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TRANSCRIPT: Episode 1 | Fire in the Belly

Aunty Dot:There was some opposition, I guess, to Aboriginal people being resettled here. You had little signs for example, with Ashmont you had ‘You're now entering Vegemite village’.

Uncle Hewitt: There was high on a pole there 'You are now entering Coon County by Óld Man Emu.' And as you got closer into town ‘You are now leaving Coon County, by Old Man Emu'. There was many letterbox drops that was brought to our attention marked "KKK. Get out of town. Now!"

Luke Wighton VO: Gidday, I’m Luke Wighton, a Wiradjuri man from Condobolin now living in Wagga Wagga. I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT - Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we’d been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of the Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme. The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and the fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

So, let’s get to know some of the proud mob from Wagga Wagga.

Aunty Dot Whyman and Uncle Hewitt Whyman arrived here in 1974.

They were not a resettlement family - but helped countless resettlers as they began to arrive.

Uncle Hewitt Whyman - a Yorta Yorta man and a Vietnam veteran - had been transferred from Sydney to the Kapooka Army Base. He and Aunty Dot had a big role in the ongoing fight for justice for our mob.

Without them, Wagga Wagga would be a very different town.

And even though they’re now aged in their 70’s, their activism continues. Or as Uncle Hewitt says ‘There’s still fire in the belly’.

Back in the early days of colonisation in this country, the policy of what was called by the white settlers, 'the Aboriginal Protection Board', was to do everything it could to erase First Nations culture.

[00:03:36] Aunty Dot Whyman: They weren't allowed to speak the language. They weren't allowed to do the dances. They weren't allowed to play their instruments. That affected our old people. They were threatened. You'd often see some, many years ago going away somewhere and doing, doing their own little thing away from non Aboriginal people's eyes. They'd do their own thing.

[00:04.01] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: My father said to me, he was a Wemba Wemba man. He said when he was growing up on Moonahcullah mission and the kids went to, we went to school. He said the parents would run to the windows and open them up and say, the teacher would be speaking English, teaching them English, ‘Speak your language, speak your language, speak your language’, you know. Through the window. ‘Teach them their language’. Um, but it was frowned upon by the, the managers and the people. It affected their rations and whatever. They lost some of their, their, their, uh, Yeah, it was sad.

[00:04:40] Aunty Dot Whyman: Yes, it was so called to be civilised.

But the colonists’ attempts to kill our culture failed.

Nowadays there are a growing number of Wiradjuri speakers... thanks to the work of Uncle Stan Grant senior and Professor Dr John Eliot Rutter - who developed a Wiradjuri Dictionary and the Wiradjuri App, where you can still listen to Uncle Stan pronouncing Wiradjuri words today.

[00:05.06] Aunty Dot Whyman: With the language now, today, it's really good to see, and our young people, and old people, older people, are learning.

[00:05.14] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: You know knowledge can only stay with you, but it needs to be handed down. As we age, we need to hand that down to our young people. I think that's important for them to hear our story so they can have knowledge and they can pass that knowledge down. And that's important. Our knowledge as an old person shouldn't die with us. It's got to be told. What we are informing the podcast, uh, Aunty and I, uh, in my 76th year and her 73rd next month, um, we want to hand our knowledge to others, okay, so that they tell the story, because our elders before us told us the stories and, um, and we're, we're sharing that today.

And Aunty Dot says one example of the sort of stories their local young people need to know about is how Wagga Wagga came to have a high number of services now available to their community.

[00:06:35] Aunty Dot Whyman: Like today, we have our young people, Aboriginal people, thinking that all these services and Aboriginal services are here in Wagga Wagga, but they don't know the background and the fights of how everything came together. Yeah, and they've got to be told and have an awareness of what was there, not just move to a town and saying ‘Oh, we've got this service and that service’.

[00:07.04] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: There are Aboriginal people in our mob that use, that are culturally sensitive in what services they use. Be they, you know, be they the dentist, the doctor, um, housing, et cetera. What our mob like to see, and they never saw it when they come here as, as resettled families, they never seen black faces at the counter to say, Aunty, Uncle, or Yeah, can I help you? Where you from? Who's your mob? You never heard that back in 1974. Today you do. Look, when I, when Aunty Dot and I arrived here that, you know, the family resettlement scheme had began. It was called the FRAC committee actually, the Family Resettlement Aboriginal Corporation.

Aunty, Aunty, um, um, Dorothy, help me.

[00:07:56] Aunty Dot Whyman: Violet Honeysett.

[00:07:57] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Aunty Violet Honeysett was its first, um, uh, Chairperson. She had a committee around her to work with the then administrator of the program in resettling Aboriginal families in Wagga Wagga. His primary role was to identify a home. And mainly, the 13 initial families that resettled in Wagga Wagga was resettled in the Ashmont community. And his primary role was to ensure that he introduced the families to the schools so that kids could be enrolled. He introduced them to the Commonwealth Employment Service to find work for their families. And he introduced them to I guess, the, the service and any other service providers that they need to know about, particularly health and other services.

[00:08:47] What was lacking when they first come here was services that were culturally accessible. A lot of the people that came here came from far west New South Wales. They expected that there might be Aboriginal service providers in Wagga Wagga to provide that service to them as well, but at that time, there wasn't. A lot of people from far and remote communities took up the offer to move to, uh, to access better services for themselves and their families. Aunty Dot and I have identified at least 18 Aboriginal families that lived here.

[00:09:21] Aunty Dot Whyman: Or more.

[00:09:22] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Or more, that lived here prior to resettlement. Um, they really identified, uh, but there was no services to provide for them as well.

Aunty Dot's own mother, Aunty Val Weldon, had studied and worked in Sydney for some time. While living in the city, she saw how beneficial Aboriginal services could be for the community and took inspiration from them when she returned to Wagga Wagga.

[00:09:47] Aunty Dot Whyman: Quite a few Aboriginal services began in Sydney. That was the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Aboriginal Preschools, breakfast programs, and housing and health.

[00:10:00] So with that behind her and, you know, that was the aspiration of quite a few Aboriginal people back then of having such services in the country areas, which was hard to come by. And this is what, as I said, we worked, and this local community of Wagga Wagga worked towards having some sort of services for Aboriginal people.

And, um, this was the first one that got up and going - due to the late Val Weldon's, her legacy on preschools and health, yes.

Aunty Val Weldon had studied early childhood teaching in Sydney and worked at a pre-school in Redfern. When she returned to Wagga Wagga she wanted to start a childcare centre. But for a long time she was unable to get any funding - so she set up a play group in her own backyard.

[00:10:54] Aunty Dot Whyman: We were successful in obtaining a bus and this is how the children were transported around. There was no funding by the way, so everything was all voluntary.

[00:11:03] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: We had many meetings, and it wasn't only Dot and I and Aunty Val, it was many other people in the community - we were part of the, uh, the battle and the journey to get things done.

[00:11:15] Six years we received our first grant of funding to establish the Long Day Care Centre. And Aunty Dot said earlier about the bus, the state come good with a little 15 seater bus. And we were starting to go places. And people started to say, Hey, we are fair dinkum now. This is who we are, you know, around the community

[00:11:37] Aunty Dot Whyman: Yes, there was some opposition, don't worry. People didn't want to, not a lot, but a handful did not want to see us being radicals, or the organiser, or some community members like Aboriginal people being radicals and starting this black power thing. That type of issue. But, you know, we discussed it all through our, everyone discussed it. And we did have a prominent Archdeacon John Ireland there and he was all for it. And he spoke very much in favour about Aboriginal services. And so people generally started coming around to it then. About the idea.

[00:12:18] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: But somebody had to do it. Somebody had to do it. And I think my radicalism and Aunty Dot’s began from our marches in Sydney, the green paper demonstration outside Parliament House, and many other demonstrations that we went to at old Parliament House, back in the day of the tent embassies. Our radicalism began then and there's still a bit of fire in our bellies today.

As a young man, Uncle Hewitt had enlisted in the Australian Army and served in the Vietnam War.

Then in 1977, a year after Uncle Hewitt had left the army, he and Aunty Dot went to work for the Aboriginal Legal Service. When they started, the ALS office wasn’t in downtown Wagga Wagga - it was based in their own home.

[00:13:23] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: The Aboriginal Legal Service in Sydney called me up and asked me would I open up a office in Wagga, or would I be interested in becoming a field officer. And I jumped at the opportunity because I put down a lot of my training and discipline after coming out of the Army after eight years that I could do the job. And they said, well, we got no car for you, we got no telephone. You're going to have to work out of your home. And we got nobody to type your notes or anything like that. And you're going to have to get on the road and hitchhike or get a ride with somebody. I did just that.

Aunty Dot was his unofficial secretary  - but she wasn’t getting paid. From there, the Aboriginal Legal Service became a vital link to other services for Wagga Wagga's growing mob.

[00:14:09] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: The Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme had been, like, maybe 12 or 18 months now effective and, and operating, so I… The Aboriginal Legal Service began at my home in Callaghan Street, Ashmont. And it was 24/7, no telephone, no car. There was many times I got up in the morning and said to my family, I may be home tonight or I may be staying in Deni with some mob or Albury, attending the court and taking instructions for lawyers.

[00:14:39] Aunty Dot Whyman: Eventually after time, funds just came available to have a phone on at home and the phone was going night and day because of people being arrested in, um, the region. It was a large region. And I was acting as the temporary,

unpaid, secretary. I eventually put myself through Wagga Tafe and completed a 12 month secretarial course. As Hewie had said that we had encountered not just legal problems at that time, but welfare problems, employment problems, anything. And it was a was one stop.

[00:15:18] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: I think we learned very fast as a one stop shop. We had connected, we had a, we, a big network of, uh, people working in, in other legal firms and lawyers, and we had the Commonwealth Employment Service, Department of Housing, we just learnt really quick. We established our network and we would refer people with respect, and culturally - advising people on the other side that the person coming to see you is an Aboriginal person and they may be culturally challenged.

[00:15:49] Aunty Dot Whyman: We had developed an index of all government offices and whatever other offices were about and contacts to be able to have that at hand to phone regarding any problems. And we had good working relationships with those government offices and other agencies.

[00:16:07] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And additionally to that, we dealt with a lot of sorry business, during that, the course of, being the only service provider in town, additionally to us providing legal representation to Aboriginal people in the region, in our footprint area, uh, which was, with not enough resources to do that. But referring them and assisting other private practices to make a grant of legal aid to people who really needed it.

[00:16:34] Aunty Dot Whyman: And at that time the employment of Aboriginal people started with different agencies - Social Security as it was known then, not the CES, housing. And Aboriginal people were, women too, were employed and no counter assistants. They weren't doing that. They were sharpening pencils and other small things behind the scenes.

[00:17:00] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And look, what was noticeable and glaringly noticeable was the lack of Aboriginal people at the counter. Yes. The black faces. That the resettlement families could not relate to and they would come back to the Aboriginal Legal Service and say, Oh, there's no blackfellas down there, Uncle. You know? I can't tell my story in the way I want to tell it. Yep.

[00:17:25] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Aunty Dot and I, when we become fully employed with the service providers in town, and particularly the Aboriginal Legal Service, which we had a lot of interest in, because I think it paved the way for the establishment of other service providers in Wagga Wagga. The drive out of the Aboriginal Legal Service come from the people who were involved with it, because it was a body that had a voice. And it had a strong voice. The strong voice was given to us by the people who supported us. And you know, speak out, speak loud is very important. And we did. We did speak out, we did speak loud.

[00:18:04] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: After getting the role with the Aboriginal Legal Service, I was asked would I like to do the paralegal course at the University of New South Wales Law Faculty, which is a two year, year course to give me, to give me paralegal qualifications that I could work in an Aboriginal legal firm here in Australia or anywhere internationally. And I'm proud to say that I was the dux of that course.

Back then, Uncle Hewitt and Aunty Dot were hopeful as they watched the First Nations population grow in Wagga Wagga.

[00:18:38] Aunty Dot Whyman: It was exciting, even though they weren't all Wiradjuri people, there was a mixture.

[00:18:44] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Aunty Dot's right, you know, the diversity of mobs living in Wagga Wagga come from Kamilaroi, Barkandji, Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri and Ngiyampaa, you know. So there's a diverse group, a kaleidoscope of mobs here. What I find about that is that, yeah, we stay with mob, we look after mob. We're not as inclusive as we should be, but we must be. The times that we come together and stand as peoples of this nation, as First Nations people, is on NAIDOC week, is on, you know, Survival Day. We all stand up as a people. The National Apology, the Sorry Days. We all stand up as a peoples. There is no kaleidoscope or division then. We’re all together as a people and that's how I like to see our mob.

Our mob had been fighting for land rights since the white invasion began. Finally, in 1983, after passage of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act, Local and Regional Aboriginal Land Councils came into being.

[00:19:48] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Prior to 1983, there had been a lot of consultations right throughout the region by a group of people known as the Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Group. Not specifically called the Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Land Council, but they were a group who went out voluntarily, out of their own pocket, travelled, stayed on the riverbanks overnight. Had the best fun. They took along all their own families and we had talks in community halls and everything about the proposedLand Rights legislation.

[00:20.21] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: It went to Parliament on, I think it was the 6th of June in the evening. The sun had gone down. It sneaked through Parliament 21 votes to 18. We were outside Parliament House and there was a line of police behind the gate, behind the fence of Parliament House. We were all out the front and protesting about provisions in the legislation that was being talked about inside the Parliament, in the chamber.

[00:20.56] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Aunty Dot and I were at it.The protest got, you know, out of hand a little bit I thought, but in those days, we, we, we were, we were protesting about, yeah, we need to know what's going on about Aboriginal people in New South Wales, particularly about land rights. And the common cry of the day was, 'What do we want? Land rights. What have we got? You know, F all.’

[00:21.24] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Somehow the fence sort of dislodged and fell towards the police. And so ‘Oh wow it's a weapon’. A few people grabbed it and ran towards the police. And the police got on the veranda of Parliament House and that was their last line of defence.

[00:21.48] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: The fence fell down somehow. I think there was a lot of people leaning on it, and, once it loosened, people said "Ooh wow" - they went further. But the police inside ended up on the veranda of New South Wales Parliament House as the last last line of defence. And that's when Pat O'Shane came out and sort of said "the legislation's passed. Please go back. So we did".

[00:22.13] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And protests from that day continued with the Land Rights legislation. I think today it, despite it being reviewed and amended so many times, the Land Rights legislation is not perfect.

[00:22.31] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Yeah, look, I think the Attorney General at the time and it's a Labor government at that time, I think it was Frank Walker and he was the Minister for Housing. He was a minister for

[00:22.41] Aunty Dot Whyman: Aboriginal Affairs.

[00:22.42] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Aboriginal Affairs. And he was the Minister for

[00:22.46] Aunty Dot Whyman: Housing, SHACS.

[00:22.47] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Youth and Community Services. So we call him the Minister for YACS, Shacks and Blacks.

[00:22.52] Aunty Dot Whyman: Yes.

[00:22.53] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Frank Walker, he wasn't a bad wasn't a bad bloke. He would listen, he would listen to you. We brought him out to many community meetings. And one in particular I remember was very large was at Narrandera Sportsground. And it was a really hot summer afternoon and we were under the shed and the heat was sweltering and they were cooking barbecues on this hot day. But he flew in on a plane to Narrandera Airport and came with his entourage, spoke to us, and I give him credit for that, that he took the wishes of the people back to Parliament. But ...

[00:22.32] Aunty Dot Whyman: It's only one man.

[00:22.34] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And I think... he asked What do you want? We said we want a legislation that, Land Rights legislation, and I think he achieved that, despite many people thinking that it, they had, they had views that it wasn't as strong as...

[00:23.52] Aunty Dot Whyman:It was watered down.

[00:23.53] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: It was watered down. Yeah.

They were upset that the legislation didn’t go as far as our mob wanted, but it was a start at Land Rights. Aunty Dot says that the 1983 protest at Parliament House was a great coming together of First Nations mob.

[00:24.12] Aunty Dot Whyman: We had our family there, our children there. And there was people from all over New South Wales fighting for land rights and what was to come. What those decisions would be. It was exciting and curious at the same time, because it was the first time that Aboriginal people were involved in something for themselves in such a big demonstration. Macquarie Street. It was exciting.To protest together, to defy it, you know, what was going to happen. And a lot of those things are still continuing on today, you know, defying and and not having what they really need.

The Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Land Council became an integral part of the community after the Land Rights Act was passed and Uncle Hewitt was there from the very beginning.

[00:25.10] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: We had a meeting in the, in the, in the, in the little hall on Erambie Mission in Cowra and there were some notable Aboriginal people at that, that are not with us today. So I come fresh out of, out of UNSW with all these things going around in my head.

