History Talks - HCNSW Podcasts
The History Talks podcasts offer a valuable opportunity to delve into Australian history through the insights of prominent historians or those who significantly contribute to historical knowledge.
These recordings capture speaker events, providing listeners with a platform to engage with the rich historical narratives and perspectives shared by experts in the field. Whether exploring significant events, individuals, or societal transformations, these podcasts serve as an accessible and informative resource for those interested in delving deeper into Australia's past.
The History Talks podcasts are a series of recordings of speaker events featuring leading Australian Historians, produced by the History Council of New South Wales. Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike)
History Talks - HCNSW Podcasts
History Now : Aboriginal Political Histories
Reflecting on the enduring spirit of Aboriginal activism, today's episode is an homage to both the ancestors who fought for justice and the scholars like Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan who have chronicled their struggles. Coordinated by Jessie Adam-Stein and chaired by Dr. Cara Cross, this panel event from the History Now 2024 series, co-hosted with the History Council of New South Wales and the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, dives into the depths of Aboriginal political histories. We pay our respects to the traditional landowners and explore how their political contributions have shaped our understanding of Australia's past and present, with a special acknowledgment of Emeritus Professor John Maynard's pioneering work.
The heart of our discussion beats to the rhythm of early 20th-century Aboriginal activism, where a gathering in Kempsey marked a turning point in the fight for equality. The voices of over 700 Aboriginal people and the manifesto of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) resonate through time, as we recount their brave stance against oppression and the lasting impact of their actions—even through the Great Depression. Stories of personal sacrifice, like that of my grandfather, intertwine with these historical narratives, painting a rich tapestry of Aboriginal resilience and unyielding quest for justice.
As we close, the focus shifts to the fragmented journey of land restitution and the growth of Indigenous resistance that has radically influenced Australian politics. We remember the warriors like Windradyne and the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, leading up to the historic Aboriginal Land Rights Act Northern Territory of 1976, as milestones in the fight for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. These stories are not just history; they are the foundation upon which our ongoing struggle for rights and recognition is built, and they continue to inspire action and reflection in our shared journey towards a just future.
Thank you. Thank you, look. As a Warramai man from the Poor Stevens region of New South Wales or north of Newcastle, I begin by respectfully acknowledging the traditional owners of the land upon which we gather. The Gannigal people of the Eora nation Also pay respects to our elders, both past and present. I also just want to take the opportunity to respectfully acknowledge the passing of a very significant historian, emeritus professor Linda Ryan, a great supporter of Aboriginal people over many years and her many studies of Aboriginal Tasmania and the work she's done on the massacre maps as far as Australia was concerned, and really you know, stamping that down Linda will be a great loss and mourned by many.
Speaker 2:As I said, a good colleague and and friend of mine up in Newcastle for many years, so you know certainly mourn Lindell's passing before I hand over to our chair for today's event, Dr Cara Cross, I'd just like to say a few very brief words about History Now 2024 as a whole series. History Now is a public talk series that has always had the aim to bring what you might call cutting edge historical practice into public discourse, featuring professional and academic historians as well as history related experts in various fields. History Now has had various iterations and homes over the years. It's something that's been passed around, and this year it's been coordinated by me, Jessie Adam-Steen, in my dual capacity at both the History Council of New South Wales and as a member of the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, and this year we have venue support from the State Library of New South Wales again. So thank you to them. I do have a whole list of people to thank, but I'll save that for the end, don't worry.
Speaker 2:History Now this year we have nine sessions. We started in March and it runs through to November. It's one Wednesday a month. It isn't always the first Wednesday, I have to say. Usually, but not always. Most events will be held in person here in this peculiar maps room wonderful, very strange maps room but the July event will be held online only and I'll tell you more about that afterwards. A full event program for History Now can be found on the History Council website and also just through a search engine inquiry. Just to note, tonight's event is being audio recorded but the Q&A section will not be for technical reasons. Also, noting that tonight's slides may feature images of people who have died.
Speaker 2:I'll be back just before, around about 6.30, we'll see how we go with time fingers crossed and I'll give you a few previews of some of the History Now events coming up later. But first I'd like to introduce you to our chair for tonight's event, dr Cara Cross. Cara is a proud Goori, dubai Galwan woman from Warimi and Biripi nations. She's deeply committed to Indigenous education, social justice and truth telling. She's Executive Officer, dvc Indigenous, at UNSW and plays a pivotal role there in advancing the University's Indigenous strategy, shaping Indigenous education programs, community engagement and promoting research excellence. Cara is also an Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity 2024, where she focuses on the repatriation of cultural knowledges. I'm pleased to add that she's also been recently appointed as the First Nations General Councillor with the History Council of New South Wales, which is fantastic for the History Council. So thank you. So let's welcome Kara. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you, jessie, and thank you all for joining us tonight for this exciting History Now event. As Jessie mentioned, I'm a proud Worimi Biripi woman First Nations General Councillor for the History Council of New South Wales, which I wear proudly. I'm also a member of the Purai Global Indigenous History Centre and the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures. I'd now like to introduce today's topic and our speakers. The idea of a History Now theme of Aboriginal political histories emerged partly as a historically informed response to the diabolical year that was 2023. Last year demonstrated the absolute, dire need for a broader public understanding of the long history of Aboriginal political involvement and the often thwarted attempts at formal representative bodies, which was very well outlined by Thomas Mayo in his 2023 Annual History Lecture, which was hosted by the History Council in September last year. But also, on a more positive note, today's topic emerged from the fact that Emeritus Professor John Maynard was awarded the History Council's Annual History Citation in 2023. Congratulations again, john. Recognising John's outstanding contribution to history across so many topics, including, but not limited to, his work in understanding the intersections between Aboriginal political and social histories, so we thought it was appropriate to have him back. Thank you, john, for accepting our invitation to speak again, and in shaping this topic, the History Council has let the speakers decide what they'd like to present tonight, but we are essentially taking a very broad view of the meaning of political histories here. This encompasses histories of First Nations activism and advocacy since invasion, but such histories also account for more direct political involvement in formal legislative change. So, in other words, this incorporates who have worked within the systems politicians, advisors and policy makers, etc. And those who campaigned outside of those systems. There is real depth and complexity to First Nations political histories in settler colonial nation and these stories have for so long been misunderstood and often missing from mainstream Australian understanding of its political history, and I imagine we're about to hear some fantastic stories from all three speakers, which they will delve into.
