Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank Senator Singh for allowing me to go before her in tonight's debate. Last Friday in Cherbourg in Queensland—as you well know, Mr Acting Deputy President Furner—the community mourned the passing of a wonderful woman. Aunty Penny Bond, who was Penelope Embrey-Cobbo, was born in Cherbourg on 18 October 1932 under a dray during a very wild storm. Her parents named her Moomba, which means storm in Kabi Kabi. She was known throughout her life as a stormy person. I am deeply grateful to the people who put together the beautifully moving eulogy that was read at Aunty Penny's ceremony for some of the content of my speech this evening.

Aunty Penny was the daughter of Dennis Embrey and Kathleen Starlight and the granddaughter of Fred Embrey Kabi Kabi and Sylvia Cobbo. Aunty Penny is a woman who reflects the history of Aboriginal people in Queensland, particularly in south-west Queensland. She went into the dormitory system in Cherbourg and was eventually taken in by her uncle and aunt—who are now both deceased, of course. When her uncle died, Aunty Penny returned to the dormitory system and grew up under Queensland's Aborigines act, in an era when women and men were actually farmed out as domestics and labourers. Aunty Penny's first placement was at the Cherbourg Hospital as a nurse's aide, where she fondly recalled nursing the many friends and people in the community. Following that placement—which was not at her wish; it was actually under the determination of the Aborigines act at the time—Aunty Penny was sent out west to work as a domestic on various stations. She worked as a cook at St Xavier's college and around the Stanthorpe and Killarney areas on properties as a cook, a domestic or a nanny in the service of the families. When she returned to Cherbourg she worked as a domestic with the Perrett family around the Murgon district.

Around 1961 Aunty Penny was granted an exemption, a process that none of us truly understands. She was allowed an exemption from the act and moved to Brisbane to work. She at this stage was slowly beginning to become familiar with the politics affecting all Indigenous Australians, and she was very frustrated and angry at the restrictions and the situation. She started to publicly and privately question the government and was determined to become part of the change to recognise all Indigenous people. Her first meeting was at the OPAL centre, which we know well in Queensland and where she gained good insight into the plight of Aboriginal people and worked closely with a number of wonderful Queensland Aboriginal people.