Visibility and invisibility 2022 #22

Sewn into the seams of our favourite garments, hidden from view, but not invisible to the naked eye, are memories. Sometimes you find grains of sand, a loose thread from a cobweb, a burr from a bush you did not even notice you had brushed past. Trinkets all to remind you of the path you were on and what carried you to those places. I recall a time when a friend returned home from the UK, lent me his jacket, and said, here are a few particles from Stonehenge, because this is where he had worn it last. It was a little bit magical to feel connected with the ancient druids even though I had never been to Salisbury plain.  There is always a tapestry being woven with us connecting us to past, present, and future.  

Halley’s comet features in the Bayeux tapestry and the tapestry based on an Arthur Boyd painting, in our Great Hall in the national Parliament. A single cosmic event connecting us in time and place. The moment in time we find ourselves and the place to which we are arriving right now has its own kind of Halley’s comet magic. It is a time of potential, of transformation and promise. It is time when all the weaving and connecting that has been going on for the past few years, needs to come together and is coming together to form a single picture. It is a picture of complexity, depth of colour, dynamic and textured. The seams have been sewn together with votes, hopes, aspirations and urgency.  We are the weavers and the threads. It will not be enough to repair, recycle or even reuse, we need to refund, refresh and regenerate.

In the refund department this will begin with the implementation of the Uluru Statement, paying the rent and giving measure and meaning to the wisdom of the oldest living culture on earth. We will need to press the refresh button on the values as Tom Uren AC (Prime Minister Albanese’s mentor and father figure) said, and is quoted in the introduction to the 2021 Tom Uren Lecture which was delivered by the now Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Hon Linda Burney MP.

“The strong should look after the weak, the young look after the not-so-young, the fit look after the sick”.

Tom Uren AC

If you want to get a sense of what is sewn into the seams and what we can expect and why the grains of sand are ancient and why the Uluru Statement from the Heart declaration from the new Prime Minister in his opening words moments after his election to that office became visible, you can do no better than reading Linda Burney’s address. You get an insight into future actions, decades, indeed generations in the making, stemming all the way back in the Labor tradition to Doc Evatt in 1944. It was not always plain sailing, and Labor can hang its head in shame and embarrassment for deals done in mining and with mates over the years. However, now, at the beginning of National Reconciliation Week and with National Sorry Day just behind us, there are solid foundations for the work that will become visible to us all and we will have a part to play. There will be a referendum and with skillful negotiation, I am trusting the process will have the support of all the major political parties, their friends and allies and go as a united front to the people of Australia. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is not a petition, it is an invitation and one I hope we will embrace and accept. Our history is calling. Click here to accept the invitation. 

Uluru, May 28 2021

Visibility and Invisibility 2022 #17

Our dreams start out invisible. This is inevitable. A few thoughts floating around in our head like butterflies, that we try and capture, which is often, just like butterflies, hard to do. It requires patience, observation, and stillness. Dreams maybe visible when we sleep, some clever unfolding and prompting in our unconscious selves trying to bring something to the surface. Thoughts take shape with images, sounds, colour, emotions. Maybe you have recurrent dreams that haunt or tease you. But these are not the dreams I am really thinking about. I am thinking about the dreams that we want to make visible, the kind of dream Martin Luther King had of liberation, or the dream aspirants have of being elected, or winning a prize and through discipline and talent aim to make their dreams come true.

I am dreaming of ways in which we can all level up and bring more equity to decision-making. It is one of the reasons I support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the inherent result of Voice Treaty Truth and a First Nations presence in our national parliament. This dream will be informing my vote at the next Federal election. I cannot and will not support any political party or candidate that does not embrace the Uluru Statement. The current government’s parties commissioned the statement’s creation and all the consultation far and wide and then on presentation rejected it. It was yet another dark day in our nation … but it is not a dream that can be held hostage … it is one that is released for all of us to embrace. It is one we need to honour. It is an act of equity and justice. First, we have to hear the voice, which is why parliamentary representation is central; then we have to have a just settlement, a covenant, treaties and then we will be in a position to hear and receive the truth.  The Uluru Statement is the culmination of what was an Indigenous Constitutional Convention – constitutional change is non- negotiable.

