The diversity and reality of Aboriginal Australia. Left to right: Karen Oughtred, John Olsen, Anita Heiss, David Bosun and Roberto Borrero.

Coordinated by Michelle Z. Wood, Director of Media and Public Affairs Australian Mission to the United Nations, the week was launched at UN Headquarters on July 7th with the exhibition Gelam Nuguzu Kazi – Dugong my Son by Torres Strait Islander artist David Bosun. Australian Ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill gave a warm welcome to the crowd of around 200 who comprised UN and Consulate staff, Ambassadors from a number of countries, and ex-pat Aussies from across the city. The highlight introduction for me on the night was meeting Dr Donatus St. Aimee, the Ambassador of St Lucia. I’d never met a St. anyone before.

Those who had never seen work from the Torres Strait before swamped David and I’m told there were many offers to buy his artwork, which will continue to adorn the UN headquarters until August. The buzz on opening night was electric, and I was excited about catching up with friends like Sonia Smallacombe who works at the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN, and who’s daughter Penny was flying in as part of the program. Penny produced One River, All Rivers (Directed by Tom E. Lewis) and Yolgnu Guya Djamamirr (Directed by Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy) and both were screened with Ten Canoes.

My ‘working’ time was speaking on a panel discussing the ‘Diversity and reality of Aboriginal Australia’. The evening at the Australian Consulate was opened by the Hon. John Olsen the Australian Consul-General in New York, and chaired by Roberto Borrero the President and Chairman of the U.S. Regional Coordinating Office of the United Confederation of Taíno People. I tried to make the point through my paper that as Aboriginal writers we are part of the same national Indigenous community, therefore the themes of our writing are often common - i.e. we are largely rewriting the history books that conveniently left out the facts around invasion, and the consequences of colonisation. And our writings often reflect the frequently similar politicised nature of our lives, and our works focus on the ways our identities are constantly being reshaped and defined for us and then analysed and categorised largely by the academic world. But it is the way in which we write that varies greatly and demonstrates our diversity.

For example -we have the Aboriginal English voices of Ruby Langford Ginibi, Vivienne Cleven and Gayle Kennedy. We have the guerrilla poetry of Lionel Fogarty; we have the urban-based poetry of Samuel Wagan Watson and the performance poetry of Romaine Moreton. We have the work of Miles Franklin Award-winning author Alexis Wright who some believe pushed the literary boundaries in Australia with her epic novel Carpentaria in 2007.

And while we are all writers with many similarities, the key one being that we can’t survive financially as writers, we have a wealth of life experiences that vary greatly. Our lives are the culmination of a diverse range of experiences that make us no more or less Indigenous than the next person.

For example, while we are poets, novelists, short story writers, auto biographers / biographers and essayists, we have been or continue to be lawyers, academics, filmmakers, dancers, stockmen and jillaroos, photographers, historians, salesmen, fraud investigators, graphic artists, labourers, actors, soldiers, fishermen and community volunteers.

And our writers tell stories about metropolitan Brisbane, the women’s movement, homophobia, the stolen generations, relationships, community politics and history, and all of them from diverse Indigenous perspectives.

I have no doubt that as a result of NAIDOC Week in New York that more people will look towards Aboriginal literature to learn more about who we are as a collective of diverse peoples in the 21st century.

I shared the panel with David Bosun who discussed the need to protect the intellectual property rights and resale royalties of Torres Strait Islander artists, and Karen Oughtred, a non-Indigenous advocate for Australian Aboriginal Theatre at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

I was a proud Blackfella in New York last week, and so was Sonia Smallacombe who said of the NAIDOC Week events, “From the perspective of one who works in the UN, the themes and issues of NAIDOC are universal because all Indigenous peoples in the world have similar experiences and are also part of bright, rich cultures.” She says the thing she enjoyed most about NAIDOC in New York was having Indigenous Australians there to celebrate with her.

I have no doubt the Australian Consulate and the UN are still buzzing with the excitement that NAIDOC Week brought to both sites. Australian Ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill said of the week’s success, “This was the first time that NAIDOC Week has been celebrated in New York and the response has been extraordinary. We have had full houses at all of our events helping to spread the word about our multi-faceted and diverse indigenous culture to a new and international audience.”

My trip was made possible by the Copyright Agency Ltd and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.

Opening Night - NAIDOC in New York. Left to right: Anita Heiss, David Bosun and Sonia Smallacombe.

One of my ideas was an Aboriginal Healing Foundation that would help overcome the intergenerational trauma caused by forced child removal.

Fortunately, a number of other people had the same idea and the Healing Foundation survived the various editing processes of the Summit to remain in the final report.