[00:25.35] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And I stood up and said we could stand alone as the Wiradjuri Aboriginal Land Council. The Regional, the Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Land Council, they all agreed on that.It was diverse. It was representative of all people right across the region Nobody owned it. The people owned it. And it opened its offices in Wagga Wagga, in Docker Street not long after.

Uncle Hewitt was elected by the Wiradjuri Regional Land Council to be its first representative on the NEWSWOLC - the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council. The first grant under the new land rights act was shared between 14 Local Aboriginal Land Councils in the Wiradjuri region. Uncle Hewitt was excited when he received that first allocation of $656,000-thousand dollars.

[00:26.26] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: It was given to me in a cheque form at a meeting in Sydney. I had it for two days in my wallet. I brought it home and I couldn't sleep for fear of losing my wallet. I didn't know where to put it. I had to bank it the next day because we had opened the bank account up in the name of the regional land council. I think the first allocation to the land councils was about $32,000 out of that grant, that first grant.

[00:27.04] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And out of that they had tohave their first meeting, elect their executive of Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer and open an account in the name of the community e.g. Wagga Local Aboriginal Land Council, Griffith, Albury, Deniliquin, Moama, Hay. So they all did that. And they elected their representatives for that and their membership.

[00:27.34] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: No people were trained, unfortunately, to access, how to access vacant Crown Lands, how to make a claim for it, how to negotiate the government red tape to do that, either locally, regionally, statewide or, in having knowledge of how to do that. So, you know, apart from becoming Local Aboriginal Land Councils, the Region (WRALC) played a very important role because it started to engage quality people. Non-Aboriginal people began working for the Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Land Council. You know we had accountants, we had people training the Local Aboriginal Land Councils in administrative skills, going out and training them.

[00:28.28] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: We became, the Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Land Council was the only region in New South Wales that established... it was well established and it became so established that the NSW Aboriginal Land Council began to review its success. Hence they began to remove the responsibilities away from it and back to the state. And that's the status today.

[00:28.55] Aunty Dot Whyman:And because they were becoming too political. We did have field officers and sites officers, all that, but becoming very political, the region reps themselves. And it was working.Amendments came into it by the State Land Council. And we did have that three tier system. But what had happened was the amendment went back to a two tier system. So the Region (WRALC) is still there in name only, but the office is at Queanbeyan. We don't know how many people work in there. We don't know the funding of it all.

[00:29.36] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: We had it all mapped out what we wanted to do. We had good representatives. We had strong Aboriginal people working in the council, as field officers, as sites officers. We even had archaeologists working for us, and smart people, non-Aboriginal people who took us forward, naming one of them, Dr Gaynor Macdonald.

[00:30:03] Luke: How did the Wiradjuri Regional Land Council building come about?

[00:30:07] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: At that time the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Children's Service and the Long Day Care Centre was functioning next door in Docker Street.

[00:30:16] Aunty Dot Whyman: The Aboriginal Development Commission back then, the ADC, and they purchased that two storey building next to the Regional Land Council.

[00:30:25] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: That's when the Aboriginal community began to grow with services. It was a cultural place to go. And they were culturally aware of the mob coming in so that they provide services to them.

[00:30.40] Aunty Dot Whyman: The ADC purchased a two storey building where the long day care centre, ALS, Aboriginal Legal Service, Aboriginal Children's Service were located. The next door building within the Regional Land council, each land council had contributed.

[00:30:57] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: We thought, well, let's buy the bloody building, but let's all contribute to a day out of our, out of our grant. And we did. We did. So all the local Aboriginal Land Councils, despite the very meagre funds they were getting to operate at the time, I think it was $1,500 each or $1,800 each out of the 14 land councils that purchased the building. I think it was $70,000 it was worth at the time.

[00:31:25] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: It become known as the Wiradjuri Regional Aboriginal Land Council. And we started to become a landholder. We started to progress and build our structures and hence we made a grant to build accommodation down the back.

[00:31:39] Aunty Dot Whyman: This is how the the units at the back of the Region and the Long Day Care Centre came into being, through this grant.

The first Aboriginal medical service in Wagga Wagga was a dental van – located in Aunty Mary Atkinson’s front yard.

[00:31:57] Aunty Dot Whyman: So what happened, because we had contacts here and there, the Redfern dental clinic, or AMS, sent a van down here. And that was operating in Wagga to service Aboriginal people. So that was located in her yard. Then later on it was located at the front of the building in Docker Street.

[00:32:17] Aunty Dot Whyman: We were applying for funds and it was a long time to try and, you know, have funds from Department of Health or New South Wales Health. So our local land council purchased the building in Docker Street, two doors from the preschool, and our local land council bought that on behalf of RIVMED. And RIVMED paid a small rental for it. And that started growing and we received some funds then in time. That was for a dentist, secretary/receptionist and a drug and alcohol worker.

[00:32:55] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: I guess that's where we can say that the birth of RIVMED began was in that house in Docker Street. And then we, uh, we expanded into Trail Street. Then RIVMED began to grow into, um, a big service provider. Then RIVMED started to outgrow Trail street. The current premises is directly opposite our magnificent hospital we have in Wagga Wagga. They have a staff now of nearly, just under 200 people. It provides many services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But the dentist is still so hard to find.

[00:33:34] Aunty Dot Whyman: Because RIVMED had saved quite a bit of money at that time. And that was over a million dollars, I'm proud to say. And the Department of Health was so pleased with it, they just about matched it and bought the building, the premises now.

[00:33:48] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Dollar for dollar.

[00:33:50] Aunty Dot Whyman: It was able to all have the one services on the one area, and that was the dream of a lot of directors that are now passed on, to have all the services in one place, which they now have.

[00:34:04] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And I think what RIVMED can be proud of and the Aboriginal community in getting it established here in Wagga Wagga is it is the first AMS in the region.

By 1982, under the Resettlement Scheme, there were hundreds of Aboriginal people living in Wagga Wagga. But that caused a backlash within the local white community.

[00:34:25] Aunty Dot Whyman: There was some opposition I guess to Aboriginal people being resettled here. You had little signs put up outside, you know, the suburbs for example. With Ashmont you had Vegemite, you're now entering Vegemite Village. Another over at, um, Tolland, there was something there. You had that type thing, you know, just don't know who. We just let it go, but we made sure that people heard what we'd seen.

[00:34:54] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: The first 13 families resettled in the Ashmont region, the southern part of, southern end of Wagga Wagga. The Silverlight servo there was high on a pole there ‘You are now entering Coon County by Old Man Emu’. And as you got closer into town, uh, near Thomas Brothers now and Wagga Motors, ‘You are now leaving Coon County by Old Man Emu’. There was many letterbox drops that was brought to our attention, marked KKK, get out of town now. I think we felt powerless because it was hard to bring to the attention of the authorities that we were concerned about this and you should take, you should take action on it for us.

[00:35:44] Aunty Dot Whyman: And it showed you that discrimination was alive and well. Still hasn't changed today. So, back then, the discrimination was pretty high.

[00:35:54] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Yes. And we had meetings and we were alarmed about it. The old people,the resettled families, their children going to school, children, people playing sport were called out, and we faced that, um, and many families faced that. A lot of people come to the Aboriginal Legal Service for, for advice and assistance. And we can only refer them. Some matters we could represent them. Uh, but we never ever found the people who were distributing those documents. But, it was pretty obvious and it was pretty open that, you know, it was really out there and it started to play on people.

One of the worst perpetrators of racism against our mob was Wagga Wagga City Councillor, Jim Eldridge.

[00:36:40] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: He brought a a delegation and a party of people in front of the Docker Street building where the Aboriginal Legal Service existed with the Children's Service and the Long Day Care Centre and protested about the presence of Aboriginal people establishing Aboriginal organisations in Wagga Wagga.

[00:37:02] Aunty Dot Whyman: You pitied them. You felt sorry for them. You know, uneducated they were, as we say.

[00:37:09] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Yeah, uneducated. What are we going to do about Jim Eldridge? We had meetings about Jim Eldridge.

In 1993 Councillor Jim Eldridge launched a tirade of racist abuse at Wagga Wagga City Council’s Mayoral Reception to mark the International Year of Indigenous People.

Aunty Marianne Atkinson and the Wagga Wagga Aboriginal Action Group made a successful complaint of racial vilification in what became a landmark ruling.

[00:37:37] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Aunty Marianne, she was speaking. Um, Jim Eldridge so rudely interrupted that meeting, um, he was, um, he brought the meeting to a close practically. He was escorted out of the building by the local, local police.

A tribunal found that Eldridge’s actions “were insulting and were such as would incite others to have serious contempt for the Aboriginal population”.

The decision overwhelmingly established that there is a dividing line between free speech and racially vilifying actions.

[00:38:11] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: He appeared before the court. He had, uh, probably half a dozen of his supporters inside court who tried to disrupt it. Jim Eldridge and his delegation viewed the court as being, I thought, maybe a kangaroo court and started making noise. They were told to remove themselves from the court. By the end of the day, the chairman of the, the committee found Eldridge in breach. And fined him, and he was to make a public apology. Which he did. And he paid compensation to Aunty Marianne Atkinson. Agreed. Aunty Marianne Atkinson distributed that moneys to the community Aboriginal organisations.

The social life amongst the growing mob in Wagga Wagga was strong.

Sport was one of the big drawcards for people, as well as the Debutante Balls they started organising - which attracted many people from all across the region.

[00:39:22] Aunty Dot Whyman: Wiradjuri Long Day Care Centre were the first organisation to hold, and wanted to hold Deb balls. Meaning, you know, coming of age for those young people and, being, seen as part of his community, part of the non Aboriginal community also. Now, they were held back in ‘83, ‘84. The first Deb ball was held at the Police Youth Club. We had a mixture of people from Narrandera, Albury, plus Wagga Wagga. And grew. And they had their partners and we had the training sessions. And we had a couple of the males come in, non Aboriginal, and that was the late Brian Jolley, and he taught the men and the young fellas.

[00:40.04] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: The Pride of Erin.

[00:40.06] Aunty Dot Whyman: Their flowers was in the shape of boomerangs with the red carnations or roses through it.

[00:40:12] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Oh, we had some exciting entertainment, uh, in relation to these three balls. And, and it was exciting to see. But they were presented before the local mayor and, and local elders, the, the, the debutantes, uh, to be accepted into society. We had some great, um, entertainers, like back in the day, and he was big, Roger Knox,

[00:40:51] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: And then when, of course, we had

[00:40.53] Aunty Dot Whyman: The Late Mac Silva.Yes. Ah. That was with the first one. And the Debs were presented to, at that time it was Linda Burney and Margaret Campbell Butt.

It wasn't just deb balls they organised.

Another highlight on the community’s annual calendar was Christmas and Black Santa.

[00:41:12] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Come Christmas, we would set up the biggest Christmas tree on Spring Street. Have a Santa Claus. Aunty Val brought this to Wagga.

Before she left Sydney, she had a lot of contacts. And two big trucks of toys to give away to all the, to all the community. And we'd sit down at night wrapping presents with people's names on them.

[00:41:36] Aunty Dot Whyman: And the staff at the Long Day Care Centre would also, we'd join them and, um, they'd have a black Santa and just the names and everything on their presents. And we'd um, seek donations from Sydney for all these toys.

[00:41:52] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: It was huge. And Wagga was growing, we practically at that time, what I'm talking about right now is that we practically knew everybody Aboriginal person in Wagga Wagga. If you asked me today, I probably wouldn't be able to. That event, our Christmases, was all about Wagga beginning to grow.

As the community grew through these events that helped bring them together, a particularly important one was sports.

And not surprisingly, the South Sydney Rabbitohs colours made their way to Wagga Wagga's sporting fields and stadiums.

[00:42:24] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: I recall when Brothers Rugby League Football Club was introduced into Wagga and it had the colours of South Sydney. I think a lot of the Aboriginal families that resettled here and others that were already living here were drawn to that. And it like become an Aboriginal footy club. Now, as you would know Luke, Aboriginal people, we love our sport. And this was no different, in all sports. We went to that and, uh, of course, there was a big influx of young Aboriginal men going off then and joining the Brothers Football Club at the time.

[00:43:04] Aunty Dot Whyman: Back in the day, in the ‘70s, um, late ‘70s, early ‘80s, we had, you know, thinking about health and doing exercises and whatever, and we formed basketball teams here.

[00:43:18] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: I think that's why Ashmont Oval is so significant to our mob in Wagga Wagga, where we are with Yandarra Day now, because it was first resettled Ashmont. And what Aunty Dot said about the touch football teams and the basketball teams, that's where we met. That's where we trained and had our little barbies and family would come and watch and just at training. But the Aboriginal touch team that we formed in Wagga, particularly the men, were the first sponsored in the whole of Wagga and uniformed by a builder in town. And he said what colour you want? We all had a vote on it, it can only be, it only went one way, South Sydney colours. So we ran out, in a first division side too, in touch football in Wagga Wagga, we ran out on the ground and everybody stopped and said, oh my God, who are they? Then, not soon after, like two or three weeks after, they all started running around in sponsored uniforms. We were actually the inaugural football team sponsored in Wagga Wagga.

[00:44:23] Aunty Dot Whyman: We had two basketball teams, all Aboriginal girls, women. I played. And, um, there was a number of us, and we was known as Maleekas, meaning black angels. I won't go there, but anyway, um, we played in the local competition, and that was for our health. And we used to, you know, play once a week in the competition. And we’d have training. Then later, we formed touch football. And the men had the men's touch football, and the women had theirs. And that was the colour also of South Sydney, red and green striped guernseys.

And as I said at the start, age did nothing to stop the fire in Uncle Hewitt's belly.

Uncle Hewitt has sat on the board of the Aboriginal Legal Service since he retired.

And one of the issues he is passionate about is trying to stop the appallingly high jailing rates of Aboriginal children and adults. He says governments must change their lock-em-up policies.

[00:45:22] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: We talk about issues that are impacting on people in the community. Our over representation of youth in the criminal justice system and generally the over representation of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody, both men and women, at a juvenile level and at an adult level. It's unacceptably high and we can do better and the government can do better in bringing these rates down, and finding better, diversionary programs for Aboriginal people, particularly our youth because they're our future.

[00:45:54] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: I already started talking about establishing an Aboriginal cricket club at Ashmont Oval. The other one was an Aboriginal cadet program. There is not one in, in all of the cadets in the tri services in Wagga Wagga, there is not one Aboriginal kid enrolled in them or active in them, or families active in them. So why don't we start our own?

And at the age of 76, Uncle Hewitt still spends much of his time supporting Aboriginal programs at the Kapooka Army Base just outside of Wagga Wagga.

[00:46:29] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: I am an appointed uncle to and the oldest Army Reservist in Australia. And it’s something that has followed on from my army career. And I, I'm active out there with the Aboriginal programs and those sort of things we need too, because our youth are gonna be our future. Alright? We need people like Luke, Eddie and others to stand up and start, you know, moving these youth and, and getting them involved. For as long as I can breathe and be involved I will be. And I know Aunty Dot will be. But time has come for us to march on too. Time has come for us to pass our knowledge. And in this podcast, I hope we have done some of that.

[00:47:40] Uncle Hewitt Whyman: Truth and Treaty is not dead. Truth and Treaty is still alive. There is not enough truth telling. That was the failure of our referendum. But there is still hope that Aboriginal people, the truth can be told for our mob, you know. And it will be, because there are young people here that will tell it in going forward.

And we greatly thank you for sharing your stories and knowledge with us and with the whole of our community.

Download the transcript for Episode 2

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 2 | Not a Hard Life

Aunty Lottie Bamblett: No my mum used to say, leave the past with the past. She would not talk about it because it hurt her too much. Where she lived a life I think of running from welfare. No matter where they went, welfare was on their back. My mum was tormented all her life until dad died and she moved from Brungle area.

LUKE VO: Hi. I’m Luke Wighton, a Wiradjuri man originally from Condobolin now living in Wagga Wagga. I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT - Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha, which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we’d been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme.

The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

So, let’s get to know some of our proud First Nations mob from Wagga Wagga.

For a long time, many First Nations people tried to hide their Aboriginality because of racism and Government oppression. The Bamblett family didn’t do this.

Aunty Lottie Bamblett had confidence in her Aboriginality ... thanks to her mum Kathleen Little, who would often remind her ‘You’re no better than anyone else - but no one else is any better than you’.

Aunty Lottie, who’s almost 80 years old, is from Wiradjuri mob.

She is one of those who arrived in the sixties, before the resettlement scheme began.

She grew up in a tin hut beside the canal at Griffith and had - in her words - a wonderful childhood.

