burdensome telecommunications contracts	1, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 22, 23.
	Escalating energy debts
	Unethical retail practices
	Navigating superannuation and insurance
	Predatory lending
2. Unscrupulous commercial practices are harming wellbeing	Fostering false trust	1, 12, 19, 20, 22.
	Creating access imbalance
3. Looking for solutions	Beyond cultural awareness training	1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22.
	RAPs: Meaningful engagement or reputation management?
	Indigenous consumer empowerment

RAP = Reconciliation Action Plan.

Discussion

Commercial entities and their activities negatively impact Indigenous peoples’ health and social wellbeing, potentially contributing to health disparities, as evidenced by the submissions to an Australian government Inquiry into corporate sector engagement with Indigenous peoples. These findings suggest lack of engagement with Indigenous leaders within the commercial sector, supply of harmful products, misleading branding, exploitive consent processes and limited oversight of CSR plans may be harming Indigenous peoples through financial stress, poor mental health and being cut off from essential services. The analysis also highlights that corporations engaging with Indigenous communities should strengthen and be accountable to their CSR strategies related to Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous employment strategies and RAPs, to minimise the harm to Indigenous peoples caused through their commercial practices.

The public health literature provides many examples of commercial organisations engaged in explicitly harmful activities. Previous CDoH research has predominantly focussed on the negative health effects caused by the alcohol, ultra-processed food, gambling, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries with a limited focus on Indigenous peoples (Wood et al., 2021). Through the lens of CDoH, present findings provide new insight into a broader range of commercial organisations contributing to the health and social inequities experienced by Indigenous peoples. The study identified novel industries that may be harming Indigenous peoples’ wellbeing, including the telecommunications, energy, retail superannuation, insurance and financial services sectors. Policy to address the CDoH has predominately focussed on regulating unhealthy commodities, rather than the practices of private organisations providing essential services (Kickbusch et al., 2016; Lacy-Nichols et al., 2023). For example, alcohol and tobacco are tightly regulated in Australia but there are fewer restrictions on harmful financial products, as exposed by this inquiry.

Anti-oppressive and strengths-based frameworks are an essential consideration for understanding CDoH for Indigenous peoples. Instead of problematising Indigenous individuals and communities, such frameworks interrogate the systems of oppression including capitalism, colonialism and racism, which manifest as health and social inequities (Havig & Byers, 2019). The present findings suggest that colonial cultural expectations, including English literacy, financial literacy, communication style, access to technology and physical location may be additional pathways through which the CDoH operate for Indigenous peoples, particularly in remote Australia. Furthermore, research from Canada suggests commercially driven inequities extend beyond the recipients of products and services, adversely affecting the social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous people working within corporations (Durand-Moreau et al., 2022). While supporting Indigenous-led advocacy is an avenue for change, the onus of responsibility for action on the CDoH should ultimately be shifted onto governments and commercial entities who wield power and perpetuate harm within these oppressive systems (Crocetti et al., 2023).

Financial stress was the predominant health consequence of unscrupulous commercial activities identified in this study. This is a novel finding, given that most literature describes CDoH related to chronic disease risks, such as smoking, alcohol consumption and unhealthy diets (de Lacy-Vawdon & Livingstone, 2020). Previous research has identified that financial stress is prevalent in Indigenous communities and is often associated with using high-cost, unregulated forms of credit (Weier et al., 2019). The challenges to social and economic wellbeing identified in this analysis can have significant consequences for both mental and physical health (Best, 2022; O’Connor et al., 2023). A recent review found that the commercial determinants of Indigenous health must incorporate broader factors such as exploitation of land and cultural appropriation alongside well-documented commercial practices such as marketing and political lobbying (Crocetti et al., 2022). While further research is required to conceptualise an Indigenous-specific model of the CDoH, the present analysis extends previous work in this emerging field, adding financial manipulation and unsafe lending practices to the commercial playbook in Indigenous communities.

Recent conceptualisations of CDoH consider both health-promoting and health-harming commercial practices (Gilmore et al., 2023). The submissions to this Inquiry focussed on the negative impacts of poor corporate engagement with Indigenous peoples. Although understanding the nature and extent of health-harming commercial practices is essential to progressing knowledge about the CDoH for Indigenous peoples, the present analysis yielded few examples of commercial practices associated with positive health outcomes which could inform future strengths-based business approaches. Previous research indicates Indigenous approaches to land and water management, ranger programmes, protecting sacred areas, Indigenous foods and cultural tourism as examples of commercial practices that potentially create positive health and social wellbeing impacts (Crocetti et al., 2022). Furthermore, scholars from New Zealand suggest supporting Indigenous entrepreneurship “challenges the standard business ethic of profit maximisation” and instead prioritises community wellbeing and social justice (Awatere et al., 2017, p. 81). This is a key area for further research.

