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My family settled in North-West Queensland around 1890, and I am proud to say that they are described as being the first local family businesses in the small cattle and mining town of Cloncurry to employ Aboriginal staff in a store on the main street. This was a very controversial and very deliberate move for my family at the time.

My grandfather also proudly removed the segregation bar in the local cinema promptly after taking ownership.

The area has been continually represented by my family in politics for 57 years.

A politician aspiring to be egalitarian, with these roots, must gravitate towards the challenges in First Australian communities as they arguably require more political assistance than any other group.

I do not pretend to be Indigenous or act as their spokesperson, but I am simply a servant of them, heavily burdened by their issues.

Coupled with this background is the fact that I deliberately continue to live in the North-West (of Queensland) and Gulf, where we don’t talk about multiculturalism, we live it. This is a place where words are subordinate to actions.

The Voice to Parliament proposes that it will more effectively address the issues in Canberra. This is based on the critical assumption that the government will suddenly become better listeners and blast into action.

Sadly, regardless of who makes up the Voice, no one could believe politicians are suddenly going to start acting on many of these issues that they already know about.

Regrettably, we have had a very recent test run for the willingness of the government to listen and act on burning issues facing our First Australian communities. It failed miserably.

I refer to the recent bill put to Parliament by the Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) (for the third time in nine years) on amending the Blue Card system to make it fit for purpose in remote Indigenous communities.

Blue Cards are necessary to secure most of the jobs in these communities and are about protecting children. But the existing system has someone in Brisbane signing off on people thousands of kilometres away.

In the KAP Bill, we proposed that Local Justice Groups instead make the decision in some situations on who can work with their kids in their own community. This is provided they have not committed any disqualifying offences.

The State Labor Government’s response in Parliament was that, if you deliver Blue-Card decision-making back to the community, then it will compromise the safety of the children. And there you have it!

A very deliberate rejection of a solution to a pervasive problem in Aboriginal communities. The Blue Card could very well be the greatest barrier to employment in these communities and the Government continues to pretend it doesn’t exist.

The voices of every Aboriginal mayor in Queensland that I spoke to (which was most) backed this strongly and called for it, along with most organisations working in these areas. If they are not listening to the mayors of all the communities in Queensland now, why should we expect anything different down the track?

Another way that the Government could be improving prosperity for our First Australians right now is title deeds. If you live in any town or city in Australia today, you can purchase a house with a title deed… except if it is a First-Australian community, which are specifically excluded from this right.

This must be one of the most reprehensible, prejudicial oversights in policy towards First Australians that remains deliberately unattended.

Proudly, my father as State Minister was the first ever to offer title deeds to these communities, which are still referred to as “Katter Leases”.

In all my time in and around politics, I haven’t seen the same activists, academics and urban elitists who are backing the Voice belting on the doors of Parliament for Blue Cards or title deeds.

The desperate need for action in First Australian communities is increasing and putting more people in Canberra is not the answer. Many of the answers are sitting right under the decision-makers’ noses right now, but they are either incapable of making a decision or just unwilling to.

Giving a new collection of people a Voice on top of the existing leaders and representatives is unlikely to make a lick of difference.