Each year, NAIDOC Week invites Australia to reflect on the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. For the cleaning and facilities management sector, it also offers a timely opportunity to examine a more uncomfortable question: when procurement policy promises so much, why does the gap between intent and lived experience remain so wide?
The frameworks designed to support Indigenous business, chief among them the Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP) and Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs), have undeniably opened doors. But for the operators on the ground, those doors still open into a hallway of obstacles: tight margins, inconsistent jurisdictional standards, capital constraints and a procurement culture that too often reduces genuine partnership to a financial transaction.
Proud Awabakal woman and Supply Nation CEO Kate Russell, points to structural fragmentation as a foundational problem. “There is a growing need to seek alignment between Commonwealth policy frameworks and those operating at state and territory level,” she says. “Standardisation across jurisdictions would provide more clarity and transparency for businesses.”
For small to medium enterprises, which make up the bulk of the Indigenous cleaning sector, that lack of consistency compounds every other challenge they face.
The gap between policy and practice
For Joe Wallace, Founder and Managing Director of Multhana, a name drawn from the Kalkadoon language of Far North Queensland, meaning ‘coming together to help each other’, the disconnection is experienced most acutely at the contract stage.
“The gap often comes down to how policy intent works with everyday procurement decisions,” he says. “There’s a strong and positive focus on increasing Indigenous participation but, in practice, contracts are still largely influenced by pricing, particularly in sectors like cleaning where margins are already tight.”
Woollahra Group Managing Director Chris Schmid adds, “The biggest gap is between policy intent and commercial reality,” he says. “While Indigenous procurement policies create access, many Indigenous cleaning businesses still face tight margins, upfront mobilisation costs, short contract terms and payment cycles that don’t reflect labour-intensive operations. These pressures are amplified for businesses scaling without large balance sheets.”
His observation points to a system that measures success at the point of contract award rather than tracking whether businesses are genuinely stronger over time, a distinction that matters enormously when the goal is sustainable participation rather than symbolic inclusion.
Wallace’s concern runs parallel. Strict site compliance, Indigenous employment targets and razor-thin pricing expectations are three forces pulling in different directions, and Indigenous cleaning operators are left to reconcile them without the financial backing that would make it possible.
“There are also practical realities that aren’t always visible at a policy level,” Wallace says. “Delivering services for government and high-compliance sites comes with strict workforce requirements and, while creating employment opportunities is a key goal, there can be challenges in aligning those requirements with workforce availability at times.”
Russell acknowledges this dynamic, noting that Supply Nation plays an active role in bridging the capability gap. “Many businesses operating in the cleaning and facilities management sector are small- to medium-sized businesses and often struggle to access larger tender opportunities and contracts without supporting services and guidance,” she says.
In 2024, Killara Services, a Supply Nation-verified Indigenous-owned business offering cleaning, maintenance and hygiene services nationally, was recognised as Certified Supplier of the Year at the Supplier Diversity Awards, a recognition that speaks to what is achievable when that support is in place.
RAPs, the IPP and the tick-box trap
Reconciliation Action Plans, at their best, represent a genuine organisational commitment to engaging with Indigenous businesses and communities. At their worst, they become exactly what Chemrose General Manager Geoff Simpson describes so bluntly. “They are only starting points, not the end game. They have become a tick box exercise, as you literally grab what they feed you with limited authenticity and meaning, even beyond the good intent.”
Schmid’s assessment from the commercial side reinforces this view. “RAPs and IPP have opened doors and lifted awareness, which is important,” he says. “However, they still struggle to separate genuine capability-building from surface-level compliance. Indigenous businesses are often placed in low-margin subcontracting roles with limited control.”
That placement, he argues, can amount to the very problem the frameworks were designed to prevent. “Success is commonly measured at contract award, not by whether Indigenous suppliers are stronger, more capable or more sustainable over time.”
Simpson’s critique lands squarely on the cultural dimension that procurement metrics struggle to capture. Authentic engagement, he argues, demands far more than a line item in a supplier diversity report. “It’s got to be participatory rather than transactional,” he says. “We want people sitting around our fire with us rather than us sitting there and they give us the money.”
Russell affirms that RAPs carry real value when implemented with integrity, stressing the need for internal cultural alignment. “It’s important for RAPs to have buy-in from all parts of the businesses and employees. Everyone should feel a part of achieving successful engagement with Indigenous businesses and shared values.”
The spectre of black cladding
Alongside the structural barriers, the sector is grappling with a more insidious threat to Indigenous enterprise: ‘black cladding’, the practice of fronting a non-Indigenous business with an Indigenous identity to access procurement concessions. The harm caused is twofold. It diverts contracts away from genuine First Nations operators and erodes the credibility of the frameworks meant to support them.
Supply Nation has long advocated for reform on this front. The current IPP threshold requires 50 percent or more Indigenous ownership, a definition Russell argues is insufficient. “Supply Nation has long advocated for changes to the definition of an Indigenous business to access contracts under the IPP from the existing 50 percent or more ownership to 51 percent owned, managed and controlled,” she says, welcoming the Government’s proposed reforms to align with that standard. “These changes will assist to mitigate potential fraud and strengthen governance, thereby supporting the growth of the sector.”
Simpson raises a related tension that rarely surfaces in formal policy discussions, the scrutiny Indigenous businesses face around their financial conduct. “The biggest question I get asked from corporations is what do you do with your money?” he says. “We spend it on salary, rent, super, product, just like everyone else. It’s a really racist question to ask.”
The implication that Indigenous businesses must justify commercial profitability or conform to a social enterprise model reflects a bias that persists even among organisations with stated procurement commitments.
Building something that lasts
The path forward, according to all four voices, runs through the same territory: earlier engagement, direct contracting and long-term partnerships built on genuine mutual benefit. Schmid identifies three concrete shifts required to get there.
First, commercially realistic procurement: “fair payment terms, longer contract durations, and sensible mobilisation support that reflect the realities of labour-intensive services”.
Second, partnership over participation: “a stronger focus on capability transfer and shared risk, not just spend targets, so Indigenous businesses are genuinely supported to grow”.
Third, smarter accountability across indirect spend, a dimension the industry has largely overlooked. “Procurement must look beyond Indigenous service providers and actively support Indigenous-owned businesses supplying goods into non-Indigenous contractors and supply chains,” he says. “This approach can have a far broader impact across the industry.”
Wallace describes what earlier engagement looks like in practice: “The most immediate difference would come from earlier engagement, more direct contracting and a stronger focus on long-term partnerships. Bringing Indigenous businesses into procurement discussions at the planning stage allows for more realistic pricing and better service outcomes.”
For Russell, the principle extends beyond commercial strategy. “Procurement based on long-term sustainable partnerships rather than simple commercial transactions can add significant value to both parties and result in positive social impact, such as improvements to job security, health and education outcomes,” she says.
The cleaning industry, with its embedded presence across government buildings, defence facilities, healthcare environments and infrastructure sites, is in a genuinely powerful position. The sector touches every corner of public life, and the businesses that service those spaces have real potential to be engines of sustained Indigenous economic participation, provided the structures around them match the ambition.
NAIDOC Week will pass, as it does each year, and the flags will come down. What remains is the harder, longer work of translating policy intent into procurement practice, replacing transactional relationships with genuine ones and ensuring businesses built by First Nations operators are supported to win contracts, scale and thrive on their own terms. As Simpson puts it, the goal is simple – people sitting around the same fire.
Supply Nation’s directory of verified Indigenous suppliers is available at supplynation.org.au.
This article first appeared in the May/Jun/July edition of INCLEAN Magazine.
