Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was with great sadness that I learnt of the passing of Dr Yunupingu AO on 3 April this year. It wasn't unexpected, Yunupingu's health had been declining, but, nevertheless, when the news came through for certain that he had passed, the tributes and memorials poured in.

He made a towering contribution to Indigenous issues and to the broader affairs of our nation. He was pre-eminent in First Nations land rights over his lifetime. He was a Yolngu man, a leader of the Gumatj clan from Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. In 1978, he was made Australian of the Year. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1985, and he was a long-term chair of the Northern Land Council. A friend of mine worked closely with him during that time, and I'll pass on her reflections later. Above all, he was a proud and fierce warrior for his people. He forcefully engaged with power across politics to drive better outcomes for his people.

I had honour of meeting Yunupingu at the Garma festival in Arnhem Land in August 2007. I was working as a patrol commander for NORFORCE at that time, and that Garma festival and the words of Dr Yunupingu really opened my mind to a whole range of things.

A dark cloud was hanging over that festival when we met. The Howard government had launched the Northern Territory intervention two months earlier, and Dr Yunupingu led opposition to this intervention. He demanded consultation. It affected every aspect of his people's lives. He wrote in response to inquiries from the government about his criticism:

The answer is simple. I told him I was a landowner and leader and he had not spoken to me. He had acquired my land and sought control of my life without talking to me, let alone seeking my consent. Nor had he spoken to the hundreds of people like me throughout the NT who spent their lives coping with Third World conditions, a lack of services and the abject failures of governments. That simple failure to consult, I told him, would eventually undermine his good intentions. The conditions that hurt children and that he was pledging to fix would remain while he sought to impose a solution.

Very wise and powerful words indeed.

Since then, and with my entry into parliament, I've sought to listen to Dr Yunupingu over the various Garma festivals and times that I have spent in Arnhem Land, and to other First Nations leaders who are trying to drive real change. But it is that failure to consult that has held back progress.

Dr Yunupingu's success in building training facilities on his clan land and developing business enterprises is key for economic development across the Northern Territory. There has been real leadership, and we saw that exemplified with the successful launch of rockets by Equatorial Launch Australia from the Arnhem Space Centre. It really highlights the breadth of Dr Yunupingu's vision. The Gumatj clan, with Dr Yunupingu's leadership, are also open to engagement with Defence in a variety of ways. His people are truly the custodians of the land, the sea and the sky, and I'm proud to be part of a government that is working to finally realise his aspiration at a broader level. That's to have a successful referendum on the Voice to Parliament, followed by other elements of the Uluru statement—that is, treaty and truth.

As Dr Yunupingu wrote:

I am seeing now that too much of the past is for nothing. I have walked the corridors of power; I have negotiated and cajoled and praised and begged prime ministers and ministers, travelled the world and been feted; I have opened the doors to men of power and prestige; I have had a place at the table of the best and the brightest in the Australian nation—and at times success has seemed so close, yet it always slips away. And behind me, in the world of my father, the Yolngu world is always under threat, being swallowed up by whitefellas.

We can now deliver the Voice for First Nations people that Dr Yunupingu feared would slip through his hands.

I mentioned a friend of mine who worked closely with him when he was the Chair of the Northern Land Council, Morag Hocknull, who wanted me to send a simple message: 'Yunupingu's spirit may be at rest, but his legacy will live on—and our family memories will endure forever.' She says:

During my time with him and the NLC, we worked together and travelled throughout the Top End and Interstate to spread the importance of Aboriginal Land Rights, the rights of the traditional owners and the message was from the heart, was strong and was continuous.

Vale, Yunupingu.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Yolngu people have lost a great elder, and Australia has lost one of its greatest leaders of the past century, Yunupingu. His totems were fire, rock and Baru, the saltwater crocodile. His name means 'the sacred rock that stands against time'. His accomplishments and his examples of leadership are timeless. He was a skilled mediator between Indigenous and non-Indigenous structures of power. He was a thoughtful custodian of culture.

Yunupingu's activism began early in life. In 1963, as a teenager, he helped create the first Yirrkala bark petition, calling on this parliament to recognise Yolngu land rights and protesting against the proposed bauxite mine near Nhulunbuy. An edition of that petition, a piece of art, is displayed not far from here in the Members Hall, recognised as one of the foundational documents of the land rights movement. This bark petition represents the first time that a document describing Indigenous ways of representing connections to country was acknowledged by parliament.

Yunupingu would go on to devote his life to the building of understanding, goodwill and respect between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia and using art and music and culture to do that. That was a real focus of his efforts. As Special Envoy for the Arts, I want to draw attention to some of those things that he did. Yunupingu understood the power of music as a force for social change. In 1971, he recorded 'Gurindji Blues' with Ted Egan and Vincent Lingiari, the legendary land rights activist who led the Wave Hill walk-off in 1966. That song brought the Gurindji struggle for land rights to the ears of Australians in the southern states and brought national attention to their cause. It no doubt contributed to the ultimate return of the Gurindji traditional lands in 1975.

Yunupingu lent his voice and guitar skill to several recordings by Yothu Yindi, whose music has amplified calls for recognition and treaty for three decades. He helped to establish the Garma Festival. This celebration of First Nations arts, song, dance, storytelling and ideas has become a vital institution in our cultural life. He chaired the Yothu Yindi Foundation and saw it become an extraordinary force for good. The foundation's Garma Institute provides education facilities on country in north-east Arnhem Land and put Yolngu culture at the core of its curriculum.

It was in Arnhem Land at Garma that I first heard Yunupingu speak in person. It was 2009, and he and Jenny Macklin, who was the then Indigenous affairs minister, opened the Garma Festival, which was focused on the creative industries. I think if Yunupingu had contributed to nothing other than Garma it would be an extraordinary legacy. We heard the member for Solomon talk about his experience of Garma, which is something that nearly every non-Indigenous person I've ever spoken to who has been to it says is transformational in the way that it helps you think about our First Nations peoples and the culture and connection to land that they have. It was certainly that for me.

Yunupingu was a powerful advocate for a voice to parliament. Not only was he there from the beginning; he set things in motion at multiple points along his life, including, most recently, as a member of the Referendum Council established in 2015, which led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017. He was a member of the senior advisory group that developed the Voice proposal for this parliament. He knew that, when First Nations peoples are involved in decision-making processes that affect them, better outcomes for those people will come about.

Yunupingu argued with great clarity and eloquence about the need for Australia to respect and empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on their own terms. In 2016 he wrote:

What Aboriginal people ask is that the modern world now makes the sacrifices necessary to give us a real future. To relax its grip on us. To let us breathe, to let us be free of the determined control exerted on us to make us like you. And you should take that a step further and recognise us for who we are, and not who you want us to be. Let us be who we are—Aboriginal people in a modern world—and be proud of us.

Yunupingu was rightly frustrated by the slow pace of Australia's reconciliation journey throughout his lifetime. We all should be. We in this place can best honour his memory by continuing his mission to advance the agency, rights and opportunities of First Nations peoples with the same persistence and determination that he did. May his journey to be reunited with his fathers and his kin be a peaceful one.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand it is the wish of honourable members to signify at this stage their respect and sympathy by rising in their places, and I ask all present to do so.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the Federation Chamber.

Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.