Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'A trailblazer'—this fitting description from my colleague, the shadow minister for indigenous affairs, Senator Nigel Scullion, encapsulates an Australian icon whose passing we acknowledge and mourn. Mr Yunupingu was a leader who helped the Yolngu people of North-East Arnhem Land and demonstrated to them and to the nation just what an education can help you achieve. He was the first Aboriginal Australian from Arnhem Land to obtain a university degree and continued his passion for education right throughout his life. He was appointed school principal of the Yirrkala Community School in 1990—the first Aboriginal man to do so.

To most Australians—certainly those of the Riverina, who join in our sorrow at his passing at just 56 years of age this week—he was the lead singer of the iconic Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi, which brought us such hits as Treaty. He won eight separate ARIA awards throughout his career, including Song of the Year for Treaty with Yothu Yindi in 1992. Theirs was the story of vibrant culture and a proud people, which was rightfully acknowledged by Yothu Yindi's induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame just last year. For a generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, our first Australians, Yothu Yindi and Mr Yunupingu brought to the nation's attention the critical issues of Aboriginal health and education, which remain challenges today. Yothu Yindi consists of both Yolngu, Aboriginal, and balanda, non-Aboriginal, musicians and embodies a share of cultures. When he was named Australian of the Year in 1992, Mr Yunupingu's dedication to building bridges between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians and the sharing of cultures that Yothu Yindi seeks to highlight was recognised.

In addition to his achievements in education, Mr Yunupingu co-founded the Yothu Yindi Foundation and helped start the influential policy forum known as the Garma Festival. But, more than this, he captured the hearts of the nation and brought their attention to the Yolngu people. It is for this the nation will most likely remember a proud representative of a proud people. It is right we stop as the nation's parliament tonight and acknowledge Mr Yunupingu's remarkable contribution to Australian life.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Mental Health, Homelessness and Social Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to join with the other speakers in expressing my condolence for the passing of Dr Yunupingu, a great Australian, a man who absolutely lived the change he wanted to see in the world who looked past barriers and looked towards fairness and full participation for Indigenous Australians. I would like to join with other speakers in expressing my gratitude for the fire that Dr Yunupingu lit in our hearts through music, for the great challenge that he made to us all and for the truth that he sang out loud in his anthem of protest and reconciliation:

This land was never given up

This land was never bought and sold

The planting of the Union Jack

Never changed our law at all

Dr Yunupingu was a man who contributed significantly to change in this country. Over the recent Indigenous round of AFL, we reflected on the 20-year anniversary of Nicky Winmar's famous display of pride after the game between St Kilda and Collingwood. That was in 1993, the International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples. The year was launched in December 1992 by Prime Minister Paul Keating's famous declarations in Redfern, where he challenged all Australians by saying:

The message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include Indigenous Australians … there is everything to gain.

It was in 1993 that Dr Yunupingu was named Australian of the Year—20 years ago, a lot has changed. Keating's acknowledgement at Redfern that we took the children from their mothers was a first instalment of prime ministerial truth and reconciliation that was finally delivered upon with a national apology to the stolen generations in 2008. A lot has changed but not enough. Australia has made and continues to make a too slow journey towards the full healthy, productive and enabled participation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, too slow progress away from discrimination and towards full justice and full reconciliation. The gap is still too wide.

Dr Yunupingu has died too young. He has died from renal disease, which afflicts Indigenous people at four times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. Indeed, it afflicts Indigenous people in remote communities at 10 times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. That is one stark measure of Indigenous disadvantage and there are others. We must take every opportunity to spur ourselves on to greater effort and greater action in this area.

I want to recognise the heartfelt and wise words that others have said on this motion. Like many others, I am sorry that Dr Yunupingu is not with us in life but I am glad to think that he will always be with us in song and in spirit.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to follow the eloquent words of the member for Fremantle. In 2008, 17 years after he first sang of 'hearing about it on the radio and seeing it on the television', Mr Yunupingu reflected on the Hawke government's promise for a treaty for Indigenous Australians. 'I am still waiting for that treaty to come along for my grandsons,' he said. 'Even if it is not there in the days that I am living, it might come in the days that I am not living.'

