Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I have total respect for her family and culture I only propose to mention the name of the deceased once, for the purposes of the Hansard record, in the comments that I am about to make. Connie Nungulla McDonald passed away on 30 September 2010 and I was able to be part of the service in Revesby which remembered her remarkable life. She was 77.

Auntie, as she was known, was living in Revesby when her book, co-authored by my friend, Jill Finnane, was written. That book, When You Grow Up, was written for a variety of reasons, not least, in Auntie’s words on page 2, because:

Every person needs to belong and I am no exception, Not knowing very much about my family has weighed heavily on my mind all my life. It was government policy that Aboriginal mission children were not told where we came from or who our parents were.

Auntie was born in the Kimberley to an Aboriginal mother, Biddy, and a father who was part Aboriginal. Biddy and her daughter were taken to the Forrest River Mission for ‘protection’ when Auntie was four months old. Auntie was diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta—chalky bones—as a toddler and spent vast amounts of time over the rest of her life in hospitals. It seems that the restrictions she suffered as a result of that condition led to her determination and strength as an adolescent and later as an adult.

Auntie became an assistant teacher at the mission during the war and later assisted the nursing staff. On page 55 she said of that period:

I became conscious that despite my disabilities, I could use my intelligence to help people. … The relative freedom we had during the war gave me … the opportunity to learn tribal Law, something every dormitory child longed for.

In 1949 Auntie went to Alice Springs to continue her education as a teacher. She eventually left to live in Yarrabah in Queensland. From there she went to train for the Anglican Church Army, which enabled her to work in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. Subsequently Auntie worked as a social and welfare worker, which involved her with many of the problems experienced by urban Indigenous Australians. Auntie was a committed Christian who became an Aboriginal elder and entitled to be called ‘Auntie’. She was very proud of her title and she lived up to all the responsibilities that the title encompasses.

Her memorial service was held in Revesby on 29 October 2010 and organised by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. It was a celebration of the life of an extraordinary woman. Her story was told by Mary Eatts, Jill Finnane and Arthur Roy; Carol Carter read a prayer. Auntie’s family and friends were invited to share their memories and to pay tribute to her.

Shortly after I became the shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs in 1996 I went to Auntie’s book launch for When You Grow Up. She added a PS to the notation at the front of the book: ‘PS. I’ll expect you to work hard for us Kooris.’ I hope I did not let her down in the period that I was Aboriginal affairs spokesman for the Labor Party.

A very significant event also took place in the late nineties at the Revesby Workers Club when I organised a night of reconciliation. Between 400 and 500 people were in attendance that night. It was an opportunity for people to tell stories. We had a number of very important guests as well as members of the community. Auntie was given an opportunity to tell her story. She was only supposed to talk for 10 minutes; she went for about half an hour and she had the audience riveted with her story. She was a woman who was a complete joy and her exuberance was infectious to the audience. There was no sense of bitterness or even of sorrow about what had happened to her. She was very philosophical and a lot of that was her Christian beliefs that she had picked up over time. We could not get her off the stage; people did not want her off the stage. That is my memory of Auntie. Whenever I met her—she was a constituent of mine for a very long time before she went to the Kimberley, where she passed away—she was always infectious with her good humour. She always challenged you in a nice sort of way and you just could not help but notice her presence. She was the life of the party. Whenever she was present at any function or gathering we all gathered around her and were consumed by her. (Time expired).