We Know What It Takes

The following speech was delivered by Cape York Partnership Executive Co-Chair Fiona Jose at Garma Festival 2026

We know what it takes. Our plan comes from thirty years of practical reform in Cape York.

Our purpose has been simple: that our children in Cape York can look to the future with the same confidence as other Australian children. To do that, we had to break with the old orthodoxies of both left and right.

We have a Theory of Change.

At the heart is a simple formula.

Responsibility + Opportunity = Capability.

We reclaim responsibility from the right, not as blame, but as the source of empowerment. And we reclaim opportunity from the left, not as sentiment, but as structured support to match responsibilities.

On the progressive side, there is the belief that disadvantage can be managed through endless programs and goodwill – that compassion and spending alone can yield justice.

But our lived evidence shows otherwise: compassion without reform only brought disempowerment and dependency.

On the conservative side, there is a belief that if individuals simply tried harder, they would succeed. Too often, this means policies that preach responsibility but withhold opportunity: a morality that demands people stand on their own feet while pulling the ground from under them.

This has not been an easy road. Our progressive allies have been allergic to our agenda. We declined the path of least resistance.

Both are wrong.
Our experience tells us:

• Responsibility without opportunity is despair.
• Opportunity without responsibility is passivity.

Only together do they build capability.
And only capability gives people real choice – to choose lives they have reason to value.
This is the radical centre of reform in Cape York.

We know if we can get kids through Year 12, their lives are transformed.

We know if we get someone in a job, everything changes.

But in Cape York we need change so when individuals are stepping up and taking responsibility, that responsibility is met with opportunity.

For all those trapped at the bottom – there is too much missing opportunity.

They are Australia’s Bottom Million, half are First Nations.

We want an Education Guarantee.

Primary schools that don’t produce foundational literacy and numeracy – that is not an education – it is time served in a failing system.

We need a good school program for our kids in every Cape York primary school.

A good school program can guarantee that kids who attend will learn.

Get this - if Cape York kids stay and attend high school in Cape York, only one in 100 of those children finish Year 12.

That puts that child on a path of disengagement, entering the justice system, and that just cannot be tolerated.

We’ve seen what does work. 94 per cent of our Cape York Leaders Program students complete Year 12 through the opportunity to attend good boarding schools outside Cape York.

As Year 12 completion rises, so does tertiary participation, employment and income. Cape York Leaders Program graduates are approaching parity with mainstream Australia.

But Cape York needs solutions that work at scale. Each year, only 15 new high-schoolers have the opportunity of our program. We need a 50 per cent increase in secondary scholarship pathways.

More than 700 secondary-aged young Cape Yorkers are currently without access to any secondary educational opportunity capable of Closing the Gap.

We need an Education Guarantee.

Our people want to earn income.

So, we want a Job Guarantee.

We’ve got to stop training people for jobs that do not exist. Adults willing to work must be guaranteed a job.

We know there is much work to be done in our communities and meaningful jobs can be created through the reinvestment of money spent on dead-end employment services.

We want responsibility to be met with opportunity for our kids across the six life stage capabilities - from conception to age 21.

1. Healthy, happy brains – good prenatal care, nutrition, and loving parenting from conception.
2. Early childhood foundations – quality early learning that builds pre-literacy and pre-numeracy.
3. Primary learning success – every child is literate and numerate by the end of Year 6.
4. Year 12 completion – the essential gateway to further study, training and employment.
5. Further learning and earning – clear pathways into employment, apprenticeships or tertiary education.
6. Home ownership − help young adults into work and disciplined savings so they can buy a home and build intergenerational assets.

 

When these stages are linked and supported, capabilities compound − and a new generation rises.

We get this right, and we close the gap for a generation. That’s a single generation - 21 years.

We get this right for our kids, and capability will accumulate for the next generation too, instead of disadvantage compounding.

We can close the gap by 2050.

We need legislation to set in place the framework for action over 21 years.

In Cape York we call it the Personal Responsibility and Opportunity Act.

This will be Australia’s version of the G.I. Bill, which guaranteed opportunity at scale in the U-S to millions of service personnel after the Second World War.

Education, housing and other opportunities were not merely promised. They were delivered under this legislation, building the middle class for a generation.

The Personal Responsibility and Opportunity Act would do something Australia has never done before. It would make opportunity – not welfare – a legal guarantee.