If the Voice part of the Uluru sequence invokes the realm of politics and the Treaty part conjures the world of law, then the Truth part aligns most closely with the domain of history. Kate Fullagar

Getting to equity recognises we do not all start from the same place, and adjustments are needed to address the imbalances. That is why separate First Nations voices to parliament is an equity issue for me. We must address the imbalances in our legislation and only legislators can pass those laws, and laws get passed in Parliament.  Thomas Mayor’s words to his then seven-year-old son William, who put his hand on this heart and said, “the heart of the nation is in here.”  This is our work now as we head into the historic election in which only one major party is agreeing to follow through on the Uluru Statement and offer a referendum to the Australian people for a substantive, not symbolic, constitutional recognition to constitutionally enshrine First Nations Voice – nothing less will suffice for this dream to become visible. For right now, we are living a lie, and in a nightmare for our First Nations.  If the place you work for supports the Uluru Statement, if you have shares in companies that have signed their support, if you have signed up to the Statement – the time to mark your ballot in favour of the Uluru Statement and make this dream visible, is on the horizon.

Put your hand on you heart, feel the beat, breath in through your feet on the land, feel the pulse of our shared home. The Voice proposal is quite conservative, and the talents and ingenuity of leaders like Megan Davis with expert constitutional knowledge, have the proposal in the Uluru Statement as the simple premise of a First Nations representative body, with its primary function to present the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to the Parliament where decisions are made about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Nothing more and nothing less.  Let us vote for equity. For dreams and for dreaming our way to justice. For visibility of the invisible heart of our nation.

6 September 2019, Logan, Qld. Guest of Logan Together listening to Megan Davis and learning more about the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

2021: Meeting the Moment #2

In this historic week when the democratic institution of the USA was threatened with sedition and acts of treason were in full view to the world, those of us following along at home in countries with our own challenges took a deep breath and recognised the frailities in our systems. Australia is a country colonised and founded on ideas of white supremacy, where the White Australia policy thrived and underwrote migration and labour practices that were not dismantled until the 1970s and remnants are still visible in our constitution. We have plenty of our own kind of Village People marching in the streets, storming the barricades, it feels like only yesterday national media figures were calling for on the mob to ‘ditch the witch’ and naming the elected Prime Minister “Juliar”. The under belly of whipping up a mob is only a breathe away and we all saw what it can lead to – may the images in a foreign land be a reminder to us all. During our own Black Lives Matter rallies in the midst of COVID19 more Australians knew the name Geogre Floyd than any of the 432 Aboriginal Australians who died in custody between 1991 and 2020.

We have our moment to meet in Australia. There are still treaties to be made, constitutional recognition to be fulfilled, land rights to be granted, reparation and restitution to be completed. One of the things that struck me in Washington was how white privilege turned up, I even saw some doors being held open by law enforcement officers to the home grown terrorists. I am not sure we are any different, just a little more sophisticated. Many doors are closed to racial justice. Some slammed tight and will need prying open. This is the moment.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart invites all of us to listen and there are voices to be heard. Thomas Major has documented 21 of these voices who contributed to the Statement as part of his custodianship of carrying the statement on the journey towards voice, treaty and truth. Vignettes of the stories can be found on the book’s twitter feed if you can’t get a copy of the book Finding the Heart of the Nation. One of the ways to meet this moment is to to respond to voice by listening, treaty by supporting the Statement and truth telling by turning towards our history and learning more. The Statement is asking for three things: constitutional change to enshrine an empowered First Nations voice; legislative change to establish a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making with Australian governments and thirdly this Commission to oversee a process of truth-telling about Australia and colonisation. A Markarrata is a process of restoration, peace-making after a dispute. It is a Yolgunu word with many layers of meaning. A Makarrata meets the moment. Our political leaders failed to meet the moment of Uluru Statement being delivered and there have been countless failures of not following instructions all the way back to Arthur Phillip who failed to act on his orders from King George III to make a settlement. Ironically the last King for what is now USA was also King George III and we are not yet a Republic.

The First Nations Constitutional Recognition to Parliament Interim Report was co-chaired by Labor Western Australian Senator Patrick Dodson and Liberal member for Berowa Julian Lesser and this (also see below) is how Senator Dodson met the moment of the news that the government have instructed their advisory bodies not to engage with recommendations from considering a First Nations voice to parliament.

So now we arrive at this moment, a couple of weeks away from Australia Day/ Invasion Day, a day where we can reflect on how we, non-indigenous, come to be here, how we live listening to the call for voice, treaty, truth. What is being called out in you to meet the moment?

T-shirt by Sparkke I have been wearing lately.

