The chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation says treaties are unlikely in his lifetime as the annual Garma Festival is underway in the Northern Territory. It’s the first major gathering of Indigenous leaders since the failed Voice referendum and there is a strong focus on renewal.
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00:00It's good to be with you here from Yolngu country on the lands of the Gumatj people.
00:05The incredible Gokula in Arnhem Land where so many people are gathering to talk about
00:11the future but really also reflecting on the most immediate past.
00:15And those comments that were made by the Chairman of the Yothi Indy Foundation, Jawa Yunupingu,
00:20to my ABC colleague, Dana Morse, were incredibly strong in looking to the future.
00:27And of course, the questions that have remained for so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
00:32people since the failed voice referendum last year are about what are the mechanisms to
00:38play a greater role in Australian public life.
00:40And there are people that speak to treaty, others to truth-telling, and of course we're
00:44seeing mechanisms around voice and representation in different forms across the nation.
00:51But it was very clear from the tone of what we heard from Jawa Yunupingu that the discussions
00:57about treaty seem to have been flawed and seem to have taken a back seat.
01:02Here he is.
01:04Treaty is always on the mind but it's a long way off.
01:07To be honest, myself, looking at probably 30, 40 years, I won't be here.
01:13But it's a good way that we talk to treaty.
01:16Right now, we are in caretaker mode here in the Northern Territory for an election that
01:21some across the Territory have been talking of as incredibly consequential about future
01:27relations between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Territorians.
01:31There is a new Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malindirri McCarthy, who of course
01:36comes from Yanyawigatju country not too far from here in the Northern Territory, and there's
01:42a lot of expectation about the role that Minister Malindirri McCarthy will bring in
01:47this new role.
01:48Of course, we are likely under 12 months from a Federal election and 10 months since, of
01:54course, the failed referendum.
01:55Yeah, of course, really important points there, Dan.
01:59On to the theme of this year's GAMA, it's Fire, Strength and Renewal.
02:04I know you know the program inside out and you would have earmarked where you can attend
02:08and where you've got to work.
02:10What can people expect?
02:12Well, you do really get the sense that the focus of this GAMA is about that sense of
02:18renewal.
02:19There will be a lot of discussion about the next raft of Indigenous leaders stepping into
02:25the public spotlight, having big conversations about the future.
02:29And of course, fire is a very important totem to the Gumatji people here.
02:33It's both about renewal and having the effect on the land of creating new life.
02:40But of course, it's that land that instills such a sense of purpose for the Gumatji people
02:45here.
02:46And so we're going to get a real exploration of what that means and how that plays out
02:50and what that will look like into the future.
02:53Of course, there will be a very big focus on politics.
02:56The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, will be speaking, giving a keynote address tomorrow.
03:01And we know there'll be an extraordinary conversation about federal politics and how
03:05that all plays out.
03:07But there is also a big focus on health, on wellbeing, on education.
03:11We saw this week the latest snapshot of the Closing the Gap targets, with many of those
03:16going backwards.
03:17And in fact, not only sitting still, but getting worse in some instances as well.
03:22So I expect that we'll be hearing a lot more about that.
03:25This afternoon, though, Cath, we'll be seeing the spiritual and cultural start at the Bungul,
03:31where there'll be an incredible amount of dancing.
03:34And that's really a way of stories being shared from one generation to the next.
03:39The late Yolungu Pingu described the Bungul ground where that ceremony happens as the
03:44universities for the Yolungu people.
03:46So what we are going to be seeing today is a real stepping into that culture and understanding
03:52the way that that has played out for tens of thousands of years and how that instills
03:56a sense of self in the next generation, Cath.