Voice no substitute for a job and economic participation, says Warren Mundine

Warren Mundine says economic participation and not a voice to parliament is the key to solving Indigenous disadvantage.

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine has said The Daily Telegraph’s new documentary series, Cry From The Heart, underlines the fact that economic participation and not a voice to parliament is the key to solving Indigenous disadvantage.

“The immediate cause of the problems in Alice Springs is the Federal and Territory Governments’ removal of cashless welfare and alcohol bans in remote Northern Territory Indigenous communities,” Mr Mundine told The Daily Telegraph.

“The underlying cause is families in crisis, in a vicious intergenerational cycle of substance abuse, violence and sexual abuse, family breakdown, anti-social and criminal behaviour and long term welfare dependency.

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine accused the Albanese government of “winding back” 20 years of economic and social policies. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“We often hear that poverty and history cause these problems – rubbish.

“Poverty doesn’t make you helpless, addicted, anti-social or a criminal. My parents raised 11 children in poverty and met all their parental responsibilities. I slept peacefully every night in a single bed with three brothers. But I was never afraid to go home.

“The solution is economic participation – starting with adults in work and kids in school. Case-managed intervention is required to achieve these objectives for troubled families, but jobs and education should be the single, driving objectives,” he said.

Nightmarish night-time scenes on the streets of Alice Springs.

Mr Mundine also accused the Albanese government of “winding back” 20 years of economic and social policies designed to empower Aboriginal Australians in favour of “of an ideologically driven agenda, centred on a grievance mindset, identity politics, increased bureaucratic control and centralised, government dependency.”

“The centrepiece of all of this is The Voice. The government seemingly can’t explain what The Voice is. But I know. It’s the bureaucracy to end all bureaucracies and an enshrined talkfest in Canberra,” Mr Mundine said.

Originally published as Voice no substitute for a job and economic participation, says Warren Mundine