The Albanese Government has failed to deliver funding for a range of urgent justice, healing and community safety priorities for First Peoples in the federal budget, despite repeated calls from Senator Lidia Thorpe and the broader community.

Senator Thorpe welcomed the government’s decision to exempt Stolen Generations redress payments from aged care means testing, which she has repeatedly pushed for. 

However, she said the budget ignored critical investments needed to reduce child removals, address deaths in custody and stamp out racism.

Senator Thorpe had called for funding to support implementation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommendations, therapeutic bail support, culturally safe family reunification and wrap-around services, increased remote area allowance payments, support for the First Nations psychology workforce, funding to stop racism, and implementation of the national PFAS inquiry recommendations.

None of these measures received funding in this budget.

Quotes attributable to Lidia Thorpe, Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung independent Victorian Senator:

"This budget was another missed opportunity to invest in the solutions our communities have been calling for for decades. 

It shows that the Albanese Labor government has lost interest in justice for First Peoples.

The government failed to properly invest in healing and self-determined solutions led by our people, or measures to prevent our people being criminalised and harmed.

I welcome the government finally acting to exempt Stolen Generations redress payments from residential aged care means testing. Our Elders should never have been forced to use compensation for the harm done to them to pay for basic care.

But beyond that, this budget ignores the urgent crises facing our communities.

We needed investment in therapeutic bail support to stop more of our people dying in custody, and more of our children being locked up.

We needed more funding for culturally safe wrap-around services that keep children with family and prevent child removals.

We needed proper resourcing for independent monitoring of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommendations, more support for First Nations mental health workers and psychologists, and more secure funding for community-led healing and violence prevention programs that are already changing lives.

We needed funding for the implementation of the National Anti-Racism Framework, or at least funding to address racism in all its forms. 

We saw over $600m to take on anti-semitism, but nothing for racism against other peoples.

The government talks constantly about Closing the Gap, but you cannot close the gap while underfunding the services and solutions that our communities know work.

Our services and organisations have to fight for funding year by year and it takes away from their ability to do vital work on the ground. It is time the government provides long-term funding security.

This budget also continues Labor's record of underfunding of the legal assistance sector, with literally no additional support for struggling services, which are being forced to turn away those in need. 

This goes against the recommendations of their own independent review into legal assistance, which called for far more funding for the sector.

Remote communities are being smashed by rising living costs while the Remote Area Allowance remains stuck at rates set more than 25 years ago. That is unacceptable.

The billions cut from the NDIS is heartbreaking and will have life-changing consequences for many of the most vulnerable in society.

If the government stopped the ever increasing flow of funding to Defence, it could easily afford these important services, and so much more.

This budget could have delivered meaningful justice and real change for our people.

Instead, too many critical opportunities were ignored."