Minister for Indigenous Australians
Subjects: Junior Rangers program expansion, Budget.
TRISHA WILLIAMS, NGAMBRI LOCAL ABORIGINAL LAND COUNCIL CEO: This is just so wonderful. Our students, our communities really need this. We need Aboriginal people on land doing land management and being able to do it in a culturally appropriate way, in the old ways. If we're getting students from school and getting them onto a pathway into land management and then they leave school at year 12 and coming and working in our organisations, that's just wonderful that we have got them from the start. For example, our students are going to be the ones that set up our nursery and propagate our seeds and have that going. So, hopefully they are our senior rangers in the future and they're then mentoring the Junior Rangers when the next lot of Junior Rangers come through.
TREVOR ROBINSON, JUNIOR RANGERS COORDINATOR: There was a pre-training course that we did last year. It was eight weeks, and we had about 17 students at that, and out of that we have got these students here that really loved the actual delivery of the course. I have seen the maturity. So, they have actually grown. I actually approach them as adults and not as kids and I have said that to them, "I will treat you as an adult, if you treat me as an adult, because we are on a journey together." And the journey is about trying to increase the kids' knowledge and awareness of the surroundings but also be job ready and be able to actually walk out of school and say, "Look, I have got these qualifications and I can go for this job here or I can go for that job". So, it's just bringing those skill levels up.
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY, MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS: I just want to say thank you to Trish and the Land Council. It is really beautiful to be here on your Country, and to Trev and the team, the students, to be with them this morning. Much better than being in Parliament House, let me tell you. But you know what the wonderful thing about being in Parliament House is that we can provide the funding and support for programs like this and it is beautiful to be able to get out on Country and listen to the students, because one of the things that I see as I travel across the country is the importance for our kids to get to school. All kids. But especially First Nations children who have a lot of issues, whether it's family and domestic violence at home, whether it is homelessness, whether they are hungry. It is so important that we still work on many areas of Closing the Gap to get our kids to school, and the Junior Rangers program is part of that. I'm very pleased that we have 50 of these programs across Australia and today I'm announcing another 10 for right across Australia. We see this as an important program on many levels. One is about caring for Country, looking after Country and connecting with culture and Country and kin, but importantly, showing our kids they have a future and that being a ranger could be something that they may wish to be. It assists with their schooling development, their educational development, their excitement to get up every morning, and their ability to be able to talk to those around them if they are having issues whether it's in their ranger group or students at school or the teachers at school who are supporting them. It is about a holistic approach to supporting youth across Australia and I'm very pleased to announce that from tomorrow we will open a new round, around $6 million for another 10 programs for Junior Rangers.
JOURNALIST: How many of these programs would you like to see? Would you like every Country to, you know, have their own?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: There is no doubt. We have doubled the ranger program broadly across Australia in terms of adults. We have announced 1,000 jobs in the rangers sector. I want to see 770 of those positions for women. It's important to elevate our women. They have a real responsibility in caring for Country, but also about alleviating the pressures at home, trying to provide an economy where people have wealth and are able to lift themselves out of difficult and poverty-stricken situations. That's important to me. And when I see this around rolling out jobs across the country, I see it as important for our Junior Ranger programs to see that they have a future as our youth, to see the adults also moving through.
JOURNALIST: What are you hoping programs like the Junior Rangers achieve for First Nations kids?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: To keep them at school. To keep them at school to feel good about who they are as young Aboriginal men and women in this country, to correct and reconnect with Country and culture and kin.
JOURNALIST: How important is it that we are physically teaching them how to do this? It is one thing to read about it in a book, how different is it to actually get your hands dirty and do it?
TREVOR ROBINSON: It is really, really good that it is hands on. A lot of the kids they struggle through school anyway and a lot of the oral teachings that we do is actually a lot better for them. Sometimes I'm delivering stuff to them and I'm worried that they are not actually understanding it, but I'm surprised that weeks later they will say something and I'm going, oh okay, so they were actually listening to what I was saying. Which is really, really good because it shows that they are actually interested and keen in the actual program.
JOURNALIST: And what actually happens when you get out on Country? I mean, how does it feel when you are out here doing things?
TREVOR ROBINSON: They love it. They go to school because they know they can get this program in the middle of the week. So, it's an incentive for them to get up on a Monday because they need to go to school before they can come to us on a Wednesday. So, it works both ways. They get an education in the school system but they also get an education in a more culturally appropriate way, and they are actually learning without actually realising that they are learning. So, it's a win‑win situation where you have actually got the kids out on-Country and they are also in the school learning.
JOURNALIST: And what will you be teaching them? What will they be learning?
TREVOR ROBINSON: So, it's a Certificate II in Conservation Land Management and Ecosystem Land Management. I hope I got that right. And basically, there are certain subjects that they need to complete and tick off on. And so, it will be a program that's run over two years and at the end of it they will get a Certificate II. So, what we are actually doing at this moment is actually talking to some of the other Junior Ranger programs around this southern area and we are trying to actually connect with each other. So, we are actually delivering the program in a culturally appropriate way. So, when we are doing cultural burns and stuff like that, we are actually bringing other people from off Country into our Country and we do a burn and then we share that by actually going back to their Country and doing the same thing.
JOURNALIST: How important is that we get them into these careers post-graduation, what difference does it make to how we care for Australia?
TREVOR ROBINSON: It gives everyone a head start. I can see the program actually working in such a way where instead of coming up behind everyone they are actually in front because they have got these certificates and these tickets that say look, I can work within the industry straight away. I think that's a really, really big plus is that they have got these certificates and they are out of school straight away and they can say look, I can go and get that job straight away and I've got the tickets to do it.
JOURNALIST: And for the Minister, we have got an election coming up soon, will there be any progress on treaty-making or truth-telling from a re-elected Labor Government?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: I've been asked about this through our Senate estimates process. We have very much supported the principles of the Uluru Statement from the Heart: Voice, Treaty, Truth. We took the Voice to a referendum, we lost and we accept that decision. That doesn't mean we don't accept the principles of the remaining elements of Voice, Treaty, Truth. What it means now, as the Prime Minister said at Garma in 2024 is that we have to focus on economic empowerment. And when I took on this role six, seven months ago, I knew that I had to get on with Closing the Gap and that's what I'm doing.
JOURNALIST: And Lydia Thorpe says this week's Budget offers crumbs on the table for Indigenous people and it seems a lower priority area than just a few years ago to your government. What is your response to that?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: This Budget is incredibly important for First Nations people. We use Medicare like all Australians, we use Urgent Care Clinics more than most Australians. We certainly have a number of those in our remote communities across northern Australia. We have invested in 3,000 remote jobs across northern Australia in terms of reforming the failed CDP program. We have invested in a thousand Indigenous rangers across Australia. We are doubling the number of rangers. We want 770 of those positions to be for women. That is not a failure for First Nations people. I would certainly ask senators to get themselves informed.
JOURNALIST: Thankyou.