With a Senate Committee also recently urging its introduction, the Healing Foundation now appears to be firmly on the government agenda.

However, while many people now seem to be calling for a Healing Foundation, there is less agreement on precisely what this will do. Some have even suggested fund dental and primary health care services. For an example, see the extract from a recent ABC Radio PM program below:

SENATOR TRISH CROSSIN: The National Indigenous Healing Fund would concentrate solely on the needs of members of the Stolen Generations, and it doesn’t necessarily mean monetary compensation.

In fact, it could mean quite a range of other services that are provide to the Stolen Generation that will assist and support them as they get older and progress through years when they most need reliance on services governments can provide.

BARBARA MILLER: The Committee suggests family and housing services, medical, dental and funeral costs could be covered by the fund.

When I spoke in favour of a Healing Foundation at the 2020 Summit, I wasn’t suggesting that this provide the kinds of services that citizens should already be entitled to receive from government. Instead, the Healing Foundation should concentrate on programs to overcome the intergenerational trauma caused by forced child removal. These programs would encompass both therapeutic change and cultural renewal. They would be targeted to Stolen Generations survivors as well as other Aboriginal people negatively affected by the practice like children and other family members of survivors.

In public policy terms, what is needed is:

Treatment: Culturally appropriate, preferably Indigenous led therapeutic change programs; ongoing group and individual counseling; targeted programs in prisons aimed at psychological healing and reducing recidivism; programs to facilitate cultural renewal and strengthen cultural identity.

Training and capacity building: Training specialist Aboriginal psychological trauma and healing professionals; Training health workers, teachers social workers and others in how to recognize intergenerational trauma and treat it in a culturally appropriate way; Mental health “first aid” for community members in areas like suicide prevention and how to support people seeking to overcome addictions; alcohol and substance abuse rehabilitation for Aboriginal mental health workers in need of it; debriefing and support for workers dealing with traumatized communities.

Research and public education: To identify, promote and evaluate best practice in Indigenous trauma and healing; to foster a greater understanding in the broader community of the issues confronting the Stolen Generations.

Redefining Social Norms: Support for communities and families seeking to discuss and reintroduce culturally appropriate social norms; Assistance for leaders to reassert appropriate social norms.

Much of this material comes from the work of Gregory Phillips, who summarises what healing should mean in this context:

“… at its heart healing is about restoring balance where wrong has been done – a spiritual process that includes therapeutic change and cultural renewal. It is about protection and care for the victims of violence and abuse, as well as the development of correctional services for perpetrators that are based on healing and change, not stigmatization and shame.”

From Greg’s comments, it’s clear that healing in this context is essential, not just for the Stolen Generations (whose needs are in many respects the greatest), but also for many other Aboriginal communities who suffer from trauma, violence and abuse. (For more info Greg’s chapter in the book Coercive Reconciliation, Arena 2007 is really useful).

There are no guarantees that the Government will proceed with the Healing Foundation, or that it would remain in the form that was proposed at the 2020 Summit. But there are few initiatives that could make more of a real, positive and lasting difference to the lives of Aboriginal people.

But the release of the groundbreaking volume The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal literature this week is without doubt, one of the highlights of my professional career.

Just under four years ago I had a conversation with Elizabeth Weiss, Publisher at Allen and Unwin, about the need for such a volume as this. Around the same time, my mate Peter Minter was having the same conversation, also with Elizabeth. We hadn’t actually had the conversation with each other though.

Four years later, we have had many conversations – about the evolution of our writings in English since Bennelong’s first letter in 1796, right through to the Miles Franklin Award winning novel Carpentaria in 2007. We discussed the role of Aboriginal literature in world literatures, and also how a text like this could be incorporated into many different academic courses (nationally and internationally) including Australian Studies, Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, Race Studies, Australian History, Australian Politics, Australian Literature and so on.

On putting this anthology together, Peter and I embarked on a journey of discovery, revelling in much of the unknown writings by Aboriginal people over the past 200 years and how they contribute to the bigger story of who we are as a nation today. The writings included in this anthology are pieces of journalism, letters, petitions, political manifestoes, song lyrics, poetry, play excerpts, short stories, fiction, autobiography, biography and social commentary. It is safe to say there is something for every reader of every genre known to the reading community.

In fact, because of the variety of work we have included in this book, I believe there will be a whole new dialogue about the way in which literature is defined in Australia. For all the works included in this volume tell stories and give voice to the First Nations people of this land who have by-and-large remained voiceless.

