As the federal election campaign wraps up another week, both major parties are driving with their L's in sight: Leichhardt and Lingiari.
The two electorates have large First Nations populations: 15 per cent for Far North Queensland's Leichhardt, and 40 per cent for Lingiari in the Northern Territory.
The similarities don't stop there. Both have been held for decades on slim margins by long-serving Warrens: Labor's Warren Snowdon in the NT (held by 5.5 per cent) and the Liberals' Warren Entsch in Lingiari (4.2 percent).
With Snowdon retiring, the Liberals smell blood in the water, while Pauline Hanson's announcement she would direct preferences to Labor in Leichhardt has put the marginal seat within their grasp.
'Never seen this'
In that spirit, the NT was swimming this week: in promised cash, from both sides of politics.
Shoppers in the Red Centre had a shock as, in a rare match-up in schedules, the circus of both parties' campaigns descended on Mparntwe, media scrum in tow.
They might also have been shocked at the sums being bandied about: Labor has promised $111 million for new health workers, $100 million for homeland community housing, and millions more for water quality, dialysis and rheumatic heart conditions.
The Liberals had their own sweeteners too - $14 million to confront rising rates of youth crime and $3.4 million for mental health.
Labor candidate for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour is hoping to replace long-serving member Warren Snowdon. Source: AAP
Donna Ah Chee, CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, says it’s unprecedented.
“I've never seen this kind of investment... leading up into an election,” Ms Ah Chee told NITV News.
“It’s welcomed, but it's been a neglect on both sides of the political sphere, where we're now seeing that you need to invest a lot more than is currently being invested in housing.”
Marion Scrymgour is Labor's hopeful replacement for the retiring Snowdon, while Damian Ryan, representing the Country Liberal Party, says he's been campaigning in the area since last September.
CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, Donna Ah Chee, says the promised moneys are welcome, but late. Source: Supplied
'Elder Morrison'?
The prime minister was out and about in Alice with senate hopeful Jacinta Price on Sunday.
They copped an earful from protestors angry about the prospect of fracking in the Beetaloo Basin, and while Morrison was happy to brush it off, Warlpiri woman Price took objection to the protestors.
The candidate complained that the protestors were not locals, saying they had “no right to carry on like this”.
“This is out and out disrespect for an Elder of our country, our prime minister,” she said.
Prickly subject: Jacinta Price, Scott Morrison and Damian Ryan inspect a local in Alice Springs. Source: AAP
Inflation hits remote communities hardest
The government had a nasty shock this week, with the official inflation figure pegged at 5.1 per cent.
It's the biggest jump in more than 20 years, and with costs increasing and wages stagnant, the prime minister acknowledged that First Nations people in remote and regional Australia are bearing the brunt.
“[The costs] are greater... because of the remoteness and the costs of getting stores and supplies to those areas,” Mr Morrison told NITV News in Cairns on Wednesday.
He said the government has tried to address these throughout the pandemic and payments to those on income support promised in the federal budget are starting to hit bank accounts.
“Those $250 payments that are going out right now, they're going to people in Indigenous communities, they're going to veterans, they're going to people who need that support right now to deal with those rising prices.”