Cultural awareness programmes were criticised throughout the submissions. While cultural awareness programmes may be intended to improve cultural safety, evidence on the capacity of cultural training to address the underlying symptoms of colonisation and racism is limited (Atkinson et al., 2023). Cultural safety requires critical self-reflection on power, privilege and implicit biases (Curtis et al., 2019; Russell, 2020); the findings of this study suggest this is currently missing from RAPs, indicating a deficiency in corporate understanding of cultural safety. Definitions of cultural safety and how it is to be achieved are inconsistent and poorly regulated within Australia (Atkinson et al., 2023; Curtis et al., 2019; Lock et al., 2021). A focus on cultural training alone risks framing cultural safety as a skill to be learned in the workplace rather than changing the systems, structures and policies that produce power imbalance and institutional racism (Curtis et al., 2019). Furthermore, a one-size-fits-all approach to cultural training risks promoting homogenised representations of Indigenous cultures and reinforcing negative stereotypes (Kerrigan et al., 2020).

The Inquiry terms of reference requested consideration on the impact of RAPs in developing targeted approaches to engaging with Indigenous peoples (Committee on Indigenous Affairs, 2021). This narrowed the focus of the Inquiry with RAPs framed as the mechanism for better engagement with Indigenous peoples. The fact that all corporations that made submissions had a current RAP, including those named as causing harm, demonstrates that RAPs alone are insufficient at protecting Indigenous peoples from harmful commercial practices. The present findings suggest that, in the absence of rigorous accountability mechanisms, RAPs may be exploited as a form of reputation management and pseudo-moralism, providing the illusion that corporate practices align with the goals of Reconciliation Australia and giving companies a social licence to operate. Reputation management is a key strategy within the corporate playbook as a means of distracting attention from the harmful practices of commercial entities (Friel et al., 2023).

Several factors may have limited Indigenous peoples’ ability to participate in this Inquiry. The Inquiry website stipulated submissions had to be made via Microsoft Word, PDF or plain text document (Committee on Indigenous Affairs, 2021). Thus, Community members with limited English language literacy or access to technology may have been excluded from participation. Furthermore, submissions that made allegations or negative comments about a specific organisation would take longer to be considered as the submission would potentially be provided to the named organisation, allowing them an opportunity to respond (Committee on Indigenous Affairs, 2021). Therefore, submissions naming organisations negatively impacting Indigenous peoples’ health may have potentially been excluded from the final list of publicly available submissions.

The short 3-month time limit may have privileged powerful non-Indigenous corporations who have the staff and resources to develop submissions at short notice. Corporate power is also reflected in the fact that submissions were only provided by organisations, no individual submissions were received from Indigenous people. Previous research has identified the limited participation of Indigenous actors in policy processes (Browne et al., 2021). Although parliamentary inquiries shed light on critical issues, barriers to participation may perpetuate inequity for Indigenous people through institutional failure, and unequal distribution of power (Browne et al., 2021). Therefore, it is unsurprising that non-Indigenous organisations made up over two-thirds of participants. The discontinuation of the Inquiry process without a final report or recommendations (Committee on Indigenous Affairs, 2022) further illustrates the inadequate oversight and accountability for the concerns raised by participants. As the interim report did not offer formal recommendations, the Inquiry did not require a response from the Australian Government, placing the burden of addressing commercially driven harms on Indigenous health and social care organisations.

A limitation of this study is that the available data focussed primarily on Indigenous peoples in remote Australia. As a result, the present findings are likely not representative of the CDoH experienced by all Indigenous peoples in Australia or, indeed, internationally. In order to further conceptualise this topic, future research is needed to identify the commercial practices impacting the health of Indigenous peoples in urban and regional communities. The over-representation of non-Indigenous commercial entities in the sample is a further limitation. These corporations may have used this platform to reframe their actions in a way that protected and promoted corporate interests, which may have impacted the quality of data, as demonstrated in alcohol policy submissions (Miller et al., 2023). Despite these limitations, this study adds to the emerging body of knowledge on the commercial determinants of Indigenous health and may support Indigenous communities internationally in strengthening their advocacy efforts against powerful commercial entities. The findings of this study underscore the importance of amplifying Indigenous voices in decision-making processes concerning commercial practices on their lands and for greater regulation of the commercial sector to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Conclusion

The exploitation of Indigenous peoples by the commercial sector is unethical and has significant implications for social wellbeing. Despite its limitations, this parliamentary inquiry exposed numerous instances of harmful corporate behaviour targeting Indigenous peoples in Australia. Several recommendations for policy, practice and research can be drawn from this analysis. First, there is a need for greater regulation of harmful commercial practices and products in Indigenous communities. These harmful practices include exclusion of Indigenous leadership from the commercial sector, supply of harmful products, misleading branding and predatory lending from companies operating in retail, telecommunications, finance and insurance sectors. Second, CSR strategies related to Indigenous Peoples, including cultural awareness training and RAPs, require stronger oversight and accountability. Third, government and parliamentary inquiries related to Indigenous people need to be designed in a way that enables Indigenous participation, including consideration of barriers related to language, literacy and access to information technology. Fourth, in order to further conceptualise Indigenous-specific CDoH future research, both in Australia and internationally, should consider the specific systems and pathways through which commercial organisations impact health and social wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. In order for Australia to realise its commitments to Closing the Gap and the Sustainable Development Goals, the exploitation of Indigenous peoples for commercial gain must end. This will require stronger government regulation and corporate accountability mechanisms built on genuine realisation of Indigenous peoples’ rights for active engagement in decisions that affect them.