Nyirranggulung’s emergence has been a response to flaws in remote area local governance. One was a lack of vision on offer. Nyirranggulung is about giving people, especially children, a vision of a future equivalent to that of other Australian citizens.

To their cost small community governments, based on European models, barely drew upon a culture that had much to offer in terms of leadership and credibility. Also to their cost, community governments were dots on a map that related economically and politically more to the outside world than to their regions. Nyirranggulung is now a regional organisation that is harder to ignore but easier to negotiate with.

However Nyirranggulung is too small to do many of the big things. The way around this is through regional partnerships.

Whilst it is still early days, Nyirranggulung will draw upon a traditional system of governance that has well served the region for thousands of years. One of the hard jobs for people will be to work out how to marry those traditional systems with contemporary governance so they work as one.

Nyirranggulung has its recent origins in the rise to prominence of the Jawoyn Association. Whilst Jawoyn was moving ahead, communities in the region were not. To many the solution lay in a truly regional government.

A defining regional characteristic until relatively recently was respect for culture and law. Strengthening culture is a Nyirranggulung priority. With cultural renewal comes a reasonable chance for socio-economic advancement. It’s as simple as that.

There have been some hard lessons learned and some great gains. What has happened so far has been a reasonable start, but there is much to do – the key is in winning the hearts and minds of the countrymen.