Annette Steele, CEO Orange Local Aboriginal Lands Council

When Annette Steele took the reins of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council ten years ago, she had a trainee staff member and a budget of $140,000. Today the organisation employs more than 40 people, runs multiple community programs and handles a budget of more than $3 million a year.

The Orange Aboriginal Land Council covers an area stretching towards Bathurst, past Trunkey Creek, towards Canowindra and the other side of Molong.

“It's big!” said Annette. “We take in Orange, Cabonne, Blayney Council, Some of Goulburn and a little bit of Mid-Western, so there are a few local government areas we cover.”

The primary role of the Land Council is the management of dozens of properties across the region, including residential properties, as well as handling new claims for available Crown Land, which they then manage for their members and the community.

 “In a nutshell, our role it is to acquire land that was dispossessed through colonisation and have land returned back to the communities,” said Annette.

“The Land is community-owned through the members and then we have to manage and look after it … manage it for weeds and fences and pest control and things.”

But more than that, Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council has expanded to manage a range of community projects such as disability and homelessness services, employment training, early childhood education and land care, regeneration and revegetation projects.

“We're funded [through the NSW Aboriginal Land Council] but that's a limited amount, so anything you want to do you have to generate your own income, so you have to go and create business opportunities,” said Annette

“To keep up with the needs of the community you have to think differently, you always have to be evolving and, I guess for us, whilst we are managing our land and that is our core business, it is not going to create employment or economic viability, so we had to go and look at what other things we could do that will affect a change within our community.”

The Orange Local Aboriginal Lands Council run a homelessness and housing program for Bathurst and Oberon, as well as the Bathurst Women and Children's refuge. And in partnership with the Deniliquin and Broken Hill Land Council, they oversee the Ability Links New South Wales program for the west of the state.

“So we run a team of staff who support people who have a disability,” said Annette. “Supporting them to live the way they want to live… so we’ve had that for about five or six years and it's a program that's really working.”

Then there are the five local playgroups a week they run in Orange, as well as the Designing Futures program, which works with young people to keep them engaged in school and helps them make plans for their future employment.

“We also have a natural resource program; it is a regeneration, revegetation program,” said Annette.

“We have a team that do some work with Cadia to do some of their regen and revegetation work, we do seed collection, repatriation work and work very closely with Local Land Service and Orange City Council. There are some really good partnerships and connections that we've built up over the last five to seven years, which is a win-win for everybody.”

And an exciting new project in the works is plans for a new motel on Forest Road, which would generate employment and income for the Land Council.

“We need to maximise the land that we've got to get some economic value back into the community and so that what we've been working on for the last five or six year; to have a motel built on that site, so use the land for the benefit of everybody and not just the Aboriginal community, but all the community,” said Annette.

“We are always looking at better ways to do things, you have to be innovative and look at how to get the best outcome for a small amount of money.”

With all this on her plate, it is no surprise that Annette’s days are full

“You could have the best plan of a morning, have things booked in and you want to get stuff done, but it changes every day,” she said.

“You could be dealing with negotiations with a land agreement and a phone call comes in and things happen, and you've just got to deal with them as best you can. It is not like I've got a whole team of senior managers that can do all that because if you are getting funded dollars… we prefer to put the money into projects, so I only have a small team and we manage everything.

“My day could be anything from meetings all day, to writing reports or just having a cuppa with some of the elders that come in for a chat. So, it is quite diverse, you are not sitting in front of a desk all day and it is quite lovely actually. I really enjoy my job.”