HINTON, Mr Sam, General Manager, Business, Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation MAYMURU, Mr Rrawan, Managing Director, Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation SALEE, Mrs Stephina, Executive Officer, Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation [14:19] CHAIR: Welcome. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to committees has been provided to you. I now invite you to make a short opening statement, and at the conclusion of any remarks I will invite members of the committee to ask questions. Mr Hinton : Thank you. I'm here on behalf of the corporation, and my board sends their apologies today, as they are in their own board meetings. I'd like to start by saying that with Rio Tinto completing their mining operations in 2029 it's of absolute utmost importance that prior planning gets prioritised in the region. There's a lot of work to do, most of which hasn't been commenced yet. There are a lot of gaps in the armour here for the region. It's certainly the corporation's position to stay strong and to support the region. However, state and federal government is required in order to make this a success. CHAIR: We'll go to the deputy chair. Ms PRICE: Thank you, Mr Hinton. We appreciate you coming along today. You won't be surprised that we have taken evidence from Rio today, and we've heard a lot about their plans after the mining of bauxite for 60 years. They've told us that they'll complete their mining in 2030. You said 2029, so I already feel there's a bit of a mismatch there. One of the things they talked about is this consultative group. I'm assuming and I think we were told that your corporation is a part of that group. They meet every six weeks or eight weeks; there was a bit of uncertainty around that. What I'm trying to do is get a sense of: Do you really have a seat at the table? Is Rio Tinto serious? I'll give you one example, and you might be able to clarify the whole land tenure arrangement as well whilst I've got your attention. We understand from Rio that obviously they've got the mining lease but over the town they had a special purpose lease. Mr Hinton : That's right. Ms PRICE: And once they wind up their operations, they will forfeit or cancel that special purpose lease, or it will get rescinded, maybe. What is your understanding of what happens to that land? That's the land tenure piece. We're trying to get a handle on that, and everyone assured us that you'd be able to tell us what the answer is to that. Also, how comfortable do you feel that the corporation is getting enough information and, in a sense, is a true partner in terms of this seat at the table? Mr Hinton : I can't talk to land tenure per se. That's not in my portfolio. I mostly look after the investment and the commercial operations of the corporation, which includes a large number of houses here in Nhulunbuy. In regard to the subleases that Rio Tinto holds at the moment, it is the intent that those houses and/or land, if the houses do get demolished, get handed back to the Rirratjingu people at a predetermined time. That time has not been determined with Rio Tinto. They are currently scheduling their demolition of some asbestos houses in the area and planning their handback and their strategy on how that looks into the future. Ms PRICE: Is part of that conversation on housing? I'm glad you mentioned housing. This is part of your responsibilities. Do you think there will be an opportunity for people to buy their own homes? Mr Hinton : Again, that probably comes under the land tenure question, which I haven't been briefed on this afternoon, unfortunately. What I can say in regard to housing in the region is that we have recently, in the last seven months, constructed 25 new houses in the region. There is a critical shortage, as you would all be aware, both from a Northern Territory government perspective and for general small business housing in the area. There are delays in those handbacks of housing, which is leading to a bit of despair and uncertainty in the region. CHAIR: Where is the delay coming from? Is it delays from Rio transitioning the houses? Where's the bottleneck? Mr Hinton : There are probably a few different reasons. The first is, really, the strategy behind DEAL, Developing East Arnhem Ltd. They've got their own portfolio of houses and how that will be— CHAIR: Is that the NT government? Just help us understand. Mr Hinton : No, it's not. CHAIR: So DEAL is Developing East Arnhem. What's that? Ms PRICE: Are they an agency of the NT government? Mr Hinton : I believe so. I believe that Rio Tinto has a viable interest in that as well in the region. Ms PRICE: So you think Rio Tinto's got an interesting deal? Mr Hinton : Yes. Ms PRICE: There are 25 houses that they've built, and they've been built for your corporation? Mr Hinton : No. We've committed—at our Bunggulwuy Close development, we have split between leases with St John Ambulance