Indigenous voice to parliament inquiry told ‘locals treated like children, not listened to’

Aboriginal people from regional NSW shared personal stories of government control and ineffective bureaucracies at the Indigenous voice to parliament inquiry.

Wiradjuri leader Roy Ah See told the inquiry that Aboriginal politicians could not fulfil the same role as the advisory body proposed by the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Picture: John Feder

Aboriginal people from regional NSW shared personal stories of government control and ineffective bureaucracies that treat Indigenous Australians “like children”, on the second day of public hearings for the six-week inquiry into the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum.

The voice hearings moved on Monday from Canberra to ­Orange, NSW, where the head of the local land council shared her frustrations about abundant funding that was not making a difference to the lives of the region’s most disadvantaged.

“What we have at the moment does not work,” said Annette Steele, chief executive of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council.

“Whilst Orange is really quite well resourced, those resources are not hitting the ground for our people.

“They are funded for non-­Aboriginal organisations (to do the work) and for whatever reason are not getting the outcomes for our communities.”

Ms Steele said she had reached the conclusion that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were infantilised.

“All of the structure and policy and programs and legislation has been made like you’re managing children,” she told senators running the inquiry.

Ms Steele described an unconventional education program on the outskirts of Orange as an example of an idea developed with Aboriginal people that was working.

The program is for boys who previously turned up to school fewer than two days a week on average but went to class even less often. They no longer attend the local school at all. Instead, they study off campus with three male teachers.

“These children are in a little hut that was a scout hall and in spite of the barriers … they are on this trajectory,” Ms Steele said.  

  Their literacy and numeracy was improving and so was their overall competency, capacity and confidence.

“If we can’t support these kids to become the best that we can be then we have failed as a community,” she said.

Wiradjuri leader Roy Ah See told the inquiry that Aboriginal politicians could not fulfil the same role as the advisory body proposed by the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

“I understand there are Aboriginal politicians down in Canberra but with all due respect they (were) put there by their parties,” Mr Ah See said.

“So I see a red voice, I see a blue voice, I see a Green voice. Our people want a black voice.”

Veteran firefighter Sharon Riley told the inquiry how she had just been made redundant from her firefighter job when the government called on her knowledge of rock art sites in the Maiyingu Marragu national park during the 2019 Gospers Mountain bushfire.

Ms Riley told authorities where the most valuable sites were and worked with them to clear vegetation as the fire marched towards them.

She said she wanted authorities to listen to Aboriginal people about “cultural burns” that reduce the risk of massive bushfires.

Ms Riley said the result of not reducing fuel loads was that some sections of Maiyingu Marragu were so badly damaged “we will be lucky to ever see them as natural bush again; it is really quite sad”.