Universities Accord – The Erasure of Indigenous Leadership and Governance

The Maiam nayri Wingara Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Sovereignty Collective
advocates for meaningful approaches to Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Data
Governance across government, business, and local community organisations. In essence we
call for the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to exercise control over a
wide diversity of Indigenous data ecosystems within Australia (Walter et al., 2021).
Importantly, it may be argued that the higher education sector, and universities themselves, are
not only ‘creators’ and ‘managers’ of such ecosystems, but in effect are part of an Indigenous
data ecosystem itself (Foxworth & Ellendwood, 2023; Marley, 2019). As a result, we call for
the greater Indigenous control and leadership within the higher education sector, and so we are
now responding to the Australian Universities Accord Panel Discussion Paper (2023).