Aunty Lottie originally comes from Brungle – a village between Tumut and Gundagai on the western edge of the Snowy Mountains.

It was known as Brungle Mission Station - but it was never a mission. It was established in 1888 by the Aborigines Protection Board.

Aunty Lottie’s family was dirt poor and her parents worked very hard to find work and look after their nine children.

And to add to that, they were always trying to escape from the Welfare and to avoid their children being stolen.

Aunt has seen the records of how her family were treated back then.

[00:04:13] Lottie: My mum, in Brungle, she was put out to service. And my aunty  was put in Cootamundra Girls Home. Two of them. And my brothers were, my uncles were put in Sydney Boys Homes. And that's why she could not stand Pommies. Sorry for the - but she couldn't stand Pommies - because of what they did to her.

[00:04:37] Lottie: And they were always... I got some things from my niece. She got me a lot. And I could read back about how they used to, mum and dad, used to travel a lot around Brungle and Tumut and Adjungbilly and, and all the welfare people would write letters in to - oh people, the police and the schools would write letters into them saying, oh the Little's are very, you know, their kids are very cheeky.

[00:05:13] Lottie: And, uh, some of the teachers’d write, yeah, that the children are at school and they were very clean and. Because my eldest brother couldn't read or write, see. And, um, yeah, so what I read wasn't very good. The two brothers, and the other two sisters were too old for them to do anything with them.

[00:05:37] Lottie: That's why Dad and Mum moved a lot, because the welfare was on their backs all the time. Well he worked at, um, at the plains in Tumut, cutting millet, and they'd follow the work wherever they could. Yeah, my mum worked hard all her life. But yeah, mum, what I read in those papers, my mum was tormented all her life until dad died and she moved from Brungle area. Yeah, so that was, that was sad.

When her father died, her mother Kathleen Little moved west out of the mountains, to the flat plains of Darlington Point on the Marrambidya Bila or known as the Murrumbidgee River.

There, the family lived in a shack.

[00:06:44] Lottie: The only thing I remember at Darlington Point is that there was a sawmill next to us and, uh, yeah, we, and, and we lived on the riverbank. That's all I remember there. I was only two when dad died. She was at Darlington Point, but she moved from, uh, Tumut Plains from Brungle to Tumut Plains and when my dad died, she just moved to, she moved around a lot. Yes. And then she ended up in Darlington Point and from Darlington Point to the Threeway.

The Three Way Aboriginal Reserve was on the fringes of Griffith in the western Riverina.

[00:07:31] Lottie: My mum was the first one on the Three Way. They took an old red hut from Darlington Point. And that's where Mum moved from Darlington Point into that house. And then they pulled another one in there. That was Aunty Mary and Uncle Jack, they moved in there. And then families just sort of kept coming. And then my brothers and sisters moved there for a while.

Altogether, Auntie Lottie had eight siblings.

[00:08:02] Lottie: There's three of us left. And one, my oldest brother Alexander, he moved there. Arthur, my other brother. And  Stella, my sister. And Jessie, my other sister. And Katie, she was only still young, and Patrick and me, and Norman. Nearly all mum's family came there when she moved there. My eldest brother, he sort of took over the father role with me, and my other brother took over the father role with my brother Pat.

[00:08:35] Lottie: And when we moved to the Three Way, that's when the fun started with - when everyone started coming. And we used to play rounders and we had to walk from the Three Way bridge right up to the school. There was no buses. We done that till the time I left high school.

Aunty Lottie remembers being chased by the welfare when she was at school in Griffith.

[00:09:05] Lottie: I must have been stubborn or cheeky to my mum. And the welfare came down and said to me, if you don't get to school tomorrow you'll be in Cootamundra Girls Home. And I soon polished my shoes and did my uniform.

[00:09:21] Lottie: I remember my friend Beverly. She's passed away now. Yeah mum used to sing out to her, it was so funny. She said, you'll be washing nappies soon. And there was no boys involved at all. And we used to play rounders, you know, and the boys used to sting us with the ball, I tell you. They didn't hold back on us. And we used to have singalongs at night. You know, my sister-in-law then, she used to get the guitar and we'd sing and yeah, we just, it was a really good place to be, until later on when alcohol started taking over the people.

[00:10:10] Lottie: I thank God that my mum never drank. I worked hard too, when we moved to Griffith, when I grew up, out in the orchards. Because you couldn't get a job in the shops. You were black. Yeah. And, um. We all worked in picking grapes and oranges and tomatoes and everything. Melons. And my brother used to say to Mum, ‘Mum, make Lottie get over here and do some work’. He reckons I'd be sitting there eating the fruit. But I did my share, no matter what he said.

[00:10:53] Lottie: I'll tell you a funny story about my brother. My eldest brother that reared me up. See, my mum used to buy that Fairy margarine. That's what we used to use, but he used the butter, of course. Because he was a rabbiter, see. He used to go out rabbiting in them days. And I went over and asked for a bit of, uh, a bit of butter, because I couldn't stand the Fairy margarine. And he said, ‘no, you go and buy it’. And I said, ‘well, you can keep it’, and walked out the door. And he ran after me with it, ‘here you are, here you are’. And I said, ‘no, keep it’, see, that's me. And I could hear him saying to his wife, Etty, ‘I don't know how she's going to get on when she marries Carl’.

Carl is the man Aunty Lottie fell in love with.

[00:11:43] Lottie: Carl Bamblett. We got married I think, oh I don't know, about ‘62. Not on the Three Way but they used to call it Frogs Hollow before you crossed the bridge to the Three Way bridge. They used to live there, him and his parents and his sisters and brothers. There was a few families over there. And I remember the Condo family used to live on the other side of the bridge down in the little corner. They were the Condo mob.

Though education became a passion of Aunty Lottie's - as a teenager she was constantly trying to avoid it.

[00:12:18] Lottie: When I was on the Three Way and I was in high school, I put me me age up and I left school a year earlier. And my friends they'd get out their windows and they'd curse. I couldn't. I'd be waving at my window. Oh, bless them, they're all passed away now. But it was, you know, we had such a good .. But they were shocking girls. At school, if anyone called them in high school, anyone called them names, they'd wait at the gate for the ones that would catch the bus. I was a little dainty one, I never did it, but I'd be the one singing out ‘here they come’. Oh, you're making, you're bringing back a lot of memories.

Another story she recalls from living at Three Ways was learning how to swim.

Little Lottie and her family weren't allowed to use the public baths... so they had to do it the hard way.

And while she laughs about it now, it was a dangerous place for you to take your first dip.

[00:13:36] Lottie: My mum taught me to swim in the channel in Griffith. They threw me in and I had to swim or go under. And I learnt to swim like that. No pool for us, it was the channel. And they were swift, too. Dive off the Three Way bridge. I've got a photo taken with my cousin sitting on the Three Way bridge. That's how they learnt. We used to put our step sister out on a rope. She couldn't swim in one channel, and that's how she, in the summertime, that's how she swam. We didn't, I didn't worry about fish. I don't think me and my girlfriends worried about.. Just worried about showing our figure off I guess.

Aunty Lottie's mum tried to teach her kids a little Wiradjuri language, but it was limited.

They had to be careful because the government had banned the use of First Nations languages.

[00:14:36] Lottie: Only what my mum taught me, so no one would know what we were talking about, I mean, the white people. We had our own little language she taught us and, um. That.. My grandfather wouldn't teach them too much. He just taught them the basics so they'd know if, if the welfare was coming or, or the police, I guess. I don't know.

[00:15:01] Lottie: But she taught us little bits of language to keep us safe. One, that has to deal with kids, if they seen anyone coming, she'd sing out, ‘All you goodas go. All you goodas go’. And they knew, that's kids. Yeah, move. And they, that's what she taught us, different words, but...

Aunty Lottie’s limited language differs from the Wiradjuri Dictionary developed by Dr John Eliot Rudder and Uncle Stan Grant senior and his brother Pastor Cecil Grant.

[00:15:46] Lottie: I've got their, um, songs. And I know that Stan and the words that they've… But see, they come from Condobolin mob. We come from Brungle. And it's… Sometimes the words are different. So some words I didn't understand what they were talking about.

[00:16:08] The Waajin. You know what that is? White woman. In Condobolin there was a lot of old people that taught people. Because my eldest brother was born in Condobolin. And, uh, yeah. But my mum only taught us. Their dad only taught them certain words because they'd be in trouble if they taught them the lingo. So they only taught them what they really needed to know.

Aunty Lottie says her mum never spoke about the colonisers efforts to erase our language and culture.

[00:16:44] Lottie: No, my mum used to say, leave the past with the past. She would not talk about it because it hurt her too much. Well she lived a life, I think, of running from welfare. What I've read in that book, papers that I've got, no matter where they went, welfare was on their back.

[00:17:05] Yeah, we weren't allowed to. Well …we, just amongst our family. And I taught my kids. I don't know if they taught their kids, but I taught my kids what I knew. And, uh, it's funny, uh, the lingo that, it's not of theirs, but it is of theirs, but it’s uh, II'll say a couple of words and you tell me if you know what I'm saying. (speaks in language) That's how we learnt. That's how mum, mum learnt us. And that's my, my youngest grandson. He lives in Sydney and he - I didn't think he knew it - but he started talking in it to me on the phone. Like yeah.

[00:17:56] You wanna know what I said? Put that mic away from me.

[00:18:05] I didn't have a, I didn't have a hard life. I never had a hard life. We had our ups and downs, the same as any family. But my mum wouldn't let us talk about the past. Would not. She'd say, leave the past with the past. When we'd, we'd hear things and we'd want her to answer them, but she would not. Yeah, we're sad about it, too. We're sad that she wouldn't tell us what we wanted to know, but she just hated the Pommies that much.

In 1967 Aunty Lottie arrived in Wagga Wagga with her husband Carl Bamblett and together they set up their new home in Beltana Avenue, Mount Austin.

[00:18:46] Lottie: Well, to get off the Three Way. I tried to make it better for my children. But later on I think I regretted it. We had a good family.

Aunt says she never felt excluded in Wagga Wagga – though she missed the mob she’d grown up with. And for her, being Aboriginal wasn’t an issue.

[00:19:07] Lottie: Well, you want me to be honest? I didn't care. My mum told me they were no better than me and I was no better than them. And we were brought up with that. I was lonely for my own and that's why I think my, we used to go over to my mum's at Harden- Murrumburrah.

[00:19:31] But I did miss the Three Way. I missed the connection and the community. But as I said, we thought it would benefit our kids. In one way it did, and another way it didn't, because my kids, my eldest daughter, I had seven years, six years between the two lots, and my youngest daughter, if they tormented her brother, she'd floor them. She kept, oh, you know, she, she looked after her brother - in Mount Austin School this was. Oh, she was, she was a little toughie. But she's passed away now, my baby. And, but she stuck up for her brother, where her brother should have been sticking up for her.

[00:20:21] It was a bit sad, but I thought, you know, if it's going to benefit our children to get to the proper school and how far they had to walk and that was, they all went to Mount Austin and, uh, if it was to benefit them. Catherine worked in the, I don't know if you remember Jewel's Supermarket, she got cashier out of the year with a big teddy bear. And the other one worked in a nursery and yeah. So it benefited them in a way, but I think I isolated them, Carl and I, from their people. Until they started moving here.

[00:21:59] Because they didn't know much about them - unless we took them over to Mum at Harden. They’d seen their cousins and that for it. But anyone else, other Aboriginal families, they didn't for a long time.

[00:21:13] We were here for a long time before we knew of any other Aboriginal family here. Because then my brother moved over here from Harden-Murrumburrah and the Honeysetts. And then we met Dot and Hewitt. He was in the army. He lived behind… in Ashmont and then they just sort of all started to come.

[00:21:37] But the one thing I did not know, I only read it lately, it was all through the welfare that put us in Beltana. My husband done all that without letting me know. And I read the letter and Mr. Sullivan his name was, and he said, ‘I choose this family because she's one of the two that are very clean and light coloured skin and she'll meet it, ‘She'll mix in with the neighbours’.

[00:22:08] My neighbours were beautiful, lovely people. Um, my kids, I'll tell you a funny thing, they went to school and I worked with this lady. And my daughter, the darkest one, mind you, said to this lady, ‘go on you black bitch’. And she told me at work. I was so embarrassed. And she was dark, Kayleen was dark. Catherine was the third one and she wouldn't say anything like that. But I think they were just picking their flowers or something, I don't know. I know they got chased home from Froggy once, picking the flowers on the corner of Beltana.

Aunt speaks fondly of her beloved Carl and his generosity.

[00:22:59] Lottie: We had a good marriage. We married, we just finished 20 years of marriage and he passed away. He was only 43. Blood clot on the brain. Here in Wagga. That's when we moved here. And he worked on the Department of Main Roads and I worked in the Calvary Hospital - in the laundry and then in maternity for seven years. And then I remember ringing up Carl, ‘you have to bring my shoes down, I'm in my slippers here at work’. I forgot to change my shoes. And he had to bring them down. And I met a lot of nice friends. Because there was no, no Aboriginals here then to … My niece came over. She started working at the.. She lived with us and started working at Wagga Hospital in the laundry.

[00:23:52] And then my nephew came over with, he used to live with mum in Harden there. And he stayed with us. It was all my people mainly that, it was all my people, not mainly. He just came, they all came and lived with us ‘cause Carl had a heart of gold. I can remember the time when this fellow was drunk and he, he asked me for two, two dollars. And I said, ‘listen here mate, if I can work, you can work’. And my husband said, when he got drunk, ‘you're nothing but a little pig.’. ‘Could have left the little out’, I said.

Once the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme began in 1974, Aunty Lottie says it was time to start having fun again with the mob.

[00:24:42] Lottie: The Honeysetts and I used to go, Aunty Violet, the mum of them, we used to go dancing and it was good. And I'd make the boys dance, because my husband wouldn't dance. It was really good to meet up with other Aboriginals. I didn't know them, but you get to know your own. Me and the Honeysetts used to, not only me, but Violet and all of us used to go out on a special night and we'd go bowls.

[00:25:12] My nephew was.. My husband's nephew was out at Kapooka. He'd come in, we'd walk downtown, ten pin bowling and yeah. And the Honeysetts was probably and the Smiths were the ones that we sort of mixed together and went out to the, the club. It was all us Kooris that mixed together when they came here.

Aunt says Carl was very popular in the community, not just because of his sporting or coaching ability. He cared about the young people – no matter what colour their skin was.

[00:25:48] Lottie: He was well liked here and with all the boys, he, you know, he, he was just, he had that, I don't know, something about him that I didn't have, you know. Yeah, they all looked up to him. And he even had me out there playing touch footy. And the girls played, his daughters played hockey and softball and touch footy and he had all these young boys, mainly the Honeysetts, he had them and Norman and just, he was so good to them.

[00:26:24] I played touch footy. I was made to. He had us running around that oval from Beltana up there where they play hockey and that now. He'd make us run, the family and the girls and him. He worked for the Department of Main Roads for as long as he, well until he passed away. But he was working with the youth, the boys and the men.

[00:26:51] He'd get them, and the girls, to go and play sports and to sort of lift them up. He did, he was one of those people. He was very well liked you know, and they.. He was very.. ‘Çause the young people, I'll tell you, the young people, even white kids, when they got into trouble with the police, they wouldn't call their parents. They'd call Carl.

[00:27:16] And he'd go… He had to drive to Tumbarumba a couple of times. Well, it wasn't nothing to him. And he'd kick ‘em up the bottom as they were walking out of the police station too, you know, for making him do that, but he did it. All the light, all the time, they'd call on Carl. He was a good person to black and white. It didn't matter to him.

Aunt says the Bamblett name is well known - because of Carl’s grandfather... they’re part of a big mob.

[00:27:52] Lottie: Because of grandfather, he had about three wives. They - all the Bambletts are related. You go anywhere and there's a Bamblett there. Okay. From Cowra down to Shepparton to Melbourne and everywhere. I think we were the only Bambletts in Wagga then, but I don't know about now.

The Bamblett’s never asked for help in Wagga Wagga – even if they’d known it was possible.

Instead, Aunty Lottie would go to visit her mum in Harden to seek guidance.

[00:28:26] Lottie: There was no services. There was none. If you wanted anything, you had to pay for it. You couldn't go and ask. Well, I didn't know. I was too used to being on the Three Way. And I didn't know you could go to like the church or the Vinnies or that. I didn't know anything. I wasn't told about it.

[00:28:47] So what my husband earned and I earned, we lived on it. We were, I wouldn't say independent, because I didn't know nothing about it. And we weren't told anything, that you can get help, you know, at such and such. And I didn't know anything about them. It's only since I've got on with the age that I do now look for help from Vinnies or Salvos and they're very good. They're very good, to me anyway.

