A DOGE-like report called Indigenous health research 'wasteful'. Now the Coalition wants to cut it (2025)

The Coalition is attacking research on improving Indigenous breastfeeding rates as a “wasteful spending spree”, after a right-wing think tank put it on a wishlist for Elon Musk-like “government efficiency” cuts.

The government-funded study —which tasks a health policy not-for-profit and two Aboriginal health services with creating a program to improve the health of Indigenous mothers and their children — has become the centrepiece of a campaign by right-wing lobby group Advance, which is targeting millions of voters with digital advertisements about the research in the past week.

In hundreds of Facebook and Instagram ads targeted at different voters, Advance has shared a Sky News clip showing a host saying, “The federal government has wasted millions of dollars funding woke projects like ‘decolonising breastfeeding’.”

This comes after the Coalition’s minister for Indigenous Australians and government efficiency Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price slammed the same study earlier this month on television and Facebook.

“The Albanese Labor government is on a wasteful spending spree with your taxpayer funds,” she said, linking to a Daily Telegraph article about the research that quoted shadow finance minister Jane Hume promising to “end the rot”. Jason Wood, the Coalition’s shadow minister for community safety, migrant services and multicultural affairs, has also criticised the grant.

A March report from Liberal-aligned think tank the Menzies Research Centre titled “Stop the Bloat: Delivering a more efficient and effective government” prompted the Coalition politicians’ comments and News Corp’s coverage.

Much like conservative US think tank The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025, which targeted research grants, the Menzies Research Centre’s report highlighted a number of government grants it deemed of “questionable value for taxpayers, including highly ideological research”.

In the Menzies report, nine out of the 21 studies listed for cutting are about Indigenous peoples or race. First among them is the “Decolonising lactation care to support the initiation and maintenance of breastfeeding among First Nations women” grant to the independent, not-for-profit public health think tank, the Sax Institute, for $1,071,249.31.(This grant is a minuscule portion of the $3.6 billion in research grants paid for by the government’s Medical Research Future Fund since it was established in 2015.)

The grant was designed to fund a partnership between the Sax Institute and two Aboriginal community-controlled health services to conduct research into “boosting rates of breastfeeding among First Nations women and improving the health and wellbeing of many mothers and their babies,” the Sax Institute announced at the time. The institute declined to comment.

Indigenous breastfeeding rates are significantly lower than the overall Australian population: just 85% of First Nations infants between 0-3 years are breastfed, compared with 96% of all Australian infants, according to health surveys compiled by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

Indigenous children are also more likely to be breastfed for shorter periods and less likely to be exclusively breastfed, according to the National Indigenous Australians Agency.

Breastfeeding is generally recognised as the “optimal method” for feeding babies. It’s touted as having a range of health benefits for the infant and is credited with reducing infant deaths. Breastfeeding was listed as a factor in reducing the risk of Indigenous mortality in the Coalition government’s 2014 report about Australia’s Closing the Gap target progress. Indigenous infant mortality remains 1.8 times higher than that of the general population.

The AIHW says lower rates of breastfeeding among Indigenous peoples are caused in part by the “reduced transmission of cultural breastfeeding practices — and the introduction of non-Indigenous practices such as bottle feeding and the use of infant formula” as a result of colonisation.

Under the Coalition federal government in 2019, a national breastfeeding strategy was approved by the council of Australia’s federal and state health ministers. It identified a priority of improving rates in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and noted the “effectiveness of culturally appropriate Indigenous health programs in Australia delivered within holistic primary health care services controlled by Indigenous organisations” —exactly like the programs the Sax Institute grant supports.

Despite this, it hasn’t stopped the Coalition or Advance —which was a major force behind the No campaign in the Voice to Parliament referendum — from promoting its criticisms of the policy in attack ads against the current Labor government. According to Meta’s Ad Library, Advance’s 150 versions of the advertisements featuring the study have been shown more than 3 million times in the past week alone.

In response to a media enquiry about why Advance wishes to cut efforts to bridge the Indigenous breastfeeding gap, a spokesperson said “We can confirm that Anthony Albanese’s $1 million government grant to ‘decolonise breastfeeding’ is indeed weak, woke and sending us broke.”

The Coalition’s federal election campaign did not respond to questions about whether it stands by its frontbenchers’ criticisms of the program, or what it plans to do to address the Indigenous breastfeeding gap.The Liberal Party’s election policy website lists “practical solutions to improve health outcomes for Indigenous women and children”.

Earlier this month, Senator Nampijinpa Price reiterated her desire to cut Indigenous government programs.

“Around Closing the Gap, we know the measures aren’t working,” she said. “I’ve called for an audit of the funds being spent in the Indigenous Affairs space, to determine where outcomes … are failing.”

The Coalition has yet to make any election announcements for the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, but Senator Nampijinpa Price has foreshadowed some to come.

Advance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Have something to say about this article? Write to us at letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.