Albanese spoke of economic empowerment at Garma, but what he didn't address dominated the mood

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

Two years after the bruising rejection of the Voice referendum, the prime minister trekked north this weekend to a place pivotal in the long journey toward Indigenous rights and recognition.
At Gulkula, the lush site of the Garma Festival, where the Yolŋu people have led with fire and heart for a better relationship between black and white Australia, he addressed crowds for the second time since his long-term dream of a unifying national moment was shattered.
For Aboriginal people, the space between the referendum to now has been quiet and disheartening as one chapter closed on the fight for political advocacy and rights.
First Nations people — who in the main voted for the Voice — were exposed to the ugly underbelly of Australian society, despite the diversity of views on the proposal for an Indigenous advisory body.
After the defeat of the Voice, the fast-moving political caravan — which rarely pauses for long on Aboriginal lands — quickly reversed and drove instead towards momentous challenges in global instability and a consequential federal election.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were barely mentioned in the election campaign as the Labor Party made a brutal political calculation to zero in on the cost-of-living, which ultimately delivered a decisive mandate.
Few political leaders have had the gumption to acknowledge the enormous toll the referendum took on Indigenous communities.
Some Aboriginal leaders feared the loss of the Voice meant the prime minister had lost his voice on First Nations reform, especially on the question of what to do with the question of truth-telling and treaties.
The prime minister has appeared more subdued on Indigenous affairs since 2023, but there is hope in Arnhem Land that a second term may renew his ambition.
Three years ago, Anthony Albanese came to Garma in Arnhem Land to make a "solemn promise" to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart — Voice, Treaty, Truth.
He held to that commitment and boldly called a referendum in his first term, but the government then retreated on a truth-telling commission and a federal path to treaty making.
Returning to Garma this weekend, the prime minister praised the work of Victoria's Yoorrook Justice Commission, saying the truth-telling commission found that Aboriginal people were cut off from the wealth of their land and waters "by design".
"As a nation, we are still coming to terms with the full truth and toll of this exclusion," he said.
That historic segregation is the reason why too many First Nations communities are underemployed and why poverty plagues communities even with ownership and access to their own land.
The government wants Indigenous-owned land to be central to Australia's transition to renewable energy, led by Indigenous decisions, not solely corporate profit.
It will spend $145 million to drive investment opportunities for traditional owners to make better deals for their country, and crucially, the plan has been guided by First Nations economic expertise.
Mr Albanese's address at Garma this weekend contained strong commitments on economic development and land rights, but it was what was left unsaid that became a talking point.
Hundreds of influential Aboriginal leaders came to Arnhem Land for a tougher, bolder vision for their children from a prime minister with a powerful majority.
He did not outline a clear plan on what the government intends to do with disastrous policy failures in the Closing the Gap agreement, where the most heartbreaking targets to reduce suicide, incarceration, and child removals are getting worse.
The Garma Festival, surrounded by the beauty of the stringybark country on the escarpments of north-east Arnhem Land, belies a deep grief.
Grief over broken promises and empty words.
"In our law, words of promises are sacred," said Gumatj leader Djawa Yunupingu.
"Given between senior people, words are everlasting. They are carved into our hearts. And our minds."
Before he began his speech at Garma, Mr Albanese shook hands with Warlpiri elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, whose grandson Kumanjayi White died in June, held down by police in a supermarket at 24 years of age.
The deaths and treatment of Aboriginal people in custody is a looming catastrophe that Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy says she is "deeply troubled" by.
Young Yolŋu people are too often far from home, incarcerated in Darwin and Palmerston in conditions human rights groups label as inhumane.
In the Northern Territory, spit hoods are coming back, the prison population is soaring, watch houses are full, and little girls are kept in solitary confinement with the lights on for 24 hours at a time.
The federal government is facing mounting pressure to make some bold calls to influence the direction in the NT — the Commonwealth largely funds the territory — but the prime minister has seemed reluctant to appear interventionist.
Aboriginal communities have no other lifeline. There is no Voice. No formal national mechanism by which they can have a permanent and direct line to the government about their exclusion from policy decisions.
The Country Liberal Party, which swept to power last year, has no Indigenous representatives and has presided over a deteriorating relationship with major Aboriginal organisations.
The Productivity Commission says if state and territory governments continue to pass legislation that contravenes and directly undermines closing the gap, the Commonwealth could look at pulling some funding levers.
It would be the boldest action yet on Closing the Gap.
If the prime minister's first term was dominated by the referendum, his second term is likely to present a challenge to him to raise a powerful voice on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in jail and kids in child-protection systems.
At Garma three years ago, the prime minister promised to govern with "humility".
"Humility because — so many times — the gap between the words and deeds of governments has been as wide as this great continent," he said.
The growing gap excluding Indigenous children from society needs urgent leadership, and the prime minister knows the solution lies between the words and the deeds.