The Department responsible for funding Indigenous affairs spent almost a million dollars on grants and attendance at the Garma and Barunga festivals last year.
Garma, which marked its 25th year in 2025, is held on Yolngu Country and run by the Yothu Yindi Foundation. In recent years, the event has attracted senior political figures, including the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who used the festival in 2022 to announce the government's support for the ultimately unsuccessful Voice referendum.
Questions on notice during a Senate Estimates hearing on Monday revealed that 52 Australian Public Service (APS) staff attended Garma in 2025 as part of the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) Garma delegation program.
A total of $312,108 was spent on tickets for staff, including corporate passes valued at $6,120 each.
Asked about additional costs beyond those listed in the questions on notice, new NIAA chief executive officer Julie-Ann Guivarra told Opposition spokesperson for Indigenous Australians, Senator Kerrynne Liddle, that the department also provided grants of $484,000 for the Garma festival and $250,000 for the Barunga festival.
"So that's almost $1 million in Commonwealth funding towards Garma in 2025?" Senator Liddle asked.
Ms Guivarra replied "yes", explaining the festival allowed the NIAA to use its leadership role across the public service.
"It is an opportunity for them [APS] to really think about their contributions to transformation of Government, which is a key issue under priority reforms three [of Closing the Gap]," she said
Asked what return the APS gained from attending, Ms Guivarra said exposure to First Nations communities helped public servants to "think about what it is that they can contribute, specifically for the Closing the Gap agenda", when they returned to Canberra, where most are based.
Responding to the Senate revelations, independent Senator Lidia Thorpe said public servants were going on a "junket" while "our people are starved for resources to self-determine our own solutions to look after our people and land".
The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman argued that the government needs to "stop spending money on itself and spend money on those who need it most".
"That money can be better spent in addressing the inequality that we all know exists in Aboriginal communities across the country," she said.
"Is it not enough that we're in a cost of living crisis and people go homeless and hungry?"
Separate questions on notice show the NIAA spent $7.6 million on travel in 2024-25, below its $8.4 million budget and down from $8.3 million in 2023-24. The agency's travel budget for 2025-26 is $8 million.
There is no dedicated allocation for travel to remote communities.
When asked how many visits were made to remote areas in the past year, the NIAA said that because it "engages with remote communities regularly as a core function of its work", it could not provide an exact figure.
Doing so would "involve an unreasonable diversion of resources due to the volume of data," they added.
In response to questions from National Indigenous Times, an NIAA spokesperson said officials' attendance at Garma cost $151,417 in 2024 and $191,738 in 2025. They noted that while staff numbers did not increase last year — and are not expected to rise in 2026 — ticket prices and travel costs were higher.
Of the $343,401 in costs incurred by the NIAA in 2025, the spokesperson said $151,663 was reimbursed by other departments and agencies with staff attending Garma.
"Under a three-year agreement, the NIAA provides the Yothu Yindi Foundation (YYF) funding to support delivery of the Garma Festival," the spokesperson said.
"Participation at Garma supports activities in the NIAA Corporate Plan, including Closing the Gap Priority Reform 3 and economic development work. In both 2024 and 2025, attendance enabled community engagement, APS cultural capability activities and policy development work aligned with relevant performance measures."
Additional reporting by David Prestipino.
