The ABC has put up a story that looks at one pretty remote community and its problems with creating jobs:
Coming to work is voluntary and the men are not bound by a roster.
On the day he spoke to the ABC, Mr Mungee is one of four workers who have turned up to sort and heat-seal firewood packages.
"When I get up in the morning, when the people go past, that's when I ask some of the young fellas: 'Come, you want to work?', but they don't want to come for work," he said.
"They're sitting and getting Centrelink money. They will only work when they see people working."
As with many other remote communities, unemployment has long been one of Yalata's biggest issues.
While nationally, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows unemployment is at near record lows, 2021 Census data shows First Nations Australians are still more than three times as likely to be out-of-work than non-Indigenous people.
The Australian Institute for Health and Welfare states the employment rate for Indigenous Australians in remote areas is about half that in major cities.
In Yalata, there are 66 jobs for approximately 425 residents.
That's up from 19 positions three years ago.
In other words, there's only jobs for 15 per cent of locals.
While they are trying to put a positive spin on the increase in job numbers, it's still a surprisingly honest report. More:
Locals say cultural considerations and changes to the Community Development Program (CDP), which required some people in remote areas to work a set number of hours to receive Centrelink payments, have contributed to the community's relatively low employment rate.
They say alcohol and drug misuse remain a problem, and not everyone regularly turns up to work.
The issues are indicative of the plight of the Aṉangu, who were displaced from their ancestral lands around Maralinga in South Australia's remote west in the 1950s to make way for a British atomic weapons testing range.
The community split between Ooldea and Yalata, with some families taking ownership of the Yalata Reserve in 1974.
While displacement from Maralinga may have created some problems, I doubt that there is any more economic activity possible in that old site compared to their current location.
The article does mention some of their "farming land" and running sheep - but gee, the photos in the article make it look like far from ideal land for that.
The boss out there tries to put some positive spin:
"There's some misinformation about Aboriginal communities, how they're fully supported by government handouts and things like that," Yalata Aṉangu Aboriginal Corporation CEO, David White, said.
"We're trying to destroy that myth and say: 'Yeah, we've had some handouts to try and get us off the ground, but we're trying to get off the ground ourselves'.
There's a long way to go, obviously.
Anyhow, of most interest to me was this bit at the end of the article:
The value of self-determination has been a key theme of the Yes campaign in the lead up to the Voice to Parliament referendum, with supporters of the proposed constitutional change hoping it would ensure decision-makers take note of what can be achieved when change is driven from within.
The ABC approached dozens of Yalata locals to ask what they thought about the proposed Voice, but only one – elder Bruce Williamson – was happy to share his views.
Other locals were unaware of the Voice or were reluctant to speak out.
"We put stories to the government, to Canberra, to help us. Help people," Mr Williamson said.
"We ask the government from Canberra to put something good for us."
That's it! It's not even clear from that that Bruce Williamson supports the Voice, or understands it.
So, yet again, the ABC is doing a good job at illustrating that the activists who are promoting the Voice have done a pretty poor job of convincing locals that it's really in their interests.
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