Speaker 4:First we have Professor John Maynard, who is Emeritus Professor, a Warramai Aboriginal man from Port Stephens region of New South Wales. Over the past decade, john Maynard has established himself as the foremost Indigenous historian in Australia. He has held major positions and served on numerous prominent organisations and committees, including the Deputy Chairperson of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, iatsis, and the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association. In 2014, john was elected member of the prestigious Australian Social Sciences Academy and, in 2020, made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. John is the author of 15 books, including Aboriginal Stars of the Turf, fight for Liberty and Freedom, the Aboriginal Soccer Tribe and many others, and most recently this year, his new book Fight for Liberty and Freedom the Origins of Australian Aboriginal activism okay, thanks, cara, for that kind introduction and thanks everybody for coming along, and such a night as we're having at the moment and so I don't know if it's still pouring out there certainly was when I arrived.
Speaker 1:I I'm going to replicate I was speaking here a couple of weeks ago at a major forum we held in commemoration of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, which this year marks 100 years since this organisation first rose to prominence as the first united, all Aboriginal political organisation to form in this country, if you like, the beginning of the modern Aboriginal political movement. And you might ask the question why is this so important? You know it's 100 years since this organisation rose up. Well, the reality is, all the things that that organisation put on the table 100 years ago are still the things we are fighting for today. They put up a demand for enough land for each and every Aboriginal family in the country. That's a national land rights agenda. They demanded that the removal of Aboriginal children from their families had to be stopped. They wanted to protect a distinct Aboriginal cultural identity. They demanded self-determination, genuine self-determination, 50 years before the Whitlam government accredited with putting up self-determination for Aboriginal people. And they demanded that Aboriginal people be placed in charge of Aboriginal affairs. So these are the things we are still fighting for in the 21st century, 100 years later.
Speaker 1:This was the event two weeks ago and Gary Foley and I have been planning something like this for several years and sadly Foley couldn't come on the day. I mean he was still demanding the week before because I was flying down to Melbourne because I know how unwell he's been and saying look, russ, don't come up, we can get a Zoom organised. And he said I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there and anyway, on the Thursday Remy said I can't come, get the library to organise a Zoom. So I liken this image, saint Foley bestowing his guidance to us on the panel. And we had, as well as Foley and myself as descendants of office bearers of the AAP. Gary Williams' grandmother's brother, lambert Waddy, was also an office bearers of the AAPA. Gary Williams' grandmother's brother, lambert Waddy, was also an office bearer. Johnny Mundine's grandfather, johnny Donovan, was an office bearer. Pauline Plagg's family from Grafton were office bearers of the AAPA and I must acknowledge Joy Lay, the photographer at the New South Wales State Library, for the incredible images that she took and it was an incredible turnout. I mean I don't know if people were there. I mean, it was a sellout basically for the state-of-the-art theatre. They've got downstairs. But the thing that really struck me was the number of young Aboriginal people there and really were so excited by a lot of the stuff that was being spoken about and they were coming up after it the thing was ended, and also at the pub down the road with plenty of questions. And this is what we need to do. We need to mobilise like we've done in the past, and it's got to be young people driving that message forward.
Speaker 1:Now the AAPA were led by my grandfather, fred Maynard, and pictured here with his sister, emma at the rocks in 1927. He was a warfie and a trade unionist and there were international connections, certainly through my grandfather's work on the wharf and Jack Johnson and the Coloured Progressive Association. In the first decade of the 20th century, johnson was the Muhammad Ali of his day, highly politicised, incredibly articulate, outspoken and confronting to the white establishment. And then, later on, marcus Garvey, who established what is today recognised as the biggest black movement ever seen in the United States and mobilised over 2 million followers worldwide, including here in Australia. As an office of the UNIA, garvey's organisation was established here in Sydney with members like my grandfather and Tom Lacey and others. The thing about Garvey's message that struck these early Aboriginal activists was the whole sense of belonging to country. I mean, garvey's message was about Africa but it struck with Aboriginal people. We were connected to the ground under our feet and it was all about social, political and economic change and really that was the message and self-determination that really struck a chord with the Aboriginal activists and that really struck what was to follow with the formation of the AAPA. Because they formed the AAPA in 1924 and they'd grounded it and a lot of Garveyism at that particular time.
Speaker 1:There's been a historical mistake, if you like. I mean a lot of non-Indigenous historians going back decades were saying that the early Aboriginal political movements were led by white Christians and humanitarians. Nothing can be further from the truth. The organisation was influenced by international black connections and they realised. My grandfather, coming into contact with visiting merchant black sailors from overseas African Americans, west Indians and Africans, realised that the racism and prejudice and oppression we were facing here was not just a localised thing, it was a global thing and we needed to confront it in that space Now.
Speaker 1:The AAPA held their first conference in 1925 at St David's Church Hall in Surrey Hills and over 200 Aboriginal people attended that first conference and you know they were front page news. And, as I said you know before, self-determination there it is up in black and white. Aborigines demand self-determination, self-determination is their aim and that again was grounded in Garveyism. My grandfather's inaugural address at that conference in 1925, where he said brothers and sisters, we have much business to transact, so let's get right down to it. We aim at the spiritual, the political, the industrial and the social. Again, as I say again, that's Garveyism. We want to work out our own destiny. Our people have not had the courage to stand together in the past but now we are united and are determined to work for all of the preservation, for all of those interests which are near and dear to us.
Speaker 1:The AAPA was a people's movement. I mean it stretched 13 branches, four sub-branches the South Coast, the North Coast, western New South Wales. There was branches, four sub-branches as well. My grandfather stated he was simply amazed in travelling across the state to remote centres of Aboriginal communities by the response in the Aboriginal community, the excitement, the inspiration they were gaining and getting up and standing up. And he said I'm simply amazed by the response of the people to the AAPA. One old fellow wrote from a far back settlement, as a newspaper said, and said we want someone to come and explain to us about the Freedom Club. I mean these are the things that mobilise incredible inspiration at grassroots level for Aboriginal people. Tom Lacey put it down in the newspaper that this organisation, it was a. There was no money from government. The money to run the they had their own offices in Crown Street, sydney. These people were paying for that office out of their own pockets. In their travel, in their accommodation was paid by themselves. And Lacey said there was no money coming from anywhere else but it was a labour of love that drove them to fight for change. These are some of the branches I mean the Central Branch, mclean Branch, lismore Branch, bellinger River, clarence River, nambucca Branch, kempsey Branch, barraville Branch, batemans Bay, yerunga Branch, yuin Gai, yirgulba, naurna Glen and the sub-branches Lower Creek, bellbrook, green Hills and Coffs Harbour. It was an incredible mobilisation of Aboriginal people. In six months they had over 600 members across the state.
