KG: Hello and welcome to Living Black. I'm Karla Grant. It's just under two weeks to the first Federal budget to be handed down by a Rudd government. And now, following the 2020 Summit, it has been revealed that many Aboriginal people concerned that the key issues in Indigenous affairs like health, education and employment seemed to be taking a back seat to symbolic gestures. With funding a major concern for communities, Indigenous representatives are left wondering just what the Federal Government's priorities will be in addressing disadvantage. Kris Flanders reports.

Reporter: When the 2020 Summit finished in Canberra last week, the wash-up for Indigenous affairs focused on talks of a treaty and constitutional change. It left many wondering what the Federal Government's priorities should be in addressing Indigenous disadvantage. In fact, it caused clear division amongst some Aboriginal leaders.

Wesley Aird, Former NIC Member: Symbolism has got its place, but I think we've really got to focus on some short-term wins to improve people's quality of life. Now, that's probably not going to be helped by some treaties or other long-term acts of symbolism. I think it's important that we start looking at the social indicators, what is it going to take to fix the problems in any one community around the country? How can we get people into jobs, get them a good education, make houses safer, what can we do right now to help people at the local level?

Reporter: While debate continues amongst the ranks, talks have emerged on the creation of a new national Indigenous representative body. Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma is hiring Professor Mick Dodson to help devise a model for a new body to replace ATSIC, which was scrapped by the Howard government in 2004. However, former Labor Party president Warren Mundine has criticised both Calma and Dodson as being part of a "champagne and caviar circuit".

Warren Mundine, Former Labor Party President: To be quite frank, I think some of our leadership has really lost the plot. They're more concerned about dealing with treaties, dealing with constitutional changes than actually dealing with the day-to-day lives of Aboriginal people. You can have a treaty and a constitutional change as much as you like, but is that going to keep people out of jail, is that going to get people jobs, is that going to get our health standards up? Quite frankly, no, that's not, so yes, it is an issue, it's in the top 10, but I think there's about 9 things in front of that.

Reporter: Currently Tom Calma is overseas in New York as head of a delegation to the UN on Indigenous issues.

Tom Calma, Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner: I was actually surprised when I saw the headlines in the national paper that they're criticising a model that has yet to be developed, so I'm not sure where their clairvoyance comes from. But it's quite disappointing that people don't go and start looking at the facts, they don't understand and have not taken notice of my reports as far back as 2006.

Reporter: Tom Calma's proposal for an Indigenous representative body is nothing new. His current research is about creating some models for Government to consider at the end of May.

Jenny Macklin, Minister for Indigenous Affairs: What we're very clear about it that we will not be recreating ATSIC, we do not think that it was a success. We think that there is a need for a representative body at the national level, it's been in the Labor Party platform for some time, we intend to go about the creation of this body in a careful way, taking into account many different people's points of view.

Reporter: Meanwhile, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report released this week revealed that Indigenous Australians are still facing unacceptable levels of disadvantage.

Jenny Macklin: This data really will be critical to the new Government in our task that we've set ourselves to close the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. As this report shows there is still a shocking 17-year life expectancy gap and I'm sorry to say there are far too many other gaps still very clear from this report.

Warren Mundine: We need to concentrate on remote area, but at the same time those reports are telling us that the disadvantage is just as relevant in Redfern as it is out in Yuendumu. So we've got to deal with both sets of communities.

Reporter: Wesley Aird, a former member of the National Indigenous Council, wants to see practical measures for improving the current situation with Indigenous communities.

Wesley Aird: We've got a lot of communities all over Australia where we could be achieving quite a lot in the short term if we could focus on the social indicators as a priority and go into those communities from the ground up, look at what needs to be done and focus on some technical solutions from the outset.

Warren Mundine: Let's start dealing with the hard stuff, and the really hard stuff is how do we get economic development in our community, how do we break poverty? That's the real issues, how do we break poverty? And we start building a safe future for our communities and for our people and moving ahead, so the issues of getting jobs and getting health, we've really got to work on that gap, the 17-year gap.

Reporter: Having a solid working relationship with the Government is paramount, according to Tom Calma.

Tom Calma: There's plenty of opportunities for Indigenous Australians to be able to work with Government and peak bodies to be able to address a number of these issues, but I think they're the ways forward. There's many things I think we need to really come on board and understand more about the issues that face us.

Jenny Macklin: We really have, I think, an absolute responsibility to set ourselves the tough targets that we have set. The Prime Minister has set these targets and we intend to do everything we humanly can to meet them.

KG: Kris Flanders with that report. And SBS will have full coverage of the Rudd Government's first Federal Budget and how it will affect Indigenous Australia when it's handed down on Tuesday 13 May. Still to come on Living Black - the troubled Western Australian community of Kalumburu.