ANNUAL YARRAMUNDI LECTURE 21 YEARS Anniversary Commemoration ANNUAL YARRAMUNDI LECTURE – 21 YEARS ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION PAGE 1 MELISSA WILLIAMS PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER THE HEART OF THE MATTER The annual Yarramundi Lectures have a simple premise with a profound outcome. They provide a high profile means for Elders, leaders of the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities throughout Australia, to express and debate meaningful concerns that affect Front Cover Image: iMedia their communities. © 2017 Elders on Campus, Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Engagement, Western Sydney University By being heard and understood, they are brought closer together in heart and This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright mind with their fellow Aboriginal and Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written Torres Strait Islander Peoples and all other permission from the Elders on Campus, Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Engagement, Western Sydney University. Requests Australians. All our clans, our communities and enquiries concerning reproduction should be addressed to: and our different cultures are able to walk together. In this way, we are all given the opportunity to invest in each Elders on Campus other. We are all included in the making of a better, collective Australia. Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Engagement Western Sydney University Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2751 The Yarramundi Lectures are the lightning rod that attracts the positive energy and power we all have stored up within ourselves. It is this energy This publication is available online at westernsydney.edu.au/oatsiee that has the power to heal, to grow and to celebrate all that is good Every reasonable effort has been made to contact copyright owners of materials within us and about us. The Lectures bring attention to the things that reproduced in this publication. Western Sydney University welcomes communication need to be heard by the broader Australian community and the matters from any copyright owner from whom permission was inadvertently not obtained. that impact all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. WARNING: THIS BOOK MAY CONTAIN NAMES AND IMAGES OF ABORIGINAL To hear is to learn. To learn is to understand. It is only by understanding, AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLE WHO ARE NOW DECEASED. and the unity of purpose it engenders, that we can all truly share Country. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Title: Annual Yarramundi Lecture: 21 Years Anniversary Commemoration Principal Researcher: Melissa Williams Published by Western Sydney University. Melissa Williams ISBN: 978-1-74108-456-6 Photo courtesy of Daryl Charles Photography. ANNUAL YARRAMUNDI LECTURE 21 YEARS Anniversary Commemoration Limited Edition: 001 ANNUAL YARRAMUNDI LECTURE – 21 YEARS ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION PAGE 3 6 7 8 10 12 16 24 32 CONTENTS ANNUAL YARRAMUNDI LECTURE 38 46 56 62 68 76 82 88 94 100 108 116 124 130 142 150 FOREWORDS LECTURES AND PHOTOGRAPHS STORIES 6 Professor Barney Glover 19 21ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE 94 2007 186 GENERATIONS OF YARRAMUNDI LECTURES KNOWLEDGES SERIES 7 Professor Scott Holmes 100 2008 24 1997 188 Generations of Knowledge 8 Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver AM 108 2009 Project 1 30 1998 10 WELCOME AND WALK 116 2010 190 Too Dark to See WITH ELDERS ON CAMPUS 38 1999 Project 2 124 2011 12 Aunty Pearl Wymarra 46 2000 192 Annual Yarramundi Lecture 130 2012 21 years Project 3 16 Yarramundi Lecture Logo 56 2001 142 2013 195 CELEBRATIONS 19 DID YOU GET THE MESSAGE 62 2002 150 2014 21ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE 196 Western Sydney University YARRAMUNDI LECTURES 68 2003 160 2015 198 A note on the sources 76 2004 168 2016 200 Acknowledgements 82 2005 180 2017 202 The Future is Upon Us 88 2006 205 Index TOO DARK TO SEE Commemorating the Lives and Contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Veterans and 160 168 180 188 190 Military Personnel Serving in the Australian192 Defence Forces 194 206 GENERATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE COMMEMORATING THE LIVES AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ELDERS, LEADERS AND PATHMAKERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY FOREWORD BY PROFESSOR BARNEY GLOVER VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRESIDENT WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY MAKING US ALL WISER It is imperative we prioritise learning the stories and teachings of our First Peoples. Initiated in 1997 by then Vice-Chancellor And when we talk about significant of Western Sydney University, Emeritus issues, such as commitment, we need to Professor Deryck Schreuder, the put our learnings into practice. Not just establishment of the Yarramundi lectures say the