The Tamworth Coalition of Aboriginal-Controlled Community Organisations (TACCO) will be working with Tamworth Regional Council to create Australia’s first local partnership with a council and local Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations (CAPO) in a revolutionary move aimed at closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Gomeroi man and TRC Councillor Marc Sutherland stated this will be the first time such an agreement will be made between a local government and a local CAPO.
The partnership is to be called the “Mara Ngali-Tamworth Closing the Gap Partnership Agreement”.
“‘Mara ngali’ is Gomeroi for ‘our two hands’,” Sutherland said.
“The intent is that nothing works in partnership better than our two hands – TACCO and Council – to deliver outcomes under a shared vision.”
“This is what the community wants to see. Let’s work together to see how the government and community can work together to deliver those outcomes.”
“It’s a first in the country,” Sutherland said to the New England Times.
“Federal Government partners with the National CAPO, State Governments partner with the State Capos, but local governments don’t partner with local CAPOs.”
Sutherland says that the lack of action on LGAs partnering with local CAPOs is because there are only six local-level CAPOs in the entire country, one of which is in Tamworth.
The other five areas are Gippsland (Victoria), Doomadgee (Queensland), East Kimberley (Western Australia), the western suburbs of Adelaide (South Australia), and Maningrida (Northern Territory), but Tamworth will be the first to implement a formal partnership between its council and CAPO.
Mara Ngali will deliver, Sutherland hopes, a local Closing the Gap strategy that can be implemented directly to Indigenous people, a boots-on-the-ground plan that can create real outcomes, in line with the seventeen targeted areas listed under the National Closing the Gap strategy.
With it being the first of its kind in Australia, Sutherlands hopes it will become the model for other councils looking to implement such a plan, which he hopes will deliver measurable outcomes for Indigenous people.
“I believe it’s going to be the pathway moving forward.”
“The Office of Local Government are partners to (these partnerships), but what it looks like locally is what people are looking to Tamworth for leadership on.”
There has been no significant pushback against the plan, Sutherland says.
“Every conversation we’ve had in Tamworth has been supported unanimously.”
“No matter what people’s personal views are, this is the most appropriate and effective way of moving forward together.”
As a key force in getting the plan implemented, as Tamworth’s first Indigenous councillor, Sutherland has called the support and implementation of Mara Ngali “an amazing feeling”.
“It’s fortunate I can use my position to do that,” he said.
“I’ve had phone calls and conversations with Elders across our region coming with heartfelt messages.”
“These people have been pushing for councils to work with Community for their entire lives, and to see it become a reality is something that’s really needed within our community.”
Sutherland will be taking the newly inked plan down to Canberra on April 1st, when he will attend the Closing the Gap – Partnership Working Group, which aims to unite various Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders to assess how Closing the Gap is proceeding.
“There’s been some success, some challenges,” Sutherland said of the wider Closing the Gap initiative.”
“We’ll be turning up with a signed partnership, which is monumental,” Sutherland said, and hopes that by doing so will inspire other communities and councils to come together and forge similar agreements.”
Mara Ngali has likely already been included in the National 2025 CTG partnership, which has been seen by the Prime Minister.
“It’s about people who’ll inherit the legacy we’ve created, and I’ve benefited from that legacy,” Sutherland said.
“It’s special to be part of something that can be about generation change across our communities.”
TACCO, Tamworth’s CAPO, consists of seven organisations: the Tamworth Local Aboriginal Lands Council, the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service, the Tamworth Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, Mara Mara Community Incorporated, Birrelee Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Service Aboriginal Corporation, and Tamworth & Armidale Aboriginal Children’s Services.
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