A vision for transforming welfare into wealth creation

For many at this year’s Garma Festival of Traditional Cultures, the “pain is still raw” after the defeat of the voice referendum, Anthony Albanese told participants in northeast Arnhem Land on Saturday. But after countless disappointments and false starts, Indigenous leaders, communities and the Prime Minister are showing resilience and good sense in looking to the future. Broad agreement on a shift in government spending away from welfare and into wealth creation and sharing responsibility is one of the most important and welcome developments in Indigenous policy for years. The principle deserves bipartisan support and will be crucial to Closing the Gap. The direction has been inspired, to a significant extent, by Peter Yu, a Yawuru leader from Broome, who is vice-president (First Nations) at the Australian National University. Communities wanted to move in the direction of private enterprise but they needed help to get started, Professor Yu told Paige Taylor at Garma.

With abundant land, Indigenous communities are well placed to install and oversee solar panels and wind turbines. It is crucial, Mr Albanese said, that government and industry form partnerships with Indigenous communities on net-zero and national resilience projects. In doing so, he said, “we can avoid the exploitation and injustices of the past” and “tackle the poverty and lack of opportunity that has seen disadvantage entrenched in these parts of our country over generations. Growing global demand for renewable energy, critical minerals and rare earths represented an unprecedented opportunity for our nation and for northern Australia”. It was also “the best chance Australia has ever had to bring genuine self-determination and lasting economic empowerment to remote communities”.

A broad consensus of stakeholders has favoured greater engagement by remote communities in the real economy for a quarter of a century, since Indigenous lawyer Noel Pearson rightly condemned “welfare poison” destroying family and community life. Opposition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price recently called for a new focus on economic development and jobs, with Indigenous people to replace fly-in, fly-out workers.
 “We need to be helping develop skills of locals in remote communities, instead of funding service providers to do everything,” she said.

Several other developments at Garma should also help put Closing the Gap on a stronger footing. Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy made a lengthy apology to Aboriginal people for the hurt inflicted on them by police. It was warranted in light of the appalling racism inside the NT Police that was exposed at the inquest into the death of Yuendumu teen Kumanjayi Walker. Mr Murphy committed NT Police to “the hard work to transform our relationship with Aboriginal Territorians for a safer community for all”. His pledges of an anti-racism strategy and ensuring 30 per cent of the NT Police were Indigenous are steps in the right direction.

In addition to putting climate and industry policies at the heart of a revamped policy agenda, Mr Albanese dropped the proposal in the Uluru Statement from the Heart for a Makarrata commission to oversee treaty and truth-telling. Critics will castigate him for backing away from the statement to which he was so committed. But with most Australians rejecting the Voice referendum last year, his suggestion that Makarrata could take different “forms” in future, including “the idea of coming together”, could prove more healing and effective. “What it means is listening to and respecting First Nations people and then responding,’’ Mr Albanese told the ABC. With more than two-thirds of Closing the Gap targets unmet, he is correct when he says “we can’t just do things the same way”.

The first Garma since the Voice referendum offers a path towards a calmer, more practical, and equitable approach.