[00:29:16] I just did what I had to do and I'd ask my mum because you couldn't ring up then. We'd go over and I'd ask her what to do and she'd just advise me to do the best I can. And if people don't want to talk to me, or my, then my, just ignore it because there's nothing I can do about it. If people want to be ignorant, that's their choice. But I don't have to be.

Auntie Lottie attended a Baptist Church until the Aboriginal Church opened in the 1980’s with Pastor Ivan Williams.

[00:29:56] Lottie: That was good, they were lovely. Mrs. Young. Yeah. She'd pick us up. We ended up buying her old car off her. Yeah. That was the first car we had here. It was an old blue Ford. Pastor Ivan, he was learning the guitar and he  come in the church one day with the guitar and I started laughing at him. He wouldn't do it again! I used to, I had a sick sense of humour. But they, yeah, we went there until everything, when Carl passed away, because he was a good friend of Ivan's. He'd help him in the churc.

When Carl died in 1987, Auntie Lottie left Wagga Wagga and didn’t return until 2020.

[00:30:45] Lottie: When he passed away, I sort of finished my childcare diploma. I was two years into it and then I sold out and moved. Because I couldn't stand Wagga at that time. Too painful. Because he was gone and, yeah. So me and my children and their children, we just packed up and went. My nephew took me up to his place in Pearce in Canberra, in the ACT.

[00:31:15] And then there was a job advertised in Queanbeyan Women's Refuge. And I applied for it and I got it. Women escaping domestic violence and children. And I was there for 17 years. I was the one with the children because I had the diploma. Like I had a childcare certificate. You had to go on call and they, you had to have your phone on because there was no mobiles and that then. And, uh, you'd get woken up by the police at three or four o'clock, so you'd have to go to the refuge. Or you'd have to go with another one to that person's place and pick them up that were escaping domestic violence. It was hard, but it was good.

She says the terrible domestic violence we hear so much about today has always been around – it was just more hidden.

[00:32:13] Lottie: It wasn't as open then when I worked with it. Iit was there and it wasn't just the middle class ones neither. It was, it was just Iraqi and everything. It was no middle class going to a refuge. I can tell you that. Everyone, it was everyone. No matter where they come from.

Aunty’s early childhood training at TAFE all came about thanks to a push from a very powerful Elder - the late Aunty Val Weldon -  who was determined to see the growing First Nations mob in Wagga Wagga achieve their best.

[00:32:56] Lottie: I went when Aunty Val opened the school down here. She was the one that pushed us. That was Hewitt and Dot’s mum. But the kids at that TAFE were very, mainly the boys used to call us coons and we'd just ignore them. Because it, I always said it comes from the parents for the kids. They learn from their parents to hate. But I've got a lot of good white friends and children.

[00:33:31] The ones that I taught in the refuge, looked after, they still remember me. And I got one little, one boy - he's married now and no one can say nothing about me. Even his parents and his mother, and his gran.

[00:33:46] She employed us, Aunty Val, and that's when she was the one that made us go and get our diploma. She said ‘Youse are going to be educated and get paid properly’. So we did. Carol and I, Carol Morgan. And a few used to come from different towns, Aboriginal girls, the Koori girls and we all did our diploma. There was about seven or eight of us.

[00:34:15] I can't remember their names now, but Aunty, Aunty, um, Val, there was all Aboriginals. We all worked. I've got a photo of them in, at the kids in the school, my grandkids. Yeah, we worked all together. And Carol Morgan and a lot of us. I worked in mainly all three or four um, preschools around here - Koala was the main one where I finished up.

She is forever grateful to Aunty Val.

[00:34:46] Lottie: She didn't pull any punches. She'd let you have them, straight in. She'd tell you straight where you were going wrong and she'd praise you when you were doing good. Oh, she was strict, don't worry. We didn't get away with nothing just because it was our mob. She made us do our work. I probably wouldn't have had my childcare diploma. Probably wouldn't have worked in the refuge for 17 years if she wouldn't have pushed me to go for it.

Sadly not all of Aunt Lottie's children have outlived her – only highlighting the awful gap in life expectancy of our mob.

[00:35:24] Lottie: I've lost two daughters. One, uh, Kayleen, that was the second eldest. She died at 43. ‘Cause she had a kidney problem. And in the finish she had a stroke. She was in a wheelchair and she couldn't talk or.. So, about 14 years ago now, 13, 14.

[00:35:45] And Stella, my baby - she died about, by the time I came back to Wagga, she was gone about 5 years ago. She had diabetes 1 and no one knew. No one knew. That's what's in the death certificate.

[00:36:05] Anyway, my other girl, She's um, the eldest one's in Newcastle. She's… She's had a bad trot with her… She had cancer and they didn't get it all. She was under chemo for two years and then she had a blood clot in her foot and it travelled up to her heart. When she lifted her arm up, it travelled into her arm. Yeah, she can't come back to Wagga because that's the reason I come home. Because of her. She couldn't cope with losing her sisters. I'm sorry.

[00:36:54] So, and my son, he just got out of the hospital from nine days. He's in Condobolin. He was in Orange Hospital. He had a slight heart attack. The salt, his salt was down and.. Oh, poor old Simon. That was the shock of his life, being in, that's the first time he's been in hospital and nine days. And they kept saying, you can go home, and then they'd take the blood test, the salt’d be down. They thought he had diabetes, but he hasn't. But he's so grateful to be home now. Yeah. They're doing okay. He's doing okay. But he wants me to go down, spend a couple of days with him.

Aunty says she will visit Condobolin, but it’s really sad to see her old home town of Condobolin shrink and lose services and facilities.

[00:37:52] Lottie: I was there for 15 years, and the pastor of the church says, ‘You've got to get back home here’. I said, ‘No way’. They're closing everything down there. Everything. When I first moved there they had Target, they had jewellers, they had shoe places. Got nothing now, only the IGA and, yeah. Only things that are standing are the pubs of course.

These days in Wagga Wagga, Aunt Lottie continues to be involved with preschoolers.

She says unlike other Elders, she’s not into weaving or art.

[00:38:38] Lottie: They do, but I don't. I reckon I'd done my work doing four years study and getting a diploma and they asked me to draw a picture - I couldn't even draw a stick figure. So all I'm good for is reading and talking. I just like being with the kids. I miss them. I've had all my own, but I just miss being with the kids. I go out there to preschool once a fortnight with Meg and them from the hub out there, we go into the preschool.

[00:39:14] And one little girl attached herself to me and she doesn't like me going. She wouldn't, she doesn't, like she's like she's gonna cry. But I go to preschool, I just, as an Elder, that's one little girl, she, she really hooked herself onto my hand and wouldn't let it go. Bless her.

Aunt says in the fight for land rights, she wasn’t an activist - but her husband was.

Now, aged 79, she has stronger views.

She says the NO result in the Voice referendum really hurt. Aunt is adamant  that Aboriginal people should be consulted about the things that affect us.

[00:39:54] Lottie: I was disappointed. I was really disappointed that the people of Australia didn't sort of want to come together with the Aboriginals and sort of give them a bit of a go. Not for me, but for the younger ones coming up. I was disappointed. This is their land. I was disappointed.

[00:40:17] I thought more, not so much the ones that come from overseas and that, but the ones that were here all the time. They should have - I reckon they should have went with us. That's like all those ones that come from overseas with their new cars and oh well, I'm, you know, that's just, I've got it against that. They support them but they don't support the Koori people the way they should. All Aboriginals. We're only Kooris in New South Wales.

[00:40:48] They just don't want to learn, or those that learn voted for us. Those that understood. But the ones that didn't want to, thinking that we're taking all their money and the government's giving us all that money - that's a lot of wooey. Because we work hard for our money. We're like everyone else. The ones that are on the dole, there's white people on the dole too. I just turned it off at the end because there were so many…I just put it down they didn't want to know. It wasn't ignorant or anything. They just didn't want to know or learn anything about our culture.

Aunt says our mob fought from the beginning of colonisation to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect.

She says we are the traditional owners no matter what others believe.

She feels that acknowledging the ongoing strength of First Nations culture and the facts of the dark history of colonisation must be taught to young and old.

[00:41:50] Lottie: I'd like to know why that welfare was brought in to our people and, and lifting the kids from their, you know, from their parents, just because they were there. I just couldn't, I can't understand it. That's why mum wouldn't talk about it, because it hurt too much.

[00:42:07] I think they've got to push ahead to get the younger ones that are growing up now, coming up, to know the truth. To know the truth about where we come from and what happened and, you know, with our parents and with their parents and… And the younger ones have got to know. There's a lot that know, that have learnt. But there's a lot that don't want to know. You know, we never had it handed to us like, no way did they hand us, what we got the dole the same as everyone else. My husband was on the dole one week.

[00:42:47] I remember going to the Aboriginal do last year - dinner. And my name was on a leaf. And this young, this man sitting next to me said, ‘Do you know a Carl Bamblett’? I said, ‘I'm his wife’. And he worked at the Department of Main Roads with him. And he said, um, ‘He was a good man. Good man.’ You know,  I didn't expect that. Anyone sitting beside me, but there, you know, there's people that know, and, and people who, uh, white people I'm talking about, that mix with Aboriginals, they know the truth.

[00:43:33] But the ones that don't want nothing to do with us, they're the ones that are ignorant, and arrogant, and don't want to know. They just think we're in there for getting all this money off the government. I wish it was true.

While Aunt Lottie tries to remain optimistic, she has deep concerns for our mob and for the future for her grandchildren, great children and even her first great, great grandchild.

She is very close to her large mob and is trying to nurture them, but she wants them to be respectful and take responsibility, like she had to.

[00:44:25] Lottie: It all depends what crowd they get in with. And as I said, it's up to them. The choice is theirs. We can't tell them because they always say ‘I know Nan. I know Nan’. They know nothing. I said, ‘I'm 70 something and youse are trying to tell me what to do’. I don't know. Anyway, yes. They gotta learn same as everyone else  how to cope with life. What's right and what's wrong. And there's so much, um, there's so much out there, so much evil out there, isn't there? All the drugs are, I've never seen so many drugs. And all the dealers, I think, they can go anywhere and get it. It's shocking.

[00:45:23] Talking about my mum, I miss her. I miss my husband. I kept saying ‘why did you go and leave me with all these problems of these kids’?

[00:45:37] Yeah. No, I've got a really good family to be honest. I've got a couple of radical bad habit ones, but the rest are... I've got 20 grandkids, about 16 great grandkids and one great great grand.. She came down and seen me about 10 months ago. I’ve got a photo of me and her. But that's how I’ve… That's the ones. And the mums used to get a bit jealous because they'd come to Nan. And talk to Nan about their problems. Especially the eldest one.

[00:46:18] Well, I'm the top - leader of the band now like my mum was. I'm the top one in my family now.  Because the father's gone. Their grandfather's gone. So, yeah, sometimes I get a bit sad about it, that they haven't got a man, but they’ll have to do with me.

Aunt Lottie still goes back to the Three Ways at Griffith every now and then.

There’s now a park where she used to live.

[00:46:49] Lottie: It's all developed now, I can still remember where we all lived. I was down there not long ago. That's where my other daughter used to live. My grandson lives there now. Yeah, on the Three Way, yeah.

[00:47:04] I haven't had many, um, sad times, but I've, only when I lost my friends, you know, my good friends that we used to talk and joke around.

[00:47:15] I'll tell you, this is the last joke I'm going to tell you. We lived in Griffith on the Three Way. I'd just got married and um, her name was Isabel. She was slipping around with my cousin. And I was laying down in bed one night and all the girls were going past on the road and I could hear her saying, ‘I'll have two tops. Two tops of the wine.

[00:47:46] And I tormented her all the years till she passed away. Oh Two Tops. Oh, I miss her so much 'cause we were so close. You know, I'll have two tops. And she never, never lived it down with me. I just… She'd tell me a few where to go too when I tormented her. Yeah, I'm happy with that. I told you all my jokes.

Download the transcript for Episode 3

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 3 | Gifts of Stone

Uncle James Ingram:Australia has a black history. And it needs to recognize the hurt that was done to First Nations people and they have to reconcile themselves with that. But the true history of this country has to be told. We just didn't sit here and wait for somebody to sail up on a boat and say, oh, come in, we're glad you got here. We lived in Paradise and it was destroyed. I mean, for us, it was. Our lives were destroyed.

LUKE VO: Hi, I’m Luke Wighton. I’m a Wiradjuri man originally from Condobolin now living in Wagga Wagga. I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT - Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we’d been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme. The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

So, let’s get to know some of our proud First Nations mob from Wagga Wagga.

Uncle James Ingram was born in Leeton and moved to Wagga Wagga in the early 1980’s during the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme.

By the late 1980’s there was around 800 First Nations people living in Wagga Wagga... compared to just 20 or so families in the 60’s.

They came from different mobs across western New South Wales - not just Wiradjuri Country - and Uncle James helped many of them find jobs.

Over the years he’s worked with farming communities, councils, private companies and environmental agencies to prioritise the care and protection of Wiradjuri heritage and culture.

And he’s part of the Aboriginal Men’s group that worked on the Declaration of Aboriginal Places in and around Wagga Wagga.

[00:03:28] James: I'm from the Narrungdera Narinjeri clan of the great nation of Wiradjuri. Narrungdera's spelt N-A-R-R-U-N-G-D-E-R-A and Narinjeri's N-A-R-I-N-J-E-R-I. And it means the place of many lizards, but it's also, Narinjeri means spear as well. So we are Lizard people with spear.

Uncle James was born and raised in Leeton, a town located in the Riverina region of south west New South Wales.

As a young man, Uncle James moved from Leeton to Sydney.

[00:04:04] James: I was for four years at Sydney Teachers College. And I left there and I was doing some labouring jobs and I just got sick and tired of the smoke and the smog and the smell of Sydney. So I decided to come home and I walked into the local employment service in Leeton and they said we've got a job for you. And it was here in Wagga, because there'd been a large community of people moving here for resettlement.

Uncle James says that homecoming - being back on Wiradjuri Country - was such a relief after living in the big smoke.

His new job involved helping other resettled mob find jobs in Wagga Wagga - and he was good at it.

[00:04:47] James: And the main thing was that, there's an old saying that if you can't smell the Bidgee, you're not home. And of course, yeah, the Murrumbidgee runs straight through Wagga and bypasses Leeton as well.

[00:04:58] My dad moved here under resettlement. Uncle Roy Carroll from Narrandera was the resettlement officer. Him and a bloke by the name of Alan Lamb, and they resettled Dad here. So that was my first understanding of resettlement. But when I got here, my father introduced me to all these different people from all different communities, from Wiradjuri communities that is - that had moved here and were resettled here, so it was quite good, yes.

[00:05:26] I came here to Wagga as the vocational officer for the Aboriginal Employment and Training Branch which worked out of the Wagga Wagga CES. I came at the end of ‘81, the beginning of ‘82 and yeah, been here on and off ever since.

[00:05:42] People were looking for employment opportunities, of course. And I was quite good at what I done and I had a high success rate. I think I only had one person who I couldn't get into a job. But that was because he'd trained in all these other jobs and it made it quite difficult to place that person. But I was quite pleased with the way we were able to place most people in the jobs that they wanted to do, especially apprenticeship programs.

[00:06:10] Well, we had a wonderful scheme called the National Employment Strategy for Aborigines.They called it NESA. And it was a great program. You could actually offer up to 100 per cent wage subsidy to employers if you wanted to get a job for a person. Especially if it was a job, a unique job like printing and stuff like that, we were able to place people in those type of occupations. And if the employer didn't have the scope to employ the person with their own wages, we could help that employer. And it was a very successful scheme and I don't know why the government got rid of it because it did help a lot of people here in Wagga.

[00:06:48] There's always government employers under the NESA scheme and it was targeted at that. A lot of the girls that were training as clerical assistants. When I first came here, I went around to all the government departments where the girls were employed and they were supposed to be typing 70 words per minute and none of them could type. And I said, well, what do they do? And basically they were out the back filing. And I wouldn't have that. So I started up a typing class and I told everybody if you didn't come on Monday, don't bother coming on Tuesday. And all the girls ended up typing 70 words, even 100 words per minute, so it was a great course.

[00:07:25] And of course they were networking while they were doing it 'cause they were doing it every Monday morning from nine to 12. And we had a great TAFE teacher, Eleanor Buckley and she'd done a wonderful job. And most of those girls out of that went on and got good careers out of it. That was the main thing.

[00:07:42] I see 'em all the time. Yeah. It's good to see, especially when they've gone on, gone on to bigger and better things as well. They've upskilled themselves and applied for the higher wage jobs and some more authority and the ability to help their people better by being in positions of, I guess power, yeah.

