Linda Burney visits remote communities to help magnify their voices
Remote and rural Indigenous communities could be given greater representation on the Indigenous voice to parliament says Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney.
Remote and rural Indigenous communities, where need and disadvantage is most acute, could be given greater representation on the Indigenous voice to parliament under a plan favoured by the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney.
The Weekend Australian travelled with Ms Burney to the remote APY Lands of South Australia. It is communities such as this that she is hoping to give a louder voice.
She said that while the structure of the voice was yet to be approved by cabinet, the “SA model”, which gives greater weight to Indigenous people living in rural and remote areas over those in urban areas, was one she was examining closely.
“I want to ensure that remote communities have their voices heard,” she said, and the SA model, “is a model worthy of consideration at the national level”.
Under the proposal to create an Indigenous voice for SA, the state is split into five regions, outside of Adelaide, with three women and three men representing each region. Adelaide will be the sixth region and will have five men and five women on the proposed First Nations voice to the SA parliament. While Adelaide has four more representatives, it has by far the largest Indigenous population of any of the regions.
According to the ABS, 16,359 of SA’s 43,000 Indigenous people live in just five Adelaide districts – Playford, Salisbury, Onkaparinga, Port Adelaide-Enfield and Charles Sturt. Conversely, 2005 Indigenous people live in the remote APY Lands of SA, which is the size of Germany.
In SA, even the consultation process was concentrated outside Adelaide. SA’s voice commissioner, Dale Agius, visited 17 regional and remote communities to ask for people’s views and sat down with just seven community groups in metropolitan and outer metropolitan Adelaide.
Ms Burney seems to be treading a similar path. She’s been to APY, Uluru, Alice Springs, Torres Strait, western NSW, Groote Eylandt, Darwin and is about to embark on a sweep through Western Australia. Another trip is being planned, for the Top End, after the wet season.
The regional model Ms Burney appears to be veering towards would also ensure that Queensland and NSW, where almost two thirds of Indigenous people live, do not swamp the other states.
In his report published on November 9, Mr Agius said the “strong and consistent” message from his talks with Aboriginal people was that the SA voice must represent regional issues. He found people wanted “grassroots representation” and the right to choose who represented them. Ms Burney made a similar pledge to the people of the APY, saying the representatives to the federal voice would be chosen by the communities.
“Many people, particularly in regional and remote areas, expressed gratitude to have been included in the conversation – as they regularly felt bypassed by governments,” Mr Agius said in his report.
More than 6000 corporations and businesses have signed up to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its call for a constitutionally enshrined voice to the federal parliament. Approval from big law firms, religious leaders and academics is proof of the reform’s mainstream support but it is also a gift to opponents such as Indigenous entrepreneur Warren Mundine, who argues it is championed by elites and will serve them.
“It will be like ATSIC – over time people lost interest and only elites bothered running and voting or the more radical elements saw it as a chance to power,” Mr Mundine said. “The main group of Indigenous people lost out.”
While the voice won early support from Rio Tinto, BHP and other corporate heavyweights, it was never their idea. The voice came from 12 regional meetings of up to 100 Indigenous people.
It is in regional areas, and particularly in the remote areas, that Indigenous disadvantage is most acute, where housing is overcrowded and substandard, and where health and education outcomes are abysmal.
According to the ABS, the life expectancy for all Indigenous people is 71.6 years for men and 75.6 years for women. A study by Torrens University showed it was vastly different for remote communities. In the APY Lands, for example, the average life expectancy is just 53.
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