Making Tracks: Increasing the Visibility of Federal Indigenous Procurement Data

Indigenous procurement, subcontracting visibility and the transparency gap in Federal Government spending

Think of a Commonwealth policy that has consistently beat its targets, directing much-needed spending to a critical cohort. In doing so, this policy has supported the growth of a dynamic sector that drives employment and investment into hard-to-reach communities.

That’s the Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP), which since its launch in 2015 has generated $13.5B in contracting opportunities across 86,000 contracts with 4,700 Indigenous businesses.

But exactly where that money is going and to whom is an open question, and holding back the full realisation of the policy’s transformational intent.

The visibility gap in Indigenous procurement

While aggregated figures for spending under the policy are published on the website of the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA), at the individual contract level, the trail goes cold.

Making matters more complicated, there is also no single source of truth when it comes to defining an Indigenous business. Supply Nation, the federal government’s contracted verification provider, is estimated to only cover a third of Indigenous businesses.

But direct contracts between Commonwealth agencies and Indigenous businesses are only a fraction of the total spend.

The subcontracting blind spot

In addition to direct contracts with Indigenous businesses, businesses delivering Commonwealth contracts worth over $7.5M in certain sectors, as well as in remote areas, must engage Indigenous businesses as part of the overall project.

Since 2015, that has led to a total of $88.4B worth of Commonwealth contracts requiring the engagement of Indigenous subcontractors.

That figure is six and a half times the value of contracts awarded directly to Indigenous businesses.

The system is known as the mandatory minimum requirements (MMR) and is part of the IPP. These contracts represent a mammoth opportunity for Indigenous businesses to work on nationally significant projects and integrate into the supply chain of some of Australia’s largest businesses.

But, opportunity is limited by a lack of data.

Currently, the NIAA reports the total number of current MMR contracts by supplier, but not the value of those contracts or how much was spent with Indigenous enterprises.

Taking a closer look at the top five suppliers also reveals a patchwork of reporting standards.

Accenture, which has the most current contracts subject to MMRs at 16, last published a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in 2022 that expired in 2024 and does not appear on the directory of RAPs hosted by Reconciliation Australia.

The next three suppliers, IBM Australia, Corporate Travel Management Group and Duratec, all have current RAPs but do not report spending with Indigenous suppliers.

Out of the top five, only KPMG reports the actual amount spent with Indigenous suppliers, with $6.6M spent across FY 2018-2020 with 27 Indigenous suppliers, contributing to 3.7% of the business’s procurement budget.

Figures from Reconciliation Australia show $4.8B was spent by the Australian private sector with Indigenous businesses across 25,000 contracts in 2024.

Underwritten by government spending via the MMRs, this outlay by Australian private companies on Indigenous businesses represents a significant but obscured opportunity for Indigenous businesses and an area of growth potential.

The opportunity for Indigenous businesses

Currently, Indigenous businesses are well represented across the construction, management services, IT and employment services sectors when delivering directly to the federal government.

However, there are areas where Indigenous businesses are being overlooked, with the Australian National Audit Office reporting departments including Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Education and Industry, Science and Resources were exempting contracts from the MMRs at a rate of above 80% and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade exempted 90% of contracts from the MMRs.

That does not mean, however, that there are not Indigenous businesses that can fill this gap.

According to research from the University of Melbourne, 35% of non-registered Indigenous partnerships are in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector, indicating that with greater visibility of these businesses, whether through registration or deeper engagement by the federal department, the number of exemptions could decrease.

What’s needed?

Realising the full potential of the Indigenous business sector requires change.

First, contracts subject to the MMRs need to be published on a rolling basis and integrated with AusTender, including data on total spend, contract duration and category.

Second, as revealed by the ANAO in 2025, too many contracts are exempted from the application of the MMRs for unclear reasons, with ‘other’ used as the reason for a third of all contracts exempted from the requirements.

Third, contractors’ performance against MMR targets should be reported at a supplier level, either through RAP reporting requirements or directly via the NIAA.

These changes are not radical, but an achievable reporting change, promoting competition, transparency and best practice across government and the Indigenous business sector.

From data drought to a flood of benefit

These changes, were they to be implemented, would turbocharge the Commonwealth’s procurement budget’s ability to lift the sophistication and depth of the Indigenous business sector across Australia. Not only in the sectors where Indigenous businesses already represent a significant slice, but in others, including health, education and professional services.

The benefits spill out to the wider economy. As more businesses adopt RAPs and increase their spending with Indigenous suppliers, transparency in government spending, and private spending driven by government policy, will provide a record of proven, capable suppliers.

Finally, a more nuanced picture of how government and prime contractor spending under the IPP is leading to community benefit will encourage further ambition when it comes to Indigenous and procurement policy, showcasing how well-designed levers, backed by real spending and tracked and monitored to show benefit can drive better outcomes for communities across Australia.

How Tendertrace empowers Indigenous procurement in Government

Tendertrace has enhanced visibility of Indigenous procurement performance by introducing a dedicated Indigenous Procurement Policy lens across buyer profiles. This feature is designed to make it easier to see how individual public sector buyers are tracking against IPP objectives, moving the conversation beyond high-level reporting and into practical, buyer-level intelligence. New profile metrics surface both the value awarded to Indigenous businesses and the number of contracts awarded, alongside standard procurement activity metrics, giving users a much clearer picture of where Indigenous procurement is happening and where momentum is building.

In practical terms, this turns IPP from a policy headline into something measurable and actionable. For suppliers, it creates a clearer view of which buyers are actively engaging Indigenous businesses and where partnership opportunities may exist. For buyers, it provides a more transparent way to monitor progress, benchmark performance, and identify where further effort is needed to meet the policy’s intent.

Book a demo and see what’s possible with Tendertrace.