NAIDOC Week 2021 is during July and the focus/theme is ‘Heal Country’. This is a significant event for all Australians as we work together to bring about a better understanding of our history, which is inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and languages.

We celebrated NAIDOC week with contemporary Indigenous music playing throughout College over our days, and with some activities within our classrooms related to Connection to Country; including traditional custodians, sustainable land management practices, length of occupation, bush food and medicine, mapping and navigation, astronomy and the significance of song-lines in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, to extend our knowledge of Indigenous Australia.

The fortnightly Truganini Group Meeting was an extra special NAIDOC gathering with a number of visitors popping in. We were joined by Ilona Sliwa and Sarah Upton, new Koorie Engagement Support Officers, and Kylie Clarke and Kylie Fox of the Nyarrn-gakgo mangkie Program who joined us via Zoom. We had some morning tea and a yarn about many things; including Jenny Murray-Jones coming in mid-term to extend our familiarity with/ work on our Indigenous art.

Below this article is an essay by Kiara Ryan from Year 10 for the 2021 NAIDOC Week Essay Writing Competition.

Ms Margot Cameron

Essay by Kiara Ryan - Year 10 Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College, Geelong, Victoria.

Explain the changes that have assisted in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Since colonisation, Indigenous Australians have been confronted with oppression and genocide on a horrific scale. Though the magnitude of these past and continuing atrocities remains incredibly pertinent, changes have been initiated to begin closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The introduction of legislated voice in government enhanced the self determination of Indigenous communities, beginning a wider journey of public awareness and effective advisory. The following Australian civil rights movements, in particular land rights, magnified major discrepancies with equality. Later, the Australian Government's implementation of basic policies and programs specifically for Indigenous Australians’ equality encouraged positive outcomes. These foundational stages of Australians’ journey to reconciliation ultimately demonstrate the encouragement of growth and the need for greater action and understanding.

Over the last fifty years, legislated representation for Indigenous Australians has offered a level of autonomy through the encouragement of self-determination. The Whitlam government's introduction of the first national body elected by Aboriginal people, the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC) (1972-77) was a change Whitlam declared on the eve of the NACC elections that the “welfare and progress of [Australia] depended on”. In an advisory role, the NACC aimed to ensure maximum participation of Indigenous people in government policy formulation and implementation to promote Indigenous self-management and self-sufficiency. This enablement of self-determination demonstrated the meaningful nature of effective and honest advisory whilst increasing public awareness of the need for greater change. However, as seen with the following National Aboriginal Conference (1977-85), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (1989-2005) and the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples (2010-19), these bodies were subject to repeal at the whim of the government of the day. The legislated model, though empowering a voice to some extent, could be ignored and rendered silent by the government. Yet, this early legislative voice gave Indigenous Australians tools to productively negotiate, debate and work with the Australian government.

As Australia’s civil rights movements began to advance, Vincent Lingiari’s success in reclaiming Gurindji Country and the subsequent the push for wider land rights created awareness about and altered legal inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. As growing international moral outrage began to arise during the 1950s, countries including America, South Africa and Australia began to receive criticism on their treatment of their nation's indigenous and coloured minorities. In response, over the following decades many Indigenous communities and grassroot organisations would lead the fight against discrimination. The Indigenous land rights movement, aimed to deconstruct Australian land laws establishing the claim that Australia was ‘terra nullius’. This denial of Indigenous people’s prior occupation of and connection to the land was unsuccessfully challenged in the 1971 Gove land rights case and subsequent cases in 1977, 1979 and 1982. It was not until May 1982 when Eddie Koiki Mabo and four other Indigenous Meriam people began their legal claim for ownership of their traditional lands on the island of Mer did any change occur. Heard over ten years, the case progressed from the Queensland Supreme Court to the High Court of Australia. On the 3rd of June 1992, the High Court ruled that the Meriam people were “entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of (most of) the lands of the Murray Islands”. This case successfully acknowledged the history of Indigenous dispossession in Australia, abolished the legal fiction of 'terra nullius', and altered the foundation of Australian land law. While some alterations to a systematic issue encourages change, it does not create new outcomes. The recent destruction of sacred trees on Djab Wurrung Country for the Western Highway Duplication demonstrates the continuing violations to Aboriginal heritage and connection to Country. Ultimately, though, this change has supported a sense of Indigenous identity and stimulated and inspired major alterations, laying the path for future endeavours of justice and equality.

After the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the General Assembly in 2007, the Australian Government's implementation of basic policies and programs for Indigenous Australians began to prompt constructive change. In particular, the 'Closing the Gap' program began contributing to improving health of Indigenous communities. Having seventeen national socio-economic targets, the program is aimed at areas that have an impact on life outcomes for Indigenous Australians in an attempt to create equality between Indigenous and nonIndigenous communities. The program has led to lessening Indigenous child mortality rates (by 35 per cent between 1998 and 2016), smoking rate (falling 9 percentage points between 2002 and 2014-15), and drinking during pregnancy (halved between 2008 and 2014-15). This encouragement of equality has set the foundations of long term goals and the bar for current and future expectations on moving towards reconciliation. However, this program solely leads the government’s approach to Indigenous health. This singularity is not broad enough to address common complexities, as only compatible Indigenous groups receive adequate and life changing assistance. Yet, though this approach minimises outcomes, equality has been advanced and Indigenous communities assisted.

Through the stimulating changes of legislated representation empowering voice, land rights highlighting discrepancies and the implementation of basic policies and programs promoting equality, the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities has lessened. Yet 'lessened' does not signify closed. Relying on the acknowledgment of Indigenous autonomy and the subsequent need to listen to Indigenous voice, these changes have highlighted the need for greater action and understanding. As Australians inevitably continue on a path of growth, reconciliation must be prioritised to create unity and equality within the wider community of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. This prioritisation should strive to make use of progressive resources, like the Uluru Statement from the Heart, as Australians embrace and honour our past for a better future.

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