Some of those showcased in The Macquarie PEN anthology of Aboriginal Literature include: * David Unaipon * Pearl Gibbs * Oodgeroo Noonuccal * Charles Perkins * Ruby Langford Ginibi * Sam Watson * Archie Roach * Jimmy Pike * Doris Pilkington * Alexis Wright * Mick Dodson * Wesley Enoch * Samuel Wagan Watson * Kim Scott * Jackie Huggins * Larissa Behrendt * Tara June Winch and many more.

The hardest thing for us as editors was culling an extensive list of top quality writing that could easily have been included, but due to space constraints, just couldn’t be.

We are excited and confident that this anthology will go a long way to engaging Australian students in both schools and universities with Indigenous voices, ideas, world views, diverse experiences, and most of all, the sense of dignity we have maintained while continuing to struggle for not only equal rights in Australia but in many instances, basic human rights.

Read William Cooper’s Petition to the King, read the Yirrkala Bark Petition of 1963, read the 1938 ‘Aborigines Claim Citizenship Rights’ manifesto, read Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s ‘Aboriginal Charter of Rights’, and then marry it with Mick and Patrick Dodson’s writings, and the poetry of Lionel Fogarty and Barbara Nicholson, and you will see the politics of a people who have used literature since not long after the point of first contact. And, as you will see in the second half of the volume, we continue to do so.

The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal literature is published by Allen and Unwin, and is available for $39.95 at all good bookstores, including Australian airports!

For more info and to access the on-line Teachers’ Notes, go to: www.macquariepenanthology.com.au

Last year’s goal of $100k, was exceeded when $250k was raised through events, a reading challenge and the generous contribution by participating booksellers nationally that donated a percentage of their takings on the day.

In 2008, the project has a new lease of life with the introduction of Therese Rein as the ILP Patron. Also known as the wife of our Prime Minister, Therese (I can call her that because we met at the launch and so now we’re sistas in the cause!) brings to the project not only her name and standing in the Australian community, but also a real desire to improve the literacy of our children. In her speech at the media launch held at Allen and Unwin in Sydney, she said the project offered an opportunity for all Australians to get involved in a simple and effective community activity.

Also part of the project this year are Author Ambassadors. These include yours truly, the Miles Franklin Award winning author of Carpentaria, Alexis Wright, multi-award winning author of Swallow the Air, Tara June Winch, the owner of every bum joke on the planet Andy Griffiths, Australia’s patriarch or literature David Malouf and Geraldine Brookes.

There is also a newly designed Reader’s Quest designed to assist schools in participating in the project. The Reader’s Quest involves reading at least seven books from the specially prepared Readers Quest booklists, recording each book you read, and then receiving a Reader’s Quest certificate.

As for me, having just returned from the NT myself as part of a role modelling tour, I can see so many ways to engage our young people in books. One of the key ways is for us as adults to be “Reading Heroes” for our young people. We need to read to our kids, we need to be seen to be reading alone and enjoying it, we need to instil in our young people that books and reading should be part of our every day lives and routines. And at least in the cities, we need to be exploiting our libraries for everything they can do to engage, educate and entertain our kids through books.

What you can do for the project: Members of the general public can participate in this important project by buying a book at one of the 400 participating bookshops. So, check and see if your local bookshop is part of the ILP and then go out and buy lots of books on September 3!!!

All of the funds raised will go directly to the Fred Hollows Foundation to buy books and literacy resources for Indigenous communities.

For more information about the Indigenous Literacy Project, please contact Karen Williams on (02) 9388 0087 or go to: www.worldwithoutbooks.org

UN meetings on Indigenous issues are always exciting. It is amazing to see so many Indigenous human rights defenders from around the world dressed in beautiful and intricate traditional costumes and gathered together to share stories of success and failure in Indigenous law and policy.

I was once an Indigenous Fellow with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. My fellowship group consisted of a Sami Parliamentarian from Sweden, an Indigenous man from the Yakutz republic and a Biak man from West Papua. The two blokes couldn’t speak English very well so we all communicated in French!

The Permanent Forum was created in 2000. Its existence is a triumph of Indigenous advocacy at the UN. Its establishment was one of two main goals of the first UN International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the other goal being the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The primary role of the forum is to raise awareness of indigenous peoples human rights issues within the United Nations system and to integrate indigenous issues into the many agencies and programmes of the UN system. It is unique in its structure with its membership being divided equally between eight state members and eight indigenous peoples representatives.

Professor Mick Dodson is the extremely hardworking and dedicated Indigenous representative for the Pacific. Another hard working and brilliant Aboriginal woman working for the UN Secretariat for the forum is Sonia Smallacombe. Sonia is a member of the Maramanindji people in the Daly River region of NT. Sonia has also held the roles of Head of the School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge Systems at Charles Darwin University and was the manager of the Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Taskforce at ATSIC. Sonia is such an inspiration to me and many young Aboriginal women and it’s really thrilling to see so many Indigenous people working in important postings at the United Nations.