Speaker 1:In late 1925, they held their second conference at Kempsey up on the north coast. The incredible thing about this conference, which history in many respects has missed. It ran for three days. The Maclay Argus and the Maclay Chronicle covered this incredible event in their newspapers and said over 700 Aboriginal people attended that three-day conference. All the papers were written and delivered by Aboriginal people. The important thing Jimmy Linwood and Johnny Mosley, two senior Aboriginal men, dungutti Aboriginal men in the newspaper. They said they delivered their addresses in Aboriginal language. And this is a time shortly when the anthropologists are saying there is no Aboriginal culture left in New South Wales. There's no language, there's no stories. Yet here we've got a conference with 700 Aboriginal people and senior men delivering their papers in language. Clearly they could understand language.
Speaker 1:My grandfather delivered a powerful resolution at the close of that conference. It was sent to the NSW State Government and the Commonwealth Government and, as he said, as it is the proud boast of Australia that every person born beneath the Southern Cross is born free, irrespective of origin, race, colour, creed, religion or any other impediment, we, the representatives of the original people in conference assembled, demand that we shall be accorded the same full rights and privileges of citizenship as are enjoyed by all other sections of the community. My grandfather also forcefully stated that we as Aboriginal people have overriding rights above all others in our land. That is a statement of Aboriginal sovereignty. Make no mistake about that. He also said we are fighting for the good of all Aboriginal people. This was a united front and we saw that through the 60s, the 70s and 80s. We've been derailed by governments ever since. We spend most of our time fighting amongst ourselves with factions and divisions. We've got to get back to a united mobilisation of Aboriginal people to fight for change. That's where you will get change in this country and that's what we needed to go back for fighting for the good of all Aboriginal people.
Speaker 1:In 1927 the AAPA published a manifesto that was widely published across the state. I mean over the years, 20. Over years I spent a lot of time in the library downstairs, the state archives when they were on the rocks and then libraries right across this country, and I managed to track down five microfiche things about this manifesto. Today, with the aid of Trove and electronic search engines, every town in New South Wales I would say it had a newspaper published this manifesto back in 1927. Not only in New South Wales. It was published in Queensland, victoria and South Australia.
Speaker 1:And there you go what they're saying there you know again the demand for enough land for each and every Aboriginal family in the country. The demand that Aboriginal people be placed in charge of Aboriginal affairs. The message when it went through to the New South Wales State Government, the Protection Board stepped in with Premier Jack Lang and told him the Protection Board was well taking care of Aboriginal people and these agitators need to be dismissed and not to undertake. Take up Julie, the Premier's time. He was to ignore them and listen to the Protection Board. My grandfather received a dismissal from the state government in regards to how they reviewed the manifesto, but the Protection Board were well catering to Aboriginal affairs in this state and that's the end of the matter. He wrote a three page letter to the Jack Lang, the New South Wales State Premier.
Speaker 1:This is only a small section of that, but it's one of the most powerful, I think, ever written by an Aboriginal activist. I wish to make it perfectly clear on behalf of our people that we accept no condition of inferiority as compared with the European people. Two distinct civilisations are represented by their respective races. That the European people by the art of war destroyed our more ancient civilisation is freely admitted, and that by their vices and diseases our people have been decimated is also patent. But neither of these facts are evidence of superiority. Quite the contrary is the case. The members of the AAPA have also noted the strenuous efforts of the trade union leaders to the conditions which existed in our country at the time of invasion. The word invasion being used in the 1920s, a lot of right-wing historians argue that it was led by a lot of white left-wing ratbags in the 1960s using the word invasion, which is in itself a gross lie, but Aboriginal people here are using that word. Then the men only worked when necessary. We called no man master and we had no king.
Speaker 1:The AAPA was under constant threat, intimidation and harassment by the New South Wales Police. Remember that the protection board, the chair of the New South Wales Protection Board, was a police commissioner. Threats were non-stop coming into the AAPA. My grandfather, in an interview in 1927, he said he'd been warned on many occasions that the doors of Long Bay Jail were opening for him. He said he would chiefly go to jail for the remainder of his life. He declared if by so doing he could make the people of Australia realise the truly frightful administration of the Aborigines Act In many respects. I mean going back when my book Fight for Liberty and Freedom first came out in 2007,.
Speaker 1:At that particular point in time, you know, it was assumed and I assumed too that the AAPA disappeared in 1927.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the reasons why the expanded, revised, updated book has just come out again, because in the last 17 years there's been a lot of new information that has come to light, and one of those things was the fact that the AAPA didn't disappear in 1927.
Speaker 1:They were still there in 1928 and even into 1929. And one of the things that come to the fore was my grandfather speaking at the Willoughby Labor League on Aboriginal matters, and they said that he was trying to change the policies of Aboriginal policy by voice and pen and that he was a great orator at that particular point in time. And this really hammers home that, as I said, that they were still there in in 1929. The impact of the Great Depression is one thing I mean because my grandfather and his brother Arthur those wolf labourers Sid Ridgeway working at Chalora and the railways, dick Johnson, tom Lacey and many of the other Aboriginal activists I mean were the first to be shown the door. As far as work, my grandfather on the docks they said that he continually turned up for his ticket was continuously overlooked for work. It was a very, very difficult time.
Speaker 3:The.
Speaker 1:AAPA went underground as a movement. Many years ago I interviewed Uncle Reuben Kelly, a Dunguddy man from Bellbrook, and he said I was working at the University of Sydney in the 1930s and he said it was the last time I heard your grandfather speak was in the grounds of the University of Sydney. He said mid-1930s. My father also said to me that him and a young Aboriginal boy he said we were only about five or six picked up by the police at Lakemba and taken to Canterbury Police Station. Picked up by the police at Lakemba and taken to Canterbury Police Station. And my father in that interview with me said that day in that police station was the most frightening day of my life. And he said remember, we're just five and six-year-old kids. And he said they absolutely terrorised us and frightened the living hell out of us. My father wasn't. He eventually let go and ran home. But he said it's only later I realised as an adult what that was all about. We can get the message through to his father my grandfather, we can pick up your kids any time we like and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. So the AAPA disappeared from view in the mid-1930s and certainly it's the police, harassment, intimidation. My grandfather also eventually had what is recalled as an accident on the wharf. One leg was broken in six places. He was in and out of hospital for 12 months. Sugar diabetes set in gangrene. They took his legs off and he was completely incapacitated. The stories our family carry that that accident was no accident to what happened to him. So there's no proof of that but certainly our family carry that.