words but deliver on them by are considered a watershed moment in our finding our common ground, a shared nation’s engagement and reconciliation with set of meanings and intentions. our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander The Yarramundi Lecture series is more people. The lectures provide a platform for than an exchange of sociological expertise our Elders and community leaders and an and thoughts. The purpose is to teach, audience who is ready to listen. inspire and provoke us into more effective actions. They inspire practical wisdom The University takes great pride in the and with that, Yarramundi will certainly Yarramundi lectures. They recognise our succeed in making us all wiser. shared and troubled history and create the opportunity to participate in developing Photo Credit: Sally Tsoutas, Western Sydney ourselves, our communities and our history. University Photographer Professor Barney Glover FOREWORD BY PROFESSOR SCOTT HOLMES DEPUTY VICE CHANCELLOR, RESEARCH, ENGAGEMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONAL BRINGING DOWN THE WALLS OF Torres Strait Islander tribes, clans and IGNORANCE cultures have had the opportunity The research journey often begins with to speak up, to be heard, and to be an encounter. That encounter can be understood. The Lectures have given with something challenging or curious, many of us the opportunity, perhaps something that doesn’t quite fit the for the first time, to hear and discuss pattern to which we are accustomed. A Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researcher takes responsibility for the people’s stories, their truths and their surprise, consternation and confusion concerns. of that encounter, working through it to develop new knowledge. At the same time, the necessity and urgency of the Yarramundi, twenty one The necessity and urgency of the years on, suggests that we still have Yarramundi Lecture in its twenty yet to move beyond encounter towards first year is a testament to its power new understandings and practices. This as a platform of encounter between should be the power of the Yarramundi Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lecture: to thoughtfully re-make voices and the broader community. The conversation into action. This is the Yarramundi Lectures have corrected kind of research we should all take misunderstandings, challenged responsibility for. attitudes and re-balanced histories. Through these lectures the Elders and Photo Credit: Sally Tsoutas, leaders of the many Aboriginal and Western Sydney University Photographer Professor Scott Holmes FOREWORD BY PROFESSOR LISA JACKSON PULVER AM PRO VICE-CHANCELLOR ENGAGEMENT, PRO VICE-CHANCELLOR ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER LEADERSHIP, PROVOST PARRAMATTA SOUTH CAMPUS ‘THE TRUE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP’ As a result, they have inspired and brought True leadership is not defined by the person about real, measurable changes in collective holding that position, but by the outcomes attitudes and state and national policies. achieved by that person for the people he or As a consequence, many more Aboriginal she leads. It is this same spirit of leadership, and Torres Strait Islander people are able to and measurable achievements, that has participate and share in the economic and emerged from the Yarramundi Lecture series. educational opportunities that have been denied to them for so long. Along with them, The many outstanding Aboriginal and Torres they have gained the respect they have Strait Islander Elders and community leaders, always deserved. both men and women, who have spoken so eloquently, so passionately and so caringly To see these manifest improvements to on behalf of their peoples, have taught so many lives is to see the power of real all of us important lessons about our own leadership, of genuine, altruistic guidance humanity. They stripped away the artificially and influence. It is to see the authority of imposed differences of colour, culture and truth at work in all of us. We, as individuals language, that have been used to divide us, and as a country, are all the better for it. with a dignified sincerity and openness that dared us to resist it, and challenged our own Photo Credit: Sally Tsoutas, reasonableness and sense of fairness. Western Sydney University Photographer Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver AM Photo Credit: Sally Tsoutas, Western Sydney University Photographer Left to Right: Top Row – Uncle Harry Allie, Aunty Rasme Prior, Uncle Greg Simms, Uncle Steve Williams, Uncle Wes Marne, Aunty Fran Bodkin Bottom Row: Aunty Noeline Briggs Smith, Aunty Norma Shelley, Uncle Ivan Wellington, Aunty Sandra Lee, Uncle Rex Sorby, Aunty Mae Robinson ANNUAL YARRAMUNDI LECTURE – 21 YEARS ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION PAGE 9 WELCOME AND WALK WITH ELDERS ON CAMPUS, WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY We acknowledge the Glover, Vice-Chancellor and with the collaboration