[00:08:04] Luke W: During your time here in Wagga, did you ever feel like an outsider?

[00:08:08] James: I never felt like an outsider here because I had a few mob here anyway who had been here, you know, a couple of years before me. And they'd integrated it into the community. And Kooris being Kooris, we always flocked to each other and, yeah, we all, we had a local hotel that we went to and socialised. We used to go to the Ashmont Hotel and a lot of people used to say that was the pub for the blacks, but we didn't care. We just, as long as we got to see our family and friends in a social setting and have a few beers and have a few laughs and stuff like that.

[00:08:42] I think there was around about 64 families here when I got here and it's just grown. And if you know your community, you'll know that we don't like to fill out the Census every time they do a Census. And you can guarantee whatever number, like the 2,334 people in the Census, we're closer to 6,000 First Nations people here, given that we've got a huge catchment area from Moree and Bourke and Brewarrina and Wilcannia and Menindee and Murrin Bridge, all those places. So, yeah, you’re talking a large population, yeah.

[00:09:25] Well, I lived in Ray Street, and if you know Tolland at all, you know that Ray Street was the main street. And there, once upon a time, yeah, you could leave your door open. People looked after each other. And we all socialised together. And of course, you know, that helping hand that First Nations families have towards each other. And if you needed something, you only had to ask. And that was what was good about it.

But Uncle James can still remember the signs put up by racists in Ashmont, that said Coon County or Vegemite Village.

[00:10:02] James: I heard all those racist stuff, but I'm one when someone's being racist to me,I tend to say something that goes over their head and they don't  understand that I've just had a shot at them and they're not intelligent enough to, yeah, to understand what I just done to them. But, I've been in fights, fist fights in this town, don't worry about that, over racism. I've been assaulted a number of times because of the colour of my skin. But, yeah, those people have got a problem and the problem is with themselves and inside themselves and karma gets them in the end.

[00:10:38] Luke W: Racism just shows a low education to me.

[00:10:42] James: Same. YepI feel exactly the same. So I'm more likely to torment them than, more than anything, because sometimes they are an easy mark because of their racism.

Uncle James says while there has been some positive change over the years, there are still haters in Wagga Wagga.

[00:11:00] James: There's been laws put in place and all that sort of stuff. Most people frown upon racism nowadays, even though, you know, you still get your boisterous, bigoted people who think it's fun to, to be racist and poke fun at people.

[00:11:14] But nine times out of 10, other people just get up and walk away and say, we don't want - that's not us. It's when, when it's happening in social settings, when we've got rid of that person who's racist, their friends who are with them have come over and apologised and said, that's not us. And I normally say, well, you know, I didn't bash that kid up when he was a kid, or I didn't take his girlfriend, or something like that, that makes people hate Aboriginal people, whatever reason it is.

Stereotypes about us black fellas persist to this day, including the myth that we’re not hard workers.

[00:11:49] James: Yeah, this thing that they get in their head, that we're lazy, fat blacks, and all this sort of stuff, couldn't be further from the truth. My family's worked all their life. And they've got quite a good name up and down the Murrumbidgee River and up the, up and down the Lachlan and the Murray, the whole place. And that fallacy there, about us,sitting around waiting for somebody to do something for us, it couldn't be… I've never heard so much bullshit in my life.

Uncle James has had a big part in the growth of Aboriginal run services in Wagga Wagga.

But he says there are still gaps in 2024 - including the need for a hostel for First Nations mob visiting family in hospital, and for students.

[00:12:28] James: You always had the Aboriginal Legal Service because we needed it. And then the Aboriginal Preschool was here, and then, the Aboriginal Lands Council started - of which I worked for the Regional Lands Council as well, before I ended up working for the local. But, yeah, it was… All those places were places where you could go and socialise with our people.

[00:12:50] Then the Aboriginal Advancement Corporation started. And then other groups came in like the Waagan Waagan Project men's group. And there's women's groups and Aunty Jean's and yeah, there's a lot of organisations now.

[00:13:05] We've always needed an Aboriginal hostel here. We have a very good TAFE and a very good university, but we have no Aboriginal hostel where people can come and study and stay. Ad we need facilities for our Elders. I've been talking to some people about, for years, particularly Aunty Patty Morris's mother, who wanted to build that type of facility for us and - though she's passed away unfortunately. But it's aged care like they have in Condo at Willow Bend. I think we need to be doing stuff like that given that Wagga is such a referral place for health and medical and education and all that sort of stuff. And if Elders have got a place to be, other people will come to Wagga as well.

Like in many regional areas, the drug ice is tragically running rampant ... and it’s a disease that’s really hurting our mob.

Uncle James says that while he agrees these drug problems need to be tackled, he questions whether police are targeting the right people.

[00:14:07] James: Once upon a time you could leave your door unlocked, but then you have these people who target our children and get our children on drugs, giving them a taste. And then suddenly they're hooked and then that's when they've got to pay for it. And then the first people they'll knock over is mum and dad, then uncle and aunt or grandmother and you know this elder abuse that goes on. It's all about financial abuse too, where these people are taking this money for drugs and something's got to be done about it.

[00:14:35] I don't know. I tried to get something done about these drug dealers, but I didn't think the police were interested in arresting them. They're rather more interested in arresting our people for possession of minor drugs. You know it used to be marijuana, but now it's all ice and cocaine and the dragon as well. So, yeah, it's horrific what's going on with our kids.

Uncle James says all of these issues are a symptom of colonisation... and the splintering of families and culture… leading to a loss of respect.

[00:15:09] James: If you understand what's happened to my people, our people, over the last 250 years you'll understand that we're marginalised. We've got some of the worst stats that you'll ever have in any third world country. We're more incarcerated. Our education standards isn't the best. Mortality rates amongst our children. Poor housing. You only have to look at some of the ghettos we've got around this place. When you're in that situation, your mind isn't prepared to deal with all the heartache that goes with it.

[00:15:44] And you put Stolen Generation stuff on top of that, and then you've got a person who says, right, I've got a, I've got an in here. And then next thing they start targeting our people and next thing those people are hooked. And then they'll hook somebody else and it just goes on and on. It becomes this huge, vicious circle where nobody can get out of it.

[00:16:04] And the drug dealer is the local hero of the place. What a load of bullshit. He's the first person, or she should have been the first person arrested and put in jail for what they’re doing.

[00:16:13] We haven't got the really significant Elders in every family around us anymore. Our life expectancy isn't the best. And, yeah, we haven't got those family connections that we need to make our family strong. And it's sad that the people mask their trauma with drugs and alcohol and domestic violence and everything else that goes with it.

[00:16:44] Most families when they came here, you know, the whole family came. But then you have that isolation period and then you integrate into the whole community and all that sort of stuff. And I had Elders in this community, not just Wiradjuri elders. They were Nyaampa elders and Barkandji elders and Kamilaroi/Gamilaroi elders. And I had the utmost respect for them. And yeah, we seem to have lost that because, I don't know, people think that they don't have to pay the due respect to Elders that they used to pay in the past.

[00:17:15] I'm always big on respect and having Yindyamarra about myself, to the point where it gets frustrating to me sometimes and I want to explode, but I try not to anymore.

One of the projects trying to undo this damage is a community facility in the city centre called Wollundry Dreaming.

There, Uncle James, other Elders and knowledge holders including people like myself, work with our youth, sharing culture and life skills to help get them on the right track.

[00:17:46] James: I've always been a firm believer that you've got to provide an outcome for, doesn't matter whether a child or an adult, they've got to want to come and do it and these kids have come and they've seen that the staff that are there at Wollundry Dreaming and the Elders that are there are fair dinkum and we care about them and we love them and that we want the best for them. And they can see that and then they react to that and then they, they tell their friends and next thing we've got a, a waiting list that we, you know, we wish we could fill but we can't because of the limited space.

[00:18:18] But with any help, we might end up with a facility that can help a lot of children. To see those kids go from the shy people they were to the, they just love being there at Wollundry Dreaming. They've always got to be respectful. No swearing, no fighting, those type of things. It's all about, you know, having your space, but also recognising you've got friends have their space as well, and then you can do things together.

[00:18:42] But we're teaching things like the Maliyen, which is the Eagle group for the boys. Because boys have got certain ways of thinking. And the girls have got their own way. And they do their business - they do Butterfly Dreaming. We do Eagle dreaming, Maliyen dreaming. So yeah, we just got to cater it for, for the different groups. But it's little things like teaching the kids how to fish, how to put a hook on a line. How to put a worm on a line and then throw it in there and catch a fish and all that sort of stuff. Some of the things that I grew up - that's second nature to me - fishing and hunting and that with my grandfather and my father and all my uncles and our aunts and all that sort of stuff, we used to do that. That was our spare time doing that stuff. Plus, it was putting food on the table. But kids don't get that anymore.

[00:19:32] I'm really big on, on connecting people back to Country. And Country's all about your culture and your language. And when you're doing good things for your, for yourself and your environment, you're more likely to get up and go to work, get a good education and make the right choices that you need to make. When you're sitting at home all the time and there's nothing to do except watch Netflix or whatever else you watch, that's when you tend to get involved with drugs and alcohol and all those evil things that destroy our communities.

[00:20:08] Luke W: I recall an afternoon, one afternoon Uncle James, when we were down the river and you was teaching us and the young ones about caring for Country. And then, one of the young fellows, Jack got up and then started, went and picking up rubbish without even having to be asked, so that's, yeah,

[00:20:23] James: That's exactly it. Yeah, that's the outcome you're looking for. You don't have to, say, pick that up. They'll go over and do it themselves because they get it in their head what we're trying to say to them. Well, I, you know, I thought I could save the world, but I can't. So, we take one step at a time and hopefully get something that will come along and help us expand and do what we need to do for our kids.

Wagga Wagga was traditionally a gathering, camping, swimming, ceremonial and burial place for Wiradjuri mob.

Still to this day there are significant places of Wiradjuri heritage. Songlines still exist. The markings of Wawee - the rainbow serpent - remain.

And many boundary trees mark out Country.

The squatters who colonised this area from the 1830s onward used Wiradjuri words to name their pastoral runs… and Wiradjuri names exist all over this district.

But the Aboriginal Protection Board banned us from using our language up until the late 1960’s.

After a lot of hard work though, our language has been reclaimed and is increasingly being taught and used in schools.

[00:21:37] James: I've done the Graduate Grad Cert. Actually I, I was part of the  group that put it to Charles Sturt University that they should do this. I was an advocate for it. Because I've always understood that without a language and without your culture, you're not really a Wiradjuri person. You're not really a First Nations person, you're just a pale imitation.

[00:21:58] You have no identity, and identity is a key thing to it. That you, I belong to the Wiradjuri mob. I come from Narrungdera Narinjeri right down to my totems. I've got different totems that define who I am. That type of knowledge is what we need to be imprinting back into our kids.

[00:22:16] And these Caring for Country initiatives, if anybody ever cared to read the last five reports, it's all, all about mental health and physical health and community health. And domestic violence goes down, crime goes down. All these wonderful outcomes you get, but they still want to lock our people up and, that's a cost of, what, a quarter of a million dollars for, per inmate. You times that by 10 or 20 and you’ve got enough money to run a Caring for Country initiative on, on, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River or any cultural area or any place that needs our help, needs cleaning up and rehabilitation.

[00:22:52] Luke W: Uncle James, can you tell us a bit more about the role that you've played in reviving our culture?

[00:22:58] James: Mate, people say I bang on about it too much, but I had some great teachers and, especially my grandfather and my dad. In particular my Uncle Oz, who was my mentor. Everybody knew him as Bumpa. And I was quite fortunate to be born when I was born with those fellas around me. Plus, I had a really hard headed grandmother who you know, I'd get a flogging if I mucked up. But it was always good for me in the end, when I realised back years later.

[00:23:33] But, yeah, I mean, I've always been around culture, I've always been around language and doing the right thing by our cultural sites. That's why I've been able to record and get nine Aboriginal Places declared because those icons need our protection. I've got a few more to do and I want some young people to step forward so I can show them how to do it. So that when I'm not here anymore that they'll be able to carry that baton on and look after these areas because they do need looking after.

[00:24:07] You've got places like Wollundry Lagoon, which is the most significant one. Wollundry Lagoon is named after The Rocks area, which is on the river. And millions of years ago, there was a volcano over in the mountains over there towards Tumut and there was a stream of volcano that came up on the riverbank there.

[00:24:27] And that's that place they called the Place of Stone on what most people would know, there's that buoy there that if you dive in, you're going to hit your head on rocks. So that is wallan. And wallan is our money. Because that stone that’s there is the hardest known stone to us, besides diamonds. And we're not telling anybody where the diamonds are, but, so you have that,

[00:24:53] Luke W: It's a form of currency.

[00:24:55] James: Yeah, it was a form of currency. So people would come here to Wagga not only for many dances and many celebrations, which is the true meaning of Wagga, but they'd also come to trade that stone that was there. And that, that place of stone was on the headwaters of Wollundry Lagoon.

[00:25:12] Wollundry Lagoon is a large fish trap. So in times of flood, we would, after all the small water creatures would go into the lagoon for safety, we would block it off with the trees that had fallen into the river during the flood and they couldn't escape. And therefore, the little fingerlings would grow into larger fish and populate and then we'd have a ready food source, like a big supermarket.

[00:25:39] And you, you think about Wollundry being significant, you've got to talk about Parken Pregan. You got to talk about Kurrajong Lagoon. And then Bomen Lagoon and again and of course Flowerdale Lagoon, which is a women's area and children's area.

[00:25:56] So all those lagoons - and if you looked at a topographical map, you'll see how all those lagoons are here in Wagga and all the food sources, like the big supermarkets they were in times when we had people coming here to Wagga, following the the Bogong moth into the Alps, for us to meet up with the black duck people from the Yuin nation and the Thurrawal people and the Lyrebird people and the Gundungurra people from Katoomba which are eagle people, and then the Gadigal people and the Eora people, and the Monaro Ngarigo people from from down south. Well we'd all meet in Canberra for the exchange of family.

[00:26:42] So we had to feed huge numbers of people when they came here to Wagga first, it's a staging place before they would move on to a place called Borambola. Well Bora means ceremonial ground. And if you go out to Borambola there are two significant areas. One’s women and one's men. The men's area is right up on top of the hill and unfortunately they built a house over it, of course. But anyway, then you've got another place that they call Bora Binga too, but that's another story.

[00:27:12] You've got Tony Ireland Park. It's a declared Aboriginal Place. You've got Flowerdale Lagoon. You've got Bomen Lagoon. The Bomen axe quarry. Bomen Lagoon. The Kengal - The Rock. And Doodle Comur Swamp out at Henty as well. So yeah. And we've been able to record nine boundary trees in and around Wagga as well.

[00:27:32] Boundary trees denote the, the boundary between Wagga Wagga and Book Book and Uranquinty, which is all about plenty of rain and birds. And then if you go towards, if you go west you run into Collingullie. And then you run into Grong Grong of course. And then over the river, you run into Gilling Gilling country before you get into Junee and there's a couple of boundary trees out there as well, which we're protecting.

[00:28:02] So those boundary trees, there's one out on Alfredtown TSR, which is a square in a tree, which is a women's area and a kids area, because the branch comes out so the kids and women can sit on it. And then out the back of the Boat Club, you've got a diamond. There's one diamond in a tree. And then there's one at Lake Albert, which is on private property, and there's another one on, on the RAAF Base we understand.

[00:28:32] And there's a ring with a circle on Holbrook Road. And then you've got another one out at Yarragundry which has been destroyed unfortunately. But the ring remains. But there was a rather large canoe in it and inside the canoe were the markings of the Wawee, which is the marking of the Rainbow Serpent.

[00:28:53] And it's all about the songline behind the Riverina redgum, which is the yarra yarra tree. And it talks to us about our connection to that tree and what it means to us and what it gives us. It gives us everything, like tools, it gives us shade, the canoe that came out of it, it also gives us food sources, everything. So our connection to that tree. So we have a songline story about that.

Uncle James says there’s rich Wiradjuri heritage and knowledge to be shared... but it’s an ongoing battle for recognition.

[00:29:25] James: Well, you know, government's always slow to change. And you know I work for the Local Land Services and I'm not critical of the organisation. What I say to you is that it still had its roots back in the Department of Ag and sometimes Aboriginal Culture and Heritage hasn't been on the forefront of how they do things.

[00:29:47] But my job was to show them that, how you can walk together and do things together without Aboriginal Culture and Heritage being the boogeyman that the shock jocks on radios and TV make us out to be the devils. And we’re coming to claim your backyard and we're gonna evict you and get rid of you and, and you've got no rights.