Speaker 1:In saying that material continues to come to light. I mean Ronald Briggs here at the library only the week before last said the library had unearthed some letters from the AAPA, including my grandfather and a non-Indigenous supporter. Elizabeth Mackenzie Hatton wrote to Reverend Gribble in regards to the Forest River massacre in 1926, where somewhere between if you look at the records, either 30 or 300 Aboriginal people were slaughtered at Forest River and then their bodies were burned. There was an investigation and inquiry into the vigilante group and the police and those people got off scot-free. The target then was Gribble, the one who really brought to light what had happened up there, and my grandfather and Mackenzie Hatton wrote to Gribble to lend support and say that the AAPA in their fortnightly meetings were totally 100% behind Reverend Gribble and they were astounded and disgusted that these police officials got off scot-free for the slaughter of Aboriginal people. So, as I said, the material continues to come to light and for what it's worth.
Speaker 1:If anybody wants to chase up a great book, it's every major bookshop. Go and grab a copy. Okay, and look just to, and as I started, I mean this is 100 years ago, but it is all interconnected. I mean, to our people here and our people that support us, you must stay strong. The struggle goes on in this country for genuine Aboriginal rights and justice. Don't forget it, thank you. Applause and justice. Don't forget it, thank you.
Speaker 4:We're also joined by Professor Heidi Norman, who researches and publishes in the areas of New South Wales Aboriginal history and politics. She is currently leading two research projects. First is an ARC funded history of New South Wales Aboriginal Affairs Administration titled Governing Aboriginal Self-Determination in New South Wales, which examines how self-determination has been enacted as policy mode of governance, ideology and narrative by government from 1980 until today. The second is a James Martin policy challenge grant focused on enabling New South Wales Aboriginal landholders to participate in climate adaption and mitigation.
Speaker 4:Heidi's research has included a history of the New South Wales annual Aboriginal Rugby League knockout, the influence of mining on the society and economy over Gomeroi lands and the impact of economic change on urban Aboriginal lives. In 2015, heidi was awarded the UTS Research Excellence Medal for collaboration and in 2016, the National Teaching Excellence Award for her work in Indigenous Studies. In 2021, she was a finalist for the UTS Chancellor's Medal for Research Excellence and in 2017 to 2018, she was awarded the inaugural Gough Whitlam Research Fellowship. And also in 2018, she was announced as a top five ABC Humanities researcher. And also in 2018, she was announced as a top five ABC humanities researcher.
Speaker 3:Heidi Norman is a colleague of mine at UNSW and is a descendant of the Gomeroi people from northwestern New South Wales. I'm going to talk about national land rights. So it's a slightly different pace to what John has talked about. Different pace to what John has talked about and really the story of national land rights starts in 1966 with the first land rights act passed in South Australia and the question I have it's a long chapter written with my mate, francis Markham, and I'm looking at the time to make sure I stay on track here. I really have been thinking about this crazy national land rights story that is uneven, fragmented and really wanted to. What we've done in this work, in this chapter and what I'll talk to you today is to think about how and why this came about. So really, john's talking about the activism and mobilising by the 1960s. We get to a point where what begins is a collective land titling process, but it's not quite what it seems and this is really a story John has given us, a story of activism and organising and mobilising. This is a story of the tensions between state and federal governments and what they fail to deliver. So I'm taking political history up in the sense of wanting to scrutinise not just the role of Aboriginal activists and allies, but the tensions between federalism, so from near complete dispossession. Since 1966, a collective land titling process has been underway. Land interests are recognised over more than half the Australian continent, nearly four million square kilometres, with more under claim. It's estimated Indigenous peoples around the nation hold exclusive possession, native title and fee simple to around 26% of Australia's landmass, rising to 54% of the country when non-exclusive native title is included, and this expanse includes national parks, conservation areas, vast expenses of the continent. I'm going to show you a lot of maps in my presentation, so it seems very appropriate that we're in the map room.
Speaker 3:However, aboriginal land restitution, when considered nationally, is uneven and fragmented, with little consistency in the rights that are afforded or amount of land returned. This spatial unevenness is sometimes elided in a rush to celebrate land restitution, and that's what we see in some of these images that are generated from. I picked this one up from the Native Title Tribunal. So, in a rush to celebrate land restitution, it leaves the notion of legal rights and interests unspecified and bracketed in favour of an abstracting move that obscures jurisdictional differences. Here I consider the fragmented nature of the last 60 years of Aboriginal land rights across Australia and offer an account as to why this has come about. So what I argue is that the standard accounts this isn't what I the standard accounts of the spatial distribution of land rights stress remoteness as a primary determinant of the presence or absence of land restitution, itself a function of colonization. Other accounts focus on Aboriginal activism and that network of allies as factors in land restitution.
Speaker 3:In this presentation, hopefully, I'll get through a fair bit of it. What is less examined is the history of federal Indigenous public policy making in the pattern of Indigenous rights and interests in land restitution. This is a more realistic representation of the land repossession where the strongest title prevails title prevails. So what sits underneath the post-1966 land restitution are varied federal and state-based laws and, from 1992, recognition of native title rights and interests by the High Court and subsequent codification and restriction by Commonwealth governments. Accordingly, the national story of Aboriginal land rights, the post-1966 story, this land titling revolution, as it's sometimes referred, is inevitably a federal one, based not only on the idiosyncratic nature of Indigenous land rights and campaigns in each state and the particularities of state governments, but also on the inclination of Commonwealth governments to centralism in public policy. The patchwork of land returns that we now see and that I'll come back to right at the end, results from the intersection of Indigenous settler politics but also intergovernmental politics within the Federation and the tendency, particularly of Labor governments and the High Courts, towards centralism and the tendency particularly of Labor governments and the high courts towards centralism. So here is the schema we devised to think about over the last 60-odd years, the move between states and state governments and the territory in this back and forwards in terms of land rights laws.
