Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion says he has had a “cracker of a meeting” with Indigenous representatives, despite them slamming his efforts so far.

Eighteen Indigenous groups signed a statement during the election campaign calling for an overhaul of Federal Government services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

The Redfern Statement was led by the Congress of Australia's First Peoples, which had previously been caught in a fierce fight with Senator Scullion about public funding.

But Senator Scullion says a meeting with Congress and other groups today showed there was common ground to work towards.

“It was just a cracker of a meeting, it was great gobs of goodwill,” he told reporters.

“Some really good ideas, an undertaking to work more closely together in the future.”

Scullion said he had cleared up misconceptions about his portfolio’s funding arrangements and recent budget cuts.

But he ruled out backing the push for a federal Indigenous justice target to cut high rates of incarceration, arguing that the justice system is managed by the states and territories, so a national justice target would not high.

“If we consider a justice target it's just a waste of time,” Senator Scullion said.

“Nothing happens because we have none of the levers in the justice system.”