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Albanian praises indigenous truth in Victoria after the failure of the voice to parliament
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Albanian praises indigenous truth in Victoria after the failure of the voice to parliament

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While the annual Garma Native Festival starts in the northeast of Arnhem Land, the Northern Territory Justice System is undergoing a seismic shift.
The territory government, led by Minister President Lia Finnochiaro, of the Liberal Party of the Land, pushed this week through new laws that affect young perpetrators.
“This government delivers what Labor would never do: real consequences for serious crimes and a legal system that places victims in the first place,” says a statement by Vice -Minister President and Minister of Corrections Gerard Maley.

As many indigenous elderly people in Arnhem -Land point quickly, these are not only statistics, these are young people who are taken to the prison system when they are still in primary school.

Members of the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people from the northeast of Arnhem Land prepare for the traditional dance of Bungul at the Garma Festival of this year. Source: MONKEY / James Ross

The NT government has not held specific consultations about the new laws, but Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Steve Edgington, does not say that these are conversations that have been going on for years, and he does not apologize for a tough approach.

It places Garma’s annual political conversations under a dark cloud, with conflicts brewing about how to deal with juvenile crime and imprisonment.

“Where is the accountability?”

On the eve of the conversations, two architects of the original Uluru declaration of the heart – Megan Davis and Pat Anderson – co-author of a statement In response to the traumatic reality of failure to close the GAP efforts on many fronts.
“Our children are locked up, our elderly people die and our people continue to live in a country where their rights are neglected. Their voices and asks for help on deaf ears,” they wrote.
“Where is the responsibility? There is none. The agreement is not legal and it is not binding.”

While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is walking the red fabric path to the traditional Bunggul grounds to sit with Gumatj -elderen and to appreciate the traditional dances of the world’s oldest continuous culture, he will be under pressure to do more.

More at the federal level to ensure that the gap closes, and possibly more to tackle the concern about the decisions of the NT government.
Since the NT is not a state, the federal government has the wallet and enormous power over its financing and whether they should hold programs in place.
Although constitutional changes for a native voice in parliament were not endorsed by the Australian people, there is still a movement under Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to collect a representative body to bring priority problems to the government for a solution.

When he was chosen as Prime Minister in 2022, Albanians completely made himself out of the heart in the Uluru statement.

Young indigenous men who play Aussie rules.

Children play Australian Rules Football on the opening day of this year’s Garma Festival. Source: MONKEY / James Ross

While the referendum failed for a voice, the statement also included Treaty and Truth.

On Saturday there was hope of some under the indigenous community that the prime minister would in a broad sense would endorse a truth process-which would come as a relief for lawyers who have insisted on reconciliation to bring an account about the history of Australia and a process of confronting the injustice from the past.
“I know this weekend there are members of the YoROKROOK Justice Commission here at Garma,” said Albanese in an address.

“Their committee has spent the past four years taking the testimony of thousands of people in Victoria. Reflecting on the mistakes of the past, sharing the pain that their families and ancestors have suffered, as a result of expropriation and discrimination. Policy and practices built on exclusion.”

Albanian acknowledged that native people were cut off from culture, country, historical place, land and justice and opportunities.
“As a nation we still come to terms with the complete truth and toll of this exclusion,” he said.
“Even if we continue with the long journey of understanding our past, we must meet our responsibility for the future.
“We must grab and use the power of inclusion.
“The feeling of connectedness that comes from having an interest in the economy is embraced by society and equal in the law of the country.”

Opposition leader Sussan Ley has beaten back and says: “The size of the challenges in Australia in Indigenous is much greater than the scale of the reaction I heard from Premier Albanese today”.

“We have 19 indicators in the closing of the gap, four of them are deteriorating, and what really concerns me is that they indicate a lack of progress, in fact a retreat, in critical areas with regard to children and education and imprisonment of youth.

“We know that education is of vital importance for the future of young people wherever they are in Australia. It is therefore so disappointing to see this plan that the Prime Minister calls a ‘Economic Empowerment plan’ fails in these critical areas.”

Responsibility to protect the next generation

Last year the message from Albanese was about economic empowerment, and although the northeast of Arnhem-Land is considered the gold standard of remote indigenous employment, there are other areas that have a high unemployment rates and little prospect of change.
The chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, singer Djawa Yunupingu, is the senior leader who will welcome people in the Gumatj countries this weekend.
Yunupingu thinks there should be more accountability for the closing of the GAP measures.

“It’s something we really have to do for the future of our people,” he told Nitv’s Emma Kellaway.

While toddlers are playing in the ancestral sand of the Bunggul site and throwing school children around a Footy on the Garma Oval, Yunupingu has the responsibility that the community has to protect the next generation.
According to so many community leaders, they see the federal government as a shared responsibility about what happens next.

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