A PUSH for a treaty recognising Indigenous ownership of NSW would have to come from community, Gunnedah’s Sarah Mitchell says.
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In her role as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ms Mitchell said she’s all about taking her lead from the community.
“I think for us as government to come over the top and say ‘this how we want to do it’ isn’t really how I work in this space,” she told Fairfax Media.
“Everything we do under OCHRE, which is our Aboriginal Affairs plan in NSW, is all about coming from the grassroots up.
“I really take my lead, as minister, from community and individuals about what they would like us to be working on.”
NSW Labor is taking the issue to the state election next year, vowing to start a treaty process if it wins government.
The minister is keen to talk with community and stakeholders about a state treaty and says it has been raised with her.
“Certainly towards the end of last year, with NSWALC (NSW Aboriginal Land Council) they put together their wish list for the next five years and part of that was having discussions around treaty,” she said.
“Obviously they’re a major stakeholder and I meet with them and talk with them quite regularly.
“I’d certainly be interested in engaging in discussions with what they’d like to see it look like.”
Ms Mitchell said a lot of work done recently contained “elements of treaty”, such as language legislation, working with regional alliances on state government decisions and establishing stolen generation reparations.
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She said education and employment were raised as issues in communities she met with, as minister.
“Education is always a big thing, opportunities for the next generation tends to be something that comes up a lot in every community that we visit,” she said.
“Opportunities for employment [too] and we’re doing some work in the procurement space for government contracts which we will be able to announce soon.