Minister for Indigenous Australians
Good morning and thank you Aunty Caroline for welcoming us.
It's my deepest pleasure to be here with all of you and to see so many familiar faces, but also meeting some new ones and listening to your stories.
You are our leaders as far as I'm concerned, as a Yanyuwa Garrwa woman.
You mob, your stories, you lead us and guide us, as generations that are following behind you.
And so many of all the Aunties and Uncles from the Northern Territory and Aunty Maisie, so many of you here, as well as from right across the country.
I want to acknowledge Linda Burney and the work she has done and continues to do for our people. And also, Senator Pat Dodson.
These two amazing people that I've had the greatest gift to be able to work beside for a very long time.
To watch, to learn, to listen, and it's what I continue to do right across the country.
I'm very excited to have taken on the role of Indigenous Australian Minister six months ago.
It's a hard task, but I love it.
I love the fact that I can meet all our mob around the nation and I'm still trying to get around there and I will.
But I also think that one of the greatest gifts of our people is our ability to rise above.
The Deputy Prime Minister said it in that one word of 'hope'.
Our ability to rise above all that dares to just keep us down, to pull us down, to create a sense in us that we're not worthy, to develop a deep feeling in us that we shouldn't be here.
And yet there's something amongst our people universally around this country and around the world as First Nations people, where we strive and thrive, and we're still here.
17 years ago, this Parliament, through the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, made the Apology and the country and the world listened.
It is important that we never forget that day.
But even more important is what you're doing now.
We've heard speakers here and I know from the Healing Foundation itself and the report that you've done under the guidance of Shannan Dodson and the committee of the Stolen Generations.
You continually remind us that too many of our kids are still being removed.
And that's important for me in my role as Indigenous Australians Minister.
But it's important for me as a Yanyuwa Garrawa woman.
I don't like seeing that.
In my family, we raise so many children because we know what it's like when they're raised in a system that we've seen hurts our families.
So, thank you for reminding us.
But I'd like to think that if we have the ability under the Prime Minister to move forward, to be given a chance, a second go at our term here in this Parliament to keep leading, to keep working through these very, very fundamental issues for our people, the high rates of removal, the high rates of incarceration, we need to keep doing that collectively.
When I came in as Minister, the first thing I did was reach across the Parliament to my opponents to try to have a sense of unity and peace, that Indigenous people must not be used as a political football.
Now everyone laughed at me and said that's ridiculous, that will never happen.
I said, yes, but I'm going to try.
I will try.
And I will keep trying because there are too many of our families hurting.
Whether it's in the area of child removal, whether it's in the area of incarceration, whether it's in the area of poverty and their chronic kidney disease and failures.
I will keep trying to work in this Parliament across the political spectrum to find that peaceful road to enable our families to be the people we're here to be in this country, everywhere.
So, Aunties and Uncles, thank you.
You keep teaching me.
To those who I've walked very closely with over generations, and I acknowledge Yvonne Weldon and the work that you're doing as well.
I just think that it's important, you all have a sense of influence and guidance to people like myself and others coming behind you.
So, thank you for your time today and thank you for your stories.
We will never forget.
Bauji Barra.
