Lost in Translation

In early August Anthony Albanese attended the Garma Festival of Traditional Cultures in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. A funded Makarrata Commission, one of the outcomes put forward in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, had been an election promise. (Makarrata is a complex Yolngu word describing not just a treaty but also a process of conflict resolution, peacemaking and justice.) However, at the festival the prime minister said there was not going to be a commission, describing ‘Makarrata’ as ‘just being the idea of coming together’.