One major development Indigenous peoples are expecting in the next two weeks is the Rudd government’s long awaited endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration is a non-binding legal instrument of the General Assembly. It doesn’t have to be signed or ratified. And because it is a declaration of the General Assembly, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can use the declaration in their work and daily lives immediately.

And while it doesn’t have to be endorsed to be used, endorsement is important for Australia in signalling its renewed commitment and emphasis on human rights and multilateralism. That should be done contemporaneously with taking office along with other commitments to human rights such as the Optional Protocol to CEDAW.

It is important for the Rudd government to endorse the declaration as it is necessary to make concrete the Federal government’s commitment to Indigenous peoples. Of course their ongoing commitment to the suspension of the RDA and the willingness to support the inadequate legal justification for violating peoples rights on the basis of race (until their annual review of the NT Intervention) sits uncomfortably with an endorsement of a declaration that is based on the right to self-determination and rule of law.

While the federal government is at pains not to break economic promises that will bolster the wallets of many Australians, it will be interesting to see whether this promise to endorse the declaration was real or just hollow words spoken in election time to juxtapose rights “cred” against the Howard agenda.

But before New York, I am off to 2020 … I will be participating in the 2020 Summit in the Indigenous stream.

Murri cricket

Finally, I have to congratulate the victorious Queensland team for their victory in the Imparja cup!! My brother Will was one of the champion Murris who won in Alice - Imparja Cup is being rotated on NITV for those who want to check it out.

“Stories of resilience and inspiration” is how I would sum up this collection of oral histories with 15 local Aboriginal women residing in the Campbelltown District. They are stories that resolve issues for each of these women, and help the younger generations understand the lives we are fortunate to have today.

Many stories revolve around the history of the local areas these women have come from across the State and even Victoria, and life under the Protection Act including mission life, as well the negative effects of alcohol and domestic violence on the family. But most stories end with life today in Campbelltown and the roles the women play in community activities such as the street patrols Gladys Lock is part of.

The stories are about reconciling the past for these women. Marnie Williamson says, “Reconciliation must begin within ourselves. As elders, we must strive to reconcile our own past, somehow make sense of it, or we’ll always live in this voice, shadows in our own land.” And in trying to reconcile such stories of hardship, the women also recall the funnier side of life and growing up, such as the first time Verna Barker saw a plane and how she screamed thinking it was aliens coming to get her.

I was astounded at the size of the families that some of these women raised and continue to raise. Jenny Brown had four kids of her own but raised another 600 foster kids, while Christina Craig has 93 grand kids.

Some stories were also interesting local histories such as Glenda Chalker’s entry about living at Pheasant’s Nest, which is named PN because it’s the first place lyrebirds were recorded at. The Lyrebird is also Glenda’s totem, so she feels especially at home at Pheasant’s Nest. I’ll remember that when next I drive to Canberra along the M5.

Most women had key messages for their children and for all young people. Sue Davis’ message was that we should respect one another, respect culture and respect ourselves. In line with that Kylie Dickson believes that “to earn respect, you’ve got to give respect”. Artist and painter Sue Grant advises that you should follow your spirit and your dreams and be proud. And Julie Hoffmanbeck’s words to her children and other parents are “The most important thing is protecting you and your kids.”

Judy McKay recommends taking one day at a time, enjoying a sunset or a sunrise, the birds chirping, and the smells around you. And to never lose the little child inside.

Some of the stories are about achievement for these women, and that is measured in different ways. For Norma Layt her greatest achievements in life were going to uni, buying her own home and bringing up seven children. I would’ve thought one of those would be enough!

The book is really about the role of the mother and other key women in our lives and Alana Moffatt talks about the guidance and knowledge she got from her Mimi (grandmother) and how that’s where her drive stems from.

Each short autobiographical narrative is complimented by a beautiful black and white portrait by Mervyn Bishop.

Finally, Ruby Langford Ginibi says she tells her stories to make things change and to make people wake up. And this collection of truly hard lives lived, by women who are not bitter or twisted, but who are full of love and compassion should really make some of our young people wake up to themselves and see that what they enjoy today is a far cry from what our old people had to endure.

This is an inspirational read about women, many whom were born in dire conditions and raised without the basic human right we enjoy today. Show them you appreciate their generosity of spirit to tell their stories by reading them, and in turn you will show and that they deserve a place, as Mona Porter says, “My philosophy is that in the world, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are or where you are from, you deserve your place in this world.”