Speaker 3:Now, in the 1960s, aboriginal activism thrust the issue of Aboriginal land rights onto the national political agenda. It was in parallel with global movements for decolonization and land reform and civil rights. At that time government policy towards indigenous peoples in Australia was largely left to the states and it was only in the territories where the Commonwealth maintained a role in Indigenous policy and administration matters, where the federal government acted as a regional government. Indigenous land rights in the 1960s, just to reiterate this, was seen as a matter for the states. In some parts of the country indigenous people lived on and were often confined to, as John has covered in that activism from the 1920s period, land reserved by state and territory governments for indigenous use. But the reserves existed only so long as it pleased settler governments they could be and were often revoked by state governments, a denial of land that often provided the sparks that ignited land rights movements.
Speaker 3:It should not be a surprise that the first legislative reforms in response to calls for Aboriginal land rights came from the states and dealt with reserves. So here are two, just two, examples. The only examples is in 1966 the newly elected South Australian government passed laws the Aboriginal Lands Trust it was aimed at reparative objectives created an organisation controlled by Aboriginal people tasked with holding and managing former reserves In Victoria. You can see those two colourful signs there. Victoria became the first state to grant freehold title to communities themselves, allowing them to own their land outright.
Speaker 3:In Victoria the revocation of Aboriginal reserves had long been a cause for Aboriginal organising and activism, with almost all of the 1,000 square kilometres of reserved lands revoked over the century prior to 1960. By the 1960s only two Aboriginal reserves remained Lake Tyres and Framlingham, both homes of small communities and slated for revocation over the coming decade. It was a black power movement emerging in Victoria under the auspices of the Aborigines Advancement League that successfully fought off these proposals and in 1970 the Bolt government passed idiosyncratic legislation transferring these two areas, these early moves towards distinctive state responses to land rights coincided with a major shift in federal arrangements, and that of course, was at the start of the 19th. That, of course, was the 1967 referendum. So dissatisfaction with this federal allocation of responsibility had been developing from the 1920s and 30s and ultimately changed as a result of the referendum by the early 70s. No land reform had been attempted by the Commonwealth Government, despite the expectations raised by the 1967 referendum, and it seemed that the coalition government then led by McMahon had no intention of using their new constitutional rights or acting on the mandate of the referendum to do so.
Speaker 3:Events in the Northern Territory forced the hand of the coalition government in its dying days, and so pressure mounted the McMahon government on Australia Day 1972 was a long-awaited announcement, and it was a bitter disappointment. Not only did the McMahons Prime Minister oppose the Yucala petition to stop a bauxite mine going ahead on their country. Rather than land rights, they instead announced a lease arrangement subject to application. The Australian Labor Party at the time, propelled by the Yokala problem in Arnhem Land and the Gurindji walk off from Wave Hill, had begun from 1963 developing a position on Aboriginal land rights. The Aboriginal Affairs Committee recommended what became the forerunner for land rights. And so when Prime Minister McMahon announced this much-promised new direction in Aboriginal affairs, aboriginal men then living in and around Redford were compelled to drive overnight to Canberra. There they erected umbrellas and laid a tent on the manicured lawns opposite the Australian Parliament. This protest at 10 Embassy dramatically registered the effects of being made alien in one's own country and announced a seismic shift in Aboriginal and Australian politics.
Speaker 3:So here what emerges is what we refer to here as centralism. So the Gough Whitlam Labor Government announces to the electrified Blacktown Civic Centre audience a rightful place in this nation. By day 11 of his government coming to power in November, he announces an inquiry known as the Woodward Royal Commission. While radical and progressive Whitlam's position at that time coming into office also represented a watering down of the national ambition of the ALP platform, they were no doubt capitalising on the national attention focused on the Northern Territory. And at this time Whitlam's ambitions were narrowed and the Labor Party promised to establish land rights in the Northern Territory and beyond the Territory. Whitlam promised much less, and that was an Aboriginal land fund to purchase or acquire land for significant, continuing Aboriginal communities. That was in quotes.
Speaker 3:So days after the election I, as I mentioned, there was a Woodward Royal Commission and in this we can see that the Commonwealth were leading the way, not by centralist coercion but by example, and I'm going to move through some of this just quickly because there's much more to come to. Suffice to say that there were two reports that arose from the Woodward Royal Commission. The first led to the drafting of land rights in the Northern Territory and it was intended, and I quote here, that Whitlam's had a two-stage strategy. And what? What he explains was that he, for legislating land rights nationally, he explained, was because, and I quote, there can be under the present administrative arrangement no let or hindrance. Hence a constitutionally expedient stage in a strategy for national land rights. He told the Parliament, and I quote the Commonwealth will exercise its constitutional powers if need be by way of acquisition of these Aboriginal reserves and other relevant lands and so on.
Speaker 3:The implementation of this second stage of Whitlam's centralist approach to land rights was interrupted by the dismissal. Stage of Whitlam's centralist approach to land rights was interrupted by the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975. Under Fraser the approach was referred to as new federalism. And here what emerges? In the period 1976, while the Fraser government passed the Northern Territory Land Rights Act largely unaltered. The federal question in land rights were left to the states. So it was Fraser's new federalism emphasised negotiation as a preferred method for managing intergovernmental relations rather than coercion.
Speaker 3:The main active role foreseen by Fraser for the Commonwealth outside the Northern Territory was funding of the Aboriginal Land Fund, although this was dramatically cut back in the first austere budget of the Fraser government. In contrast, the Gough Whitlam-led Labor opposition, they seem to step up their commitment to centralism and the Labor Party's approach to federalism prioritised uniformity in outcomes across states and thus a centralising role for the Commonwealth. While Whitlam, running his Labor opposition in 1977, maintained his promise to pursue land rights in the states, even against the wishes of state premiers. To discharge the responsibility given to the Commonwealth after the referendum, the ALP's platform from 1977 professed an Australian Labor Party will seek the cooperation of state parliaments to adopt similar legislation and only where the states fail to cooperate with the government-introduced legislation to implement these principles and recommendations. During Fraser's term, intransigent state administrators had ample opportunity to obstruct the land rights agenda In South Australia, the pioneer for land rights nationally, successive Labor and Liberal governments proved willing and able to implement much of the Woodward Royal vision, new South Wales took a different path in its legislation of statutory land rights.
Speaker 3:I've written about this extensively and I'll just briefly cover off on that. By 1983 the New South Wales government, really in response to incredible activism for land rights in New South Wales that had been long in the making, it blossomed with the establishment of the timber embassy and as a resistance grew to the revocation of Aboriginal reserves. By 1978, there was an announcement of an inquiry into land rights. This reported in 1980 and subsequently watered down through green papers and cabinet processes. The once radical proposal for land rights in New South Wales was met with significant resistance from Aboriginal activists. For land rights in New South Wales was met with significant resistance from Aboriginal activists when finally enacted.
