2 days ago
Indigenous leaders say Uluru town at centre of Voice Referendum is still waiting for housing after 10 years, as bureaucracy stymies growth
Leaders from the community at the foot of Uluru say the federal government has forgotten them since the Voice to Parliament referendum.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese travelled with the Canberra press pack to Uluru in the final days of the referendum campaign in 2023, urging Australians to vote Yes.
But the cameras weren't taken to Mutitjulu, the community at the foot of the rock, which is home to between 350 and 400 people.
Leaders from the Mutitjulu Community Aboriginal Corporation told Sky News the community was in desperate need of infrastructure upgrades, but attempts to improve facilities were often caught up in bureaucratic red tape.
'I personally think Mutitjulu has been left behind,' MCAC chief executive Rob Drew told Sky News when we visited the community.
'Where we're standing basically was the original campground for Ayres Rock when it was Ayres Rock and that's all it ever was designed for and we've got a community around that now and the facilities haven't stayed up with it, the infrastructure hasn't stayed up with it.
'Even though there are plans to rectify that, it takes a long time for this stuff to get some guernseys and get put into the ground.'
MCAC chair Dorethea Randall said the community had waited a decade for 12 new houses.
'Behind us is housing that's we've waited over 10 years for, but even longer when we've been pushing for more housing over 20 years,' she said.
Ms Randall said many people from nearby homelands and smaller communities were moving to Mutitjulu to access services, but they were not keeping up.
She said even when the housing under construction was finished the community would need another 12 houses to service their needs.
'Housing is really crucial because it's a foundation of where the core problem starts,' she said.
Mr Drew said applying for grants and funding was a bureaucratic nightmare, pointing out the community had to seek approval from different organisations and government departments including Parks Australia, the Office of Township Leasing and the Central Land Council.
'Some of the processes you've got to go through for funding are just horrendously ridiculous, and then the acquittals behind that, so if you've gone for a grant of $30,000 you spend that nearly in administration,' he said.
'With the layers of bureaucracy that we have got to contend with here in Mutitjulu it just adds to the complexity and it slows projects to the point where they stop and they don't proceed.'
Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Kerrynne Liddle said the barriers faced by the Mutitjulu community were unacceptable.
'It would be unacceptable anywhere in Australia for people to be waiting 10 years for houses to be built that were promised, and we have to ask ourselves, where are the roadblocks here,' she said.
Senator Liddle said she was determined to cut through the red tape that was slowing progress for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
'I will resist at every opportunity, the building of a black bureaucracy,' she said.
While the Northern Territory's Aboriginal communities voted strongly in favour of the voice, the voter turnout in many communities was less than 50 per cent.
'The community, not everybody was aware. There was a lack of information delivered down to understand what it was all about,' Ms Randall said.
They're now calling for less talk and more action.
'People tick the box for consultation, but where's the action?' Mr Drew said.
'Too much whitefella talk and no action is really what the feedback is from the local people.'
Ms Randall invited Mr Albanese to visit the community and see their issues for himself.
'In the future, yes, we would like to see him actually in Mutitjulu,' she said.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy was contacted for comment.