This small volume is a gift to the Campbelltown community by these women, through the Campbelltown Arts Centre who coordinate the Campbelltown Intergenerational Aboriginal Project, through which this book was completed.

TO ORDER CONTACT:
Campbelltown Arts Centre
PO Box 57
Campbelltown NSW 2560
Email: artscentre@campbelltown.nsw.gov.au
Phone: 02 46454111
Drop in to the Cnr of Camden and Appin Roads Campbelltown

It has been a long pregnancy since Yvette’s collection won the David Unaipon Award in 2005. But what a wonderful time it has been watching Yvette blossom as a poet over the years. Today is probably just as exciting for us Yvette as your friends and supporters, as it is for you.

Because we know your ability, we know the passion behind your words, we know the strength of your convictions, and we know how much of a contribution you will go on to make to the world of poetry, not only in Australia, but internationally.

But you are not just a poet Yvette, and while many of your friends, family and colleagues here will know of your educational and professional achievements, I think it’s important to flag them also.
For those of you who didn’t know, our Yvette is a graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney, she has a degree in Adult Education & Community Management (Business). In 2003 Yvette received the UTS Human Rights Award in the category of Reconciliation for her outstanding contribution towards the elevation of social justice for Indigenous Australians. Yvette is active on a number of state boards and committees, and she currently researches Indigenous Australian literature for the Black Words subset of AustLit: www.austlit.du.au/blackwords. Yvette’s latest achievement has been a position as lecturer in Aboriginal Women’s Studies at the University of Queensland.

It is Yvette’s keen interest in social justice and leadership and development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, and her concern for family, friends, human rights and issues around domestic violence, that form the basis of her incredibly powerful and at times emotionally charged writing. Anonymous Premonition deals with painful issues like incest, attempted suicide, depression, incarceration, and the realities of funerals as part of the daily lives of Aboriginal people. But it also acknowledges the longevity and resilience of true friendships and the strength that Yvette draws from key people in her life.

And there are also moments that gave me as a reader and friend enormous insight into an Yvette that I never knew. For example, I have to admit that looking at our glamazon sister today, it’s hard for me to believe that as a little girl growing up all Yvette wanted to do was play football. But that’s what she tells us in “The Grandest Final”. And how she longed to kick that pig skin – somehow Yvette, I struggle with the thought of you in footy socks and spikes. And when I read in different poems references to footy boots and walking in heels I quickly came to understand Yvette’s obsession with shoes. I think on one block release visit to UTS Yvette travelled with 12 pairs of shoes in her luggage. Correct me if I’m wrong, it may have been 13.

In fact when reading Yvette’s collection I started to think about when in I first met her. I can’t honestly remember. But what I do know is that I knew Yvette’s HAIR before I knew Yvette the person. I saw this striking, tall black woman with a mane that got flicked atround a lot and who always looked confident and wore beautiful pashmenas and wraps. I saw her at Sydney Writers’ Festival and then I saw her at a NAIDOC Event at the National Musuem in Canberra but I still wasn’t sure who she was, but we smiled at each other. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing, I don’t know. But I can tell you I felt a little daggy in my appearance being in the same room with Yvette, and I was just a little bit scared of her as well. She looked like a power-broker.

And she is – a power-broker of words. Samuel Wagan Watson and Jena Woodhouse have already referred to the work in Anonymous Premonition as uncompromising, uplifting and revealing, fresh, compelling and empowering. So what else could be left to add to these words, PLENTY!

Anonymous Premonition is a collection of tributes:
It is a tribute to Yvette’s home at Inala 4077;
It is a tribute to the strength of Yvette’s friendships, and moreso how devoted and loyal a friend Yvette is;
It is a tribute to the special people who will always be remembered by Yvette like our late sista, the poet Lisa Bellear and Yvette’s brother Kevin Alex Holt, whom was removed from the Holt’s lives all too soon;
It is a tribute to motherhood also, that momentarily made me almost feel like I’m missing out on something not having had a child of my own. I read and re-read a beautiful entry called “Motherhood” dedicated to Yvette’s daughter Cheyenne. Of course, I did a road trip with Yvette and Cheyanne to the Dreaming Festival last year, so I know the other side of the story, too!

Yvette’s words demonstrate the love of a sister, the love of a mother, the love of a friend, and the love quite clearly that only a woman can give. Sorry men, but I do believe that we love differently.

