The ACT prides itself on being the most progressive jurisdiction in Australia – it was, after all, the only jurisdiction to vote yes in the 2023 Voice Referendum (with 61 percent supportive). However, the ACT’s progressive tag loses its lustre when you consider its poor performance in relation to First Nations communities.
So, what difference could this 2025 Federal Election make?
It’s clear that First Nations people in the ACT own the problems in their community; and their Elders and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) know how to solve them. But they lack the resources to provide the wrap-around lifelong services that are needed to close the gap in life expectancy and hope, to enable all young people to be properly educated and find fulfilling work and for the community to achieve greater autonomy.
ANTaR ACT calls on the Federal Government to hold all states and territories to account for their outcomes under the Closing the Gap commitments, and to provide more dedicated funding and capacity building for First Nations-led initiatives, including a First Nations women’s shelter in the ACT and justice reinvestment initiatives.
Federal influence on First Nations issues in the ACT is mostly through partnership, funding and accountability to the Closing the Gap agreement. However, ACT Closing the Gap outcomes are still well below where they should be, especially in relation to First Nations incarceration and removal of children from their families. Of the 17 Closing the Gap outcome areas, the ACT has improved on only eight (target numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 – mostly in early childhood, education and employment). The ACT has been going backwards on two indicators (housing and youth incarceration), and it shows no change at all on the adult imprisonment rate. Astonishingly, the ACT does not collect data on six major targets (targets 1, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). The absence of data and the inability of the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body (ATSIEB) to obtain data that it needs to assess progress and hold government to account on its Agreement with them is an area needing urgent improvement in line with Priority Reform 4 (access to data and information). The ACT Elected Body needs greater resourcing to enable it to partner properly with the ACT Government to deliver the changes both parties want to see.
Until recently the ACT had few Aboriginal community-controlled service delivery organisations, (ACCOs) with two stand outs – Winnunga Nimmitjyah Health and Community Services and Gugan Gulwan which works with young First Nations people. However, over the last few years, several other First Nations community-controlled organisations have either formed or become considerably stronger. This has occurred with greater support from the ACT Government, which has established an Aboriginal Service Delivery branch in the Community Services Directorate to help build ACCO capacity. This is in line with Priority 2 of the national Closing the Gap Agreement.
While this is a positive step, there remains much more to do to build the First Nations community-controlled sector in Canberra. In particular, the First Nations community is calling on governments to work innovatively with communities to build capacity and address priority issues.
More action and accountability is needed to achieve Closing the Gap and the Federal Government should be actively holding the ACT government to account for its performance under the National Partnership Agreement. Despite its long period of government, ACT Labor has failed in its closing the gap performance. Removal of children from their families continues at a high rate; and while numerically small, the ratio of First Nations to non-Indigenous prisoners is the highest in the country.
At the end of June 2022, 96 First Nations people were in custody in the ACT, representing 1 percent of the total ACT First Nations population. Rates of recidivism remain the highest in the country – sadly almost nine out of ten First Nations men imprisoned have previously been jailed, and almost half of First Nations prisoners are on remand.
Clearly jailing is not working. Every incarcerated First Nations person represents the failure of a society in which social disadvantage and dysfunction are the predictors of a life of crime and alienation. The solution is not to lock up people who have gone down this path, but to support them and give them the possibility of alternative life pathways. Solid ongoing wrap-around services are needed for the relatively small number of First Nations families in ACT struggling to hold everything together and/or encountering the courts and prison system.
There is evidence that wrap-around services, including justice reinvestment and throughcare programs (which support prisoners on release from jail with housing and seeking employment, and which have been shown to decrease rates of recidivism) work: similar programs in Scandinavian countries are seeing crime rates fall and prisons close. We want this for Australia, too.
Some justice reinvestment programs run by Aboriginal community-controlled organisations are being supported by the ACT Government but funding for these remains fragile. ANTaR ACT calls for continued funding commitments to these sound, evidence-based programs. We were deeply disappointed there was no federal funding for the ACT arising from the Australian Government’s Justice Reinvestment Program, announced in the 2022-23 budget. Our question is: why not? Surely each jurisdiction should receive funding under such national programs?
On a positive note, the ACT has already raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years, and in July this year (2025) it is legislated to increase to 14 years, although there are some exceptions for very serious crimes. ANTaR ACT continues to strongly support these measures: 10-13 year olds do not belong in prison, and require quality, alternative programs to prevent them entering the criminal justice system. We await the full development of these alternative programs in the ACT and call on the federal government to work with all jurisdictions to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 nationally and to make no exceptions.
