The earliest Indigenous co-operatives in Australia were established in the 1890s and the 1920’s by Torres Strait Islanders engaged in the pearling trade and fishing followed by striking Indigenous workers in the Pilbara in the late 1940’s. There was a smaller wave of interest in Indigenous co-operatives in the 1950’s followed by an upsurge from the late 1960s, reaching peaks in 1981 and later in 2007. Indigenous co-operatives have a relatively long-life span compared to Australian co-operatives generally with an average of 24 years.
The 1950’s interest in co-operatives is associated with the Anglican Reverend Alf Clint. He believed that co-operatives were an advantage to Indigenous people because they were non-exploitative and that the co-operatives reflected the lifestyle of Indigenous clans. Clint found sympathy for his ideas at the Anglican Australian Board of Missions. He was involved with setting up Indigenous Co-operatives in North Queensland and Northern NSW. A significant legacy is Tranby College, which had been established to provide training assistance for Indigenous co-operatives, where Clint remained involved until his death in 1982.
The Indigenous co-operatives faced several economic, management and political challenges that placed barriers to the development of the movement. A major issue was the economic sustainability of remote communities which was undermined by the lack of legal ownership of the land by Indigenous people. This was a basis of complaint for the emergence of the Indigenous land rights movement. One the early activists associated with Clint was Eddie Mabo.
The second wave emerges from the 1967 constitutional referendum, that transferred from the states to the federal government powers over Indigenous matters, and the subsequent federal funding of Indigenous communities. Indigenous co-operatives, whose services included housing, health, cultural preservation and creating employment grew dramatically.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service in Queensland during the 1970s, for example, encouraged Indigenous communities to form co-operatives to provide legal entities to manage the federal funding. An example of a long-standing Indigenous co-operative is the Aboriginal Medical Service Co-operative, founded in Redfern, NSW in 1974.
Since 2007 the decline in indigenous co-operatives can be linked to The Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006, which encouraged Indigenous organisations, including co-operatives, to become corporations to receive federal government funding. This led some Indigenous co-operatives to become corporations and discouraged the formation of new co-operatives. The decline, however stopped in 2022, with new Indigenous co-operatives such as the Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance Co-operative in WA.
For further details, please download Greg Patmore, Nikola Balnave and Olivera Marjanovic, A History of Australian Co-operatives 1828-2023.