In terms of Yvette’s poetry, it makes me as a writer seem almost fraudulent. Because Yvette already has the solid voice and style of someone with many, many years of experience, and yet Anonymous Premonition is her first published collection. This effort reminds of the first published novel of Tara June Winch and Swallow the Air. In that this book also is an extraordinary gift by a young black woman to the Australian literary community and general society. So on behalf of both, I want to thank you Yvette for such an offering.

I believe Anonymous Premonition is a fitting tribute to the resilience of Aboriginal women everywhere, but you Yvette are a tribute yourself, to your family, to your nation and to Inala 4077.

In the words of the late Eric Rolls “You launch a boat not a book, you open a book.” So it is my great pleasure now to say that the David Unaipon Award winning collection of poetry by Yvette Holt, Anonymous Premonition, is now officially opened.

Anonymous Premonition is published by UQP: http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/index.php

I am from the Wiradjuri Aboriginal nation of central New South Wales. I was born in Sydney, the traditional land of the Gadigal clan, and I have spent most of my life living on Dharawal Aboriginal land near La Perouse in Sydney’s east.

It is protocol where I come from the pay respects to all the VIPs in the room. However, having met many women here tonight I know everyone of you is significant in your own way, so I pay my respects to everyone. Anyway, where I come from, VIP means Very Indigenous Person!

Some of you may have seen in the news recently that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology on behalf of the Australian government for the trauma and suffering inflicted on a group of people known in Australia as the Stolen Generations. These people were the victims of a seriously misguided and racist government policy from the 1880s to 1970, which forcibly removed children of mixed Aboriginal and European parentage from their families, with a view to assimilating them into white Australian society.

If you are a parent and you can think for one minute what it would be like to have your child taken from you to be raised by strangers, then you will be able to imagine the tremendous suffering this policy caused thousands of Aboriginal families, and the trauma that continues to affect people today. I don’t know one Aboriginal person who has not been affected by the policy of Protection, as it was called, and there are people my age still searching for their relatives, to reconnect with the family they were taken from.

My family, like most Aboriginal families still bear the scars, and the apology from the Prime Minister on behalf of the Australian Parliament and people has begun the road to recovery and the soul of the nation is finally on the mend. Until now no Australian Prime Minister has been willing to apologise for what happened to Aborigines in Australia and this is why the recent apology by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was such an important event to all Australians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal.

My speech tonight will touch on this issue, and it is dedicated to the victims of this sad policy. I particularly pay tribute through my words to my own grandmother Amy Williams who was taken at the age of six to Cootamundra Girls Home before she was sent to the Home of the Good Shepherd, and later became a servant to a wealthy English woman in Parsley Bay.

Tonight I want to talk about my desire to explain the diversity of Aboriginality in Australia in the 21st century, as a contemporary urban Aboriginal woman writer.

I hope the conversation we share tonight helps you to understand that there can be no prescriptions as to what it means to be Aboriginal in Australia today.

I’d like to begin by talking about my experiences in a former life when I was an academic. I lectured to large numbers of international students in Australia at Macquarie University, and as part of lecture series across the USA.

On most occasions, students would first enter the lecture theatres with preconceived notions of Aboriginal identity and what kind of person they expected to see up the front of the class.

Most of my students in Australia were American and most of them had seen the Australian movie Crocodile Dundee and David Gulpilil and his role in that film, so they had fairly clear visions of who they thought Aboriginal people were, how we behaved and what we looked like.

Indeed, when I travelled to Austria in 1992 I was in my fathers village of St Michael, where the notion of Aboriginal Australia was based on what people had seen in documentaries or cheap souvenirs they’d been sent by Australian relatives. So their understanding of Aboriginal Australia was based on a physically dark person in the desert sitting on a rock with a spear and speaking one of the 600 different Aboriginal dialects.

It’s fair to say then that many of my students are disappointed when they se me take the microphone. I have to explain that:

I don’t wear ochre – the naturally tinted clay worn on the body for ceremony. Instead I wear Revlon, or Clinique or Max Factor

I don’t go ‘walkabout’ – the term used for Aboriginal people who travelled for business, ceremony and food. Instead I drive a sports car – because it’s faster than walking.

I don’t speak my traditional Wiradjuri language because it was outlawed and then all but died as part of the colonisation process. Instead, I speak the coloniser’s language that of the English.

I don’t tell time by the sun – I tell time by a gorgeous Dolce and Gabbana watch.

But I do tell my students that I hunt kangaroo three times a week – in the supermarket, where most urban dwellers shop for food.
I make an excellent kangaroo stir-fry and kangaroo curry.

On that note, and having explained that I am fortunate to have a nice car and watch I want to ask you what I ask my students when I lecture:

Can you think about the top 1% of your society?
Who are they?
Where do they live?
What occupations are they in?
How much power do they have?
How much money do they earn?

