Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have spoken in the House before about my efforts to have the skull of Pemulwuy repatriated to Australia from the United Kingdom. For those members who are not aware of Pemulwuy's story, Pemulwuy was an Aboriginal warrior from the Eora people around Sydney who resisted early British settlement in New South Wales. Pemulwuy was eventually caught and executed by the Colony of New South Wales in 1802, but not before he had invested Parramatta and successfully fought battles against the British. His head was transported back to Britain, where it now lies in storage at the Natural History Museum. He is regarded as a hero to thousands of modern Indigenous Australians and to many members of the public at large, who see Pemulwuy as a figure of Aboriginal defiance, and his legacy remains an important part of Indigenous culture in Australia.

As some of you are aware, this campaign began when Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, pledged to help return Pemulwuy's skull and cooperate with Eric Willmot, a former Director-General of Education in South Australia, who is also the author of a 1987 book about Pemulwuy's life which has been reprinted in recent years, and Alex Hartman of Matilda Media, whom some will remember as a Young Australian of the Year, and with the support of Michael Mundine. They are all committed to helping return Pemulwuy's skull to Australia.

When I first spoke in this place about this issue in September 2011, I encouraged the current government to support my efforts to repatriate Pemulwuy's remains and I informed the House that I would be making representations to the Director of the Natural History Museum and to the United Kingdom government. Unfortunately, to date they have refused to look into the matter as they say they cannot identify Pemulwuy's skull from their human remains collection and they have refused to instigate a search to try and identify his skull. This inaction on the museum's part is unfortunate, particularly given that Pemulwuy was related to Bennelong and therefore the remains of Pemulwuy could be easily found and easily identifiable, through DNA testing, against the remains of Bennelong.

I wrote to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs in October last year, seeking her support and assistance and, disappointingly, I did not receive a response from her, but I did receive a response from the member for Hotham, who is a good member of this House. It is unfortunate, given Minister Macklin's past statements about the importance of Aboriginal history in Australia, that she, as the representative of the government, did not seem to be taking this very sensitive issue seriously. I say to members of the government here tonight that if they are unwilling to assist in returning a very important piece of Australia's history, then I can assure them that, should the coalition be fortunate to win the election due on 14 September, we will make every endeavour to expedite this matter and return Pemulwuy's remains to the Eora people.

Next week I will be meeting with several academics from the University of Adelaide who are working with the Australian heritage project, which is building a genetic map of Aboriginal Australian groups that is designed to identify Aboriginal remains using DNA. I strongly encourage members of this House to support their efforts and render them any assistance that they might need. I look forward to reporting back to the House in future months about what further progress we have made and I hope that with the assistance of Adelaide university and the Australian Aboriginal heritage project we will be able to identify Pemulwuy's remains and return them to Australia, where they belong.

Speaker, I have asked the minister on duty at the table if I can table the letters that I have sent and the responses that I have had from the Australian High Commissioner at that time, John Dauth, from the Natural History Museum, from St James's Palace on behalf of the Duke of Cambridge and also from Simon Crean, the member for Hotham, when he was the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and the Minister for the Arts, so I seek leave to table the correspondence.

Leave granted.