This working paper is based on a literature search conducted to identify and review relevant Australian and overseas research that is of relevance to Indigenous competition and consumer protection matters. The focus of the literature search has been on matters of relevance to Indigenous communities throughout Australia related to the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA). Results of the literature search suggest that most research conducted to date has focused on issues associated with Indigenous community stores and consumer banking.

The dominance of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme in certain regions of Australia complicates the interpretation of any analysis of Indigenous employment. In order to enhance interpretation, the factors underlying Indigenous employment should be examined separately for areas where the CDEP scheme is relatively prominent.

Labour force participation and attachment to the labour market is a key determinant of economic well being. It is surprising, therefore, how little analysis there is of Indigenous labour supply. In order to address this omission, data from the 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS) and all the censuses 1981 and 1996 are used to highlight the role of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme in augmenting Indigenous labour supply.

This is an exploratory ideas paper that sets out to consider how real development futures might be financed and delivered to Indigenous people, especially those residing in rural and remote regions. These are places where there are limited conventional development opportunities—where development is and is going to be costly—but where demographic projections, cultural imperatives and history indicate Indigenous people will be living in 50 to 100 years time.

As with all economic activities that consider proximity to a client base as part of their locational decision-making, the geographic distribution of banking and financial services has, until quite recently at least, been determined largely by a spatial calculus of market demand and supply. In this estimation, market thresholds dictated by population (client) potential have been an overriding factor.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how effective tax incentives could be in encouraging the development of Indigenous businesses on Indigenous land in Australia.

The ability of people to manage and budget their incomes, arrange to pay third parties, purchase food, goods and services, and maintain a level of financial and economic independence and planning, all rely on maintaining informed access to appropriate banking and financial services.

Indigenous households are more likely to be multi-generational and have several families in residence than other Australian households. Equivalence scales attempt to control for family size and composition and the relative costs of maintaining various families. We use the 1995 National Health Survey to examine how variations in the assumptions underlying equivalence scales, such as household composition and economies of size, affect poverty measures for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.