for housing a whole new crew of paramedics up here and also for Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation, which is a big health organisation here, to house their allied staff, doctors, nurses and what have you. On our Dargaville Close development, we have signed leases with the Northern Land Council. Again, with the Northern Territory government, we have a few there with them, and, again, we have another one with St John Ambulance. It's not a huge development—it's only 25 houses—but, at the moment it's literally housing Northern Territory teachers and health workers and ambulance operators and paramedics, so it's quite critical. We're doing it bit by bit. We certainly can't do it by ourselves. Ms PRICE: Is your corporation building them? Mr Hinton : That's right. We're developing them, yes. Ms PRICE: If you're the general manager of business, what new opportunities do you think there are going to be come 2030? Mr Hinton : Looking at the terms of reference here, I think there is certainly some future industry here in regard to renewables, green ammonia and hydrogen. There is a deepwater port here. I think there is the strategic defence capability here into the future as well. The list goes on. On fuel security, Mr Albanese has announced the latest fuel security funding. I think there's also an opportunity for strategic fuel storage and also fertiliser storage into the future. But the list goes on here. We've got a lot of land. We've got a lot of opportunity and a lot of keen Aboriginal corporations and landowners that are keen to partner and move into the future. Ms PRICE: That's all great, and I'm pleased to hear that. But 2030 is going to come around really, really quickly, and I think people just really need to get their skates on. Mr Hinton : I agree. Ms PRICE: We're halfway through 2026. Before we know it, there are going to be tumbleweeds coming down this street. I think we as a committee are taking this seriously, and we're very grateful actually for Rio coming today and really spelling it out for us. I personally didn't quite understand what the severity could be, but there are also opportunities as well. Mr Hinton : Indeed. With the strategic marine bases, I think that's another opportunity for where we are in the in the gulf. I think more barge ramps and large-scale heavy industry that—we've currently only got one heavy lift barge ramp in the area. That's operated by Sea Swift on Gumatj land. I think, in the future, there is further capability and plenty of land that potentially we could look at to develop into the future. Ms PRICE: Thanks. Mr GOSLING: Can I just follow up on that. How heavy a vessel can that lift out of the water? Do you know? Mr Hinton : Sorry, I meant the barge ramp itself that barges come into. Mr GOSLING: What state is that ramp in? Is it in good repair or not? Mr Hinton : I probably couldn't comment on that. I'm not an engineer myself. It is ageing infrastructure there. We've recently been utilising that ramp quite heavily in our property development. We've been moving in modular homes from Darwin by barge into the region, so we've been quite accustomed to bringing cargo in and out of that port recently. However, it does have its own bottlenecks with the size and the scale of the operation down there in Gove. I think there's definitely some room for the future there. Mr GOSLING: So these modular houses are coming into the port of Darwin and then onto a Sea Swift barge or some other barge and then coming around. Is that basically how it's working? Mr Hinton : They're built in Darwin and then barged from the port of Darwin into Gove and then trucked into place. Mr GOSLING: Darwin made—that's good to hear. In terms of your workforce development for RAC, the Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation, is it more about assembly and connection of services as opposed to traditional building of trusses and roofing and so forth? Is it putting the bits of modular housing together and connecting them to the power and water, essentially? Mr Hinton : Yes. We've got a bricks-and-mortar development at Bunggulwuy Close, which is the first one that I alluded to. We've got a builder engaged to build those houses. However, we utilise our workforce for labour hire, logistics, truck driving, fences, landscaping and that kind of thing, the same way as we do in Dargaville Close. So we have a licensed builder that's connected to the project, but we utilise our subsidiaries to assist in the logistics and the operations of the building. Mr GOSLING: That makes sense. For some people, it's hard to reconcile the fact that Rio's been here for a long time, that they've had all this housing stock but much fewer employees now, and there are still difficulties with housing. That's a bit hard for people to reconcile sometimes. I guess we'll find out a bit more about how that's all working. I'm really interested—and I've asked a fair few of the witnesses today to give us some advice—in the pipeline of skills training needed to get ready for this big transition of assets and of business opportunities et cetera. It's good to hear you talking about some of those renewable energy projects. I've picked up a little bit more cynicism about how serious some of those proponents are. So feel free to give your two cents on whether you think there are any serious proponents for broad-scale solar to power hydrogen production—or for whatever there might be. Practically, do you think that CDU and other training providers have got it right? I understand they've got to focus on hospitality and tourism-type courses as well as civil works, which makes sense—fixing roads or preparing for housing developments or what have you. Does RAC see a big glaring gap for training provision currently? Mr Hinton : I don't want to talk on behalf of the whole region in regard to education. I think CDU do a fantastic job in the tertiary sector. What we really have a big focus on at the moment is training our young Indigenous people. We have our Rirratjingu Property Management and Maintenance Services as well as our Barawun Centre training centre in Yirrkala, which takes young Yolngu people and gives them job skills and job opportunities around the region. We'd like to see those continued internally. We'd also like to see nationally accredited courses offered to our Yolngu people. For example, something as simple as drivers licence training, being able to get people on the road and to jobs in or between Yirrkala and Nhulunbuy, is quite critical. They probably seem to be low-budget things, but I think we need to get the basics right before we start getting carried away with futuristic plans on education. Mr GOSLING: They're building blocks, a foundation of work experience. Do you want to comment on whether there are some serious proponents around that may use some of the infrastructure here, like the port facility or any of the other infrastructure? Mr Hinton : There are plenty of inquiries around but probably nothing I'd like to put on the record at this stage because nothing's been firmed up. Also, there's a lot of external heavy industry interest in the area. How realistic and how feasible that is, we'll come to see. But I think it's definitely a step in the right direction. CHAIR: Thank you. I might just take this time to welcome representatives from the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation. Do either of you want to make an opening statement or say anything to the committee? Mrs Salee : Thank you—apologies for being late. We were preparing for a board meeting, so we totally forgot. Thank you to all of you here in the committee for allowing us to have this opportunity to speak. We're very grateful. CHAIR: Mr Hinton, if there are questions for Rirratjingu versus Dhimurru, we'll point that out. Senator Allman-Payne. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: I want to come back to the housing question. You talked about the fact that you've got two developments. One is bricks and mortar and one is modular. I'm interested to understand the reasons behind those two choices, in terms of the economics of it all and the durability and the suitability of that housing. Mr Hinton : The reason behind the modular option was for our clients. They needed a very fast solution to staff their respective employees; otherwise, we would have offered the traditional bricks and mortar that we're doing at Bunggulwuy Close. With regard to the economics of it, in all honesty, it's much of a muchness price-wise. With regard to the marine logistics, as you'd be aware, it's very, very expensive to run marine operations here and to go from Darwin, Cairns or wherever. The durability is all Australian standard cyclone rated for the region, so we certainly have no issues standing behind that product. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: What about the design of the housing? Is it designed to meet the climate conditions? One of the things I've seen when living in rural or remote areas is that the housing isn't designed for the climate and therefore you'll have a southern house with an air conditioner in it. I'm interested to understand the style of housing and whether it's built for this climate or whether it's fairly stock standard and then relies on heating and cooling. Mr Hinton : The bricks-and-mortar houses were built for the region and designed to the region to NTG accommodation standards for their employees. The modular housing, again, as I said to Mr Gosling, was designed and built in Darwin for that climate—for the same climatic region as Darwin. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: Do they have verandahs and breezeways and things like that? Mr Hinton : Indeed. Ms PRICE: I'll direct my questions to the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation. Thank you so much for coming along today. I appreciate that you have a board meeting and that we've dragged you away from preparing for that. Like I've asked many of the other witnesses today, can you tell me where you fit in here? Who are you representing? Where are you living? You can start telling us about what your issues more generally, and then we want to talk about opportunities. This inquiry is all about emerging industries. We have the history with Rio. We understand what the future looks like from their perspective, but we're really interested in what the future looks like for you and where you fit into this piece of the puzzle. Mrs Salee : Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation is a legacy corporation. It's one of the first or second IPAs in Australia. It was built 37 years ago by elders made up of 13 different clans—Rirratjingu, Gumatj, Wangurri, Manggalili, Madarrpa. It started in 1989, before it was incorporated in 1992. In 1989, the elders came together in face of Rio Tinto. They saw the destruction that was happening to country, so they built Dhimurru in hopes to protect and conserve country for future generations. So, 37 years on, we manage 550,000 hectares of land and sea. Our ranger organisation is only small in comparison, so one ranger manages roughly 42,000 to 47,000 hectares, which is 57 per cent of the urban setting of Singapore. We have an extensive job. We don't only protect country; we're also rangers as researchers. So we're working to become the scientists. It's not about bringing Western science in; it's about using Yolngu knowledge and learning the Western science for ourselves. Dhimurru has been quite successful in the last two years, seeing that 2030 is a time that people are unsure of—what that will look like. Ms PRICE: Uncertainty. Mrs Salee : Dhimurru has created, through the board and with the rangers, an initiative called Industry Meets Country, where we partner with industries to teach rangers how to build houses, how to become mechanics, how to fly drones and how to be prepared and workforce ready for what that looks like in 2030. Ms PRICE: So, if I understand correctly, your main activity is the ranger program—land and sea? By the way, you're not involved in the Australian Institute of Marine Science, are you? Are you involved in that research program? Mrs Salee : No, we're starting to work with them, doing BRUVs training. Ms PRICE: Oh, they did mention you yesterday. Congratulations. That's terrific. Mrs Salee : Thank you. Ms PRICE: So that's your main activity? I'm just trying to understand what you do. Mrs Salee : Our main activity is basically protecting country and managing it. So we look after land, sea and ferals—everything you can possibly think of—as well as biodiversity and biosecurity. It's really hard to articulate what we do because there is so much that we do. The basis of Dhimurru is keeping culture at the core of what we do, because we know 2030 is going to mean that, as you're all aware, we're going to have to step outside of what's comfortable for us, what's normal and what has been normal. So my grandfather—I call him grandfather—and I have worked really hard on using culture to strengthen the core of the rangers, understanding that country is important, even with economic development, and trying to help assist traditional owners to understand that land is not just commodity. Land is something that is a part of us. So, for every decision we make, there has to be a clear understanding of that decision. Ms PRICE: I really like hearing you talk about the upskilling of people that are on the ranger programs. I'm from Western Australia, and I represent the Pilbara and the Kimberley, so I've got lots of ranger programs and I was once an environment minister who increased the number of ranger programs. So I love them, but what I've been disappointed in with some programs is that people become rangers and are never extended beyond that. So what I heard from you is that it's more than just people on country maybe doing some small environmental project. You're using that as a springboard to upskill the people who are rangers, but they can do a lot more than just the environmental work. So how are you upskilling them? Are there programs online, or is there a vocational education provider locally that's supporting this? Mrs Salee : Yes— Mr Maymuru : Some of the ideas that we've been working on and managing—in the past, we used to wait for others to come and fix the road, do the road and clear the road. Now, these days, we are training our own rangers to do it because we want to be able to go to that place and see what's in that place. There are various medicines that our young generation are missing, like for snakebites or whatever. We can train them and get the elders' skills and train the young so they're able to use the two knowledge types—Western knowledge and Yolngu knowledge. Ms PRICE: It's a lot of on-the-job training and learning from one another. Mr Maymuru : Yes. Mrs Salee : We're actually doing accredited training as well. We have two young gentlemen who, if you have not seen it, have won the AAUS scholarships to do RePL and who have the opportunity to work with Defence. Their literacy and numeracy is at level 3. They can just barely spell their names. But, because of the way we have fostered gurrutu—which is kinship, culture and law within ourselves—and accountability, we have been able to help progress them to venture into this world of uncrewed systems. We have two younger rangers who are assigned to marine biology—a bachelor's degree in environmental science. Most of my rangers are looking to sign with JCU next year. We've been working with JCU to develop a way of being able to go on country, do our job and match the accredited skills that are out there. Instead of going into a classroom, we're using country as the basis of our classrooms. Instead of trying to fit ourselves into a system that doesn't work for us, we are now taking those systems and reshaping them to fit us. That's the kind of training we're doing. Mr Maymuru : We're using two skills. Mrs Salee : Yes. Mr Maymuru : We're using normal skills and the way they were taught by their grandmothers or great-great-grandmothers. That's how they know about the land and the Western world. If that person is suitable for that particular job, then we use them for that job. Ms PRICE: Thank you. Thanks for being here. CHAIR: Senator Allman-Payne. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: I have a question for both corporations. I'm interested to know what opportunities you see. The inquiry is about emerging industries. I'm interested to know what each of your corporations considers to be the emerging industries that need to come next here. What would you like to see? Is there a role for the federal government to help facilitate that? Mrs Salee : I think any industry that emerges here needs to be an industry that works with Yolgnu and Yolgnu culture. I think that industries that have been here in the past have not worked for Yolgnu people. The investment that came from that has not worked for people, community or country. Whatever comes next needs to be driven by Yolgnu. I've heard about education being an issue. I think if we hold ourselves back—my grandfather says it very clearly: Yolgnu people are the ones who should know how to close the gap, and we do know how to close the gap. The issue is that we don't have the platform or the opportunities. There's always a deficit. Looking at ourselves as Indigenous people, we're always at a deficit. But we've learned in the last two years, with Dhimurru now being 100 per cent Yolgnu owned and managed. I have the first ranger group that is fully Yolgnu from top to bottom. I now have the first Yolgnu miyalk grader operator, who's had the ability to go out on her own country and grade her own road for her family. Those things matter. So any industry that comes, regardless of what that industry is, has to be to the benefit of Yolgnu people and the people of north-east Arnhem Land. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: Do you have a view as to what those industries could or should be, or is that something that's still evolving? Mrs Salee : I think it's still something that's evolving. There's a lot of talk about aquaculture, agriculture and horticulture—a lot to do with country and a lot to do with the land. There's this idea that we have a lot of land here; we can utilise this land. But I think people forget that land is not just a space you build on. That land means something to somebody somewhere. Every day the rangers go out. Right now our rangers are out there. They slept roughly for the last seven days doing clean-ups and picked up about four tonnes of rubbish. People look at the beach and say, 'Wow, this is a nice photograph,' but no-one remembers who was there. But country remembers that those rangers turned up and that they looked after country. For those rangers, it would be upsetting to see a port being built, or an industry come that has no respect for that. And I'm sure it would be upsetting to a lot of other Yolgnu people as well. We don't know what it looks like. All we're doing in Dhimurru is building the capacity of our rangers to be more than rangers, because they are paramedics, they are Aboriginal health workers, they are mechanics and they are pilots. They are so much more than just a ranger, and all we're doing is thinking outside the box and pushing them to be more than a ranger. We've got two rangers who want to be Australian Border Force; that's their dream. So everything we're aiming for with them is training them to be prepared to put on that uniform and be Australian Border Force. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: Mr Hinton, did you have a comment to make in relation to that? Mr Hinton : I concur with all of that. I think that was a great statement. As you've probably been briefed before by Rio Tinto, the reparation works on the current mine site will be ongoing and enduring. The end of mining—as you said, moving goalposts, in 2029 or 2030 or whenever it might be—does not negate the requirements for Rio Tinto to put the land back to the way they found it. And there will be ongoing works there, reparation works, which should be, under the Gove agreement, prioritised to the Aboriginal corporations, which it has and hasn't been in the immediate past, which we work on in the procurement sense with Rio Tinto. But there's certainly a big mess to clean up, and I'd echo all your comments—that although the mining royalties have been a good thing for the region and the Aboriginal corporations, certainly the negative connotations and the cleanup should not be ignored, because there is still a long way to go. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: Can I get your understanding of how long you think that reparation work is going to last for? Mr Hinton : I couldn't say. Again, engineering is not my portfolio, but I believe it will be tens of years. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: I didn't get the sense from Rio that they thought it would be that long. Mr GOSLING: Does RAC have a future fund? Yes? That's good. Even though the situation is evolving, it would seem that probably one of the easier industries or sectors to get moving is cultural tourism. But is that too simplistic a view? The sea country and the land country is spectacular—amazing. Are there thoughts in the respective boards that if we build some ecolodges at this location they would be popular, and people would fly in and stay at them, and that would involve a sustainable job for individuals as well as for communities, or a homeland near that ecolodge, for example? Is that seen as a (1) realistic and (2) desirable thing to establish? Mrs Salee : I think for us tourism is probably going to be an opportunity for North East Arnhem Land to share culture and I guess to allow people to see the beauty of this side of the country. But, with that, what we're seeing in Dhimurru is that there are a lot of issues with that as well. A lot of people come here with no respect for country. We're constantly replacing signs. We're constantly replacing fences. Mr Maymuru : Also, we're talking to some of the local Aboriginal corporations so that we could have a meeting where all the clans get together and talk about the future. Sometimes it doesn't happen. It's really hard, but we are trying to put our voice out there for our elders to come to some of our meetings so we can have a discussion about what's going to happen about the hotels or whatever they're going to build and who's going to look after it in the future. Who's going to look after it? In all of my 36 years, I've watched it. It's never changed. I was working at Dhimurru for eight years; over those two years it's changed. I've seen young people changing. They were realising that, definitely, this thing was blocking—that barrier of talking to elders. We have to come together—from Gumatj, from Rirratjingu, from Mangalili—from all certain clans, those certain clans that stood for this land, for land rights. These days, we're trying to talk to them, to open the door and say, 'Come in; let's talk as one people, as Yolngu.' But nobody comes, and it's really hurtful, because I don't want to see that in the future for another 38 years of my life. It's got to change. It's got to change for us. Mrs Salee : I think what my grandfather is saying and what we've dealt with for the last two years is that we've seen since the announcement of Rio exiting there's been a lot of movement within the region. We've also expressed this to Rio Tinto in regard to, 'You're going to create a power vacuum.' A corporation like Dhimurru, being such a small corporation, whose main goal is land and sea protection, could be swallowed up with all these other ventures. Dhimurru might be small, but we're also a massive piece of that puzzle. We want to work with Rirratjingu, with Gumatj, with East Arnhem Council—with every single corporation within this region—because we're the experts of land and sea management. We've been doing it for 37 years. Dhimurru has always been Switzerland. That's one thing old man Marika said to me once: 'Dhimurru is Switzerland, and, Gutjan, if you're going to be the CEO here, you have to be both Yirritja and Dhuwa and represent all 13 clans, not just the one that you come from.' That was a great lesson for me, and that's what we have worked on for the last two years: representing all Yolngu and enabling the rangers to have a voice to the elders, too, of what they're seeing and how we can help. We're not against economic development. The board is not against that. We're not against traditional owners building enterprises or building business, just not at the stake of losing land and sea in the process. CHAIR: Mr Maymuru and Mrs Salee, we had the hearing this morning for Rio, and then we had Gumatj and Mr Hinton from Rirratjingu. What we got from Rio was that there's this committee—I don't know if they've established it—looking at the future of Nhulunbuy. But you can't just look at Nhulunbuy without looking at the whole region, because it's that region that's going to feed in here. I was just listening to what you were saying, Mr Maymuru, that there's all these discussions but no talking amongst Yolngu in terms of trying to put all the pieces together. That's not happening? Where does Northern Land Council sit in this, or is that the wrong question? Mr GOSLING: Are they members of the Gove Peninsula Futures Reference Group? CHAIR: They are. Mr GOSLING: They are. CHAIR: But are they coming back and talking to all the Yolngu? Mr Maymuru : At [inaudible] they are like shadows. I don't see them. They're here; they're—it's nothing. I'm being honest. From Dhimurru, we always say we want people to come and give them—if they want to talk about their views, Dhimurru is welcoming and open. With what happens on their land, we will help them, or, if they don't want us to manage that land, it's welcome. But often our elders from those certain clans don't come in. Sometimes they come, but sometimes they don't want to come. I don't know why. And then, when we talk to NLC—that's where nothing changes. I don't know, it's— Mrs Salee : I think NLC have their processes as well, how they engage with traditional owners, and everyone has a different way of engagement. I guess how we do it is we know that the government itself—federal government and both state governments—runs under the UNDRIP, so you're expected, under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to do free, prior and informed consent, and we ensure that, here at Dhimurru, we run by that. We ensure that there are several rounds—around and around—of consultations. One of the things we talk about in the ranges—we say, 'We're tired of being engaged; we want to be married.' We want to know what a true partnership looks like, and we want to be able to have a say in that partnership. Unfortunately, I think the one you're talking about, the leaders forum—Dhimurru is not invited to that, because that's not under the Gove agreement, which is Rio Tinto, Gumatj and Rirratjingu, all the landowners under that. But we're hoping that, at some stage, we will be invited to the table. Mari has gone out there and asked to have a Yolngu-Yolngu meeting so we can actually have a discussion as Yolngu people of what they see the future of Gove looking like. I think one thing we can say, from Dhimurru, is—we've discussed it many a time—whatever happens in the future, Dhimurru has to stay. That's one thing we do know, and we will work hard to ensure that happens. The second thing is that any industry that decides to come, any proponents that decide to bring any kind of industry here—Yolngu people may not have those academic qualifications, may not meet what you think the standard is to be a COO or to be a business manager or to be a facilitator, but, given the right tools and given the right opportunity, you'll be surprised how smart and articulate they are. And I think we're proud to be able to manage a corporation like Dhimurru—and just seeing that. To create change, you have to disrupt, and sometimes you have to disrupt the same systems and frameworks that are built by government. That's the only way we're going to close the gap, really—allowing the people that the gap is supposed to be closed for to have a seat at the table. Ms PRICE: But, actually, it's not just state and federal governments that have these structures that you've had to adhere to; organisations, within themselves—I know plenty of ranger programs who are quite happy for their rangers just to be out on country. They never want them to be anything else but rangers. So you, yourself, have disrupted, haven't you? Good for you. CHAIR: On that note—that's fantastic, thank you, Stephina. We need to bear that in mind too when we're talking and in any report that we put back for the government. We might follow up with all of the main players. We'll write to Rirratjingu; we've already said that we'll contact Gumatj. We'll also talk to the Northern Territory government and our own federal government to have a look at—this is an important town and it's an important region, and we need to make sure that, going forward, we do everything that we can to keep it viable. Thank you all for your evidence today. Thank you both so much for coming, and don't apologise for being late, and thank you, Mr Hinton. The committee has agreed that any responses to questions on notice—I'm not sure whether we took any questions on notice, but when the committee deliberates and has a look at the Hansard, if we need some follow-up, we'll get back to you. That should be within two weeks. You'll both receive a copy of the Hansard transcript. Thank you..