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

Simon Atkinson
BBC News, Yarrabah, Far North Queensland
Getty Images A person in a purple cape and a cap carries a large Aboriginal Australian flag while walking down a streetGetty Images
Indigenous Australians are by most socio-economic measures the most disadvantaged people in the country

On the journey into Yarrabah, there is nothing to suggest a national election is just days away.

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".

"So," she asks "what the hell's going on":[]}