Australia's last vote was all about Indigenous people - now they say it's 'silence'

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton have had little to say on First Nations issues.

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Posters for candidates, inescapable in other parts of Australia, are conspicuously absent as you drive past fields of sugar cane and down a gently winding coastal road.

After entering this small Indigenous community near Cairns in far north Queensland, with fishing nets sitting on palm-lined shores, the only thing fighting for attention is a truck selling ice cream – urgently dinging a bell as it avoids the wild horses and dogs that wander the streets.

"It's weird," says Suzanne Andrews, chief executive of the town's Gurriny Yealamucka Health Services. "We don't see any placards. No-one's visiting us."

Watching the leaders of Australia's two major parties debate each other on television, the Jaru Bunuba Bardi woman was dismayed that "they didn't talk about any Aboriginal issues or concerns".