The ACT's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Minister wants to harness the momentum from the Voice referendum campaign to boost the profile and role of the territory's own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elected body.
Rachel Stephen-Smith said the government had an opportunity to positively reinforce the role of the body after the referendum result, which she said demonstrated Canberrans backed First Nations self-determination.
An independent review will be tasked with considering the future of the elected body, with the government committed to working with the ACT's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community to improve how it operates.
Ms Stephen-Smith said: "The more people who are going to come out and vote, the more people are going to have conversations about the elected body - and then that will encourage more people to get involved.
"So we do want to really work with community to get more people standing and more people voting in the elections."
The ACT's mid-year budget review will include $1.19 million to be spent over three years to increase paid time for elected body members and establish an independent secretariat.
The government has also allocated $200,000 from its healing and reconciliation fund for a review of the elected body, to be led by a First Nations consultant.
The funding follows an Auditor-General's report in August 2023 which warned the part-time body risked being an ineffective support for Indigenous self-determination in the territory.
"Improved diversity and participation in elections for the elected body could better support self-determination," the audit said.
The elected body is made up of seven part-time members, elected every three years in a poll open to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults living in the ACT. It was established in 2008.
Elections for the body will be held in July.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the results of the Voice referendum - in which the ACT voted 61.3 per cent in favour and was the only jurisdiction to endorse the proposal - would provide context for a review of the elected body's future model.
"I think this is going to be really an opportunity to engage the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in this conversation, but also to raise that awareness of the broader community ... to open up opportunities as well for the elected body, not just to be a voice to government, the individual directorates and directors-general and ministers, but actually to play a more outward facing role in the community as well," she said.
