Indigenous voices are crying out for Labor to listen

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in Alice Springs on Tuesday with Arrernte elders – women who have been brave enough to speak publicly about their concerns with the Central Land Council. Picture: Gera Kazakov

This week, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Arrernte elders – women who have been brave enough to speak publicly about their concerns with the Central Land Council; willing to risk the retaliation that might come. They’re willing to do this because for too long they have experienced the disconnect between the letter of the law and its application to their lives.

These elders feel the significant gaps that exist in the Land Rights Act – such as meaningful appeals or complaints processes within land councils. They’ve also seen the processes that were established by the Land Rights Act not being respected, and a denial of natural justice being outworked. They’ve seen these things leave the interests that the act was designed to protect, unprotected and vulnerable to those in positions of authority.

I was surprised, and more than a little disappointed, to hear the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, claim in response to this stand we took that they in the Labor camp are “all just as concerned” as I am about governance issues. See I’d like to know where that concern was on the floor of the Senate during the last sitting period when I specifically asked the minister about the involvement of the Northern Land Council in the attack on a CLP candidate in the bush seat of Arafura. Where was it when, instead of answering those questions put to her, or even showing a shred of respect for the issue, the minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, seemingly dismissed and even had the audacity to make light of the suggestion?

Where was the concern both times that I moved a motion in the Senate to hold an inquiry into land councils which Labor put a swift end to and voted down?

The member for Lingiari was helpful enough to suggest sitting down with the minister to “work through these issues in a better way”. Quite frankly, I’d like some evidence that that conversation has any potential of actually bearing any fruit first. And based on the lack of response to the letter I sent the minister two weeks ago specifically calling for a response to these issues raised by these Arrernte elders, I have no reason to believe that would be the case.

This is not the first time that these elders tried to have their complaints heard and received no support. The lack of confidence I have in the minister is a lot like the lack of confidence these elders have in the Central Land Council. The truth is, when you’ve sought to raise issues in the past, and no one seems to listen, you begin to lose hope that the people you’re raising them with actually care. That’s these elders’ experience with the Land Council, and it’s my experience with the minister.

The member for Lingiari insinuated I was politicising the issue. Perhaps she could look at her own party, her own leader Anthony Albanese, to see the political football he has made Indigenous people; spouting sentiments of economic development at Garma festival that would simply serve to further his renewables-only agenda.

See this is why I entered the uncomfortable world of politics; not because I want to make Indigenous people a political football, but because of my frustration with the approach that was being taken to Indigenous issues. Because people like Margie, Veronica and Sabella get consistently ignored by Anthony Albanese and his government who claim they care so much for them.

Others may accuse me of politicising the issue, but I wouldn’t be doing my job in opposition if I wasn’t willing to cop that accusation over sitting down and shutting my ears, my eyes, my mouth and my heart to the concerns that Indigenous Australians on the ground are so desperately trying to express.

If Minister McCarthy really cares and wants to take a bipartisan approach to her new ministerial position, she could start by supporting our longstanding call for an inquiry and actually listening to these voices that are crying to be heard.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is a CLP senator for the NT.