John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] There are many Indigenous names from history that we know well. Bennelong, Pemulwuy and Barangaroo come to mind, but there are many, many other people who should feature more in our national narrative, and one of those people is Nanbarry. Nanbarry was brought to the settlement at Sydney Cove as child suffering from smallpox, the epidemic of which was ravaging the new colony and had recently taken his parents. Considered an orphan by the authorities, he was not allowed to return to his people once cured and was kept by the surgeon. He was given the name Andrew White, a name he never accepted or recognised.

Like Bennelong, his friend and mentor, and Colebee, his uncle, he lived a life between two worlds: an ancient Indigenous world and a shocking new European one. He joined Flinders for the first half of his circumnavigation, and he joined Bennelong's Kissing Point tribe by James Squire's brewery, now a back street in Meadowbank. After Bennelong's death in 1813, Nanbarry requested that, as a sign of respect, he be buried alongside his mentor at his grave by the river in the electorate of Bennelong. James Squire did this when Nanbarry died 200 years ago this Thursday.

Nanbarry's voice is quiet today, but it was a unique voice—a voice facing challenges of intersecting communities in ways that make any multiculturalism debate today look very simplistic. We need— (Time expired)

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