Future Made in Australia: Community Benefit Principles Submission
First Nations Economics has formally lodged its submission to the Australian Government’s Future Made in Australia Community Benefit Principles consultation.
Drawing on extensive advisory experience with Traditional Owners and First Nations organisations across major infrastructure and clean energy investments, the submission provides practice-informed insight into how community benefit can be meaningfully realised in high-impact projects.
The submission highlights a central risk in current approaches: that community benefit can too easily be reduced to engagement activity or discretionary contributions, rather than participation that enables First Nations communities to influence how economic value is created, governed, and shared over time. International and Australian evidence demonstrates that when engagement occurs after key commercial and governance decisions are already fixed, outcomes are typically short-term and transactional.
First Nations Economics argues that minimum requirements, while necessary, are insufficient if treated as end-point metrics rather than pathways to participation. For higher-impact projects, the submission calls for clearer expectations around early engagement, decision-making influence, and structural participation, including governance roles and long-term economic positioning.
The submission also draws on international experience to demonstrate that more durable outcomes are achieved where participation is embedded early and supported by access to independent expertise, addressing the capacity and power asymmetries that often constrain Traditional Owner engagement.
This contribution is intended to support effective implementation of the Community Benefit Principles by strengthening clarity, accountability, and alignment between policy intent and real-world outcomes for Traditional Owners and First Nations communities.
