According to a recent report of Supply Nation launched in Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia accounted for $2.1 billion in Indigenous procurement spend, representing 36 per cent of total national spend with Supply Nation suppliers.

You might think this would mean good news for our state, increased Aboriginal employment opportunities and Aboriginal wealth surely would improve the dire situation we see in relation to Aboriginal inequality. But that's simply not the case.

Black-cladding, the practice where so called 'Aboriginal' companies are largely operating as white businesses, is widespread. You only need to look at the company profile and see the one Aboriginal self-identified business owner amidst the sea of white faces.

And, very often, companies promoted as successful Aboriginal business have superficial commitment to social impact and are absent in Aboriginal community life. We see the business cars emboldened with our Noongar language and wonder who they are.

Clearly the IPP has grown some genuine Aboriginal businesses (and individual wealth) in the for-profit sector, but isn't it time for government to turn its attention to growing the community-owned enterprise sector where profits will be invested back into the community?

The very same issues I witnessed first-hand as a youth social justice activist in the 1980s and working for the WA Aboriginal Media Association (WAAMA) continue to impact communities today. Aboriginal incarceration, deaths in custody, violence to women, child removals, suicides and destruction of sacred lands are all pressing issues along with the crisis of methamphetamine addictions blighting family's lives.

It's shocking that even with so many Noongar kids being removed today, where addictions and family violence are present, we have no on-Country Healing centres to turn this around, breaking the cycle of trauma, addictions, violence and separation of kids from families.

The economic empowerment advocates simply don't engage in the lived experiences of so many Aboriginal people, particularly the urban dispossessed. These policies are avoiding necessary public scrutiny even though the promise that this wealth will 'trickle down' to the people is highly questionable.

Take the recent sale of Indigenous Land and Sea Council (ILSC) subsidiary Voyages Indigenous Tourism which included the Ayers Rock Resort and Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre in Far North Queensland to an American private equity firm.

It was painted as a win-win for the ILSC even though it barely recouped the costs of having purchased Ayers Rock Resort for a sum well above its market valuation at the time, and it is estimated the accumulated net loss over the fifteen years of ILSC ownership was just under $101 million and the accumulated capital expenditure on the asset over the period was $250.5 million.

These funds were supposed to be used to buy land for Aboriginal people whose native title was extinguished according the Native Title Act. This loss of land reparations to many dispossessed, urban people is shocking, to say the least.

Also, we now know from the ANAO that $70 billion in Commonwealth exemptions were granted by the National Indigenous Australians Agency so that Commonwealth Departments can avoid using Indigenous businesses. And yet still we're supposed to believe the Indigenous Procurement Policy is changing Aboriginal lives even though integrity measures tell us a different story.

Apparently ORIC is tasked with ensuring integrity, yet ORIC also relies on individuals' self-identification of Aboriginality, when we know that this kind of 'honour system' routinely leads to fraud and exploitation. It has in Australia and in Canada, which recently saw 2,000 'Aboriginal businesses' removed from the Indigenous business registry in the face of widespread concerns.

According to Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Minister for Indigenous Australians, the federal government's commitment includes extending and strengthening the IPP with $23.9 million over five years from 2024-25, to boost opportunities for First Nations businesses to grow and create jobs.

Under new criteria, businesses must show they are at least 51 per cent First Nations owned and controlled (or registered with the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations) to access Commonwealth IPP procurement contracts. Additionally, the government will work with regulators to identify opportunities to improve mechanisms to report Black cladding.

Ultimately, none of this goes far enough to address Black-cladding and fraud. Aboriginal nations must be empowered to determine who is recognised as Aboriginal according to the three-part Aboriginal identity test set out in the High Court's Mabo decision (1992) and accepted in policy for decades.

And we need a clear requirement of social impact on the part of Aboriginal businesses to Aboriginal communities they claim to be a part of. It's not too much to ask, after all they are the reason for this system of government/taxpayer/corporate supported program of business opportunity through the IPP and other Reconciliation promises.

The alternative - the status quo - means the growing divide between a minority of people benefitting from individual wealth creation, and the majority who have not and who continue to face the systemic failure of the country's commitment to genuine racial equality and human rights.

Dr Hannah McGlade is a Kurin Minang human rights expert and law academic.