Speaker 3:The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act was an innovative departure from the Woodward model adapted to the very different circumstances facing Aboriginal people in New South Wales. One of those features was the compensation fund In Victoria. The compensation fund In Victoria the Labor government was returned to after 27 years. In March 1983, the Victorian government introduced the Aboriginal land claims bill. It was ultimately unsuccessful. They didn't have the numbers and there was opposition to the framing of those laws. Instead, five highly specific acts were passed that each transferred parcels of land to Aboriginal community control. A systemic land claims process was not reconsidered in Victoria for several decades to come.
Speaker 3:By the end of Fraser's third term in 1983, the limits of his new federalism were evident when it came to Aboriginal land rights. While the Commonwealth had advanced land rights in the Northern Territory, little had been achieved elsewhere. Tasmania, queensland and Western Australia obstructed the Liberal Party's land rights policy. They resisted the work of the Aboriginal Land Fund Commission and showed little interest in legislating land rights. Any semblance of a national approach to land rights was in disarray. As the Labor Government prepared to contest the 1980 and 1983 elections, they responded to the criticism of the Fraser government's passivity by strengthening their policy on national land rights. The 1982 policy platform committed a future Labor government to grant lands and compensation to Aboriginal and Islanders, using the principles and recommendations of the Woodwood Royal Port Report. What was new was not just the promise of compensation as advocated by the representative body at the time, the NACC, some years earlier, but also the promised mechanism for achieving national land rights when states were unmoved. Hawke said he would use Commonwealth constitutional powers and legislation to achieve these objectives, just as Whitlam had promised in 1977.
Speaker 3:After winning the 1983 election, the Hawke Labor Government faced the challenging task of delivering on this promise. A new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, clyde Holding, resolved to draft any legislation in collaboration with Aboriginal groups, particularly the NAC, and only to take it to Parliament with their approval. Holding intended to pressure state governments into enacting similar land rights laws and if they failed to legislate, the Commonwealth would override their authority. Holding's brinkmanship in land rights policy stood in contrast to Prime Minister Hawke's approach, who was rapidly backpedalling. He described this as practical reconciliation with federalism. Hawke was now preferring a cooperative, consensual federal model rather than seeing a centralist role for the Commonwealth primarily as a pragmatic strategy.
Speaker 3:I'm going to move through this quickly, but some of the key points were that, faced with pressure from the Western Australian mining lobby, conflict among Labor factions and polling in Western Australia suggesting that land rights was now unpopular, hawke unilaterally decided in October 1984 to remove the Aboriginal veto power over mining from Labor policy. He didn't discuss the matter with Aboriginal interests or even his Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. With the Labor Party heading towards an early election in December, neither Holding nor his Aboriginal advisors were able to advance the Woodward Land Rights Agenda by the end of 1984, the Labor Agenda of Reform National Land Rights was in tatters, not fully abandoned. It was never abandoned, it just reached a stalemate by February 1986. The mining lobby were unable to secure their interests and Aboriginal groups were unable to advance the national land rights legislation.
Speaker 3:Crucially, what emerges here is that the judiciary once again becomes a focus for activism and land restitution in the absence of any adequate response on the part of the federal government. And their plan in 1981 and 82 to issue what were referred to as doggots over former Indigenous reserves catalyzed the preparation of a new legal challenge to settler dispossession, known as the Mabo case. Litigants were successful in overturning the myth at the time of colonisation Australia was terra nullius, or land belonging to no one. Nullius, or land belonging to no one. The High Court's decision acted in its familiar role as centraliser in the Australian federal system. The Keating government was finally drawn into legislating a national response to dispossession, to the dispossession of Aboriginal land, two decades after the election of Whitlam. But its response was reformist rather than revolutionary, falling far short of the principles in the Woodward Royal Commission.
Speaker 3:Since Howard, no Commonwealth government has pursued any substantive agenda on land rights or native title Dreams of national land rights along the lines of the Woodward principle are long forgotten and governments have shown little appetite to change the statutory framework for native title enacted in the native title Act, despite numerous reviews suggesting that reform is necessary. Indeed, it has been left to state governments and respect with respect to native title, the courts to provide solutions to indigenous land issues, some innovative and some less so. In Tasmania, in 1995, land Rights Act was passed that saw the transfer of land, and in Victoria and in WA, different processes have been negotiated that emphasise settlement over broad geographic, nation-based mostly footprints. Over broad geographic, nation-based, mostly footprints. And this is my last two slides Land rights at the state level were contingent of political dynamics, demonstrating how the varying stances of Commonwealth and state governments on land rights and federal-state relations have led to a patchwork of land rights across Australia.
Speaker 3:The two maps that I'm showing here illustrate this patchwork of outcomes. This is not just a story of the political machinations, but what we can see. These outcomes, using examples of tenure and veto rights over mining extraction, demonstrate the hugely varied outcomes of land rights across the country. So here you can see land tenure, alienability and native title recognition. In this next slide you can see this organisation by type of mineral extraction and veto rights enjoyed by landholders by type of mineral extraction and veto rights enjoyed by landholders. That's my last slide, but I'll just conclude by saying land rights recognition in Australia this is what I've argued here. This is what we developed in the paper is an outcome of shifting state Commonwealth relations within the Australian Federation. This has led to a hugely varied and spatially uneven set of legislative land rights regimes across Australia and it places the onus on Indigenous peoples to work to advance their rights and interests in the absence of agreed national standards or leadership from the Commonwealth Government. This is an area where change is really needed. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Finally, we are joined by Linda June Coe, who is a proud Wiradjuri and Torres Strait Islander woman activist, academic and PhD candidate at Macquarie University From Rambi Cowra, New South Wales. Linda hails from a strong family and kinship system of warriors on both her maternal and paternal bloodlines. Linda June's grandparents, Les and Agnes, were Wiradjuri trailblazers, and her father, aunties and uncles are renowned activists who have contributed to the defence of Indigenous land, people, place and futures. Linda June is a passionate advocate for justice, self-determination and revitalising Indigenous governance as practice, Having initiated and co-created the Wiradjuri Booyah Law Council in 2018 and for over two decades, Linda has also organised such national campaigns as Black Lives Matter, Water is Life, Climate Action, Stop Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and Stop the Forced Removal of Aboriginal Children, whilst remaining active in condemning institutionalised systemic racism on all fronts in the settler colonial project known as Australia. Linda believes that Indigenous liberation is embodied by the concept of Indigenous sovereignty and is reaffirmed by an operationalised and defiant Wiradjuri nation-led resurgence.
