Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has effectively ruled out a formal Makarrata commission or institution, saying the government has to focus on engaging with Indigenous communities to find new ways to deal with chronic problems facing First Nations people.
Albanese, who at the weekend attended the Garma festival in East Arnhem Land, today said while there had been “considerable hurt” caused by last year’s defeat of the Voice referendum, the government was looking at new ways to deliver economic and social outcomes to Indigenous communities from remote areas to urban centres.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Gumatj leader Djawa Yunupingu at the Garma Festival on Saturday.Credit: AAP
He said talking to Indigenous organisations and people, including land councils, was the way to talk to First Nations people rather than setting up a formal Makarrata commission
“That’s not what we have proposed. What we have proposed is Makarrata just being the idea of coming together,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.
“It means engaging with native titleholders. It means engaging with First Nations people right around the country. There are different needs depending upon whether people are in urban communities like my electorate.
“The needs of people in Marrickville, which has a sizeable Indigenous population, it’s very different here to the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people.”
Makarrata was one of the three elements of the politically contentious Uluru Statement from the Heart from which the Voice concept emerged.
This week, the Productivity Commission’s annual snapshot on the Closing the Gap report showed five of its targets are on track to be met by 2031, including healthy birth weight, pre-school enrolment and employment.
Another five are improving but unlikely to meet the 2031 target, one has not changed at all and four are going backward. They include reducing the rate at which children are removed from their families, adult imprisonment and suicide.
Source Agencies