Mr Yunupingu's optimism rings with particular poignancy in light of his passing this weekend. At only 56, his days on this earth were too few. Pushing Indigenous Australian issues to the forefront of the national psyche in a fashion that blended the political with pop culture was a momentous achievement. His influence extended internationally. He drew global attention to the ongoing mistreatment and inequality within Australia, while always encouraging a positive and inclusive attitude. Few of us could forget Yothu Yindi's performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony, bracketing, as it did, the role that Cathy Freeman played in the opening ceremony and with her victory in the 400 metres. During a period in Australian history where the government was reluctant to say sorry, thousands of voices sang along to Treaty, showing the world that non-Indigenous Australians wanted a better future with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

Mr Yunupingu's story is one of extraordinary passion, with the importance of identity and of hope for the future. As a member of the Gumatj clan, his ancestral totem was the saltwater crocodile and his family name, Yunupingu, translates to the 'rock that will stand will against anything'.

In his youth he was known simply by a short, anglicised first name, but he chose to shrug off this anglicisation and in his adulthood adopted his Yolngu first name. This act was an embrace of cultural tradition and served as a gentle reminder that no-one should have to adjust their identity for the convenience of others, least of all for the convenience of non-Indigenous Australians, whose tongues struggle with the unfamiliarity of this country's oldest language—as I confess mine does.

Mr Yunupingu began teaching at the Yirrkala school in his early 20s, and in 1987 he became the first Indigenous Australian from Arnhem Land to gain a university degree with his Bachelor of Education. He then broke another barrier by becoming the first Indigenous Australian appointed as a school principal. The curriculum he developed blended both Western and Aboriginal traditions, and this approach was also one he embraced in his music in the band he was fronting in his personal time. Yothu Yindi translates from Yolngu as 'child and mother', and theirs was a musical project that fused traditional Indigenous music with modern rock and pop.

In 1991 Mr Yunupingu stopped teaching to pursue his musical endeavours with the band. Along with the band's other members, Stuart Kellaway, Cal Williams, Witiyana Marika, Milkayngu Mununggurr and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the song Treaty was released in 1991. It spent 22 weeks at No. 1 on the Australian singles chart, and gained global recognition in 1992. Yothu Yindi toured the US with the Hon. member for Kingsford Smith's band, Midnight Oil, famously performing at the launch of the United Nations International Year of the World's Indigenous People.

Those who knew him personally say that Mr Yunupingu often spoke of his 'both ways' philosophy, and the need for Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians to speak to one another, not just about one another. This notion of balance and harmony was described by his close friend and fellow musician Paul Kelly, who described Yothu Yindi:

They are not so much a band as a physical philosophy. All great art contains contradictions. And their art has always rested on holding opposites together. The modern and the tribal, the parent and the child, balanda and yolngu, freshwater and saltwater, seriousness and celebration.

Mr Yunupingu was named Australian of the Year in 1992 for his contribution to building bridges of understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Political activism was something of a tradition with the family. His brother, Galarrwuy, had won the award in 1978. Mr Yunupingu was also committed to an extensive array of philanthropic work. He established the Yothu Yindi Foundation as a means to develop Yolngu cultural life, and he built the Yirrnga Music Development Centre, a recording studio for Indigenous artists.

The uniting power of Mr Yunupingu can best be summarised by again drawing on Paul Kelly's words. He paid tribute to Mr Yunupingu by saying:

You showed me your country, brought me into your family, called me brother. You called the whole country brother.

Australia has lost a powerful uniting voice. As an educator, a songwriter, a musician and a tireless campaigner, the contribution that Mr Yunupingu made to bridging the cultural and communicatory divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians cannot be overstated.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 21:58.