Speaker 5:Good evening everyone. Just a quick disclaimer I am wearing gumboots, so if I appear to be standing awkward it's because I am standing awkwardly. I am Linda June Coe, a proud Wiradjuri and Butta Lug woman from Orambi, also known as 32 Acres, an Aboriginal reserve situated three kilometres south of the township known as Cow here in New South Wales. I'll just quickly mention as well I'm an ex-student of Professor John Maynard and it's an honour and a privilege to be here speaking after him, professor Heidi as well. They're both very hard acts to follow. The theme Aboriginal political histories has a deep and profound meaning in my life as an Indigenous activist in this present moment. Aboriginal political histories have shaped my identity, education and growth as an Indigenous woman belonging to a family and community who have trailblazed and contributed to the outright rejection of white supremacy, settler colonialism and the illegal occupation of our lands. This year is a significant year for the Wiradjuri Nation, as we commemorate 200 years since the British Empire declared martial law upon our people in what is now known as the Bathurst Wars. As a child growing up in my country, I was raised with stories of a mighty Wiradjuri resistance, led by our warrior Windredoyne, who organised the first line of defence against the invaders into Wiradjuri territory, windredoyne led counter-strike attacks against the British, deploying guerrilla warfare and using the bush to outmanoeuvre the enemy into highly condensed areas and then attacking with spears and boomerangs in close combat. However, windredine knew this spear was no match for the white men's gun. After four months resisting a declared and open genocide, windredine and his warriors walked to Parramatta to commence peace talks with Governor Thomas Brisbane on the 28th of December 1824. That peace never came and 200 years later the Wiradjuri remember. Since the time of the frontier wars, indigenous resistance has prevailed against a ruthless regime of settler colonial elimination in an ongoing attempt to retain this continent of stolen land. Indigenous resistance today is a fight back story, using intergenerational methods of movement building, deployed by contemporary forms of activism and protest, to ensure lands, indigenous lands, lives and life ways remain intact, remain present and driven by our inherent birthright to exist freely, just as our ancestors have done since time immemorial.
Speaker 5:For this presentation and I apologise, I haven't pulled together a PowerPoint, sorry I discussed the period of Aboriginal activism and protest of the 1960s and 70s, and one particular event being a watershed moment in the advancement of Indigenous land rights in this country the Aboriginal Ten Embassy. I also explored the lasting impact and influence of this era from the political position of an Indigenous sovereign refusal which has sustained a growing mobilisation to challenge, reshape and make meaning of the date of 26th of January, celebrated nationally as Australia Day, the date of invasion. The era of the 1960s saw a significant rise in Indigenous political activism which contested the legality of settler colonial occupation and its institutions. Inspiration was encouraged by adopting language and approaches from the plight of other Indigenous and black people around the globe, particularly the United States, the American Civil Rights Movement, the American Indian Movement and the Black Power Movement. The international black struggle particularly represented in core four civil and equal rights and political, economic and social rights. The indigenous articulation of this in the context of Australia was the need for uprising and what became a unification of the indigenous cause to agitate against oppression, the denial of culture and rights to land. Indigenous led campaigns such as the 1965 Freedom Ride in New South Wales, the Yirrkala Bark petition and the Gurindji Walk-off at Wave Hill in the Northern Territory, along with the promise for social change of the 1967 referendum. Political consciousness in the actions which occurred throughout this period defined the agenda of Indigenous sovereignty, land rights and self-determination like no other time before. By the time the 1970s arrived, the Black Power Movement had been established in Redfern, known as the Black Caucus. This group was made up of young Indigenous activists at the time, including Lynne and Peter Thompson, billy Craigie, gary Williams, gary Foley, tony Currie and my dad's older siblings, uncle Paul and Aunty Isabel Coe.
Speaker 5:On the night of January 25th 1972, four Aboriginal men in Redfern Tony Currie, billy Craigie, bertie Williams and Michael Anderson travelled to Canberra to protest against the Prime Minister William McMahon's Australia Day statement. Mcmahon in his address stated that there would be no Aboriginal land rights and instead introduced 50-year general purpose leases in the Northern Territory to favour mining companies. The Nabalco mine in the gove, which the Yokala people had been opposing, was given approval, citing national interest. The following day the nation woke up to the news that four Aboriginal men were sitting on the lawns of Parliament House underneath a beach umbrella holding a placard reading Aboriginal Embassy Arguably the ten embassy was established to protest the very meaning and construct of Australia and became a creative vehicle for political dissent on the premise that Indigenous people had never acquiesced their rights to land in the first place.
Speaker 5:A young Uncle Paul, who was an incredibly astute lawyer at the time and a fiery and passionate Aunty Isabel were amongst these radicals who became instrumental in launching the unfinished business of an unseated Indigenous occupation into the national and global political arena. On the 7th of February 1972, an invitation was sent to the opposition leader Gough Whitlam by Indigenous activists of the Ten Embassy. Whitlam accepted the invitation quickly and attended the encampment the following day. Uncle Paul had previously challenged Whitlam, who expressed a profound lack of confidence in the Aboriginal Affairs Policy of the Australian Labor Party, and a meeting occurred between the two parties and, as Gary Foley recalls, whitlam walked out of that meeting and promised land rights to the protesters. And, as they say, the rest is history. By December that year the Whitlam Government came into power and the Aboriginal Land Rights Act Northern Territory was passed in the Australian Parliament in December 1976.
