Albanese signals Indigenous truth-telling support after failure of Voice to Parliament

SBS Australia

3 days ago

As the annual Garma Indigenous festival kicks off in north-east Arnhem land, the Northern Territory justice system is undergoing a seismic shift. The territory government, led by chief minister Lia Finnochiaro, of the Country Liberal Party, pushed through new laws affecting young offenders this week. "This government is delivering what Labor never would: real consequences for serious crimes, and a justice system that puts victims first," a statement from deputy chief minister and corrections minister Gerard Maley says.
As many Indigenous Elders in Arnhem Land are quick to point out, these are not just statistics, these are young people who are being taken into the prison system when they are still in primary school.
Members of the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people from north-eastern Arnhem Land prepare for the Bunggul traditional dance at this year's Garma festival. Source: AAP / James Ross The NT government did not conduct specific consultations on the new laws but NT Aboriginal Affairs Minister Steve Edgington says these are conversations that have been going on for years, and he makes no apology for a tough-on-crime approach.
It places Garma's annual political talks under a darkening cloud, with conflict brewing about how to deal with youth crime and incarceration.
'Where is the accountability?' On the eve of the talks, two architects of the original Uluru Statement from the Heart — Megan Davis and Pat Anderson — co-authored a statement in response to the traumatic realities of the failure of Closing the Gap efforts on many fronts. "Our children are being locked up, our elders are dying, and our people are continuing to live in a country where their rights are neglected. Their voices and calls for help falling on deaf ears," they wrote. "Where is the accountability? There is none. The agreement is not legal, and it is not binding."
As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese walks the red dust path to the traditional Bunggul grounds on Saturday to sit with Gumatj Elders and appreciate the traditional dances of the world's oldest continuous culture unfold, he will be under pressure to do more.
More at a federal level to ensure the gap is closing, and potentially more to address concerns about the NT government's decisions. Given the NT is not a state, the federal government holds the purse strings and immense power over its funding and whether to keep programs in place. While constitutional changes for an Indigenous voice to Parliament were not endorsed by the Australian people, there is still a movement among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to assemble a representative body, to take priority issues to the government for a solution.
When he was elected as prime minister in 2022, Albanese committed to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.
Kids play Australian rules football on the opening day of this year's Garma festival. Source: AAP / James Ross While the referendum for a Voice failed, the statement also included treaty and truth-telling.
On Saturday, the prime minister is expected to endorse a truth-telling process in a broad sense, which will come as a relief to some advocates who have been pushing for reconciliation to include a reckoning over Australia's history and a process of confronting the injustices of the past.
Responsibility to protect the next generation Last year, Albanese's message was about economic empowerment, and while north-east Arnhem Land is considered the gold standard of remote Indigenous employment, there are other areas that have steep long-term unemployment rates and little prospect of changing. The chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, singer Djawa Yunupingu, is the senior leader who will welcome people to the Gumatj lands this weekend. Yunupingu thinks there needs to be more accountability around the Closing the Gap measures too.
"It's something that we need to really do for the future of our people," he told NITV's Emma Kellaway.
As toddlers play in the ancestral sands of the Bunggul grounds, and school kids toss around a footy on the Garma oval, Yunupingu knows the responsibility the community has to protect the next generation.
In the view of so many community leaders, they see the federal government as having a shared responsibility as to what happens next.