The new minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, says she wants to lead a more “honourable discourse” about matters affecting the lives of First Nations people.
On day two of her role, the Yanyuwa Garrwa woman spoke to Guardian Australia about one of her priorities: seeking to work collegially with all sides of politics on solutions.
“We need to elevate Indigenous affairs in the Australian discourse by not having it as a political football,” McCarthy says.
“And one of the things that I would like to do in the next couple of weeks is to reach out to my opponents – to Senator Nampijinpa Price with the Coalition, to the Greens with Dorinda Cox and then of course to the teals in the lower house as well as all of the cross benchers in the Senate – and really try to elevate the importance of having honourable discourse around it to improve the lives, sincerely, for First Nations people.”
Respectful dialogue, she says, is especially necessary to heal the hurt that remains after the defeat of the voice referendum.
“When I say I want to reach across the divide, I’m doing it for all those families across Australia who were deeply hurt and felt rejected in terms of the referendum,” she says. “There has to be some sense of healing, even within our own parliament over that.”
Later she adds: “I’ll certainly be wanting to see that kind of collegiality at the national level. If they’ve said during the referendum they want practical outcomes, then they should get involved.”
McCarthy was a journalist with the ABC and NITV before being elected to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly as the member for Arnhem in 2005. McCarthy re-entered politics as Labor’s Senate candidate in the NT at the 2016 federal election.
Now 54, McCarthy was raised with her mother and families in Borroloola, on the McArthur River in the NT, and came “south” to go to boarding school in Sydney. She was St Scholastica’s school captain. She says she’s learned how to navigate two worlds as well as the many cultures within them.
“Where I come from, we have four language groups – the Yanyuwa, the Garrwa, the Marra and the Gudanji peoples – and all my life I’ve had to navigate through the discourse of those four clan groups and try and keep us focused,” she says.
“It’s the same thing across the Northern Territory. We’ve got over 100 Aboriginal languages. I don’t know all those languages, so I take interpreters to help me to understand how to navigate through some of the most complex and difficult conversations. I feel that’s been my life journey, and I want to bring it to this role.”
McCarthy was sworn in at Government House on Monday by the new governor general, Sam Mostyn.
Alongside McCarthy was her husband, Richard, sons Grayson and CJ, and four daughters, Hadassah, Ebony, Indianna and Nevaeh – the “daily reminder of why I do the work I do”.
Anthony Albanese joked he wanted to congratulate his new minister not just on her appointment but on “having the most number of guests ever” at a swearing-in ceremony.
McCarthy says her first outing as minister was an unexpected trip about the grounds of Government House with her youngest children to see the resident kangaroos.
“When we finished with the swearing-in, the nine- and 10-year-old were saying, ‘Oh, can we go and look at the kangaroos?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, you’d have to ask Her Excellency if we can go for a wander out’. Next minute we’re in the buggy – the modern day way of going looking at kangaroo, in a 14-seater buggy. We saw the biggest mob of kangaroos and they were huge. I just said to the girls, ‘You’re going to have to leave those ones. We’ll have to wait till we get back home.’”
The kangaroos reminded her of something Yolngu said during the referendum last year, McCarthy says.
“Yolngu pointed out that the Australian coat of arms is the kangaroo and the emu and they always move forward. There is something significantly, culturally respectful about that for me. We have to always keep moving forward.”
Closing the Gap targets – of which new figures are due to be released on Wednesday evening – and re-tooling remote employment are key priorities.
“We need employment across our communities and our regions to be substantial jobs, but jobs with dignity. And we need to reform the CDP program, which I know [the former minister for Indigenous Australians] Linda Burney has been working diligently on, and I will continue that in this role,” she says.
“I think about the families who are still in such great need. And I am every day just deeply thankful to be in a role where I can try and make a difference in their lives. I know I won’t get everything right, and I know I won’t fix everything all at once, but I’m here. I’m walking the journey, and I’m just asking Australians to walk with me.”