Year of Self-Compassion #47 #Uluru

This week has been all about the Uluru statement and finding the path in to take the Statement from the heart into my heart. During the 80s and 90s I was fortunate to have many tutors to guide me in learning about what standing in solidarity as a non-Aboriginal might mean.  I remember in particular the late Sonny Flynn who taught me so much. His gentle and firm kindness set the foundations for me.  He was the first indigenous graduate at the University of Adelaide in 1986. We served together on the Adelaide Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission and together wrote the ten point plan for the diocese to acknowledge and go forward in our commitment to reconciliation. One of the first things we did was get the Aboriginal flag to fly in the grounds of St Francis Xavier Cathedral in time for the bi-centenary of colonisation in 1988. We had an hilarious trip to Sydney in the back of a car owned by the Sisters of St Joseph as part of a parallel process the Catholic Church to prepare for the march across Sydney Harbour Bridge.  When the convoy left Adelaide for that march, I went down early to the parklands to wave them off with a couple of my children in tow and knelt on the ground to send them prayerfully on their way. I held some trepidation there might be violence when they got there – as it happens there wasn’t – it was triumphant and spectacular. I watched it all unfold on the TV.

I was not yet 30 when the convoy set off. They were heady days and I was a young mother. I came to this movement late, having cut my teeth on the anti-apartheid movement and was embarrassed I had not paid attention to the issues right on my doorstep. Our household took the issues up and we had the posters, t-shirts, and modestly contributed to Pay the Rent and other campaigns. We literally had almost no money so I gave time where I could and had already been using the levers of the Justice and Peace Commission as I was Secretary in my first term and by now was Chair in my second term. It was great incubator for me to learn. Somewhere along the line though amnesia set it and I drifted away from this movement. While I had embedded many of the lessons in my life and practice I had not taken any leadership roles or pulled on any levers beyond what was in my immediate vicinity and sphere of influence. I drew most of my energy from musicians and artists and continue to take instruction from them.

I did get opportunities along the way these past 30 years and am deeply grateful to Jo Larkin and her tutelage while I was working at Volunteering SA and NT, where the Aboriginal Reference Group under the leadership of Bruce Hammond, who took over where Sonny had left off in teaching me and supporting my fragile efforts in the walking alongside.  I am a trustee for a Foundation set up as a legacy of a couple of Quakers and for years that funded the walking together in reconciliation movement during the time, when it seemed like our whole nation was falling asleep at the wheel around land rights and recognition. So I know I haven’t been completely away from the movement, I did feel I woke up again this week in Logan at ChangeFest 18.

Since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was made, I haven’t known what to do in the face of the ugly rejection of our political leaders. This week has changed all that. Indigenous leaders clearly stated what they want from people like me and what they expect and gave us the playbook.  They gave us the words and the actions and told us what was non-negotiable. I feel sad they are the ones who continue to do the work and have to keep pointing out to us what is to be done. The actions were clear – any national movement designed to create a more equitable and inclusive Australia must act consistently with the Uluru Statement which is ultimately about ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are empowered and enables to be at the forefront of system change design and delivery; and this will result in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led and control of services and programs; and we will support and strengthen treaty processes underway around the country.  This is an explicit set of instructions which anyone can sign up for and in doing so helps shift power and systems.

It is so easy to forget, to not turn towards the arc of justice, to fail to take the step needed to go forward and instead mark time. Once again I am invited to walk alongside and once again I say yes, and I will actively inoculate myself from amnesia by listening to the truth-telling and following the direction of those kind enough to be my teachers in this way.  From these foundations, agreement making can take place.

The lesson in self-compassion is to forgive myself for my forgetting and, like a meditator who has been distracted by thoughts, notice this forgetting and put it down gently and move onto the path that brings peace and justice.

I am being invited into some spaces this past two months around land-rights and sovereignty, some of which will involve being in some tricky and possibly sticky places. I felt under prepared and ill-equipped. Being able to call on the Uluru statement to guide me and to ground me is so obvious, I hadn’t seen it. The instruction to use this statement as an instrument to support my inadequate participation is a relief.  It is also a reminder that sometimes the thing we most need to help us is close at hand. I am so grateful for these reminders this week, lessons learnt in the security, kindness and gentleness brings, wrapped in generosity of those who have been so hurt and continue to exercise their leadership in the slimmest of spaces. They found a place to open the crack and bring it wide and into the light, to speak their truth to power with eloquence and confidence, to not retreat or settle for anything less and with such grace. As a witness to this, I was deeply moved,and ashamed at my own complicity. This has been a week for reminders about what is at the heart of what it means to stand in your centre. Drawing up from the land and sea, the elements and ancestral spirits is a most precious gift and perhaps the only gift we need to walk together. A pilgrimage of solidarity and humility, if we accept the invitation. An invitation to healing and wholeness and one which can only lead to a more inclusive Australia. To walk in your truth, and be surrounded by others who walk with you in yours, is a great act of self-compassion.

Here is the Uluru Statement

We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart: 

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago. 

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown. 

How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years? 

With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood. 

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future. 

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness. 

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country. 

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution. 

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination. 

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history. 

In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

Uluru Statement from the Heart