Informant38

Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen and countrymen one and all.


Where we are now this is Larrakia country. Kulimbirign country. Like my clan the Gumatj, the Larrakia are a Saltwater people. To us the sea and the land are one. I wish to thank the Larrakia people for welcoming me to their country.


I acknowledge the great man who gives his name to this lecture. I acknowledge his family and the part they played in the struggle to win rights and recognition for Aboriginal people.


Men like Vincent Lingiari are our shining stars that we follow in the night sky. We follow them for direction and we follow them for inspiration. We never forget them and their work sustains our work and our culture.


We say thank you to this old man for his continuing guidance.


Tonight I want to take you through the last thirty years of the struggle for Aboriginal rights. I want you to understand the long, long history behind the issues which are facing us today, such as the recent debate over Native Title and the upcoming fight over the Land Rights Act.
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I want to start by telling you two stories. Both of them are true, and they show you what I am talking about when I talk about the two laws, and the long struggle of Aboriginal people to have our law recognised.


Two hundred and ten years ago my ancestors were living here on this land. We had our own system of Government, law and land tenure.


A group of strangers arrived in a small wooden boat.


The strangers put a pole with a piece of colored material on it in the ground and spoke in a language we could not understand. These strangers then began to take our land. Many of our ancestors fought with the strangers to keep our land and our culture .

Many of our people were killed. Over time the strangers subjugated us and sought to apply their laws and culture to us. We resisted. We learned about the strangers� law because they, with very few exceptions, refused to learn about our laws. We learne d that their law told them a story called terra nullius, which meant that if you go to a land where the people don�t look like you or live like you, then you can pretend they don�t exist and take their land.