Sussan Ley: Opposition Leader tells Anthony Albanese he needs to ‘walk the walk’ on Indigenous issues

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has slammed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s lack of action for Indigenous Australians since the failed Voice to Parliament, saying he has shied away from the issue since the failed referendum.

Speaking from Wyndham in the Kimberley on Saturday, Ms Ley said the Prime Minister needed to walk the walk after talking the talk at successive Garma Festivals — one of the largest gatherings for Indigenous Australians in the country.

“It’s so disappointing to see this plan that the Prime Minister calls a plan for economic empowerment is failing in these critical areas,” she said.

“Now he had the same announcement at last year’s Garma, I believe there was a plan for economic empowerment released.

“This is the fourth year of an Albanese government and we’re seeing these critical indicators go backwards, that is not good enough.

“It’s not good enough to be there for the photo op, Australians are expecting the follow up.”

Ms Ley said key issues facing Indigenous Australians were not being addressed.

“The scale of the challenges in Indigenous Australia are much bigger than the scale of the response that I have heard from Prime Minister Albanese today,” she said.

“We have 19 indicators in Closing the Gap — four of those are going backwards and what really concerns me is that they are indicating a lack of progress, in fact, a retreat in critical areas relating to children and education and youth incarceration.”

While Ms Ley attacked Mr Albanese’s approach, she elected not to attend the Garma Festival herself, instead sending shadow Attorney-General Julian Leeser and defended her travel to WA.

“This visit to the Kimberley was planned so that soon after the recent Parliamentary sitting, I could come with two of my senior colleagues and listen to the voices of regional Indigenous Australians here in a really important part of Australia,” she said.

“It’s vital that we do that, it’s what I said I would do when I became leader.”

Ms Ley kicked off her tour of WA’s north-west on Friday, landing in Kununurra before heading an hour north-west on Saturday morning to Wyndham.

Ms Ley said she was looking to reach Indigenous Australians where they were.

“We’ve seen programs that work, we’ve seen job initiatives that are doing well, we’ve also seen things that are failing,” she said.

“We’ve heard from so many people about what works and what doesn’t work and it’s important that we look at the detail, that we listen and that we closely examine how we might construct policies in the future to address the sense of disappointment . . . that is here in so many of the communities that we are visiting now.”

Ms Ley spent the first two days of her tour in Kununurra and Wyndham, meeting with local Indigenous groups and businesses.

Issues ranged from funding challenges being a border town, needing an on-country incarceration system and housing shortages.

Not every meeting took as serious a tone however, with Ms Ley proving a popular figure that evening among the akubra-wearing pub patrons, with multiple people asking for selfies with the politician and she attended a Saturday footy game in Kununurra.

The trip also comes a week after a public spat blew into the public sphere between State leader Basil Zempilas and WA Federal frontbencher Andrew Hastie over the party’s net zero position.

Ms Ley said she wasn’t concerned.

“I barely looked at those reports,” she told The Sunday Times before her trip.

Ms Ley will also visit Broome, meeting with youth services, health programs and Indigenous-led businesses.