Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to say a few words about the late Archie Roach. I remember sitting under my bower shed in Broome with Mr Bill Johnston, the late British actor Pete Postlethwaite and Archie. Archie and Pete had been on a journey of discovery in the Kimberley. They'd camped out in the desert with the Ngurra native title claimants and witnessed the senior leaders painting a huge canvas depicting their country. All night the elders sang songs of their country and its significance. They walked across the old Fitzroy River crossing and heard the stories of Jandamarra, the famous Bunuba warrior, his deeds against the encroaching pastoralists and the police posses out to kill him for he had shot one of them. These were the stories of the killing times in the Kimberley being told to Archie and Peter.

These were travels undertaken after meeting in Perth with Bill Johnston and his family and learning of the brutal murder of Bill's adopted Aboriginal son, Louis St John Johnston, by British backpackers, who used a vehicle instead of horses in the killing. We were all working on a documentary, called Liyarn Ngarn, on how the two stories of our encounters with each other might come together and make us as one and free us from our ignorance, fears and prejudices—trying to expose truth about the events in our historical and contemporary relationships. It involved AFL footballer Michael Long and his reflections on his courageous walk from Melbourne to Canberra. Having attended too many funerals and sorry days. Michael put to the Prime Minister, Mr Howard: 'Where is the love for my people?'

Liyarn Ngarn was a song that Archie composed. The underpinning rhythm was, 'Come together, because we've already been too far apart.' Farewell, my friend.