Aboriginal engagement and outcomes
Partnering with Aboriginal communities to shape culturally grounded disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) has a dedicated focus on Aboriginal engagement, ensuring Aboriginal business and community organisations are actively engaged for their wisdom and cultural knowledge through recovery, supporting community preparedness, adaptation and mitigating the impact of disasters.
Our focus on delivering outcomes for First Nations communities, includes:
- listening and responding to community cultural values in the way we engage with local Aboriginal communities
- the protection of cultural heritage while delivering recovery programs and developing more resilient infrastructure
- Indigenous skills development and supporting Aboriginal businesses across the supply chain.
Northern Rivers Connecting with Country Framework
The Northern Rivers Connecting with Country Framework (the Framework) has been developed to provide a way for RA to integrate First Nations knowledge into our ways of working.
Led by Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation, supported by the RA Aboriginal Outcomes team, the Framework was codesigned with communities across Bundjalung, Yaegl, Githabul and northern Gumbaynggirr Country, through yarning sessions, conversations and written feedback between October 2024 and May 2025.
Organisational commitment
The NSW Reconstruction Authority will strive to embed a Country-centred approach guided by First Nations people, who know that if we care for Country, Country will care for us.
What will the Framework do?
The Framework will assist RA’s work in disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction, to be guided by the knowledge and priorities of local First Nations communities.
It will support RA staff to work respectfully and meaningfully with First Nations peoples living in the Northern Rivers. It provides practical tools, cultural protocols and six indicators of success that shape how RA designs and delivers programs in the region.
Critical to success will be the adoption of a relational, two-way approach to working with community, encouraging teams to ask open questions and listen deeply rather than present predefined solutions.
What does it mean for community?
For community, this means RA will listen and ensure local voices influence decisions about disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction. It captures local priorities, cultural protocols and ways of working that respect Country and strengthen relationships.
- RA will take a Country centred approach, guided by the people who hold knowledge within the Northern Rivers of NSW.
- RA staff will be supported with training and tools to work respectfully and follow local cultural protocols.
- Use of the Yarning Guide embedded within the Framework will become a central part of how RA designs projects, engages on recovery work and develops solutions.
- Community voices will shape the decisions that affect Country and inform future events through preparedness and response.
What does it mean for RA?
For RA, the Framework sets clear expectations for cultural capability building, including structured training, use of the Yarning Guide, and integrating the Northern Rivers Connecting with Country principles into planning, engagement and decision-making. It shifts the organisation toward a more relational, culturally informed way of working.
Unique across government, this Framework will first be adopted in the Northern Rivers before informing place-based frameworks in other areas of NSW.
How will the Framework be adopted?
RA will implement the Framework across our business through a series of information sessions led by First Nations keepers of knowledge, and we will embed practices through divisional and organisation wide business planning.
The Framework includes 6 indicators of success; each indicator includes a series of actions to guide staff to incorporate the indicator in their work planning.
A key element is the Yarning Guide that includes questions for each action that will support RA teams to have meaningful conversations about projects and services. The guide will assist RA staff to shape programs and services with communities allowing responses to be jointly shaped by cultural and project decision makers.
We will continue to develop relationships with people from First Nations communities and organisations through regular forums, using the actions and questions to develop a shared understanding on a project-by-project basis.
How will success be measured?
RA will publicly track progress and ensure accountability for continued implementation through our Annual Report. The Framework will be updated bi-annually to meet shifting priorities of communities.
The Northern Rivers Connecting with Country Framework is a unique document across government, based on the work of the NSW Government Architects’ Connecting with Country Framework (June 2023).