Welcome
Gulf Regional Economic Aboriginal Trust (GREAT) is one of Australia’s largest Aboriginal based social enterprises.
GREAT’s mission is to create an enterprise culture that fosters economic empowerment.
They know most of the issues in the communities are a consequence of poor economic conditions and a lack of independence. Through more than 30 years experience, they’ve seen firsthand that economic development brings life changing results at all levels – including health, education, jobs and housing. They are also embarking on out of the box thinking, pushing boundaries and raising awareness of societal and systematic issues to break through generational cycles (details on social media pages).
GREAT is currently involved in supermarkets, roadhouses, tourist attractions and art galleries. They own the Doomadgee Roadhouse which is for a community of 1,500 people providing them with groceries and fuel, they are in partnership with another community social enterprise BYNOE and collectively own Normanton Foodworks - the largest supermarket in the lower Gulf, and have also funded approximately 50 private businesses with Indigenous people from the Gulf from earth moving, water trucks, concreting, car hire and labour hire and etc.
In addition - their main purpose is to establish an enterprise culture. They have been achieving that by providing a complete loan service including business mentoring, advice, loans and coordination. The board of GREAT and Aboriginal Development Benefit Trust (ADBT) believe without a happy community and young people, they are unlikely to grow many entrepreneurs, so they provide a range of grants for youth sport, leadership and education
Economic Development
Download our Economic Development documents:
- Economic Development - a panacea- 726 KB PDF file
The real (UNAPOLOGETIC) solution for Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal communities - Economic Development in Action- 1531 KB PDF file
GREAT walk their talk with $30m (self-funded) in assets and no debt.
