INTHEBLACK July 2026 - Magazine - Page 16
MEMBER PROFILE
ONE PIECE OF ADVICE
“Technical accounting matters,
but governance works best when
accountants help Indigenous
organisations build and maintain
accountability systems that reflect
their unique identities and purposes.”
In the Indigenous business governance
space, reporting and accountability involve
extra layers of complexity. Indigenous
governance frameworks assume a broader
set of considerations, including the
intergenerational, cultural, environmental
and social impacts of business decisions.
These are matters that have only relatively
recently appeared on the radar of Western
businesses and the structures around them,
through ESG reporting and carbon
emissions requirements.
While Western systems are increasingly
incorporating elements generally defined
as being related to sustainability, Murray
suggests that these elements may often
be treated as secondary.
“They can sometimes seem like something
supplementary,” he says, “something reported
on after decisions have been made.”
That sequencing, he argues, misses the point.
“Why report on social and environmental
outcomes when those outcomes were not
factored into the decision-making process
in the first place? If the outcomes
you report on were not considered,
then reporting risks becoming a
retrospective narrative rather than
a genuine expression of priorities.”
This distinction is where
Indigenous governance offers
valuable lessons for non-Indigenous
organisations. Meaningful
governance requires alignment
between an organisation’s identity
and purpose, its decision-making and
its reporting. When that alignment
exists, reporting is authentic — not
because it is more detailed, but because
it reflects an organisation’s fidelity
to its identity and purpose.
A SOCIAL PRACTICE
Murray sees accounting as operating at
the intersection of multiple fields including
information technology, human resources,
legal compliance and organisational design.
Accountants must understand how the
various fields interact across a business
and within regulatory frameworks.
“The holistic perspective is a strength
of accounting,” he says. “It allows you to
see how a decision in one field intersects
with other fields, and forces you to turn
your attention to whole-of-organisation
consequence.
16 INTHEBLACK July 2026
