From truth-telling to closing the gap, First Nations leaders outline their priorities in 2026

Improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is a continuous challenge for communities, activists, politicians, and governments.

But since the Voice referendum, Indigenous affairs has slipped from the national agenda and there is little agreement on the path forward.

The government is focused on "economic empowerment", while the opposition is calling for "practical outcomes".

Community leaders are calling for action on many long-running issues, including calls to change the date of Australia Day, action on deaths in custody, and the establishment of a national truth-telling process.

The ABC has spoken to three high-profile First Nations leaders to canvass their views on the Indigenous affairs agenda.

Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy declined a request for an interview.

Time for truth?

Travis Lovett believes the power of truth-telling can be transformative and sees an opportunity to "heal the nation" by setting up a truth-telling process.

The former Yoorrook commissioner spent four years yarning with mob in Victoria as part of the state's historic truth and justice commission, culminating in his Walk for Truth in 2024.

Yoorrook's final report, based on evidence from more than 2,000 people, helped inform Australia's first treaty with Indigenous peoples, signed by the Victorian state government and First Peoples' Assembly late last year.

"I have been right across Victoria listening and learning, but also being in people's houses, their front yards, their backyards, their coffee tables, down by the river," Mr Lovett said.

"We were going through the Yoorrook process in Victoria and [hearing] them saying, 'We need this nationally.'"

The Kerrupmara Gunditjmara man is now looking to make the movement national by walking from Melbourne to Canberra in April this year.

"We need a national truth-telling process. We have waited long enough," he said.

"We want to heal. We want a move forward, but it needs to be based on the truth — and that's what people have said."

The campaign for a national truth-telling movement has been backed by many high-profile people, including social justice commissioner Katie Kiss, eminent lawyer Tony McAvoy SC, and Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation chief executive Jill Gallagher.

Truth-telling was one of the three pillars of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which culminated in the referendum on creating a constitutionally-enshrined Voice to Parliament in 2023.

One of the architects of the Uluru Statement, Megan Davis said "Voice, treaty, truth generally have been aspirations of our people for a long time" but was sceptical about the utility of national truth-telling on its own.

"I don't know whether there's a big push for truth and treaty. There might be online, but in a lot of the conversations that we have with mob around the country, surviving and the day-to-day business of living in an Aboriginal community is what occupies them," she said.

"I think, much like the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Don Dale, these kinds of truth commissions suck the energy out of all other things.

"I just think the government can't get Closing the Gap right. Why would we be setting up another institution to do something else?"

Shadow minister for Indigenous Australians Kerrynne Liddle was also unconvinced.

"What is truth-telling? Who benefits from truth--telling? I don't live vicariously through my mother, who was a Stolen Generations child," she said.

"When I go to communities, they talk about health, housing. They don't talk about colonisation. They don't even talk to me about truth-telling, and I visit many, many communities."

But Mr Lovett says there is growing support for a truth-telling process across the country.

"Our people have always advocated for the truth to be shared," he said.

"There's already been commitments publicly made around implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart from the prime minister. Truth-telling is one of those commitments."

Mr Lovett said the walk was an opportunity to highlight ongoing injustices and seek accountability.

"We don't want to see our people over-represented in the justice system. We don't want to our people homeless … [Victoria] has some of the most horrific child protection statistics in the whole country," he said.

"Truth without justice is fragile. I totally understand that and I don't want to take away from that, which is why our people needed to be at the decision-making table on the matters that ultimately affect our lives. That's what self-determination is."

Service delivery and Closing the Gap

Senator Liddle took the reins as shadow Indigenous Australians minister in May last year, taking over from firebrand senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Senator Liddle has been outspoken in her criticism of service providers for Indigenous communities, including Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs), which receive public funding.

"I'm focused on the prime minister and his government actually doing their jobs to call on accountability to those organisations who are charged with taxpayers' funds to deliver services to the most vulnerable people," she said.

"This is not rocket science. So we need to be demanding better of those services, whomever they are, to deliver better for people."

The former Coalition spokesperson for child protection and the prevention of family violence says she remains focused on the most vulnerable.

"What matters most to me are women, children, and people in work — in real work," Senator Liddle said.

The ABC asked the senator whether tougher bail and sentencing laws brought in by states and territories were breaching the Closing the Gap agreement, which is meant to reduce the rates of young people in detention.

"I don't know what this obsession is around incarceration rates," Senator Liddle said.

"One of the most protective factors is kids in schools, healthy kids, and healthy parenting. That's what I want people to focus on.

"Let's focus on keeping kids out of custody, not focus on what we do with kids who are in custody. And if they're in custody, let's focus on making sure they don't end up back in custody."

Dr Davis echoed the senator's calls for more attention on Closing the Gap metrics.

"We're not seeing the kind of reduction in the gap in multiple indicators — most of the indicators — and I think that's the focus for 2026," she said.

In a statement, Senator McCarthy said Closing the Gap should be a focus for all governments and pointed to federal investments in Indigenous health, housing, remote jobs and reducing grocery prices in remote stores.

"But we know the job is far from done," she said.

Travis Lovett says truth-telling is needed to put the Closing the Gap statistics in the context of how government policy has adversely affected First Nations people, to "understand the past and how it connects to the present".

"People always say to our people, 'Oh, but that happened in the past — why do I have to say sorry?' Or, 'Why are we still in this situation?'

'What comes next?'

The federal government agenda for Indigenous affairs has been muted since the loss of the Voice referendum, but it has pushed for what it calls "economic empowerment" as the next step to improve the lives of First Nations people.

Dr Davis said the success of those policies would be limited without the bedrock of constitutional rights.

"You hear all of the great kind of claims [about] will happen as a consequence of economic empowerment," she said.

"They're basing that on Canada and the US, who have robust treaties and robust constitutional recognition. We don't have any of that, so that's always going to be first and foremost in my mind."

After spending some time overseas at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, Dor Davis has a fresh viewpoint on rights, reform and what she calls a "political loss".

"They [the US] have a completely different attitude to political loss over there. So the first thing people will say to you is, 'So what comes next and how are you going to get it up and how you going to go again?'"

"They've got a more robust attitude to the political loss. They're not in the corner crying. They're thinking about how to go again.

"Let's just get up, dust ourselves off. It was a political loss at a point in time, but it doesn't undermine the importance of the key reform that was in there, and that is the Voice to Parliament and constitutional recognition."