SPLITS have emerged within Labor over plans promoted by Aboriginal academic Mick Dodson to create a new indigenous representative body to replace the disbanded ATSIC.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin yesterday promised to consider any proposal put forward by Professor Dodson as part of Labor’s pledge to create a new body representing indigenous Australians.

But Labor powerbroker Warren Mundine said an ATSIC replacement, which would place power in the hands of the same Aboriginal leaders who had failed to deliver in indigenous affairs for 20 years, was “crazy’ and should not even be considered by the Government.

“They are trying to set up another ATSIC with legislative power,” said Mr Mundine, a former Labor president. “It’s going to be a disaster. Can you imagine the (former ATSIC chairman) Geoff Clarks and the (former ATSIC commissioner) Sugar Ray Robinsons with legislative power behind them?”

Professor Dodson has been hired by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to help devise a model for a new Aboriginal organisation to replace ATSIC, which was scrapped by the Howard government amid claims it was corrupt and ineffective.

Ms Macklin yesterday refused to rule out any model, saying she would consider the Dodson proposal.

“The national indigenous representative body options paper will feed into further consultations with a range of stakeholders on the make-up of the new body,” she said.

“We will not be replicating failed policies of the past and the new body will not be another ATSIC. We are committed to a new national representative body that is transparent, accountable and effective.”

It is Labor policy to establish a national representative body, but the Government has not made clear what form it would take or when it would be established. The Government said yesterday there had been no work on the likely cost to the budget of the body.

The Howard government announced plans to axe the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission in 2004, ending a failed 14-year experiment in indigenous self-determination. The national board was immediately abolished, with its 35 regional councils phased out a year later. ATSIC’s $1 billion budget was redirected into mainstream programs.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has paid $20,000 for the research into a potential ATSIC replacement. Researchers at the Australian National University’s National Centre for Indigenous Studies, which is run by Professor Dodson, are proposing models for a body with possible legislative powers. Part of their work includes examining the structure of indigenous bodies overseas, such as those of indigenous Americans and Norway’s Sami.

Mr Calma is in New York leading a delegation to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and could not be contacted yesterday.

But Mr Mundine, an Aborigine, argued the Dodson blueprint was flawed and would empower indigenous leaders who for decades had failed to address disadvantage in Aboriginal Australia.

“Here you have a group of people who have been the leaders of Aboriginal affairs for the last 20 years, who have been incapable of resolving poverty, sexual abuse of women and children, crime and substance abuse within our communities, (and) are now wanting legislative powers,” he said. “My message to Jenny Macklin is to say, ‘Thank you very much’ and put it in her too-crazy-to-touch basket. She should totally reject it outright.”

A growing number of indigenous people are calling for the Rudd Government to consider a broader range of views when devising the new body.

A former member of John Howard’s indigenous council, Wesley Aird, said he was not opposed to a new body but was against the type being proposed by Professor Dodson.

“It can’t be a gravy train, it’s got to be something that’s able to influence the real decision-makers,” he said. “She (Ms Macklin) has to be aware of where she is taking her advice from. She has to be aware that the advice she gets isn’t what’s happening on the ground.”

Sue Gordon, the head of the Northern Territory emergency taskforce, said she was concerned a national body would be dominated by the loudest voices.

“All the parties need time to have an input,” she said. “ATSIC was put on to people. I get a bit concerned about a national body because it ends up just being the strong voices getting a say in it; the weaker voices don’t get heard.

“It can’t be just what Tom Calma wants because that’s just dictating to Aboriginal people what they should have. Personally, I would like to see a lot more emphasis on regional bodies because they are better able to handle localised issues.”

Mr Mundine said he would be proposing an alternative model for an unelected body that appointed indigenous experts to devise strategies to get Aboriginal people out of poverty. He said he was concerned that the model being proposed would be “very expensive” and achieve little.

“The issue is how do we set up a body that gets all the great minds of the Aboriginal community together at a very cheap price so they can advise government about how to clean up all the problems in Aboriginal communities,” Mr Mundine said.

“To be quite frank, this is the Mugabe answer to some very serious problems.”

He said he was going to put in a submission with his suggestion for a body, but the more he thought about the new body, the more he was “turning off it”.

“My representation is state and federal parliaments,” he said. “I elect people to get things done for all Australians. Aboriginal people are part of that process.”

He said the members of the new body should be appointed and preferably be indigenous people who ran businesses.