In Australia the top 1% would be bankers, property developers, judges, politicians and so on.

Well I am the top 1% of the bottom 2.5% of Australian society and that’s because I have an education, a job and a car. In an Aboriginal context I am completely privileged. Because most Aboriginal people do not have the luxuries that are basic expectations to many white Australians.

It might surprise you to learn also that at the point of invasion, when Captain Cook planted the flag on Possession Island in 1770, there were no Aborigines in Australia, none at all. There were just people. People who were defined by their connections to specific geographic areas, and to their language groups, clan groups and so on.

Definitions of Aborigines were created by the new Government and they were based on a caste system - such as half-caste, quarter caste, quadroon, octoroon and so on, depending on how much “Aboriginal blood” it was believed they had. This caste system was meant to kill off Aboriginal peoples. And although whole populations were decimated through disease and war, we have not disappeared completely. I am here tonight as living proof of that. But in many ways Aboriginal people still remain invisible on the national identity radar, and that can almost be worse than not existing at all.

Let me give an example. On a Qantas flight from Sydney to Los Angeles in 2003 I overheard a conversation between an American tourist and a man from Melbourne. The tourist said, “I’ve just been in Australia and I met a fourth generation Australian. That’s pretty good isn’t it?” The Melbourne man responded, “Well, you just don’t get any more Australian than that!

I turned to my Wiradjuri colleague and said, “Try four thousandth generation Australian!” Clearly our long history, tens of thousands of years of existence on the land, doesn’t count in terms of who is and who is not Australian. We are invisible in terms of the national identity.

And so, with that in mind, I was pleased about the release my children’s novel Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon, co-written with the students from La Perouse Public School in Sydney. The aim was to put the Aboriginal students from the area on that identity radar by having other Australian students reading about them in the classroom.

Yirra is 10 years old; she lives on the mission, which was land designated for Aboriginal people to live on in the past, freeing up more usable land for land grants to white settlers. It is now land owned by the local Aboriginal people. Yirra goes to La Perouse public school, she likes the beach, yoghurt, her ipod, Kasey Chambers, a boy at school called Matt, and her Siberian husky dog called Demon. But Yirra’s mum is sick of vacuuming up fur balls, the neighbours are tired of having their underwear stolen from the clothesline, and her step- dad just wants his shoes back. If Yirra doesn’t find a dog-trainer soon, she’ll have to give her beloved Demon to a new family — one who likes dogs who run and dig a lot!

What Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon does as a book used in schools is provide young Australian readers of all backgrounds a contemporary view of urban Aboriginal life in Sydney. It shows that Aboriginal kids in La Perouse in 2008 are just like other Australian kids having fun and growing up. The book also puts the suburb on the map for something other than the French landing there, and Tom Cruise shooting some scenes for the film Mission Impossible.

The urban Aboriginal experience is important to me. It is who I am. And the city has helped shape me as a woman. And it is a reason I wrote the chick lit novel Not Meeting Mr Right.

I wrote the book because I wanted to challenge some of the notions of what it means to be Aboriginal in the 21st century. I wanted to make that point that Aboriginal women read commercial fiction so why shouldn’t we write it. Like other women I read escape type novels at the beach and I wanted to write a book that other women regardless of cultural heritage could read at the beach also. I wanted to purge myself of some disastrous dates with some very unlovable men, and the book was a wonderful cleansing for that. But I also wanted to show the similarities between us as women. Too much emphasis is often place on the differences between us as women, as human beings, as members of the same societies and planet.

Aboriginal women like most women also fall in love, we fall out of love, we make love, we have disappointing dates, we fear rejection, we dream about meeting Mr Right and so on.

We also live by the beach and drink cocktails, we exercise and work in private schools, we talk politics, we go to the beautician, we want roses on Valentine’s Day, we take holidays, we are political and so on.

The point is, we are women, full stop! Regardless of heritage or socio economics there are some things that are universal to us as women, and that is our experiences as women, particularly with men.

But, it has also been my experience as an Aboriginal woman that shows there are some differences when it comes to dating. I have in fact, had a man give me my business card back once he realised I was in fact, Aboriginal. He behaved like I was a leper. So I do think it is harder for an educated, intelligent Aboriginal woman to meet her Mr Right, at least in some parts of Australia.

And speaking of intelligent Aboriginal women, I’d like to finish with something from my book I’m not racist, but…. It’s an Ode to my Mother:

Ode to my mother

She inspires and never tires
But always conspires –
to motivate
to procreate
to maintain
and sustain
to nurture
and protect
always direct
what is left of Koori-dom.

