AAP
Aboriginal businesses are considered "second class and second rate" by big resource companies in Western Australia's Pilbara region, an indigenous association says.
The Pilbara Aboriginal Contractors Association (PACA) has released a report reviewing contractual agreements between Aboriginal enterprises and the resource industry.
PACA general manager Tony Wiltshire said on Tuesday there was a lack of opportunity for Aboriginal contractors in the mining region in WA's northwest, where projects totalling $85 billion are planned or underway.
PACA will lobby the WA and federal governments for legislative changes to force companies to open up opportunities to Aboriginal contractors.
"Without the report, without the pressure that we are putting on them now, we can go down another 40 or 50 years of good intentions and end up in the same place we are now, with virtually no outcomes out of the resource-rich Pilbara," Mr Wiltshire said.
Some companies, including BHP Billiton's iron ore division, had written policies to engage Aboriginal companies, he said.
BHP has 10 Aboriginal contractors and the long-term sustainability of indigenous contractors was of critical importance, a BHP spokeswoman said.
Billionaire Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) had an indigenous employment program but Mr Wiltshire said the company failed to engage indigenous businesses.
"There's no Aboriginal business that I'm aware of that works on any of their (FMG) sites at the moment," he said.
"Woodside are very much the same and keep us at arm's length, don't want to engage."
Mr Wiltshire said contractors who serviced bigger companies discriminated against Aboriginal business.
Aboriginal companies were undervalued and undermined instead of being seen as an opportunity to build local supply chains and businesses, he said.
"They just exclude them because they see Aboriginal business as second class, as second rate.
"I've had many conversations with senior contract managers and procurement managers and they say, `We can get them to clean the toilets or do the lunch run' or similar comments like that."
Of the 6,800 companies in the Pilbara, less than 40 are Aboriginal businesses, the PACA report says.
"In the past resource companies have just gone to smaller Aboriginal corporations and said we'll do a joint venture with you, we'll give you a heap of money to start a business and you'll get good outcomes and we'll get good outcomes," Mr Wiltshire said.
"That was a failed way of doing things, basically they set up Aboriginal business to fail and because there was no government policy or direction."
Woodside and FMG have been contacted for comment.
