Reimagining India-Australia Ties
Through Indigenous Eyes
In late October, a delegation of eight First Nations-owned Australian companies, all from the mining technology and services sector, travelled to India to explore partnerships in mining and renewables. Led by the Perth USAsia Centre and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, on behalf of the Australian Government, the delegation held meetings across Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata from October 26 to November 2. The initiative signifies the first time Australia has sent a mission composed entirely of First Nations representatives to strengthen resource-sector partnerships with India.
Australia’s High Commissioner to India, Philip Green, described the initiative as part of Canberra’s broader effort to advance Indigenous rights globally and help First Nations communities connect with India’s expanding economy. He stated, “India offers an enormous opportunity for Australian First Nations industries, whether it’s exporting agrifood and native botanicals, art and design, or developing cyber, clean energy, or mining solutions”.
The mission’s focus stretches across the mining and renewable energy sectors. But this is not an isolated gesture. It follows a growing current of Indigenous-diaspora engagement, such as the recent Memorandum of Understanding, signed in August 2025, between the Aboriginal Business Industry Chamber of South Australia and the Hindu Economic Forum of Australia. This MoU sought to unite ‘Dreaming’ and ‘Dharma’ in the pursuit of shared prosperity. What makes the present mission distinctive is its direct focus on the mining and technology sectors, and the way it situates First Nations enterprise at the centre of Australia’s evolving economic diplomacy with India.
India, a civilisation that carries its own ancient relationship with land and nature, offers fertile ground for engagement with Australia’s First Nations industries on issues ranging from native botanicals and art to clean energy and mining solutions. India’s mining ambitions are vast, driven by the twin needs for growth and green transition. Yet every expansion brings familiar dilemmas and questions of displacement, consent, and the uneasy balance between development and belonging. For New Delhi, engaging with Indigenous Australian companies might not solve those contradictions, but it certainly reframes the conversation.
There’s also a shift in how diplomacy itself is being defined. Traditionally, foreign policy has belonged to governments, but here, community leaders are the carriers of a new narrative. They bring a language of reciprocity rather than competition that sees trade and technology as continuity, which is a serious proposition for how Australia might rethink its soft power in Asia. India, too, has been reimagining its relationship with the Indian Ocean and with the wider Indo-Pacific through similar registers. From Project Mausam to its cultural diplomacy in Southeast Asia, New Delhi often draws upon its civilisational depth to give strategic purpose a cultural face.
The First Nations mission fits naturally with this broader ethos of finding cultural foundations for economic exchange. The other layer here is the political geography of resources. Both countries sit atop critical minerals that will shape the world’s transition to clean energy. Lithium, cobalt, and rare earths form the new currency of economic power. Yet the sustainability of these industries will depend a lot on how responsibly they are embedded in local ecologies and communities.
If Australia is serious about building an ‘ethical supply chain’ narrative, its Indigenous entrepreneurs are perhaps its most credible ambassadors. They bring to the table a philosophy that ties productivity to regeneration. In India, this philosophy strikes a chord with traditional agrarian and artisanal networks that continue to define much of its rural economy. When a First Nations designer collaborates with an Indian artisan, or when an Indigenous-owned energy firm explores partnerships in Indian states, the result would not be confined within the economic realm. It would reclaim the idea that modern trade has a lot to gain from the traces of historical practices. Moreover, for India, engaging with Australia’s First Nations industries allows it to see its own local economies, tribal cooperatives, craft clusters, and village enterprises as sites of international exchange and not as a domestic welfare only.
Australia’s external narrative in the Indo-Pacific has long been filtered through the binaries of alliance and autonomy, China and the United States, economy and security. Measures such as this First Nations mission bring in a third register of culture and ethics. However, the challenge is whether such initiatives can be sustained beyond a single visit. If both governments integrate Indigenous economic frameworks into their broader foreign policy architecture through cultural exchanges and joint innovation platforms, the effect could be transformative.
For this partnership to be more fruitful, both countries could consider creating a dialogue mechanism that institutionalises Indigenous-led innovation and sustainability under the evolving Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) framework. Both India and Australia could also support people-to-people business mentoring and supply chain access, for instance, through mentorship programs linking Indigenous entrepreneurs with Indian MSMEs. Such collaborations can move beyond trade promotion to genuine knowledge transfer. Nevertheless, this visit adds a meaningful layer to the India-Australia bilateral story, which seems shaped more by understanding and the lived wisdom of people than by the statist terms of power or strategy.