Australian corporations? treatment of Indigenous customers to be investigated by inquiry - The Guardian Australia

After a series of high-profile cases of corporate failures, the way big businesses in Australia treat Indigenous customers will be examined by a parliamentary inquiry.

The destruction of Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto was one of the most recent inexcusable acts, but it is not alone. Woolworths was forced to abandon plans to build a liquor warehouse near three dry Aboriginal communities. Earlier this year, Telstra was fined $50m by the federal court which found it had exploited Indigenous customers by signing them up for phone contracts they could not understand or afford.

Each time, the onus has been on Indigenous communities to raise the alarm and bring wider attention to the issue.

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, now wants how corporations engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers to be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.

The House Indigenous Affairs Committee, headed by Liberal MP Julian Leeser will investigate the issue, building on recent inquiries looking at Indigenous employment and small business, as well as the inquiries into some recent examples of corporate treatment of Indigenous consumers and communities.

Asked if it was finally time for corporate Australia to do the work, instead of leaving it for Indigenous communities to fight, Leeser said the inquiry would look at what engagement was currently occurring.

The committee has been ordered to report back to parliament by 31 March next year - a date which could see it made obsolete if parliament is dissolved for an election before it is handed down.