Victoria's truth telling inquiry has grilled the state's housing minister over a lack of progress in improving outcomes for Aboriginal Victorians.
Giving evidence at the Yoorrook Justice Commission, state Housing Minister Harriet Shing apologised for the dispossession of land and ongoing disadvantage faced by Aboriginal communities.
"We created Aboriginal homelessness and then we turned away from it, and for too long, we refused to even acknowledge that its existence and impact was our doing," Ms Shing told the commission.
"For that, I am sorry."
Indigenous Australians make up 3.8 per cent of the population, but account for one-in-five people facing homelessness nationally, according to census data.
The inquiry has heard that 17 per cent of Aboriginal Victorians were seeking homelessness support, a figure growing 10 per cent annually.
Pushed to explain what her government was doing to improve ongoing disadvantage, Ms Shing said pointed to the Victorian Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum and Aboriginal Housing Victoria, and noted she continued to advocate for more funding from the federal government.
"I''m not giving any impression that the system is perfect, but there is a lot happening," Ms Shing said,
Commissioner Maggie Walter replied that housing forums had been operating for 30-plus years without appreciable change.
"Being told that the forum is meeting does not give myself ... any comfort that that is actually leading to change," Prof Walter said.
"It just seems like more bureaucracy to give the illusion of concern."
State and national, legislative, strategic and policy settings had underpinned adverse housing outcomes for First Peoples, the minister said.
"Systems have been designed with a measure of total control at their heart, and that that has included dispossession, and it has included ... piecemeal attempts to demonstrate progress," Ms Shing said.
In the private rental market, Aboriginal people faced barriers such as racism and statistically lower incomes.
Ms Shing said the Aboriginal private rental assistance programme provided up to $7000 for around 1000 families, but commissioner Anthony North questioned the grant's adequacy.
"(It's) really pitiful, isn't it?" he asked.
"By providing, if you like, inadequate income support, you're setting up a system to fail, aren't you?"
The minister denied any government intention in the program's perceived shortcomings.
"I don't think we're setting it up to fail," Ms Shing said.
"(But) I think it does fail."