Back in 2018-19 the Report ‘Our Booris Our Way’ was handed to the ACT Government with many recommendations to improve the child protection system for First Nations children. We welcome the appointment of a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Commissioner, but we are still waiting for many of the other recommendations of Our Booris Our Way to be implemented.
Whilst there has been a very slight reduction in the number of children in out of home care in the ACT (to 57.7 children per 1000 population), the most recent data from the Productivity Commission shows that the ACT is likely to fall well short of the 45 percent reduction by 2031 that community and governments agreed for this target. In addition, there has been little if any change in relation to the Child Placement Principle, which states that children should be placed with First Nations kin. In the ACT, just over 40 percent of First Nations children are placed with First Nations kin, with a minute increase in placement with other First Nation carers.
There is concern in the First Nations community about the fact that First Nations children are not doing as well as non-Indigenous children in education. Although rates of enrolment in early childhood education and care are higher than their non-Indigenous counterparts, only 27 percent of them are on track in all domains of the Australian Early Development Census. By the time they get to primary and secondary school between a quarter and a third or more of them need extra support with reading, writing and numeracy. It is of great credit to the students that despite this, of those between 20 and 24, over 82 percent have completed Year 12 or Cert 3.
ANTaR ACT calls for more urgent action under the National Partnership Agreement on Closing the Gap towards achieving these targets.
A stand-alone First Nations women’s shelter is needed to address violence against First Nations women. Two First Nations women’s organisations in the ACT are now actively drawing attention to women’s needs. We call on federal government support for capacity building and funding for the women’s shelter and other women’s programs.
There are currently no land rights in the ACT, nor is there stand-alone First Nations cultural heritage legislation. Some Ngunnawal language revitalisation work is underway, although governments needs to provide more support for intangible cultural heritage, such as language.
ANTaR ACT calls for new national cultural heritage legislation to be a priority for the next parliament consistent with Dhawura Ngilan.
Currently, the ACT Heritage Council appears to have no Aboriginal members in 2025, though it consults with four Representative Aboriginal Organisations (RAOs) about Aboriginal cultural heritage matters. The ACT Heritage Act largely concerns ‘places and objects’ and is far from meeting best practice Aboriginal cultural heritage requirements. These best practice principles are outlined in the 2020 document Dhawura Ngilan: A vision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage in Australia and the Best Practice Standards in Indigenous Cultural Heritage management and legislation. New national cultural heritage legislation during the next term of the Federal Government could support improved policy and legislation in the ACT.
Native title claims are in preparation and are likely to be submitted in the next Parliamentary term. If registered, these would give more legal rights to First Nations custodians about their land, waters and cultural heritage.
ANTaR ACT calls for a truth-telling process to be established at the national level. There is some support for this in the ACT. At the last 2024 ACT Legislative Assembly election, the ALP as well as the Greens and two Independents who now sit on the cross bench, supported local government truth-telling to varying extents. A six-hour truth-telling program is offered to school groups by the Birrigai Outdoor School near Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and Namadgi National Park. However, no systematic truth telling work with government officials and the ACT community is currently underway in the ACT. Although the previous ACT Labor/Greens Government began work on Treaty in 2021-22 the process was flawed and did not progress; it unfortunately exacerbated division within the First Nations community which are still slowly healing. The Federal Greens plan for a ‘National Truth and Justice Commission to acknowledge and document historic and ongoing injustices experienced by First Nations peoples’ could support First-Nations led truth telling processes in the ACT and surrounds.
The new federal parliament should provide more funding and more accountability for Closing the Gap. Increased federal support could help Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs). The other benefit to the ACT could be new national Cultural Heritage legislation which might override the poor ACT legislation or at least set a standard the Territory should meet.
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Background on the ACT
At the 2021 census the First Nations population in the ACT was 8,908, a very young population. This equals the size of a large Canberra suburb and represents just 2 percent of the total ACT population. The traditional custodians are outnumbered by many other First Nations people who have moved to Canberra, often for work.
Since 2008/9 the ACT has had an Elected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Body (ATSIEB), with which the ACT Government makes ten-yearly agreements on service delivery, but implementation often falters, and the body is underfunded. There is also a Council of the Ngunnawal traditional custodians formed some six years earlier.
