Aboriginal artists exploited in 'backyard slave labour'

Ngarlie Ellis applies the finishing touches to an intricate dot painting, its yellow and ochre patterns depicting an ancient Dreamtime story of a kangaroo spirit visiting a desert waterhole.

The 32-year-old is fortunate - her canvas will be sold to a respectable gallery by the art centre in which she works in the isolated settlement of Ltyentye Apurte, 80km down a corrugated dirt track from Alice Springs.

But many other Aborigines are being ripped off by unscrupulous dealers who pay them with alcohol, drugs and worn-out second-hand vehicles, or corral them into squalid sweatshops where they churn out poor quality paintings.

In many cases the art is bought by 'carpet baggers' who roam remote desert communities offering a pittance for works of art that will eventually be sold for tens of thousands of dollars in homes and galleries from London to Los Angeles. Appropriated indigenous culture ranges from tacky plastic figurines of spear-wielding warriors, made in China and sold in the tourist emporia of Alice Springs and Darwin, to didgeridoos painted with faux Aboriginal designs by backpackers.

Abuses in the Aboriginal art industry - estimated to be worth up to A$500 million (HK$3.1 billion) a year - have become so acute that Australia's federal government has launched a wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry.

It was due to submit its report next week, but has encountered such a mountain of evidence that its findings will not be released until June. Indigenous artists are vulnerable to exploitation due to their poor English, rudimentary education and because they live well below the poverty line in settlements that are often hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town.