The Office of the Registrar for Indigenous Corporations was established to ensure that corporations registering under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act comply with those regulations, and to 'intervene when necessary and appropriate' to ensure this compliance.

Part of their brief relates to Prescribed Bodies Corporate (PBCs), those entities established to hold the native title rights and interests of Traditional Owners in Australia as determined under the Native Title Act.

The Commonwealth government contributes the grand sum of $50,000 per annum to all PBCs in Australia to assist them to meet their statutory obligations. Obligations which include dealing with every kind of development application (known as Future Acts under the NTA) on that particular area of Native Title, and for those particular traditional owners.

Lack of funding however to meet the demands on PBCs - including the demand of their membership to access whatever funds the PBC holds - is just the tip of the iceberg.

These organisations are constantly involved in complex financial and legal negotiations, and many struggle to find the expertise they need to advise membership on the best way forward.

The financial and legal literacy of the membership, as well as board members, is also a further barrier to effectiveness and can result in massive conflict as members do not understand what a PBC does, how benefits agreements work and how access to benefits is negotiated.

Concerted efforts to develop shared understanding and to identify shared goals and values amongst PBC membership is required.

In the corporate world, this might be called strategic planning. But what do members hold dear, what sacrifices are they prepared to make in the short term for the longer term benefits of later generations, and how ought any financial benefits be disbursed over time?

These are very challenging questions for groups of people, families, whose standard of living is well below the poverty line. Is it fair to ask people to forgo income in the short term for longer term goals when they are living off two minute noodles?

Is it any wonder that so many PBCs in Australia are fraught with conflict?

We need a several pronged approach here. Proper investment to consolidate the cultural identities of those who, quite frankly, have endured the trauma of Native Title (having your cultural identity eviscerated in a court room). Proper investment to address the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma.

And for those groups who have a cyclical relationship with conflict, some form of ongoing support to navigate conflicts when they arise, as well as to hold the commitments we (the Traditional Owners) have made to each other to invest our meagre incomes wisely so that our future generations might have a financial basis.

In the meantime though, ORIC is called on to assist with conflict resolution – though the conflict arises not from some matter relating to corporate regulations but from desperate people taking desperate measures. Like sending a fire engine to a murder scene, the remedy is completely inappropriate, and likely just re-traumatises people as they experience ongoing bewilderment and alienation from a system that seems incapable of providing useful assistance.

In 2020 ORIC commissioned a report to explore ORICs approach and effectiveness – beyond mere compliance with ORIC regulations. Researchers from the University of Queensland interviewed ORIC staff as well as many dozens of people who work for or with Indigenous organisations.

One thing they identified was the tension between ORICs role as compliance enforcer versus its role to support organisational development, capacity building and success.

To quote the report: "You cannot take the entity that has the name and the brand of enforcing…ultimately things like administration on to Aboriginal communities, and suddenly put it in a new … outfit and suddenly say it's all different. Mobs don't see it that way and I can understand why mobs don't want to interact with ORIC on capability stuff because the stigma of being associated with it [ORIC] is that you're in strife. And that's … a perception that's unavoidable for ORIC given that's where its roots are."

It's time for a proper review – one that is open to submissions from the public – of ORIC's role and its effectiveness. In my view, it's time to establish an entirely separate vehicle to support and build Indigenous capacity in business development, and to drive regional economic development via PBCs and other Indigenous organisations which continue to have unrealised potential.

Joe Ross is a Bunuba man and a director of Bunuba Dawangarri Aboriginal Corporation.