Barriers to indigenous enterprise in the Australian construction industry

In countries like Australia, with significant proportions of severely disadvantaged Indigenous populations, governments are incentivising the construction industry to provide employment and business opportunities for Indigenous people, through new social procurement policies and guidelines such as the Commonwealth Indigenous Procurement Policy (2015). Although there has recently been some research into the barriers facing social enterprises operating in the construction industry, the challenges facing Indigenous Businesses have been completely ignored. This is an important gap in knowledge to address if countries like Australia are to redress the significant inequalities in income and health suffered by Indigenous populations. Through a national survey of Indigenous businesses in Australia, it is shown that Indigenous Businesses operating in the construction industry face similar challenges to non-Indigenous small businesses including cost of entry, access to capital, the competitive nature of the industry, not being taken seriously and not being trusted to deliver quality work on time and within budget. However, when compared to Indigenous businesses trading in other industry sectors, those operating in the construction industry struggled more with securing finance and government support in the early start-up phases of their business and in achieving scale over time. There were also significantly greater problems in tendering for construction work due to the highly regulated nature of work and the large size of most trade packages. These results indicate that there are significant barriers to be addressed within the Australian construction industry if Government Indigenous Procurement Policies are to achieve their stated aims.