There are calls for Indigenous voters to embrace their voting power in key electorates. Research shows there are as many as 15 marginal seats around the country that could be decided by First Nations Voters, on numbers alone. James Vyver visited one of these seats, Gilmore, to see how Indigenous voters were feeling ahead of Saturday’s poll.
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00:00It's beautiful, isn't it? Knowing that we're doing our bit to keep it the way it is.
00:10A patch of healthy gums, deep in Yuin country among thousands burns during the black summer.
00:17What's this one?
00:19Traditional methods to protect this country controlled cool burns by indigenous rangers, funded by the Albanese governments.
00:27I'm not always sure that the LNP are going to continue that funding or they may even cut the funding.
00:36This quiet patch of Walbanya woman Ros Carridge's country sits on a noisy political battleground.
00:42The hyper marginal electorate of Gilmore.
00:46I don't trust Dutton because he never comes across as genuine to me.
00:51The scare campaign that they put out with the referendum disgusted me.
00:56Like this stand of unburned gums, Gilmore's First Nations voters are a minority, but wield more power than people might expect.
01:05If in some areas you could bring and organise an indigenous vote together as a block, they could wield extraordinary political influence.
01:15Academic and Yualei man Bayami Williamson has analysed marginal electorates like Gilmore to see where First Nations voters could have the power in numbers.
01:26Indigenous voters actually, in a number of areas, up to 15 seats around Australia, make up a greater proportion than the swinging margin in those electorates.
01:37ABC analysis estimates all states and territories except the ACT have an electorate where the number of indigenous voters is larger than the winning vote margin at the last election.
01:48It's an opportunity for Aboriginal communities to organise locally, to identify what their priorities are and to put them forward and to really have a say in who is their local member.
02:01Labour holds Gilmore by just 373 votes, yet there's an estimated 5,000 First Nations voters.
02:08But gaining indigenous votes is more than a numbers game.
02:12Currently, One Nation is the party that I'm a member of.
02:15Well, they're in the car. Let's go.
02:17One Garmin man, Trent Thompson, has a full household and is a full-time law student on App Study Allowance.
02:23Cost of living? Absolutely. It is crippling.
02:27But Trent says it's on values, not hip pocket, that he plans to vote Liberal.
02:31Peter Dutton. I trust him much, much more.
02:35I'm disgusted into what this country has become and the politics that are running it.
02:39Trent and Ros may have different politics, but both want to be heard by politicians.
02:45Do you feel listened to?
02:48On Indigenous matters? God, no.
02:50We want to see action. We want to make them accountable.
02:53We need to see it with our own eyes, not just hear it.
02:58A mathematical advantage, if not yet a political consensus.
03:04So you can make this place.
03:08No, I am sorry.