Cunningham: Path to better future for Indigenous Australians drowned out by groupthink

One of the biggest impediments to the advancement of Indigenous affairs is the disconnect between the first-order concerns of acutely disadvantaged Aboriginal Australians and the narrative controlled by people based a long way away, writes Matt Cunningham.

ULURU, AUSTRALIA, NewsWire Photos. OCTOBER 10, 2023: Noel Pearson visiting Uluru ahead of the 2023 Voice to Parliament Australian referendum. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

One of the biggest impediments to the advancement of Indigenous affairs in this country is the disconnect between the first-order concerns of acutely disadvantaged Aboriginal Australians, most of them living here in the Territory, and the narrative controlled by people based a long way away.

There’s no better example of this than the coverage of the annual Garma Festival in Northeast Arnhem Land.

If you’re watching from afar, you’d be forgiven for thinking Garma is a big leftie lovefest where everyone gets together and sings kumbaya about treaty and truth-telling.

There is an element of this, but it’s only one small part of the story.

Unfortunately, 95 per cent of the media contingent at Garma have flown in from Melbourne, Sydney or Canberra, importing all their inner-city prejudices, and focusing squarely on the issues that are trending in Fitzroy and Double Bay.

Indigenous leader and Yes campaigner Noel Pearson. Picture: Brendan Radke

And despite wearing out the old cliche about “sitting in the red dirt and listening” they fail to open their ears to anything that challenges their sheltered world view.

But you could easily walk away from Garma and tell a very different story about the hopes and aspirations of Aboriginal leaders, particularly those from Northern Australia.

Six years ago I was at Garma when Noel Pearson made an impassioned speech about the need for personal and family responsibility to improve the lives of his people.

“We have a strong belief that government can never do anything for us that we are unwilling to do for ourselves,” he said.

“Our friends on the progressive side of politics have not understood our argument in this respect, but it is a basic argument that nobody is going to save us except ourselves. The staircase to a better life is mum, dad, clutching the children, climbing to a better life. That’s how it happens for everybody else in the world and we are not exempt from that.”

Pearson had given a speech the day before about the Uluru Statement from the Heart that had received blanket media coverage.

This speech was barely covered at all.

03-08-2024 - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese photographed at Garma 2024. Picture: Teagan Glenane / YYF

Two years ago, the late Mr Wurramarrba from the Anindilyakwa Land Council on Groote Eylandt, made it clear the Voice to Parliament was a long way down the list of priorities for his people.

They wanted greater control over their own affairs to create jobs and improve outcomes in health, justice and education.

“We are taking back control of our lives, on our own terms, with our own ideas,” he said.

If those who were present had paid more attention, they might have been less surprised that the voter turnout for the referendum in the seat of Lingiari – which takes in all the NT outside Darwin and Palmerston – was just 64 per cent, a number that was inflated by higher turnout in urban areas like Katherine and Alice Springs.

NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy delivers an apology to First Nations people at Garma. He pledges to eliminate racism and is determined to improve relations between police and First Nations people. Photography Teagan Glenane / YYF

I wasn’t at Garma this year, but the reports I read from afar almost all focused on the post-mortem of the Voice referendum, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s crab-walk away from his election-night commitment of a Makarrata Commission.

Amongst all this groupthink, there was one snippet in a story from The Australian, which quoted Gumatj clan leader Djawa Yunupingu, discussing the history of his people as entrepreneurs.

“We are traders and we know diplomacy,” he said.

“For centuries we traded with the Macassans. Today, we have established a township with 99-year leases and private ownership. We have opened a bauxite mine in partnership with Rio Tinto. We are leasing our land for a rocket launch facility. We work in company with our armed forces. We harvest our own timber. We build our own houses.”

In a few short sentences, Yunupingu outlines the path to a better future, but barely anyone is listening.

They’d rather have a debate over some abstract concept that may or may not happen some time in the next fifty years.