Spotlight on

Canberra, Ngunnawal Country: Leaders bring people together and catalyse positive change within families, communities, corporations and society. With that process in mind, in May 2020 Kerrie Tim and 2 others founded the Leadership Institute for Positive Futures Indigenous Corporation. The corporation aims to inspire leadership for social change, positive societies, improved professional performance, and strengthened identity. And they’ve been working to those ends—without any funding—for nearly 2 years.

Djarindjin, Western Australia: Another helicopter lands at Djarindjin Airport and 19 passengers head for the air-conditioned terminal nearby. Meanwhile, the chopper’s engine roars and its rotors spin as the ground crew begin their 10th ‘hot fuelling’ for the day; a tricky and specialised task that involves refilling the aircraft’s tank without shutting it down. It requires a highly trained team to get it right every time.

Djarindjin Airport has completed over 10,000 helicopter refuels in the last 7 years.

Top End: First incorporated in 1987, Arnhem Northern and Kimberley Artists Aboriginal Corporation—ANKA—is the lead support and advocacy body for Aboriginal artists and Aboriginal-owned community art centres in over a million square kilometres of country across northern Australia. ANKA represents close to 50 art centres and 6000 artists, and its strategy is clear and openly expressed on its website:

Lithgow, New South Wales: In late 2019, members of the Mingaan Wiradjuri Aboriginal Corporation near Lithgow were worried. The mega-blaze known as the Gospers Mountain bushfire was roaring towards them, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake.

Elder Helen Riley, one of 4 directors of the corporation, received a phone call from a local member of the Rural Fire Service: ‘The fire is heading our way and we don’t know if we can save Maiyingu Marragu.’

Cultural and artistic traditions have long enriched community life in the Torres Strait. On the island of Erub (Darnley) in the north east, Erub Erwer Meta Torres Strait Islander Corporation, trading as Erub Arts, is supporting those traditions while sustaining the unique identity of its people and their deep connection to the land, sea, and sky around them.

Erub island in the north east Torres Strait. Photo: Lynnette Griffiths

Derby, Western Australia: North Kimberley is stunning country: steep mountains, limestone gorges and thousands of acres of savanna woodland. Ngarinyin (Wilinggin) people are combining traditional fire management knowledge with contemporary scientific practices, they are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and—at the same time—earning money for their people and their communities.

Barnett River Gorge, north Kimberley. Photo by Annette Ruzicka

Ngunnawal country, Canberra: Yerrabi Yurwang Child & Family Aboriginal Corporation was established in 2019 with objectives to improve health and wellbeing among Aboriginal children and families living on Ngunnawal country. In 2020 it won a local government grant under the ACT’s ‘new and emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations program’ (NEO).

Broome, Western Australia: Having partnered with 7 other Aboriginal-owned enterprises to form the Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance, Mamabulanjin Aboriginal Corporation is innovating to benefit Aboriginal growers and global consumers of Kakadu plums.

Known to Yawuru people as gubinge (pronounced gubb-inj), Kakadu plums are high-value produce:

Adelaide: Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC (KYAC) has a long history, but its story is still just beginning.

Kaurna is the language of Aboriginal people from the lands and waters of Tarntanya (Adelaide) and surrounds. Yerta is their word for country. So the corporation’s name effectively means ‘our country’.

Kevin Barron, chair of Beemurra Aboriginal Corporation

Yallalie Downs, 2 hours’ drive north of Perth: First registered in 1998 as a goat breeding operation, Beemurra Aboriginal Corporation has hit its stride as an intergenerational family business for backgrounding cattle. As the only Aboriginal-run backgrounding business in Western Australia, it’s special—and promising to become more so.