ABSTRACT
In 2007 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted an over-arching reform agenda to address Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. Several key areas are targeted: Life expectancy, mortality rate of children under five, literacy, numeracy, Year 12 attainment rates and employment outcomes (Altman 2009). In 2008, the National Apology speech to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ‘Stolen Generations’, the then Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, outlined in broad terms a commitment to concrete targets to ‘Close the Gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous disadvantage in Australia (Green 2009; Warchivker 2009). In 2009, a group of people met under a shady tree to discuss the actions required to re-establish a productive food system, the Yarrabah Kinship Gardens project at Yarrabah, Australia’s largest Indigenous community near Cairns, in Far North Queensland.
