Kaurna Voices

The Hon. R.B. MARTIN (15:12): My question is to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Will the minister please inform the council about the Kaurna cultural map recently launched by the City of Adelaide?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:12): I would be more than happy to. I sincerely thank the honourable member for his question and his interest in this area.

Coinciding with this year's Reconciliation Week, which I spoke about earlier in question time, the City of Adelaide in partnership with the Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation, the prescribed body corporate for the Kaurna native title holders, has launched Kaurna Voices, an interactive website that maps significant Kaurna sites and tells Kaurna stories around the city.

The City of Adelaide has been building this project over the last two years and it has been an integral part of their reconciliation action plan. The result is a stunning and engaging piece of work that tells important and authentic Kaurna stories through the voices of traditional owners. Users of the map can learn about culturally significant sites and cultural practices such as ancient Kaurna burial rites and how these practices were carried out in locations across the city, as well as landmarks which represent the locations of some of the more difficult parts of our past, including atrocities committed against Kaurna people by early settlers.

The map features many things, including Tarntanya, the summer resting place for kangaroos as told in the red kangaroo dreaming; popular swimming and bathing spots along Karrawirra Parri, the Torrens; and the locations of camps where Kaurna people lived on the borders after European settlement, from which they were eventually removed by the then Chief Protector of Aborigines under the powers of the Aborigines Act.

The map also contains audio histories told by significant Kaurna elders such as Yvonne Agius and Uncle Lewis O'Brien, which explain the significance of Kaurna Yerta in their own words. Other very important contributions are from Aunty Rosalind Coleman, who I spoke about as giving the Welcome at the Reconciliation Week breakfast, about Tulya Wardli, or Bonython Park, and the special place that holds in her life.

Uncle Jeffrey Newchurch, as part of this project, tells listeners about the emotional significance of Tarntanya Wama, or Pinky Flat, as a social meeting place for Kaurna people. Aunty Lynette Crocker recounts the cultural significance of Kainka Wirra, the Botanic Gardens, and the importance of preserving that space. As Uncle Jeffrey Newchurch describes, cultural mapping is a healing process. This map represents how the stories of Kaurna Yerta, Kaurna land, have across time and always will play a critical role in the identity and purpose of Kaurna people.

I look forward to seeing the map grow over time as it captures more and more stories and, hopefully, seeing other councils follow suit with similar initiatives. For people interested, the map is available on the City of Adelaide website and I encourage people to have a good look and learn about the living history of Kaurna Yerta.