Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a new economic focus for the Government’s Indigenous affairs policy, almost one year on from the defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum.
Speaking at Garma, a yearly Indigenous festival on Yolnu land in north-east Arnhem Land, the Prime Minister announced a new First Nations Economic Partnership, including $20 million in funding for a new tertiary education centre called the Garma Institute.
“We have to make a new path and we have to walk it together,” Albanese said.
In his speech today, Albanese acknowledged the failure of the referendum but remained optimistic for achieving change for Indigenous Australians.
“I have not come back to this place of fire, to rake through the ashes,” he said.
“I am here because my optimism for a better future still burns.”
The newly announced First Nations Economic Partnership will realign the government’s focus towards economic empowerment and creating jobs.
It is also designed to expand the rollout of renewables and connect investors, with remote communities and workers.
“This is about good jobs that change lives and strengthen communities,” Albanese said.
Indigenous group Coalition of the Peaks said a new economic focus from the government could change the life of Indigenous Australians.
The government’s new economic focus was endorsed by some Indigenous groups.
“If people have got access to jobs, people have got access to housing,” Coalition of the Peaks Deputy Co-Convenor Professor Scott Wilson said.
But Albanese’s announcements today were not enough to win over Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
“The prime minister has failed in his term of government,” Price said.
“He’s failed to move the dial a single bit to improve the lives of our most marginalised.”
