The Yothu Yindi Foundation makes submissions to parliamentary and other institutional enquiries to advocate on behalf of Yolngu and other Indigenous people.

Productivity Commission Closing the Gap Review

In October 2023, YYF made a submission to the Productivity Commission’s Closing the Gap review, which highlighted systemic and structural failures impacting on efforts to tackle Indigenous disadvantage, especially in remote communities. 
 
The submission focussed on problems with the GST Distribution Model, historical deficits in the NT, structural inequities and a broken education system. 
 
Among the recommendations, YYF proposed GST reform, greater accountability measures, an expansion of township leasing, education reform and an infrastructure fund for the Northern Territory.

Parliamentary Inquiry into Food Pricing and Food Security in Remote Indigenous Communities

In June 2020, the Foundation made a submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs’ Inquiry into Food Pricing and Food Security in Remote Indigenous Communities.

Drawing on more than 30 years’ experience with remote community stores, the submission compared the prices on a basket of goods at Coles in metropolitan centres with those in bush stores. It found that the cost of groceries in Arnhem Land was 90 percent more than in Sydney or Melbourne, and about 70 percent more than in Darwin.

YYF’s submission looked at the different reasons for this disparity.

Productivity Commission’s Indigenous Evaluation Strategy

In August 2019, YYF made a submission to the Productivity Commission’s Indigenous Evaluation Strategy, which examined how Aboriginal disadvantage and poverty are entrenched by a broken system that perversely rewards the maintenance of the status quo.

The submission looked at the policy and administrative failures of successive governments at all levels, and their resultant social and economic cost.

It made a series of recommendations and argued that comprehensive structural reform was required to overturn the hardship and deprivation still being experienced in many remote communities.

Productivity Commission Inquiry into Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation

In November 2017, YYF made a submission to the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation (HFE) – the system which underpins the Commonwealth’s distribution of GST revenue to the States and Territories.

The submission argued that HFE was failing to assist governments at both levels in their efforts to Close the Gap, and found that as much as $500 million intended for the benefit of Aboriginal people in the NT had been spent on other priorities.

You can read the submission and its recommendations here: