Indigenous affairs minister made the announcement with just two months before the previous funding was due to expire

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion has made a long-awaited announcement of funding for Indigenous rangers, a week before the federal budget is handed down, and less than two months before the program’s previous funding was due to expire.

The minister said the $250m would support 118 ranger groups until June 2021.

The details of the funding were not released, and it’s understood ranger groups have not been given official notice or new contracts yet, but Scullion said the funds brought federal government commitments in the eight years to 2021 to more than $640m.

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“The Coalition government continues to deliver unprecedented support for Indigenous rangers, delivering record funding to ensure more rangers than ever before are looking after country,” Scullion said.

“The work that continues to be done by rangers around Australia to protect our amazing land and sea country is incredible, and provides real skills and employment opportunities in rural and remote areas – but this work would not be possible without the Coalition government’s commitment to the program.”

The funding announcement made on Friday builds on a previous commitment by Scullion to extend funding to 2020. That commitment was made verbally at a joint land council meeting in Kalkarindji, and never formalised beyond letters sent to some groups.

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Current federal funding for Indigenous rangers was due to expire in June this year. A concerted campaign has been running for several years calling for a long-term commitment and increase in funding, but Scullion consistently declined to commit further. On Friday he accused Labor and “foreign-funded Green groups” of seeking to stoke uncertainty about the program’s future.

The federal Working On Country program, which was established in 2007 by the Howard government, employs more than 2,000 people to work on their traditional lands, rehabilitating and managing the environment – both land and sea.

Land cared for by rangers under Working on Country program includes 60% of Indigenous Protected Areas, which comprise about 43% of the national reserve system.

In 2017 IPAs were given a five-year extension of funding to 2023-24, beyond the commitment to ranger groups which work on them.

Shaun Ansell, the chief executive of Warddeken Land Management, which employs 130 casual rangers to manage the Warddeken IPA in the Northern Territory, welcomed the ongoing government support and the three years of funding, which was a “positive development”.

“While that’s the shortest extension in the history of the project it is encouraging,” Ansell told Guardian Australia.

“However we’ve been hearing these promises for a while and we’d like to see the contracts because we can’t pay people in promises.”

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While Warddeken has received written assurances from the government of the 2020 funding, it has not seen a contract or a letter of offer, and funding for some of its rangers expired in June, Ansell said.

“We need the certainty. We’ve got no detail, but we’ve been told don’t worry about it, she’ll be right.”

Patrick O’Leary, from the Pew Charitable Trusts which partners with dozens of ranger groups as part of the Country Needs People campaign, said Indigenous partners were getting anxious about the delivery of Scullion’s 2016 promise in the lead up to the July deadline.

“The statement today indicated an additional year of funding out to 2021 which is really positive,” O’Leary said.

“You can only get environmental outcomes and social outcomes with longer term funding so that’s a good move by the minister. These rangers are working across huge areas of land and sea of global biodiversity and cultural importance.”



O’Leary said the funding was a “welcome, practical step that will see real environmental, cultural and job outcomes for Australia”, and a positive move towards returning to five-year funding cycles.