Governance

APN Cape York is a not-for-profit company and a registered charity. Formally, it is a company limited by guarantee. All of its members are Wik people. All of its directors are Wik people.

The obligation of the company to serve the interests of the people of the Southern Wik Homelands is at the core of its existence.

To achieve a high standard of corporate governance in the light of its core obligation, APN faces considerable challenges in that the people of the Southern Wik Homelands:

• Speak Wik Mungkan or another language as their primary language
• Lack English literacy and numeracy skills
• Are aligned along clan and family lines with sometimes competing interests
• Live away from their country separated by a considerable body of water in the Archer River
• Suffer poor conditions in Aurukun with respect to housing, employment, alcohol and gambling addiction and almost non-existent employment

The history of the Aurukun area discloses few if any past endeavours to urge local people to cooperatively form a company or to engage in private enterprise at any level. It is startling to think that currency was not introduced into Aurukun until the 1960’s.

In order to confront these challenges, the Constitution of APN Cape York was altered in 2015.