[00:30:08] It couldn't be any further from the truth because those shock jocks are paid large volumes of money to divide us all. And that's what it's all always been about. And unfortunately that type of thinking gets stuck in people's head, especially older Australians. I have great hope for the younger generation.

[00:30:26] I think they can, they're starting to see through the falsism of what happens on TV and radio. And, to the point where I think, maybe in another 20 years, we might have a voice. But we were waylaid with the Voice and culture and heritage stuff by people who were stuck in the fifties.

[00:30:47] Luke W: I was going to say, do you think that was - that showed as a result of the referendum? Those mindsets?

[00:30:54] James: Well, they wouldn't let me on TV or radio to say that if they voted yes, we were going to get rid of the AUKUS funding arrangements and we're going to spend all that money on, on, on housing and give everybody a free house. Give everybody a free education. And some of the things that some of the people were saying that we were going to stop trade and we were going to plunge the community, the country into massive debt and all this sort of stuff.

[00:31:24] Couldn't be any further from the truth because what they don't know is that there's about a billion dollars each year spent on Aboriginal Affairs, but it's mainly spent on white administration. I mean I've got all these non Indigenous people telling me what's good for me. And in the end, I end up with about one dollar out of that billion dollars and I guess you would end up with another dollar.

[00:31:46] But they're not looking at the high number of non Indigenous people who are employed to look after us. And it's not right and it should be changed. That's why local Aboriginal organisations should get the funding that they need to divert kids from, away from drugs and alcohol.

[00:32:04] We don't want people putting band aids on us anymore. We need real solutions by getting real funding to grass roots organisations that can make the changes that we need to make.

Uncle James has done a lot of work with farmers over the years... and says our mob is respected in the farming community.

After all, black fellas helped to ensure they made money off the land that was stolen from us.

His own family’s connections gave him an advantage.

[00:32:38] James: My father is James Ingram Senior, Jimmy. And he was a gun shearer, and a horse breaker and drover. And he'd been up and down the Murrumbidgee River, and the Lachlan River, and the Murray River all his life.

[00:32:53] And there's not too many communities that don't know who he is. I've been out on properties and a lot of people say - would say to me, you're not going to get anything out of that, that racist old redneck farmer. And um, you're not going to get anything. And I'd walk in the door and they'd just look at me and they'd say, Oh, you're Jimmy's son, aren't you? Or you're Ike's grandson. I said, that's right. I said, how do you know that? And they'll actually bring me up their records of where my dad worked and my grandfather. And they'd show me that there. Because when you're a gun shearer like my father was, you get to write your name on the board and it stays there for 200 sheep a day.

[00:33:32] And to see that. And then my Uncle George, I mean he - he could outshear my dad any day. And, and my Uncle Frank on my mum's side as well. It was just… They didn't want to talk about anything else except what was going on with my family. And they wanted to know who was who and what was happening with so and so.

[00:33:48] And the person I came with, they'd be sitting out in the car for an hour or so. The farmer, he'd say, oh, what did you come here for son? I'd say I've come here to find out where all the artefacts are. And he'd say Oh, they're down in the back paddock there.

[00:34:02] And that was all it was all about because he knew my father and grandfather and grandmother to be good people and honest, fair dinkum. And, if we gave our word, we gave our word. I wasn't there to claim their backyard and destroy their property and all this sort of stuff. In actual fact, some of the farmers said, can you give me a certificate to say that there you can't claim this place back. I said, yes, absolutely I can. And when I’d finish doing the survey work, they’d say, where's me certificate? And I said, I used to say to them, you go in there and get your Torrens Title and that’s your certificate. And they said, really? I said, yes, that's how it works. Don't believe what those shock jocks tell you. It was quite funny sometimes.

[00:34:43] Sometimes they'd see the funny side of things. But I tell you, sometimes it was really hard to get away from people because they really wanted to know what was happening with my family. And that was the good thing about it, yeah.

Many people don’t realise that First Nations mob and the colonists often got along well – it wasn’t all bad relations.

A lot of the wealth of this country was built on Aboriginal people working the land and being patient with the invaders, while often only being paid in rations.

[00:35:10] James: When we did the Gift of Stones with the Australian National University, they run a day out at the Henty Field Days and they invited Farmers to bring their artefacts in and have a talk.

[00:35:23] And a lot of old farmers have this huge connection to artefacts, right? And some of the artefacts are very significant artefacts. Some of the best examples, some of the work that you'll see on the stone, on stone tools. And they would tell us stories about their best mate, about a blackfella. But they couldn't be mates with them outside the farm gate because it wasn't seen as, or the proper thing to do to be best mates with a, with an Aboriginal person, because of how we were demonised back in the day.

[00:35:58] But a lot of them now that they're older understand that - what my people had to go through and how difficult it was for those men and women to, to, maintain their dignity. Because they have a real soft spot in their heart for that person. But they weren't able to show it at the time because of society what it dictated at the time.

[00:36:21] So that's why a lot of people, when I talk to them, they're always interested in what, where me dad was and me Grandfather was. And I had a bloke come to Leeeton and I was sitting on the steps of the Roxy Theatre, tormenting people and all that sort of stuff. And this bloke pulled up and said, you'd be an Ingram wouldn't you? And I said yeah that's right. And he said where could I find Ike Ingram. And Grandfather had passed. And this man, he pulled up in his real flash car and he had all bullhorns on the car. He and all these rings. He was well to do and had a cowboy hat and long white hair and a beard and a goatee and all that sort of stuff.

[00:37:02] And the man broke down and started crying. I couldn't believe it. And I didn't know what to do. And, he said, Is your father around? I said, yes. He’s at home, he's just down the road here. And he asked me to take him there. And I was umming and ahhing about whether I'd get in the car but I, I did. And I'm glad I did. And we pulled up at Dad's place and got out of the, when we got out of the car, Dad come out and spotted him, spotted this bloke and they just embraced and had a big cuddle. And next thing they were laughing and the bloke ended up spending a couple of weeks there with Dad talking about old times and having a few beers and all that sort of stuff.

[00:37:39] But, yeah. That's the type of real Australia that I see.

Uncle James has real concerns about the growing pressure on the land… and the environmental damage that’s been increasing since the first days of colonisation.

He’s especially worried about the over-extraction of water from our rivers.

[00:38:02] James: I think Indian Hemp would be a better natural product to grow than cotton, but until people stop wearing clothes. It's like rice. I come from Leeton. It's Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. A tonne of water to grow a grain of rice. And I know these departments and farmers are trying to get the best use out of their water, but you can't drive down the Sturt Highway without running into a huge dam that's there for irrigation of the cotton. And I just don't know what we can do to reverse that trend.

[00:38:36] You have places like Menindee, okay? To get their water, Menindee has to suffer at the hands of Cubby Station. Why? It's foreign owned. You can imagine if they got water to Menindee, to the Menindee Lakes there and all those areas where there's less population and they started growing industrial Indian Hemp to make all these fibres for us, that would be a possibility and we could get rid of the cotton. But I think cotton is one of these industries that's just gonna power on. And they're a very powerful group.

[00:39:18] If you, if you're involved in natural resource management, you have to be mindful of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation mob, and you have to be the rice - Sunrice - and the cotton growers and the orchardists. I have, I have been in rooms, in meetings with the orchardists and the rice growers and the cotton growers are on different sides. And if you think that there's a blue between black fellas and white fellas, you haven't seen a blue until you see them bluing. Because water is such an important commodity. And Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary said the great wars won't be fought over oil, they'll be fought over water. And he's right. Water's such a commodity that, that gets traded all the time now. There's wars overseas over water. We have to do something here.

In order to save the Murray Darling river system, Uncle James says First Nations mob needs to be given more of a say, more representation... and more water.

[00:40:21] James: This buyback debate that's going on with the government at the moment and the Farmers Federation. I mean, something's got to give. I don't know how we get more water into the system. Because enough water's been diverted out of the Murrumbidgee River already. And they've got a dam everywhere and they've got, weirs are everywhere and all that sort of stuff so the natural flows don't happen anymore.

[00:40:46] There has to be a real complete rethink. And I think our representatives on the Murray Darling Basin, the MILDREN mob and our environmental health people, they have to be strong and we have to support them. Because we just can't ask them to go and fight.

[00:41:02] When you're sitting in a room and there's 20 people and there's only one Aborigine, it's, it can be very, very difficult. And they think, oh, you've got representation. And in real fact we're competing against all these different forces. And we've got one lone voice sitting in the room and sometimes they’re targeted. Sometimes they're ostracised and to the point where sometimes they’ve got to eat a meal by themselves. It's horrific what goes on.

[00:41:27] So, there has to be more representation about it. I'm mindful of how we do that because I helped start a thing called the National Indigenous Science Engagement Program. It's NISEP. It's all about science. Science is all about environmental science as well. Water science, yeah. Native, native vegetation, the whole lot.

[00:41:51] And I'm hopeful that our kids that are coming through that system will go on to get their degrees in land management, conservation, water, health and all that sort of stuff and then they'll be able to sit in that room and debate with the rest of them and the best of them about First Nations right to water. Our rights to land and our right to fix our country up, the environment up, by doing our Caring for Country initiatives. Instead of jailing us, put us out in the land and let us work, let us rehabilitate the place.

[00:42:27] That balance is, I don't think it's been struck yet. When I was on the Murrumbidgee Catchment Committee, I was in a meeting and they had a graph for everything. And we were talking to these young guns and they were pretty smart boys. But what they didn't quite understand is how do you put environmental water into the river, and an environmental flow, and then you put irrigation water and then you put cultural water.

[00:42:57] And they said, why would we want to do that? I said, so the water can get into the billabongs and the creeks and the streams, I said, where my people fish and hunt. I said, hey, why can't you do that? Oh, well, we haven't got a graph for it. Well, anyway. Yeah, so, it's that type of thinking outside the square that we've got to do.

[00:43:18] And our dams have been down to two and three per cent sometimes. You know, thank God we've got some beautiful weather now. Because what people don't understand that the name of the Murrumbidgee basically means big boss, big mate. In flood, he's your boss. In drought, he's your boss. And when there's water in the system just like there is now, just enough for everybody, everybody's happy. That's why he's our mate. That's why it's called the Murrambidya.

Another big part of life in Wagga Wagga is sport - it’s been a great uniter of our community.

Uncle James even helped secure sponsorship for the first Wagga Wagga All Blacks rugby league side.

[00:44:09] James: I was fortunate enough to run into a bloke by the name of Carl Bamblett, they call him Banna and Uncle Tony Murray. And they came to me one day and they said Ingram, we want to start the Wagga Wagga All Blacks. We want you to help us get some sponsorships. So we did.

[00:44:26] We went around and seen all the different businesses. Some just threw us out the door. Others said, because Carl and Banna had a real good name around the place. And we were able to get the sponsorship that we needed to get the guernseys and the shorts and socks and sponsorship on the back of the thing.

[00:44:43] And we started up the Wagga Wagga All Blacks. And we played in the Kennedy Shield. And you know, we had a… At the end of the season we had a trophy night and best and fairest and all that sort of stuff. And it was really good how we all got together and we had a lot of good supporters on the sideline as well.

[00:45:00] We used to play the different communities in softball and in basketball and in rugby league and touch football. We'd invite Narrandera over and Griffith'd come over or Tumut'd come over and, we, we'd have a day with just playing round robin with the different communities. And it was just a great day. You know, it was fantastic

He’s really proud of the way our mob has celebrated and connected over the years.

[00:45:31] James: We used to run a really great NAIDOC ball back in the day too. We'd always have Miss Aborigine. It was quite fun. Great nights, yeah. We had good people running them at the time and they always put on a good show. And it was always interesting to find out who was going to be, you know, Miss Aboriginal of the Yeah, yeah - because we all had daughters.

[00:45:55] You know, I think back 12 months ago when we run the NAIDOC ball for the Elders and we got Roger Knox to come down. And Roger Knox is the premier Aboriginal performer in, in Australia as far as I'm concerned. And he'd never ever come here before and it costs a few dollars to get him down here but. And we gave all the Elders in most of the community free tickets to the event.

[00:46:21] But the thing about it was, when he was performing all these hits, they all knew him  and they all knew the songs, they’d all sing along. And to see the smiling faces on all those Elders, mate that was worth a million dollars. We were so glad that we'd done it. And hopefully next year we'll run something similar. Yeah.

When the country voted no in the Voice Referendum... Uncle James was hurt... but not surprised.

He says he felt more support for our mob back in the 1988 protests over 200 years of colonial rule.

[00:47:08] James: You know, when I was at the Voice referendum and I was sitting up the back and I could hear these old non Indigenous fellas going on about, ah, you get so much and what else do youse want and all this sort of stuff. It just… That really disheartened me.

[00:47:24] And I knew that we weren't going to get a, a Voice. Yeah. And it's sad that 7 out of 10 people in the Riverina voted against us. Because I've grown up with some good people. I picked potatoes, peas, pumpkins, onions, watermelons, oranges and everything. Grapes. I grew up with the farmers' kids. And those kids know me. And I have a good relationship with those people.

[00:47:47] And when I was at the march in 1998, out of all the thousands of people that were there at the march, I'm standing in Hyde Park at the fountain there, and I could hear this, hear my name being called. And I looked around and here are these, all these non Indigenous people from Leeton that had come to march with me. And they came to find me and to march with me. It was incredible. Yeah. So that made me think about what real reconciliation's all about. And that we do need our friends to help us.

[00:48:20] I know there was money given to the Stolen Generation, I think it was around $75,000 some people got. When they asked me what I thought about it, I said you can't buy a house with that. You can't buy any land that, with a decent house on it for $75,000. $75,000 people might think that's a lot of money, but it's a drop in the ocean when you think about the cost of living. It'll go pretty quickly. So, but if you were able to have a house, call it your own, I think a lot of people would say, OK. I've got my land rights. I'm right.

[00:48:58] Luke W: With the referendum and that, what do you think needs to happen next for our people, locally and nationally?

[00:49:04] James: Nationally, we need to beat the Australian government in the international courts. Because there's, unless we’ve got to wait another 20, 50, 100 years before they'll give us a voice. The only way that they'll ever give us a voice if we force them through the international courts to do that. And, I don't want to bankrupt this country, but I think that there's enough wealth in this country to ensure that my, our people are looked after.

[00:49:31] I mean, if Treaty's the way forward, well, fantastic. Truth Telling, yeah, I think a lot of people need to understand that this, Australia, has a black history and it needs to recognise the hurt that was done to First Nations people and they have to reconcile themselves with that.

[00:49:49] But the true history of this country has to be told. We just didn't sit here and wait for somebody to sail up on a boat and say, Oh, come in, we're glad you got here. someone needs to look after this country, tell us what to do with it. Couldn't be further from the truth. We lived in paradise. And it was destroyed. I mean, for us it was. Our lives were destroyed.

[00:50:13] Luke W: Uncle how do you feel about the future for your children or grandchildren or even great grandchildren?

[00:50:19] James: If this greed doesn't stop in this country, I don't feel that we're going to be able to reverse what's happening with the climate at the moment.

[00:50:32] I'm really mindful, hopeful that electric vehicles will take off for instance. And that places like China and India will embrace it and then their pollution that they put into the environment will be reduced. I was talking to my son who's in the mining industry and I said, ‘One day you're going to be driving trucks that have got huge batteries in them’. And he said, ‘Oh, it's never going to take off Dad’. I said, Yes it will. And I'm hopeful that will happen.

[00:50:57] I think if we can reverse what's going on with the climate and get some wins in the international court and Treaty and we do a bit of Truth Telling, I think, I'm hopeful about what'll happen to us in the future.

[00:51:15] Luke W: Just before I go, I just want to thank you uncle, for sharing your stories, your knowledge. I've learned so much from you and I continue to learn from you and I just want to say Mandaang Guwu. Thank you.

[00:51:26] James: You too.

Download the transcript for Episode 4

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 4 | What You Make of It

Aunty Pam Honeysett: Scary. Very scary. Because the old people will come on a horse and say the welfare was in town, go, go. Go as fast as you can and get out. Don't stay.They were telling mum ‘take the kids as far as you can, go. Go’.

Uncle Craig Honeysett: Mum would be following us, telling us to run around the lagoon, the old lagoon bank up into the suckers. Hide, hide and look, I'll get you when he goes.

Aunty Pam Honeysett: We'd have to hide under a log, climb the fence. Run as fast as you can and hide down the riverbank where they couldn't get in.

[00:01:04] Luke Wighton VO: Hi, I’m Luke Wighton. I’m a Wiradjuri man originally from Condobolin now living in Wagga Wagga. I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT - Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we’d been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme. The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

So, let’s get to know some of the proud First Nations mob from Wagga Wagga.

