Grievance Debate

NAIDOC Week

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:06): I rise today to pay credit to the people of Port Augusta who organised a very successful NAIDOC Week celebration recently. Let me stress that they were Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who joined together to create this wonderful celebration, but of course ably led by Aboriginal people in the main.

The National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week is a fantastic celebration, and it culminated in Port Augusta this year with the NAIDOC Ball on 11 July. It was a marvellous celebration and I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate the people who organised that ball specifically, which my wife and I attended and had a fantastic evening at, with many friends there: the Family Violence Legal Service Aboriginal Corporation of South Australia.

Of course, while it is always dangerous to single people out because I know a lot of people did contribute, I understand it was largely Ms June Lennon and Ms Iris Furtado who were the key organisers, and it really was an outstanding night in the Cooinda Club in Port Augusta.

We were all joined at the ball by Gavin Wanganeen and Troy Bond, two absolutely outstanding football players from the Port Power club. It was a real pleasure to sit and chat and meet with them, and I know that everybody in the room really enjoyed that. One of the highlights of the night for me was to see that more than half the people in the room knew those two former football stars, and still community stars, at a personal level. That speaks so well of those two men and the amount of time that they have spent in Port Augusta over the last several years, supporting the Port Augusta community. Everybody who spoke with them did so on equal terms as a friend, which I think was really outstanding.

It was lovely to meet with an old friend and basketball adversary, Paul Vandenberg, who was the emcee for the night. It was also outstanding to have the CASM Soul Band, which I have to say I had not heard of before, but I understand that is a musical program with the University of Adelaide: a tertiary program for Aboriginal people to grow and to develop their performing skills within music, and I have to say that they did a really outstanding job. The food was terrific, the music was terrific, the company was outstanding and it was truly a celebration.

It was a really happy and enjoyable night. For me, NAIDOC Week and NAIDOC celebrations are very important opportunities for Aboriginal people to share with each other their pride in their culture, and really step forward and step up to show how pleased and proud—deservedly so—they are of their culture over the past tens of thousands of years and still today. Perhaps more importantly, it is also an opportunity for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to come together and celebrate that culture as well.

It was a really outstanding night, and it was wonderful to have the organisers involve the theme of NAIDOC Week this year, which is 'Serving Country: Centenary and Beyond', which put a very strong and very appropriate focus on Aboriginal people who served and serve in Australia's armed forces defending our nation. From all the things I have read, that I have heard on the radio, from the two current Defence Force personnel whose spoke that night, that information leads me to a very strong knowledge that Aboriginal people within the forces they served were treated completely as equals. Unfortunately though, as soon as those conflicts were over and those people returned to society —100 years ago, with regard to the First World War—they were not treated as equals.

There is a very strong and very important message there: when the chips were down and the non-Aboriginal people standing side by side with those Aboriginal men really needed them, they were treated—without any doubt—as equals. Unfortunately, society at that time did not do the same when the conflict was over. Fortunately things have changed, and they have changed for the better. We still have some distance to go, but wonderful NAIDOC week celebrations, like the one my wife and I attended with so many friends in Port Augusta, contribute to that ongoing improvement of our society.