Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise today to pay tribute to Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue, and to extend my deepest sympathies to her family and loved ones.

Dr O'Donoghue was, without doubt, one of the most remarkable leaders this country has ever known. Many have spoken here about her childhood and the unimaginable disadvantages she endured, as have so many of our Indigenous sisters and brothers. She was removed, or stolen, from her mother and assigned a birth date. She endured so much that many of us have not. Even after a childhood of immense trauma, she dedicated her life to the advancement of reconciliation in Australia, and played a pivotal role in national initiatives that have had a profound effect on Indigenous Australians and, therefore, upon all of us.

Dr O'Donoghue was never one to shy away from a challenge, as many others have noted in this place. She was a woman of many firsts. She was the first Aboriginal nurse in South Australia. In 1973 she was the first woman to be appointed as a regional director of an Australian federal department, being the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. She was the founding chair of the National Aboriginal Conference in 1977. She was the first chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission in 1990, and she was the first Aboriginal person to address the United Nations General Assembly, in 1992.

She has, quite rightly, received many awards in recognition of her contribution to this country and to many others. In 1976, she was the first Aboriginal woman to be made a Member of the Order of Australia. In 1983, as was mentioned earlier, Dr O'Donoghue was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to the Indigenous community of Australia. The year after, she was acknowledged by the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, as Australian of the Year. In 1993, Murdoch University was the first university to grant her an honorary doctorate. That was the first of many honorary doctorates. I believe she got another nine from universities right around the country in recognition of her vast contributions. In 1999 she was made a Companion in the Order of Australia for public service through leadership to Indigenous and, importantly, non-Indigenous Australians in the areas of human rights and social justice. I think it is very important that her Companion of the Order of Australia citation mentions her contribution to non-Indigenous Australians as well. Her honours continued. In 2006, she was invested as a Dame of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great, a papal honour awarded by then Pope John Paul II, which just goes to speak of how Dr O'Donoghue was regarded right around the world.

In the nineties, when Dr O'Donoghue was the chair of ATSIC, she worked alongside other prominent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and then prime minister Paul Keating to negotiate the terms of the Native Title Act following the Mabo decision. Keating would later recount the influence that Dr O'Donoghue had on delivering that act, saying:

… she decided, alone decided, that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia would negotiate, and I emphasise negotiate, with the Commonwealth government of Australia—and that the negotiators would be the leaders of the indigenous land councils. She decided that. And from that moment, for the first time in the 204-year history of the settled country, its indigenous people sat in full concert with the government of it all.

The Native Title Act passed in 1993, and finally Indigenous Australians had a legal process to claim native title over the lands and waters that they had lived on for tens of thousands of years before colonisation—the eternity that existed before colonisation and, indeed, exists today. Today, around 40 per cent Australia is covered by native title, most of which is in our northern regions, and of course it has a great interaction with the resources sector of this country. Sixty per cent of resources projects are on land covered by native title. The member for Newcastle mentioned this in her contribution, but I think it's important to reiterate that today, in 2024, we should not underestimate how difficult it was to enact and then go on to implement the national Native Title Act. There was an extraordinary scare campaign around native title following the Mabo decision and then Paul Keating's progress with the bill and the act itself. Most of that was, sadly, driven out of my home state of Western Australia, which the leaders of that state at the time would have said had a lot to lose from native title. It was an enormous and frightening scare campaign which set the tone for many discussions since between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

But the reality is that the Native Title Act and all that has come after it have been absolutely transformative for the resources sector but also, more importantly, for our wider community. Now we see an extensive array of voluntary land use agreements under the native title regime, and these agreements benefit Indigenous communities while also enabling responsible resources developments right across the country. These land use agreements and other agreements entered into between Indigenous communities and resources companies have the deep involvement of local communities—and not just Indigenous communities, I might add. Some of the neighbouring communities have benefited greatly from the consequences of the Native Title Act development over the years. There has been active involvement by communities in mine development, planning, rehabilitation, and all the extraordinary activity that goes on within the resources sector. We know the work Dr O'Donoghue did, alongside Paul Keating and many, many others, in developing that act has had enormous benefit for Indigenous populations and, more importantly, for the wider community.

We know that Dr O'Donoghue was a strong advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be recognised in Australia's Constitution. Sadly, Dr O'Donoghue did not get to see that constitutional recognition in her lifetime, but I know we can all agree here today that Australia is a better place because of her and her extraordinary contribution to this country. Even after her passing, her legacy will live on through the lives of those she has changed forever. My condolences to her family and friends. Vale Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue. May you rest in peace.

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