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Another Garma, another grandiose speech. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese offers familiar promises, but action for Indigenous communities is still missing.

It’s August, so that means it’s time once again for Anthony Albanese’s annual performance at Garma.

It’s his favourite venue for grandstanding and photo-ops.

All the while nothing changes for marginalised Indigenous Australians who continue to struggle across the board.

This year, the Prime Minister’s Garma address struck me as sounding a little familiar.

His big headline promise was $70 million for “economic empowerment” but which is actually a big handout for Indigenous “clean” renewable energy projects.

So why was it familiar?

Because last year the Prime Minister’s Garma address was also about economic empowerment and he also talked about clean renewable energy projects in Indigenous communities.

But in the past twelve months, nothing has happened.

He’s giving the same speech, getting the same photos, generating the same media coverage, and he’s done nothing.

Anthony Albanese Helped Start the Culture War

Not only that, he’s having a crack at the Aussies who, like you and me, are concerned about the overuse and divisive nature of some types of Acknowledgements of Country.

He calls it a “culture war” and “cheap politics of division”.

He says people are turning the Welcome to Country into a “political weapon”.

Pretty rich from the guy who literally tried to divide us by race in the Constitution two years ago.

More than that, though, it’s a flat out lie to say that the people who think  Acknowledgements of Country are overused are the ones fighting a culture war or using it as a political weapon.

We are not the ones standing up and saying we’re on stolen land.

We are not the ones demanding reparations, or forcing kids to say sorry for past wrongs.

We are not the ones who make it some sort of social faux pas to say that European settlement has benefitted Indigenous Australians.

Albanese, like many left-wing activists, always wants to have it both ways.

He gets to be as political as he likes with Indigenous affairs, but the second you, I or any other Aussie pushes back, we cop it.

Well, that’s not going to stop me.

And I know it’s not going to stop you.

Until he starts offering REAL solutions, I frankly don’t care what accusations Albanese throws out and I won’t stop pushing back on his division every day.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.