"No one wants to fund a five year project. It's all one year funding. What happens when it ends?"
That was Raylene Button, Kariyarra traditional owner and co-convenor of the On-Country Bush Meeting at Yule River, speaking at this year's meeting on 29 and 30 July, on the funding available to ACCO-led programs in the Pilbara.
Insights
It is a question the sector has been asking for a long time and it does not get a good answer. One-year funding cycles do not build programs. They build acquittals. Staff are recruited on contracts that expire before the work matures, communities learn not to invest trust in services that may not be there next July, and organisations spend a disproportionate share of their capacity reapplying for money they already have.
Yule River is where Pilbara Aboriginal people have made decisions together for generations — the same Country where pastoral workers organised the 1946 Pilbara Strike, 80 years ago this year. Convened by YMAC's Pilbara Regional Committee, Day One is for Pilbara Aboriginal people only. Government is invited on Day Two, to respond to a position community has already formed. Thirty-one Aboriginal organisations attended, along with Ministers Don Punch and Amber-Jade Sanderson. The Call to Action they heard will go to the Premier and the Prime Minister.
This year's conversations centred on water rights, land tenure, education and child protection. Each is a question about who holds decision-making authority — and in each case WA law says no or says nothing. Water is still governed by the Rights in Water and Irrigation Act 1914, which does not recognise Aboriginal rights and interests in water. The Aboriginal Representative Organisation provisions of the Children and Community Services Amendment Act 2021 received Royal Assent five years ago and have still not been proclaimed. Land tenure keeps funded facilities unbuilt.