[00:02:49] Aunty Pam Honeysett and her brother Uncle Craig Honeysett moved from Euabalong - a small isolated town on the Lachlan River, about 25 kilometres north-east of Lake Cargelligo - to Wagga Wagga.

The Honeysett’s were the second resettlement family to arrive in Wagga Wagga 50  years ago.

In Euabalong, they sometimes had to hide from the dreaded Welfare trying to steal them. In Wagga Wagga, they still faced racism but were safe with their family.

Their Mum, the late Aunt Violet Honeysett, became a community leader in this city and a force for good.

Uncle Craig worked in a wide range of jobs including being an apprentice jockey and a land carer. In 2006 he was recognised as Wagga Wagga’s Aboriginal Person of the Year.

Aunty Pam was an athlete, a Home Care worker and she became the glue holding her extended family together.

While growing up in Euabalong was a bit rough and tumble, it was mostly carefree. Aunty Pam and Uncle Craig were connected to their mob and to Country.

When they think back to their childhood memories, they recall spending a lot of time at the Lachlan River - which runs westwards through central New South Wales. They can even remember when the water in the Lachlan still ran crystal-clear.

[00:04:07] Pam: You used to see shrimps and fish in that swimming, and we knew where they were. It had like seaweeds in the water and you'd know where to look for the shrimps and, uh, fish and that, yeah. They were well looked after. They weren't spoilt or anything like they are today.

[00:04:24] Craig: It was nice and clear. You'd throw a stone in the water and it would sink and dive in and get that stone before it hit the bottom. That's how clear the water was.

[00:04:35] Pam: Well we done fishing, we used to catch yabbies in there. And when the river’d rise, the boys would take us out on a, um, a round tractor tube and throw us in and that's how we learnt to swim. But also, if there's a branch hanging from the river, over the river, they’d push us off. So we had to either learn how to dog paddle or you know, try and swim somehow. So I am very grateful for that.

[00:05:03] Craig: How I learnt was, yeah, at Euabalong there's one part was the big hole which is real deep and all that, sort of more or less for grownups, not for kids. And the other part was the little hole. And well one of my cousins, talking about that log, that's where that big log was you'd dive off, real clear water. But one of me cousins got me on her back and took me over the other side of the river and said ‘righto you either walk home or swim back’. It was a bit of a walk for me. So yeah.

[00:05:41] Pam: And with, like the log like Craig was talking about, we had a cousin that lived on, like my uncle and some cousins that lived on the other side of the river, so if you didn't want to walk like a couple of miles around, we'd cross the river on that log to go and see them because it was a lot shorter.

[00:05:58] Craig: Yeah, there was always something to do at Euabalong. We just kept our minds occupied. If we wanted to go and do something, sometimes you’d feel like go fishing and um, get our boondies and go boondieing rabbits, which, there’s a lot of people that don't know what a boondie is. When we lived in Euabalong it was nearly a mile out of town, and out in the young suckers and all that. There was a lot of suckers around.

[00:06:26] Craig: But, a young sucker's always, he's got that thin handle, but down the bottom he's got this bulb where the water stores in it. So you cut down to the tap root, and then you might end up with a round thing like that on the end of the young sucker. So then you cut the end to the size or length you want. That was a Bundie. You’d throw it. How we used to learn to knock a rabbit on the run is we'd get an old pram wheel. One bloke up that end, another bloke up this end and you'd be in the middle. And they'd be throwing the wheel in and you’d throw the bundie at the wheel, that's your rabbit.

[00:07:08] Pam: We used to play our own games. If we'd get roused on for making too much noise, we'd walk a couple of miles like between Euabalong and Euabalong West, which is, what, three kilometres, er, three miles or six miles apart. So we'd walk half way and when we'd get home we'd get in trouble again for taking off without telling anyone that we were going. So, we never won. Yeah.

[00:07:29] We walked to school, like we never had a car. My mum couldn't drive. And when Dad was away working, he'd work for about two weeks straight and then he'd come home for the weekend. But we walked everywhere, even to school. Um, I went to kindy. It was just two classes in one, or three classes in one, and then we went to another class, which had another three or four classes. And then they built another school, and then, we went to sixth class, and then to high school from there.

[00:07:59] We had to catch a bus to high school. And if you got flooded, they'd row the boat, and they'd get a boat to take us. And mum wasn't game enough to let us on there, so we had to do schooling at the little school.

[00:07:08] Pam: When I was going to school I remember going crook because I was going to have to walk home and I didn't want to walk home. And I was up in the bush and there was mum sitting there with our dinner. It was a soup or something and she had scones and that there. And we sat in the bush on the log and had our dinner. And I always remember that. It was beautiful. It was a real nice day. And I’d think, oh wow, how did you get it all down there? Hot soup, hot scones, butter and everything. How did you get it there without being burnt? And without spilling any of it. It was just, it was just amazing.

[00:09:04] Craig: There was this big round, oh look, nearly as round as this room really, a tree. And they’d cut it down years and years ago. And that used to be the round, called the round table.Yeah. That's what they, we used to call it, the round table. But you see, that's right what you were saying too. She’d.. Winter time and all, you know, nice curries and Johnny Cakes and a bit of damper or whatever, you know. Have it in the bush, have that, and when we finished that we'd go back to school.

[00:09:36] Pam: She'd go home and you wouldn't even know that she'd done it, like everything was nice and clean. Yeah, it was lovely.

There were 14 children in the Honeysett mob.

Uncle Craig came 8th and Aunty Pam was the 9th child.

Then in 1974, the Honeysett family moved from Euabalong to Wagga Wagga - under the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme.

The main goal for their mum, Aunty Violet Honeysett, who’d split from her husband, was the hope that there would be more opportunities for the youngest in the mob.

[00:10:20] Craig: To better it… making a nice and easy place for them. Yeah.

[00:10:25 Pam: I think they approached Colleen, our older sister, and then Mum thought, well that's a great idea, so she decided to move as well.

[00:10:35] Craig: Well, I was, I was an apprentice jockey in Sydney to Ray Guy at the time. But when I heard Mum was moving to Wagga that's when I went back to Euabalong to help move over here to Wagga, yeah.

[00:10:53] One of our uncle’s, Mum's brother, Uncle Horry, his family moved over here first. And, um, what happened was his children weren't doing too good at school. Like they, you know, they were only the first mob with resettlement here. So that's when they approached Mum, said come over because they were worried the kids weren't doing too good. And Mum said yeah.

Aunty Pam was 17 and a half when the family moved to a brand new house in the Wagga Wagga suburb of Ashmont.

She recalls feeling a bit scared to be moving to a place so much bigger than what she’d grown up with.

[00:11:35] Pam: Well, I was excited to move because I thought, oh, this is great, you know, but when we got here and seen the size of it, it was totally different. And different to what, I was thinking maybe we should go back home. Because you knew nobody. You only knew uncle, you only knew Uncle Horry so and his family, so.

[00:11:54] Craig: We were up on the hill, number one Cottee Street, the only house in the street at the time when we moved over. So it'd just been built.

Their new house was very different to the one they’d been living in back in Euabalong.

[00:12:05] Pam: Getting more of an insight of Euabalong, we lived out of town, but we had no electricity, no water. So if we wanted water, we had to store it in a rain tank. And then when that had holes in it, so we had to more or less cart it from the river. Or from the lagoon if it was clean. And like we sort of lived that way.

[00:12:25] And also we got wood for the wood fire to cook and things like that and open fire where we kept warm. Like yeah that way. So we never had electricity. We never had like games or tv or anything like that. So we had to entertain one another ourselves some way or another. Yeah.

[00:12:45] We’d lived in a two bedroom, but we had like little tin rooms out the back, which made it four. But when we moved over it was a four bedroom and it had a toilet and bath and everything all separate, where before we had a toilet down the back. And we had to have a bath in one of the rooms in a round bathtub. And we had to like boil the water, bring it up from the lagoon, boil it and then go and chop some wood and get the copper to boil. So that's how we lived, yeah.

Services were much better in Wagga Wagga compared to tiny Euabalong.

[00:13:18] Pam: As far as the hospitals and that, yeah, because we had to travel, what, 19-miles one way and then like 26 or something the other way to see doctors and dentists. Like coming here, it  was all here so as far as the medical service goes, yeah, it was all here. And schooling, it's a lot easier now because, like, kids can catch a bus or they are in walking distance so….

But there were also some tough parts to moving to Wagga Wagga. Aunty Pam says she had never encountered discrimination from non-whites until they moved.

Craig says it didn’t bother him.

[00:13:54] Pam: Being, being here, living here. When we were living in Euabalong, we never had racism. Everyone was the same colour. There was never ever colour brought up. But when we come here and we started meeting people. There was a little boy that called my other sister, Leonie ‘Blackie’, so we chased him in the phone box and gave him a bit of a punch up and then we did become friends.

[00:14:15] When you had to walk into Ashmont and on one side of the footpath they'd had um, Coons County and on the other side it had Vegemite Village. It just, it just made you feel awful because you didn't know what to say or do. Like, you know what you could say or do back. It was just yeah, it felt belittling.

[00:14:37] Craig: Look if anybody got a bit racist to me, or even my younger brother, and call us black, ‘we’d say, yeah, and we're proud of it. We’re not like you fellas, youse gotta go out in the sun in the summertime and get like us fellas. Get all burnt. We don't have to worry about that’. It changed their mind. It must have changed their mind because they didn't say it ever again.

Both Aunty Pam and Uncle Craig say they found it pretty easy overall to settle into life in Wagga Wagga.

And sport was a major part of that, helping them to get to know the non-Aboriginal community.

[00:15:28] Craig: With resettlement, we would have been the second family over here.

It was good. Like, we used to get, go and be kicking a football or, or playing cricket and all that. Um, but it's marvellous how many people’d come, how many other kids’d come up and say, can we play and all that, you know. It was good, sort of building. We become very close like that, through sport. And it’d be like a big, like a family, really. You know, there's, even though you get the odd one out there that’d be like that - discriminate.

[00:16:04] Pam: It was really good, because then like we started to all get to know one another and go to TAFE together and things like that. Now and then go and play basketball, touch football, whatever. It was really good. Then one year the boys challenged the girls. They tried to cheat us but we ended up beating them. It was really good. It was just the sport - everyone was into it. Everybody loved it. Everyone had fun. It wasn't sorta taken seriously or ending up in a fight or anything like that. It was just something everybody loved doing. It was really great.

[00:16:41] Craig: Me and my brother, we’s at the pub having a few beers. Next minute,

one of our mates come in, well actually one of our cousins come in and said, ‘oh we’re short of basketball players’. Me and me brother - and we had a kick in us, fair dinkum. We had a kick. ‘We needs a couple of blokes to come and play basketball’. Well, I've never played basketball before and I don't think me brother had. We were used to, we were used to playing league. You could imagine the passing of and the balls and all that

[00:17:14] Pam: The kicking of the ball.

[00:17:18] Craig: And my brother was there going, I had passed it to him like that, and he run out, and the next one blew the whistle, and he kicked the ball and up through the roof it went.

[00:17:32] Well, they had the barbecue that night for all the players, and as soon as me and my brother turned up, well, it was just bursting, bursting, people just bursting out giggling. We made the party and all. That was my one and only game. Give away too many penalties.

[00:17:53] Pam: Well, Leonie was good at softball and basketball and touch, and I used to play touch too as well. And soccer, basketball, softball, but I think Leonie was the best one out of the two of us, because she took things more serious where I just sort of went with the flow. Yeah.

[00:18:11] Craig: And she could run. Yes. They've got a photo of her running and her two feet are off the ground. That's something I've never seen before. Her two feet are off the ground. I don't know how she did it, but she did. Fair dinkum.

[00:18:31] Pam: A lot of people I think thought Aboriginals weren't talented. And they didn't have the go in them. And I think playing sport just showed them like we were just as good as anybody else.And we mixed in with everybody. We had our fun and our laughs, tormented one another. It was really great. And it meant a lot to everybody.

[00:18:54] Pam: I didn't do a deb ball. But they had a miss, Miss Aboriginal ball. And, we two, and Leone and I went in that. And it was really good. Like lots of people came. You had to do fundraising and things like. We used to like wash cars. We done a street stall. And then like after that, we'd go out somewhere and sort of have a drink and mix with other people.

Uncle and Aunt’s mother, Aunty Violet Honeysett, she was a mover and shaker on Aboriginal services in Wagga Wagga and their home was a haven for people needing help.

Mrs Honeysett joined the committee for the Resettlement Program and assisted with housing for newly arriving Aboriginal families.

[00:19:40] Craig: Look mum was very busy when she'd come here, she'd be always going somewhere ay, to do things like for here, anyway helping people. You know, people coming there to pick mum's brain, and ask her how to go about doing this and doing that. And mum would always be there to help them.

[00:20:03] Pam: Well, um, when they started coming there, because we were taught if people were coming to the house, you go away and play. You're not supposed to sit and listen and talk with the grown ups. So we'd go out and play. We'd do our own thing.

Aunty Violet was also a huge advocate for education as a right for our mob.

She fought for the establishment of a preschool for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and assisted Aboriginal children to adjust to schooling.

She said she loved doing these things and helping other people. She attended TAFE courses and encouraged young people to do the same.

[00:20:38] Craig: She said, ‘Oh, don't worry, we'll have our own preschool shortly’.

That's only, that's what she’d always say to us. Never mind, we'll have our own preschool here shortly, we'll be right.

[00:20:48] Pam: The first thing I remember is we're going to TAFE, like Mum and Daphne Sheather. Daphne Sheather approached Mum and said, how about we get an Aboriginal TAFE course going, which is called an L?? course, and it was for women.

And it was really great. It was fantastic. It went for about three years.

[00:21:04] Also, we all went to TAFE in North Wagga. There was about 20 of us. Gina Conventry used to drive the bus to pick us all up in the morning and drop us off in the afternoon. The course was land management and conservation. We had to go out and pick seeds. Sometimes you’d learn about the trees and we took time in class growing them and talking about the plants we done. We also learnt how to smoke the seeds to get them to grow as well, because not all seeds just grow in the ground. You’ve got to smoke them and you’ve got to know how to do it. It was really great. There was about 20 there and then we dropped down to 10. And then we had some men that come in. So we would’t miss the course. The course went for about six to five years and it was really great. We all enjoyed it. We all learnt a lot.

[00:21:58] And then after that, other organisations sort of started to grow out of that. She also got the Aboriginal Home Care going here through the government. And like, it was really good because everybody started using it. They got benefits out of it. Like, you know, it was great. Um, and then the Aboriginal Legal Aid and everything else sort of, I think followed after that, after the TAFE course. She also worked in the schools as well, like the primary schools. Because she does believe in education for children. She believes in very strong education.

[00:22:31] Craig: She helped a lot of people. She guided a lot of people on the way. With that on NAIDOC day, she'd go in there and talk and that to the young ones. And this day we went in, it was my first time too when I think of it, and little kindergarten, this, went in there first. And this little girl just took an instant liking to mum. She went through every class with mum. She wouldn't leave mum's side. The teachers couldn't get her to go to her own class at all, you know.

[00:23:07] Craig: Oh, mate, I said to mum on the way home, ‘I said, Mum, I said, you've got power, you're a very powerful lady’. And she said ‘why’? I said, ‘well, that young girl’, I said, ‘did you know her’? And she's non Indigenous. I said, ‘did you know her’? She said, ‘no’. I said, ‘well, there you go’. You know, she stayed with her all the time.

[00:23:27] I used to go in the schools too with her and um, do rock painting with the kids in the classrooms. I'd go down the river, get the rocks. But it's funny how people, um, you don't see them for years. This young fellow was there and I took this big rock and I was going to paint it myself.

[00:23:46] And as soon as he seen it he dived on it. So I said Oh, righto, you have it. Anyway, um, I run into him. Oh, this was about four or five years after. And he spotted me walking up the aisle. Oh, Mr. Honeysett, Mr. Honeysett. I went, looked at him. Who the hell is this? And his mother, mother came round the corner. Hey mum, this is the man that was, um, in the school with us when we painted them rocks. She said, oh, and I introduced myself to her and she said, I said to him ‘what did you do with your rock anyway’? And he said, oh, ‘we use it as a door stopper’. I said, ‘oh yeah’. I said, ‘what do people think about it’? He said, ‘oh, dad tells them that he done it. He painted it’.

Aunty Violet Honeysett was a much respected Elder in this community. She even cut the ribbon at the opening of the new Wiradjuri bridge over the Marrambidya Bila in February 1995.

