Abbott makes good on indigenous promise

If the remote communities of Arnhem Land are good enough for indigenous Australians, they're good enough for the prime minister.

It was a message delivered a year ago by Tony Abbott as he campaigned for government, and the one he's likely to peddle when he makes good on a promise to spend time in the Top End.

His government will effectively shift time zones next week as the prime minister, together with ministers and parliamentary secretaries, runs the country from Nhulunbuy.

From Sunday ministers will participate in activities related to their portfolio, including school visits, defence demonstrations, conservation work and mining.

"After 226 years of intermittent interest at most, why shouldn't Aboriginal people finally have the prime minister's undivided attention for seven days?" Mr Abbott told parliament earlier this year.

It won't quite be a whole week, with a ceremony to farewell the prime minister on the sixth day.

That gives him three days to prepare for his appearance at the United Nations in New York and a likely meeting with US President Barak Obama to discuss the crisis in Syria and Iraq.

Mr Abbott will spend time with the Yolngu people in communities surrounding Nhulunbuy, also known as Gove, to showcase their achievements.

The area is recovering from the shock of losing its alumina refinery and with it 1000 jobs - a quarter of the town's population.

Top of the prime minister's agenda is truancy and he will spend a morning with school attendance officers, herding kids into classrooms.

The government is providing additional funding for truancy officers after trumpeting its success at getting kids to school.

The trip comes amid reports a referendum on the constitutional recognition of indigenous people will be put off until 2017 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the highly successful 1967 "Aboriginal" referendum.

Mr Abbott is no stranger to remote indigenous communities, having visited several during his time as a backbencher and minister in the Howard government.

In 2008 he spent three weeks as a teacher's aide in Coen and the year after spent 10 days as a truancy helper in Aurukun.

If Mr Abbott is true to his word, this latest trip won't be the last.

"As long as I am in public life, I will continue to spend a week a year in a remote indigenous community as I've done over the past decade," he pledged in 2013.