An audience
with the Pope,
gives her hope
that the future
will be better
than the past.

Her smile
lights the universe
wrinkled hands
invade her purse
and she gives,
and gives
and gives
and gives

Black curls
frame a face
full of grace
and dignity.

Forgiveness reigns
in my Mother’s heart
too often torn apart
by unnecessary pain.

Her commitment to family
matched by no other
for she is the eternal mother
her role as matriarch
the key to her identity.

After more than a decade of campaigning by many thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians – including ANTaR members - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized to the stolen generations for the policy of forced child removal which damaged so many lives.

I expected the nation to exhale a collective sigh of relief after the apology, but it generated so much more. Far from prompting the guilt that his predecessor, John Howard had predicted, Kevin Rudd’s sorry was followed by unbridled joy and celebration.

Rarely has an event in the national parliament been the centre of so many conversations in such positive terms. In the days after the apology people in petrol stations, supermarkets and pubs all around Australia wanted to talk about what it had meant to them.

When I picked up my morning coffee on the way to work a stranger came up to me and said he’d never really understood why an apology was important until he listened to the Prime Minister’s words.

“Now I realise that it’s not about black people or white people,” he said. “It’s really about families.”

More significant than all of this was the burden the apology seemed to lift from so many members of the Stolen Generations and their descendents. The healing power of that simple word that took so long to say built the bridge of trust that the Prime Minister had hoped for.

Following on from the apology, closing the 17 year life expectancy gap within a generation is now the Government’s top priority in Indigenous Affairs. As the organization that launched the Close the Gap campaign, ANTaR has welcomed the government’s commitment to our campaign aims. Our focus now will be helping shape the Government’s plan to close the gap and making sure its commitment is backed by the sustained action that will be essential to achieve this task.

We’ll also be ensuring that the specific needs of the Stolen Generations and the implementation of the Bringing Them Home report recommendations are not lost underneath the emphasis on closing the gap. As part of this, ANTaR will not be walking away from our demand that compensation to those affected needs to be an essential part of the response.

The apology renewed the faith of Indigenous people that a Government might seek to respond to their history with understanding and compassion. It showed a Prime Minister that he could do the right thing by the First Australians and take the rest of the nation with him. It gave all Australians something to be proud of.

Our task now is to make sure that we don’t look back on the apology as a brief blip in the life of a new government, but as the beginning of something much more.

In Kevin Rudd’s apology speech on the 13th Feb, he acknowledged that “a business as usual approach towards Indigenous Australians is not working”. He insisted that he would like the new parliament to allow flexible, tailored and local approaches to achieve commonly agreed national objectives. On the subject of housing, he made the proposition for:

… a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement—to begin with—an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years. It will be consistent with the government’s policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap.

A week after this announcement (i.e. yesterday), Kevin Rudd visited a remote NSW Aboriginal community — without the opposition leader Brendan Nelson (who rejected an invitation to join Kevin Rudd, claiming that the visit was a media stunt) — to begin the development of the government’s new housing strategy.

Federal Housing and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin also announced that the government will spend an additional $20 million in 2008 on upgrading housing in remote Aboriginal communities in the NT.

“[It’s] particularly addressed to upgrades to existing houses,” she told the ABC. “This money is aimed to fix waterproofing wet areas, fixing kitchens, replacing gutters and cleaning out rainwater tanks.”

“We really do need to continue the very important work to fix houses so they’re more appropriate and healthier for Indigenous people.”

The Age reports that Jennt Macklin also told the National Housing Conference her government supported Aboriginal aspirations for home ownership. The Labor government has confirmed they will continue to allow traditional owners to obtain a 99-year lease.

The Australian reported that senior Labor Indigenous leader Warren Mundine maintains that home ownership by traditional owners is essential to lifting Aboriginal people out of poverty. Other Indigenous leaders disagree — Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, maintains that Aboriginal people need time to catch up in other areas of society first.

The Sydney Morning Herald last Saturday (16 Feb) published a piece that suggested this project must start with an understanding of what the concept of home means:

If the bipartisan commission on indigenous disadvantage is achieve its first goal and tackle decrepit and overcrowded housing in a sustainable way, it will have to do more than build new homes in remote and regional communities. It will have to teach indigenous people to build them and not presume to know where they want them.

More information

• [info] Housing resources - ANTaR
• [info] Healthhabitat - “Healthabitat aims at improving people’s living environment and consequently their health. The work has focused on Australian indigenous people where the need has been greatest. The principles and practical techniques extend from immediate fix work of urgent faults in housing through to research and development projects that can contribute to longer term change.”