Speaker 5:However, the surge of Indigenous agency had achieved greater advancement in the pursuit of self-determination long before Whitlam promised land rights. In inner city Sydney, in the suburb of Redfern, between the collaboration of Indigenous intelligence, white professionals and student ally groups, the first Aboriginal community controlled organisations were established in the country, such as the Aboriginal Legal and Medical Service and the breakfast program which later became Murrawena Preschool, a lasting testimony of the defiance and strength of Indigenous activism and non-Indigenous solidarity at that time but, more importantly, the sheer determination and willpower of these young blackfellas to gain Aboriginal control over Aboriginal affairs. Fifty years on since the launch of the Aboriginal Ten Embassy protests in Canberra, the lessons of the generations before us, dating right back to the 1938 Day of Mourning protests, have been well taught to our young people of today and have willingly stepped up to the cause of anti-colonial disruption. The 26th of January remains a heavily contested site and provides an analysis of colonial domination and the quest for indigenous liberation. And what is a commemoration of two very opposing positions. The celebration of the birth of a settler colonial nation or the condemnation of indigenous dispossession and calls for justice remains a confronting discourse that circulates every year in the lead up to the day. How the national landscape named as Australia became a white possession lands at the feet of Indigenous activists, allies and supporters who galvanise the power of solidarity to accrue a national day of protest, reaching what is becoming an unparalleled national mobilisation for Indigenous rights, with attendance numbers increasing every year.
Speaker 5:Indigenous blockades to the system of white supremacy, which has contained our displacement and entanglement within Western colonial paradigms, continues to be fought against by people in Penn, using various technologies, creativities and agency to challenge the status quo. Indigenous sovereign refusal insists on withdrawing from destructive politics of reconciliation and recognition, without meaningful pathways for establishing shared power, the repossession of land and accountability frameworks into the Australian polity. Indigenous resurgence and sovereign refusal instead shifts our focus to dismantling power and disrupting the industries which profit from Indigenous suffering, while simultaneously renewing Indigenous relationality and Indigenous nationhood between people and land and their regeneration of cultural land-based practices. To reimagine Indigenous life worlds without the boot of the coloniser in our throats, but to be free to belong and free to roam these ancient lands whilst participating in a society that no longer feasts on our demise In 2024,.
Speaker 5:Indigenous protests on 26 January continues to challenge how and why Australia celebrates its day of birth, but fundamentally challenges settler claims to sovereignty, a claim produced by military force, not by conquest or by consent. Australia's public standoff with its national day continues to present a surging need for change, with prominent actions occurring at the local government level. As political discourse on a state and national scale maintains a tight grip on the conservative views and narrative of patriotism, the meaning and purpose of Australia Day is received with further scrutiny as local government areas throughout the country add weight to the debate. They have done so by seeking alternative ways to observe the date with an approach that is inclusive and sensitive to what 26 January represents to Indigenous people living within those areas, with many now questioning is Australia Day a day to celebrate at all? For instance, in 2016, the City of Fremantle in Western Australia decided to change its date of national celebration to 28th of January and received heavy public backlash and were condemned by political leaders at the time. More recently, in 2023, here on Gadigal land, sydney's Inner West Council voted to move annual Australia Day celebrations to 25th of January, becoming the first NSW Council to acknowledge the controversy surrounding the date, a move which has sparked hope in the minds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people post referendum, as the quest for justice is retained by the political will of localised, place-based movements to address the looming divide which the day represents. And I draw on a quote from Nayuka Gori, who reminds us that every day is Invasion Day in the colony it is not the date, it is the sentiment. It is not the date, it is the black genocide that birthed the white nation. Another recent move by giant retailers, kmart and Woolworths to no longer stock. Australia Day merchandise provides the possibilities of Indigenous solidarity movements by withdrawing their participation. A stark indicator of the times and the trajectory of Indigenous activism's impact on societal and political change in the 21st century.
Speaker 5:Over the course of the past 50 years, from the TEN Embassy to now, indigenous protests have lit fires right across this continent. The 26th of January serves as a reminder of our people's resilience and an enduring love for our culture, community and country. The emergence of the logics of an Indigenous sovereign refusal remains true to who we are as a people, consistent with our own political identities and autonomies over our minds, bodies, spirits and lands, for they are interwoven. We are this land. We are the first people and the first law. Two centuries of history making the colonial logic to eradicate the indigenous out of our beings has failed drastically, with the plight for justice and indigenous reckoning made stronger with each black baby born. The fire will keep burning.
Speaker 5:My final comments as I wrap up. I must give acknowledgement to the power and presence of the Indigenous matriarchy, for it is the Indigenous matriarchy who laid the foundations for the movements of today, the matriarchs who birthed warriors and activists in our communities and are the backbone to each and every single one of those communities. Right across this country, it is the Indigenous matriarchy who continues to activate the warrior spirit inside of all of us. From Burlew to Nam, to Mianjin to Gadigal, indigenous women remain the vanguard of Indigenous futures, a future where our children are not just surviving but thriving in indigenous identities, languages and cultures. A future where the land is returned and revitalised to optimal health, a future that is being written at this very moment for the history books of tomorrow. And I end this evening by sending my solidarity to the people of Palestine and that one day my all indigenous and oppressed people be free from violence, tyranny and structures of power until liberation from Gadigal to Gaza. Free Palestine, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4:Wow, what a night. Thank you to all our amazing speakers. We have heard from Emeritus Professor John Maynard about Fred Maynard and Tom Lacey's leadership in a united call for land rights. We have heard from Professor Heidi Norman about the government's response to the call for land rights and activism that birthed the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which is, I believe, the world's longest running continual protest, which is a fabulous thing to be known for. We've also heard from Heidi and Linda June about this activism, which in part motivated the Redfern community and their establishment of the Aboriginal Legal Service and the Aboriginal Medical Service, which Paul Coe played a huge role. So it's really exciting to have this line-up of speakers that have flowed so well and beautifully into one another, and for now we will go to question time and the audio recording will be stopped if anybody would like to formulate a question while our panel comes to the front.
Speaker 2:As always, history Council would like to acknowledge our cultural partners which allow us to exist, including our major funder, new South Wales Government, via Create New South Wales. And finally, a very, very quick sneak peek to the next three History Now events. They will all be crackers. Yes, you're welcome to take a seat. So, june 5, in this space, here at 5pm. Histories of Mental Health. This is held in conjunction with the University of Newcastle's Future of Madness Network, with Catherine Colbourn and Jamie Dunk.
Speaker 2:On the 31st of July, we have an unusual event it's online only because all three of our four speakers are overseas. So Lorena Allum, dirk Moses and Umut Kurt on truth telling and histories of genocide online only Now because I was combining four time zones. It's on an unusual time. You can attend in pyjamas with hot chocolate at 9pm Eastern Standard Time on the 31st of July 2024. But it'll be amazing, so please do attend. And then, on the 7th of August, transnational Design Histories with Livia Rezende and Isabel Rousset. Thank you so much for being a wonderful audience and thank you for your patience with the delayed start. I think we made the time very well, and happy May Day no-transcript.