The overarching purpose is to re-establish Me-Mel as a place to strengthen and celebrate Aboriginal culture for the health, well-being and benefit of all Australians.
- Health and wellbeing: Aboriginal ownership and management of Me-Mel will be on the basis of self-determination with a focus on the health and wellbeing of the Aboriginal community, the wider Australian population and the environment of the island itself.
- Recognition, respect and acceptance: Me-Mel will be a meaningful, tangible symbol recognising and respecting Aboriginal culture, history and custodianship in a nationally important and accessible location.
- A place of connection and meaning: Me-Mel will enable the Aboriginal community to celebrate and connect to their culture and history in a place of great significance and authenticity.
- A place and a history for everyone to share: Me-Mel will be a place for all people to come, learn and directly experience Aboriginal culture and history through sustainable, high-quality experiences so that visitors can understand how Aboriginal history blends into colonial and maritime history as a continual story of Sydney, New South Wales and Australia.
- Knowledge sharing: Me-Mel will enable the establishment of education and training on the island to generate skills and employment for the benefit of people from both the Aboriginal and wider community.
- Sustainability: Me-Mel's natural and built environment will be improved, adapted and maintained to enable sustainable commercial and non-commercial activity, including tourism, events, ceremonies and training and education so that it becomes a key part of the New South Wales and Sydney visitor economy, attracting domestic and global visitors.
- Aboriginal leadership, self-determination and partnership: Achieving an internationally significant place of Aboriginal culture, colonial and maritime history will require strong and effective Aboriginal leadership, engaging stakeholders in the Aboriginal and wider community and working in partnership with government and the private sector to achieve deep and enduring support for the future of Me-Mel.
- Preservation of culture, and ongoing learnings and teachings of culture