KEY POINTS:
- Sussan Ley has defended Peter Dutton's decision to skip the Garma Festival.
- Ley says the Opposition leader has attended "less high-profile" events in remote communities.
- Anthony Albanese has arrived in the NT, saying: "I am here to listen".
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley has defended Opposition leader Peter Dutton's decision to skip the Garma Festival, saying he has attended "less high-profile occasions" in remote Indigenous communities.
Australia's biggest annual Indigenous gathering began in the Northern Territory on Friday, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese headlining a host of Labor figures travelling to attend.
Addressing Elders there today, Albanese pledged to stay the course on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, declaring: “My word matters”.
Dutton, who opposes the Voice, will not join them and Ley was unable to say who in the Liberal party would travel to the 24th Garma event.
Sussan Ley says Dutton did not attend because reconciliation is about "more than one day". Source: AAP / Lukas Coch
"I wish everyone well at the Garma Festival ... and I'm sure that good conversations will take place," she said.
"But reconciliation and Indigenous policy is about more than one festival and one day."
Jacinta Price, the Coalition's Indigenous Australians spokeswoman and a Warlpiri/Celtic woman, is also not expected to attend.
Her predecessor Julian Leeser, who quit the frontbench to campaign for the Voice, did make the trip.
Earlier this week, Dutton rejected Albanese's to the festival, which is likely to feature significant shows of support for the Voice.
Ley stressed that the Opposition leader had made multiple trips to both the NT and Arnhem Land this year.
"[He's] engaged at less high-profile occasions with Indigenous Australians," she said.
One of those trips, to Alice Springs in April, was followed by a rebuke from the peak national body representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
Catherine Liddle, chief executive of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), said there was no evidence to support Mr Dutton’s claims that sexual violence against children in the community was "rampant".
'My word matters': Albanese uses Garma to champion the Voice
Addressing the Yolngu Elders who welcomed him, Albanese used his first comments in Arnhem Land to champion the Voice, saying Garma provided an opportunity to "see, and feel, and touch" what a Yes vote would achieve.
"I'm glad to be here to listen ... once again. I told parliament yesterday that I'll be traveling here to listen," he said.
"Because we know that by listening to the people who are directly affected by issues, you get better outcomes, better results."
Anthony Albanese, pictured at the 2022 Garma Festival, has travelled again this year. Source: AAP / Aaron Bunch
He also reiterated his commitment to following through on the Voice referendum, declaring: "My word matters".
While polling shows the Yes vote on a downward trajectory, with some putting it on track for defeat, Albanese was bullish about its prospects.
He said he was "very confident" Australians would ultimately listen to the Uluru Statement From the Heart, which first called for the Voice in 2017.
"We will put it to the Australian people and we will succeed together ... because there is everything to gain and nothing to lose from this," he said.
"I admire and pay tribute to your patience. We are not far away from that opportunity to have a structure that does create a better future."
Mining money to fund new Arnhem Land education centre
The Yothu Yindi Foundation, which runs the Garma festival, will receive an additional $6.4 million towards an education centre in Arnhem Land.
The foundation will receive funding from the Aboriginals Benefit Account for the design and development of the Garma Institute.
Albanese said the project had "been a long aspiration of the Yolngu people".
"This partnership shows how governments can work alongside communities, meeting their needs and helping them realise their full potential," he said.
* With additional reporting from AAP.
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