As the dust settles after the Queensland election, the realisation that two Indigenous candidates, Leeanne Enoch and Billy Gordon, made history is taking hold amid the Labor Party celebrations.

No other politicians will be under the same pressure as these two. While others are discussing economic stability, unity and fair governance, Enoch and Gordon, will be caught between neoliberal assimilationist policy and calls of cultural genocide from within their own Indigenous community.

Who speaks for Indigenous Australians?

Don’t be sucked in by media hype around appointed “Aboriginal leaders” like Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton and Warren Mundine who accept neoliberal tenets as the answer for our people to move forward. This debate has polarised our community – and for good reason.

The problem is that the public voice given to appointed leaders allows governments to dismiss the evidence of research. They prefer the opinions of white business figures with limited policy expertise. The result, as captured in the latest Closing the Gap report, is that we are, if anything, losing ground.

As a rare Indigenous MP, Leeanne Enoch faces extra pressures.Queensland ALP

No other elected members feel the same pressure of these Indigenous debates. Let’s hope Enoch and Gordon understand that though Pearson, Langton and others may have the support of government and business leaders such as Rupert Murdoch, they lack grassroots followers in Aboriginal communities.

The problem is that the “equality” of neoliberal ideology fails to properly acknowledge barriers of class and race. We are not all born equal, as much as we would like to believe we are. Though some individuals overcome obstacles of race, poverty and position, the majority still suffer.

Equality is a major component of a free society, but those in power define and dictate the terms of reference. What may be equal to some, such as the right to work, becomes slavery for others.

Neoliberalism also fails to tackle corporate greed. It uses privatisation to make up for human disadvantage instead of voluntary charitable service. Much of the aid given with one hand through philanthropy is taken with the other as mining and other corporations exploit disadvantage in appropriating access to the lands of the most vulnerable.

The effects have been devastating. As a force for colonial assimilation, neoliberalism should come with an Aboriginal health warning.

Who will heed the lessons of disadvantage?

To put it bluntly, a Western free-market economy within a neoliberal ideology just doesn’t work in Aboriginal communities. The principles of self-interest and individualism remain too oppositional; they threaten the values and collective consciousness that sustain Aboriginal communities.

The United Nations' State of the Indigenous Peoples Report (2009) observes that privatisation and free-market economies have devastated Indigenous peoples worldwide. The report states:

Neoliberalism is based on a belief the market should be the organising principle for social, political and economic decisions, where policy makers promote privatisation of State activities and an increased role for the free market, flexibility in labour markets and trade liberalisation. The benefits of these policies frequently fail to reach the Indigenous peoples of the world, who acutely feel their costs, such as environmental degradation and loss of traditional lands and territories.

In late 2014, the Productivity Commission released a comprehensive report on overcoming Indigenous disadvantage. It showed that over the last 15 years – while neoliberalism has been imposed upon our communities – Aboriginal imprisonment rates increased 57% for adults. Juvenile detention rates increased to 24 times that of non-Aboriginal youth.

Research evidence also links poor educational outcomes for Aboriginal children to a lack of social inclusion and intergenerational poverty. That stems from an economy that aids the rich and hurts the poor.

The clash of values between Aboriginality and neoliberalism engenders a state of alienation and exclusion. The Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project has highlighted the tragic consequences.

Our people suffer some of the highest suicide rates in the world. Yet Aboriginal-led suicide-prevention bodies such as the Halls Creek Healing Taskforce have been unable to attract federal funding under the hardline neoliberal government. This has left such programs at risk.

Top-down politics has little room for Indigenous voices

As we have seen with other Aboriginal people elected to parliament – such as Ken Wyatt, Bess Price and Alison Anderson – it’s a real struggle to retain an Indigenous voice among mainstream representation.

Is there any greater farce in politics than watching the leadership struggle of Kamilaroi Aboriginal Adam Giles, the recently deposed and then born-again Chief Minister of the Northern Territory?

During the three-hour party-room meeting last Tuesday, parliamentary speaker Kezia Purick and Bess Price reportedly threatened to split from the Country Liberal Party, depriving the government of a majority, if Giles was removed.

Willem Westra van Holthe had announced he had succeeded in a leadership challenge on the Monday. Blaming much of the “discontent” with Giles on a lack of community consultation, he said:

We acknowledge that we must work more closely with the community as we move forward and make the Territory a better place to live.

So we finally get an Aboriginal head of government and he loses his position because of a lack of community consultation – only to regain it because another Aboriginal member threatens to walk out even though numbers are against the leader. If ever a case demonstrated how neoliberalism moves our people away from the core values of our community this is it.

New MP Billy Gordon will encounter government agendas that discount Indigenous identity and culture.Queensland ALP

The problem Enoch and Gordon face is that the neoliberal politics they are now part of fails to acknowledge the importance of Indigenous knowledge production or cultural competencies. As a political ideology, it offers no recognition of the value of language diversity and cultural identity.

This is despite a mountain of evidence. The government’s own collector of statistics, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, clearly shows in its research the importance of maintaining language, identity and culture in Closing the Gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

What Enoch and Gordon are up against is that other, appointed “Aboriginal leaders” dismiss the evidence that what works is bottom-up, culturally appropriate programs in partnership with local communities.

So yes, congratulations to Leeanne Enoch and Billy Gordon. But please realise that once the dust settles on Labor winning the election, all blackfellas in this country will be waiting to see where you stand.

Marcus Waters does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.