Minister for Indigenous Affairs Linda Burney was busy in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) over the weekend meeting with a host of community organisations, service providers and Aboriginal representation from across the region.
Apart from the odd tweet, most of her meetings (in which she was flanked at times by Minister for Education Jason Clare and member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour) were kept quiet from the media, but locally there was much chatter about the federal government’s $250 million “bush” budget for Central Australia and how it would be spent.
While a portion has already been allocated to infrastructure, connectivity, community safety, health, education, housing (and the list goes on), $90 million of unallocated funds will be left in the hands of a soon-to-be established local leadership team to decide where and how to spend it.
On Saturday, Scrymgour facilitated a meeting between Burney, local leadership from Traditional Owners Lhere Artepe, the Land Council, Congress (the Aboriginal community-controlled health service), youth services — “basically everyone who is involved in service delivery of some kind” — as well as leaders from remote communities brought to Alice Springs for the meeting.
Scrymgour told Crikey that the meeting was as much to discuss funding as it was to “touch base” with Central Australian Aboriginal representation.
“One of the things I’ve been keen to do throughout all of the crises and the issues facing not just Alice but also the regions and remote communities is to get Aboriginal leaders at the table to advise government on what needs to happen going forward,” Scrymgour said.
“That’s happened now.”
The Saturday meeting was a precursor to Wednesday when the committee will elect a local leadership team. Beyond allocation of the remaining $90 million, its remit will be to look at whether budget items are actually making a difference in the bush.
“Linda made this point really strongly, at the end of the day, the money has got to be able to make a difference to people’s lives,” Scrymgour said.
In terms of numbers, a spokesperson for Burney would neither confirm nor deny details prior to budget day. But so far Crikey understands, via a community organisation briefed on the budget, that the $250 million Central Australian pot will be divvied up as follows:
- $50 million into community and regional infrastructure
- $10 million for digital connectivity
- $10 million into justice reinvestment
- $9.2 million to put towards community safety
- $3.9 million for a youth services action plan
- $7.5 million for governance
- $23.4 million for health, which includes $18.4 million to the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress for youth assessment and treatment and $5 million to develop a health hub in Alice Springs
- $40.4 million allocated for education (specifically “on-country learning”)
- $2 million for CCTV
- $5.6 million for housing
While in Alice Springs, Burney also joined the newly formed Lhere Artepe night patrol, which is set to receive $1.5 million in federal funding. This will top up the initial $900,000 National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) grant, which first got the patrol up and running.
Five trial sites for a junior ranger program will also be established with $1.2 million to go towards the initiative.
Scrymgour said this is a good start, but there remain “serious deficits in the NT”, particularly in relation to housing. She told Crikey she plans to sit down with Burney and discuss big gaps in territory funding and policy.
“We can’t keep expecting the NT government to fix this stuff,” she said. “Communities are saying the same thing — failure to actually listen to what’s being said. That’s why it’s so important to push the voices of Aboriginal people.”
Scrymgour is however thrilled that government can take a step back and allow local leadership to take ownership of their own bush budget.
“Government needs to step away from this and let that group of leaders determine what it is to be done. There’s been so much focus on Alice Springs but there are issues in other parts of the NT. And that’s what Linda certainly kept reaffirming to people, ‘This is not just money for Alice, it’s funding for Central Australia’,” Scrymgour said.
“I’m happy I can now pay attention to other parts of my electorate.”
Note: this story has been updated to reflect changes announced in the federal budget on May 9 2023.”
$5.6M looks like a lot of money until you realise how few houses it will actually build. It looks even more like pocket change when you consider how long we’ve known how little housing there actually is and how bad the overcrowding is in the existing housing.
Anyone else wonder if the housing allocation was originally $7.6M, but then $2M was siphoned off for CCTV largely for political reasons?
Why would CCTVs be for political reasons, would it not help curb vandalism?
Getting tradies and supplies to remote areas os goijg yo cost a lot, 5.6 m not going to achieve much
Can accountability be mentioned more clearly somewhere? Schedules for implementation, deliverable lists and who’s responsible…..what does local leadership mean in terms of whis leading the charge? Of course im supportive of the folks on night patrol – there’s an accountability….
But for the other $88M Yeah nah – not from Crikey. Come on Julia.
First Nations people have been advocating for the measurement of outcomes for a long time because they see ill-informed and uninformed policies and programs failing all the time and they are the ones to suffer the most as a result of those failures. It is politicians and public servants who have been refusing to implement evidence-based mechanisms of accountability and transparency.
An example of an organization involved in evidence-based service delivery that Crikey readers know is Children’s Ground – check out the link I’ve provided below.
I hear a lot of pooh poohing of First Nations advocates for a Voice being people working in the university sector. This is often because these people are developing the mechanisms for research-based transparency and accountability that First Nations people want to see applied to government policies and the services that come from these policies.
Another example of First Nations people seeking and using research based evidence is the controlled burning work done at Charles Stuart. I’ve put a link for that below too so you can have a look.
If you’d like to explore First Nations work to create research-based practice and service delivery and mechanisms for accountability and transparency, the health and education sectors are great places to start.
https://childrensground.org.au/evidence/
https://insight.study.csu.edu.au/benefits-of-controlled-burning/
Strange only 5.6m for housing. It seems that they don’t have a housing crises there or do they expect more money from other avenues for that
My experience of communities and aboriginal funding in the NT and north WA says that most will end up either in grog or gambling, very little will be used to improve the life of the average aboriginal person.
Just keep Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price well away from the money.