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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-03-07 Daily Xml
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PEISLEY, MS S.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (14:38): My question is to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation. Given that tomorrow is International Women's Day, will the minister share with this place the significant contribution made by the eminent Aboriginal South Australian Ms Shirley Peisley AM to the Aboriginal people of South Australia and, more recently, her efforts to support the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people within our state?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. As a caring and sharing person I will share with the chamber. As the honourable member suggested, there is no doubt that Ms Shirley Peisley AM is a special South Australian.

Ms Peisley, or Auntie Shirley as she is more affectionately known, has been a figure on the landscape of Aboriginal rights and reconciliation within South Australia, and indeed across the nation, for most of her adult life. She is fondly remembered as being the face of the 1967 referendum campaign to provide basic citizenship rights to Aboriginal Australians and, indeed, to include Aboriginal people in the federal government census.

The overwhelming support for the yes vote created a constitutional head of power under which the Australian government could make special laws for Aboriginal people. The picture of Auntie Shirley pinning a Vote Yes button on the lapel of the late Labor senator Reg Bishop on referendum day became a symbol of national success; it thrust Auntie Shirley into the limelight and was published in newspapers right around the country.

It is important to remember, however, that prior to the 1967 referendum the government counted the heads of cattle and sheep but not Aboriginal people in this country. They were still considered to be part of the flora and fauna and not worth counting, and that is why long before that photo of Shirley was taken she has been fighting and engaging in activism for the rights of Aboriginal people.

She recalls a time when she was pulled up by the police on a sunny afternoon at Semaphore Beach; it was one of the first incidents that politicised her as a young Aboriginal woman. She says that being a young student and the only black woman amongst a number of white friends on the beach on the day caught the attention of the police. The police wanted to arrest her and her friend for consorting.

She recalls the police telling her that the consorting laws were to protect innocent young Aboriginal women from mixing with unscrupulous white males, but she remembers it differently. She believes this to be a racial and sexual swipe against her as an Aboriginal woman. Interestingly, Shirley has since reflected that in actual fact she and her family were already deemed to be exempted from the South Australian Aborigines Act and that under the law she was considered to be white and could mix and socialise with anyone she chose to.

For many, this might seem a lifetime ago, perhaps even another world, but it is important that we remember such times in this place and that the community do so as well. We cannot forget that just less than 50 years ago the Aboriginal people of Australia and of this state were subject to unjust and unequal laws. There is no doubt that we have made significant steps towards reconciliation as a state and as a nation, but Auntie Shirley will be one of the first to tell us that we still have some way to go—and of course she is absolutely right.

Throughout her life, Shirley has been involved in Aboriginal activism. She has been telling governments and politicians of all persuasions what needs to be done to improve the quality of life of Aboriginal people and also where we are falling short. As a young woman, Auntie Shirley was involved with the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia, where her efforts and those of many Aboriginal women gave rise to some of the first Aboriginal non-government organisations in South Australia. Examples include the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in the old Aboriginal Community Centre, which was located at 125 Wakefield Street. When that closed, Nunkuwarrin Yunti became the new centre for Aboriginal people to receive health and medical care, which I am told laid the foundations for specialised Aboriginal health services right across our country.

Shirley took an active interest in committees where women could have a say. She was mindful that the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were not heard, nor was their presence felt, and she decided to do something about that. She became an active member of the International Women's Day Committee, serving for many years and encouraging other Aboriginal women to attend. She became Vice President of IWD and during this time created the first award for Aboriginal women in South Australia, convening these awards for the next 10 years.

Members of this chamber might also know of Auntie Shirley's efforts as convenor of the annual Gladys Elphick Awards, another pioneering Aboriginal woman who was an inspiration to many, including Auntie Shirley herself. On 10 March 2010, Shirley was made a life member of the International Women's Day Committee SA and later that year presented with the IWD Centenary Medal at a dinner that was held in her honour. In 2000, in Adelaide, leading the march for reconciliation across the Torrens Bridge with a huge crowd of over 50,000 people, I think, on the day, it was announced that she had been awarded the Order of Australia Medal, the AM.

In more recent times, Auntie Shirley was appointed to the state government's constitutional reform advisory panel, where she was instrumental in supporting the consultation phase of the bill to recognise Aboriginal people in the state's Constitution Act, and members can expect to see Auntie Shirley in the strangers' gallery on the 21 March watching the proceedings of the debate on that bill.

As it happens, it was in fact Shirley who suggested the bill should be debated in this place on the 21st because it would be fitting to do so on a day that is both Harmony Day and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. As the honourable member has pointed out, tomorrow is International Women's Day. I am advised that, as usual, Auntie Shirley will be involved in the day's events and will be making an announcement in regard to the Gladys Elphick awards.

On behalf of the government of South Australia and this chamber, I take the opportunity to note the considerable efforts of Auntie Shirley towards improving both the rights and the quality of life of Aboriginal people within our nation and consequently enriching the lives of us all.

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