The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was an independent statutory authority established in 1990, following legislation passed by the Hawke government in 1989. It had both an administrative and elected arm and was the primary representative voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at the national level while also operating as a government agency. ATSICs strengths included its ability to make positive contributions to a broad range of agendas and initiatives, including the response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the National Aboriginal Health Strategy additions, and the response to the Bringing Them Home report. However, ATSICs ability to exercise its functions and meet its aims was impeded by some inherent structural problems, including its lack of executive authority.

ATSIC became embroiled in controversy over litigation surrounding its chairperson Geoff Clark, relating to his alleged participation in a number of rapes in the 1970s and 1980s, after being named by four women. Soon after this, the government under then Prime Minister John Howard began to remove some of ATSICs fiscal powers, which were transferred to a new independent organization, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSIS). The government suspended Geoff Clark as chair of ATSIC in 2003 after he was convicted of obstructing police during a pub brawl, and Lionel Quartermaine became acting chair. For some time after Clarks appointment, the Howard government had been expressing doubts as to the value of continuing to have ATSIC at all. Following Mark Lathams election to the leadership of the (Labor) Opposition in December 2003, Labor agreed with the government that ATSIC had not worked. In April of election year 2004, both parties pledged to introduce alternative arrangements for Indigenous affairs, with Labor proposing a new elected national body.

The federal government abolished ATSIC in 2005, and indigenous services were rolled into mainstream bureaucracies and a 14-member National Indigenous Council (NIC) became the main source of advice. The government also set up a ministerial task force and Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination and plans to set up 30 local one-stop shops to provide services. The final blow for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) came when the federal parliament abolished the indigenous body, and ATSIC commissioners received up to $80,000 in severance pay[[5]](https://www.smh.com.au/national/govt-...