[00:24:50] Craig: I was on the council at the time. And I used to drive the tar patching truck. Yeah. And Bruce, who was the boss down the council yards there, I said to him, ‘can I knock off at 11 o'clock today’? He said, ‘why’? I said, um, ‘to go to the opening of the bridge’. He said, ‘yeah’. He said, ‘they've got an Aboriginal elder down there. She’s supposed to be a lovely woman, woman’. I said, ‘yes, that Aboriginal woman is my mother’. ‘Oh, really? You can go. Go’. Yeah. There’s a clipping at home there somewhere, where, with all of us walking across the bridge behind her and the Mayor of Wagga, Pat Brassil.

[00:25:57] Pam: As I described Mum before, she was our mother, our doctor, our nurse. Yeah I used to so love her because she was there for us all. She never had any favourites. We were all the same.

[00:26:10] Craig: She was our God.

[00:26:12] Pam: We were all the same. Treated the same. Yes, I remember having an abscess in my ear. She put a onion in amongst the coals and that, wrapped that up in a pillowcase and I laid on it. When I woke up the next morning, the abscess was broken. All the stuff came out of my ear. I never had problems with it after that. Because the acid in the onion drew out the infection.

[00:26:38] Craig: The old home remedies, mate. You can't beat them.

[00:26:41] Pam: When we had boils, she'd bake the, um, the pastry for the boil. She'd put like the soap, melt that, put in sugar, and a bit of epsoms salt in and then she'd wrap your foot up in it, or your leg or wherever you had it, and it'll break.

[00:26:55] Craig: It used to grow on the… We lived on horseshoe, Horseshoe Lagoon. Old man weed was there. And there was also um Emu Bush growing around that way too. It's good. You could bathe in it. You get it, get it and rub it on a rash or anything like that there. Get rid of it. Drink it. Good for your stomach.

[00:27:22] Pam: Like, I remember going to the hospital with her, the old Wagga Base, and having meetings about, like doctors and nurses, what sort of treatment we needed. Like, you know, if anyone had kidney problems or lung problems or something like that, like how can they help the community? What benefits are the Aboriginal going to get out of it?

[00:27:42] Craig: It wasn't just about her family or her children. It was for everybody, anything she done. Everything she done was for everybody. Not for herself. Not just for us fellows. It was for everybody. You know? And that's the way it was with her.

In 2023, a plaque was unveiled next to the Wollundry Lagoon, acknowledging Aunty Violet Honeysett’s incredible contribution to the city of Wagga Wagga.

[00:28:15] Pam: Well, we tried before Craig, Colleen, and I, and we got knocked back. So we gave up. And then Maxine, our niece, she said ‘I want to put Nan down and see how we go’. And it just went from there.

[00:28:42] Pam: There's a plaque there. Relatives come and people come and we just had a great day.

[00:28:47] Craig: It's right where the walkway is. You go down the stairs and take a walk around the lagoon, and see she's right there. And it's good to see. We tried to get her on the Walk of Honour there ay, but they wouldn't. Funny thing, that's where we were raised and brought up around a Horseshoe Lagoon, so it means something, doesn't it? You know?

[00:2:09] Pam: The shirts that DJ designed with Mum's picture on it. It was a Aboriginal design. It was great, it was really good. I reckon if mum was alive she'd be very proud. It was a proud moment.

Like her mother, Aunty Pam is a caring woman, as well as being incredibly determined.

For 37 years she worked for the New South Wales Aboriginal Home Care Service, looking after the local First Nations mob... before finally retiring. It was hard physical work and she suffered from a few injuries over the years, including needing to have surgery on both her shoulders.

Aunty Pam now volunteers with the Salvation Army and Circle Sentencing.

Circle helps First Nations mob who have pleaded guilty to an offence, to face up to what they’ve done in a culturally safe environment, and to try and make amends to improve their lives.

Another way she is connected and strengthening our mob is through weaving.

Aunty Pam’s weavings are beautiful and have featured in capital city exhibitions. And now... she's sharing those skills with others.

[00:30:28] Pam: It's relaxing. I get a pleasure out of it. Even teaching people, I think it's really a good thing. Because it teaches them with their hands. And if they wanted to give up smoking, that’d be the best thing to do is something with your hands. And also, you're proud of what you make after. Whether it's a little thing or a big thing, you appreciate what you've done. It's really great. In Aboriginal culture, they say you share, like you teach it to other people as well, so that way then you don't own it. The earth owns it, like you know, Mother Nature.

Uncle Craig has been recognised for his work over the years. In 2006 he was named Aboriginal Person of the year at the Wagga Wagga NAIDOC awards.

In the same year, he - along with fellow director of Ganambarra Enterprises, Valda Weldon - won a national Indigenous Governance Award.

In his younger days, Uncle Craig was involved in one of the earliest land rehabilitation programs under the Landcare movement.

It was called the Lake Albert Aboriginal Land Management Program... and it trained and employed local Aboriginal men from Wagga Wagga in fencing, rabbit control, tree planting and erosion control practices in the Lake Albert Catchment.

While Uncle Craig says that it was very hard work, it was also great fun.

[00:31:46] Craig: Oh mate, it was love and laughter there. It wasn't light work at all really. But it was good. There was mulch and hay and all that. Planting trees, rehabilitating it. And it was good. Rabbit eradication and all that.

[00:32:01] Craig: Sometimes if we had a bit of time on our hands during lunch hour and that, we'd watch where rabbits were going and then we'd go dig them out and rabbit soup we'd have or something like that, curry rabbit. You know, to take home. It was good. I enjoyed it.

[00:32:17] Craig: John Kerin was treasurer at the time. He come down and seen what we were doing and we conned a motorbike, four wheel motorbike out of him though and it had a trailer with it. Because we had some very big heavy strainers and things like that where we were, along that catchment area. You couldn't hardly drive a car inside the paddock when it was, um, wet. Because you'd just sink to the axle. And, so we ended up getting a four wheel motorbike and a little trailer.

[00:32:54] Craig: But before that, there was a wheelbarrow. We used to load them on the wheelbarrow. They had rope tied to the front of the wheelbarrow and a bloke put.. a couple of blokes pulling it along and two blokes either side. It's a big heavy strain and the stays there, balancing it to get where we had to go with it.

[00:33:16] Craig: But I had everything worked out though before. As soon as they made us, um, supervisor, we had two utes. And I got a mate to do two barbecues up out of a plough disc. Three legs on it. So if you ever got split up, we'd get, you know, they'd have their one and we'd have ours. But I also had it teed up that, um, at the butchers down in, um, Urana Street here. Put our order in. Put meat in it. Fresh meat every day. Fresh bread every day. Barbecue smoko. Barbecue lunch. You know, you know. It was good.

[00:33:57] Craig: But a thing I did learn was it's hard when you work with, when you're a boss of a brother. Because mate, orders don't count for anything. It was funny. He used to jump on the motorbike and he'd go up there and he'd be sitting there watching us mulch the hay or planting trees and things like that. When we were mulching the hay and all that to be all lined out, I mean mulching the hay around the trees and all that and along the banks and all that, just tormenting one another and laughing and joking with one another. And the work that we got done was unreal out there, you know.

Something that continues to upset Aunty Pam and Uncle Craig is that many Australians still don't understand the truth about Aboriginal dispossession.

They feel deep pain about the massacres, the poisonings, the lack of respect for their culture.

Aunty Pam and Uncle Craig are incredibly fortunate to have not been among the Stolen Generations.

A big part of their childhood memory is recalling how sometimes they would have to run and hide from the Welfare officers in Euabalong.

[00:35:10] Craig: I remember it.

[00:35:12] Pam: Scary, very scary. Because the old people would come on a horse and say ‘Welfare are in town, go, go. Go as fast as you can, get out. Don't stay’.My aunt was telling us to flee. ‘Go’. They were telling mum ‘take the kids as far as you can. Go’.

[00:35:31] Craig: Mum would be following us, telling us to run around the lagoon, the old lagoon bank up into the suckers. ‘Hide, hide and look, I'll get you all when he goes’. Get here around you know. ‘You're not taking my children’.

[00:35:43] Pam: Like we'd have to hide in a log or under a log. Climb the fence, run as far as we can and hide down the riverbank where they couldn't get in. Or behind a shed or something like that. Because grandfather had a, he had an orchard. And he used to call it Vincent's Bend. So we'd go and hide in there as well.

[00:36:02] I remember when we were sick with the measles and we were home with the measles, the welfare would come. And mum would say, ‘youse better get in bed, stay in bed, don't get out of bed. Because they'll come and they'll check to see who was at school, and why youse are home from school’. I remember that as plain as anything.

They were both really disappointed in the No result in the 2023 Referendum on the Voice.

Now... they want to see a treaty or treaties.

[00:36:31] Craig: Well, it'd be good to have a voice, wouldn't it? Without your voice you'd be nowhere.

[00:36:41] Pam: Well Aboriginals always wanted that from the time the country was invaded. And I don't think it's going to change. I really don't think it's going to change.

[00:36:53] Craig: The truth will never come out. Well, you had, um, Scott Morrison and them saying there never was slavery in Australia. They've got pictures of the slaves chained up, hands and legs and all marching along. So how could they say, deny that?

[00:36:46] Pam: There's stories that were never told where Aboriginal people were poisoned. They were murdered. And they were taken from their land and put on a mission. Their children were taken and put somewhere else as in stolen children. It’s still going, it’s still going this very day. To this very day. I think that's something that will never change either. Because no one's listening. No one wants to listen.

[00:38:14] Craig: There should have been a treaty, really.

Both Aunty Pam and Uncle Craig are strong advocates for truth-telling. They want people to learn the truth of what has happened on this land.

[00:38:27] Pam: Things were happening, like they should've been told like the poisoned holes. They should have been taught about the history. They should have been told there were Aboriginal people living here. It wasn't just all flora and fauna.

[00:38:50] Pam: Like, there were real people here. And they were educated their way, not the European way. They had their own lifestyle. They had their own education. And that should be taught in history. And it should have been taught from the word go, not now. Because there is a lot of stuff that is lost. Between now and like from then to now. And a lot of stuff won't come out because it's gone. Like the Aboriginal language. It's, it was gone. Now they're trying to recreate it.

Uncle and Aunt are also angry at the colonisers attempts to wipe out the Wiradjuri language.

[00:39:37] Pam: Yeah, it wasn't spoken a lot. But some of the words we did hear had  different meanings, different pronunciation. Yeah, just bits and pieces. Because they had it drilled into them they weren't allowed talk about it. And not only that, they were frightened that the Welfare would come and take the children or they'd get put in jail for using the Aboriginal language. So it was just completely lost.

[00:40:01] Craig: In Euabalong, Euabalong wasn't a big place, it was only very small. We were going to school with the non Aboriginal. That's how, that’s how we, we were brought up not to, hey, not to speak our language. Really. That's the way, that's the way it was, you weren't allowed to speak. Well, back in the old days, you could not speak your own language. That's, that's where a lot of our language is all lost now. A lot of it is. That's, like Pam said, they're trying to bring it back now, but they won't get the full story of it.

While life isn't always perfect - and they feel there's still a lot of work to be done - they both remember some very happy times in Wagga Wagga.

[00:40:56] Pam: I think we have good memories. Two good memories. One, we were having a water fight and Mum and I and a few of us were inside because we couldn't go out. And the boys were out playing and my sister Colleen was coming down the street and poor old Nan's out the window singing out, and that's Mum's mother, like Sophie Vincent, and Nan's singing out, ‘go back Colleen, go back. Go back, they're gonna wet you’. And Craig's got his arms around Colleen saying, ‘Nan’s she’s telling you to come. She’s telling you to come’. She ended up soaking wet.

[00:41:29] The other one was when we were having another water fight And my Oppa was there and he was a little bit charged up. Anyway, we were running around and trying to dodge and my sister Dawn ran around the milk truck - when they delivered the milk to the house - and Uncle Lisle went the other way and he threw the water. And he threw the water on the milkman's wife. And the milkman got cranky. It was a real hot day. But she said, ‘Oh’, but she said, ‘Oh, gee that's nice and cool’. But he was really cranky.

The other formidable woman in their lives growing up was Nan Vincent. She is fondly remembered by them both.

[00:42:08] Pam: She used to spoil us. She'd have lollies. And when mum wasn't around, she'd say, ‘come up here, come up here’. And she'd give us lollies. And um, we'd help her get dressed. I used to help her get dressed and have a shower because it got to the point where she was, um, going blind, like through cataracts. So I'd help her have a shower. Sometimes I'd comb her hair, help her get dressed. One time she got dressed and the dress - and the cardigan - was inside out, I’m trying to tell her. And she reckoned she was right, she went to the doctors like it. Yeah, but she was a lovely lady, very beautiful.

[00:42:41] Craig: She was shorter than us, but she had long hair. And her hair was that long, I'm not joking, it was down to here. And when I worked at Walton's, I'd get a cab into work, a cab home for lunch, brush her hair, have a cup of tea with her and go back to work in a cab and cab home again. She was lovely, she was.

After 50 years in Wagga Wagga, Uncle Craig and Aunty Pam are proud to see that plenty of black faces and black leaders are all around.

[00:43:20] Pam: There is a lot of change in that regard. Like now, you walk into a shop, you see some Aboriginal people working in the shop. Yeah, like the medical centre. You go to other doctors surgery and you see Aboriginal people. You go shopping and you bump into people. You go into schools and you bump into the AA’s - the teachers, like you know, it's really good. Even Aboriginal, there was an Aboriginal doctor here, and he just went back to Sydney. It was really great. Proud. Really good. It lifts you up. Yeah.

[00:43:56] Craig: It's good to see how both sides get on now. It's good to see both sides getting on. You know. It shows the rest of the world that you can do it if you want to, you know. You can make it easier.

Aunty Pam and Uncle Craig have continued to give to the community, as their mother did.

After the loss of their brother Charlie, the Honeysett family donated a stunning artwork to the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, to express their thanks for the care they’d all received.

[00:44:28] Craig: When he was sick in hospital, when we went down there, they were excellent, you know. Like our family's a big family. A big old tribe of us, well, you know and they sort of looked after all of us down there at the hospital.

[00:44:41] Pam: We were there from nine, maybe from nine to five, and some of the staff just stayed behind and looked after us. They made sure we had plenty to drink and plenty to eat. And they were just coming and going and checking on us. And the doctors come out and explained to us what was going on. It was really good.

[00:44:56] Charlie was very sick and he was in hospital for about a week. And I thought, well, they've done a good job with him, even though he passed. You know, they tried everything they could to help. So I, um, discussed it with my niece Debbie. She's the art, she's the artist. And, um, we picked out a painting, um, it was a gecko, two geckos. And I said that it was geckos in the Dreamtime. Like, um, they come out in the, um, spring and it was eating. So I said it was Geckos Dreaming. Yeah. And it was, it was a really great picture.

[00:45:29] And the Wagga Base Hospital was very proud to take it. They were very pleased with it. They wanted that design on a uniform. And it hasn't taken place yet, but I just hope it does go ahead.

And Aunty Pam says Wiradjuri culture remains strong and it is still all around us, if we want to look, listen and learn.

[00:45:51] Pam: The connection for me is when they were talking about, like, the Courthouse and Hunters on the Hill was built on Wiradjuri graves, like on the graves of Aboriginal people. And that's this sort of, I thought, oh wow, the Aborigines did live here. And there is a connection. That made it stronger. And then there's stories about Pomingalarna and, um, the Lagoon where they done their fishing and how they trapped their fish and everything. And you thought, oh wow, that is really great. There is a connection and there is Aboriginal culture here.

[00:46:27] Craig: Life is what you make of it, you know. Yes. It's been good here. It’s been good here.

[00:46:37] Pam: We feel like we're right now and we don't need to prove ourselves or anything.

Download the transcript for Episode 5

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 5 | You Get Wary

My mother and my brother and my sister were were Stolen Generation, you know, and that, that had a really big impact on us.Mum didn't really tell us a lot about that because I think it was, you know, it really hurt her. She was a very tough woman and yeah, she made sure that we were on the straight and narrow all the time, because I think she was frightened of the fact of, you know, police coming, welfare coming and all that sort of stuff you know.

Luke Wighton VO: In 1993 Uncle Greg Packer was so angry at the vile racist public comments of Wagga Wagga City Councillor Jim Eldridge, he was ready to literally dump a truck load of sewage on Eldridge’s driveway.

What upset Uncle Greg was Eldridge barging into Wagga City Council’s Mayoral reception for the International Year of Indigenous People, yelling out comments about half-caste radicals.

A Tribunal found that Eldridge attended the launch with the deliberate intention to cause trouble. Whilst the whole event took only a few minutes, his pre-planned stunt clearly spoiled the whole event for those present.

A friend of Uncle Greg’s talked him out of dumping the sewage - thus saving his job with the Council.

[00:01:40] Hi, I’m Luke Wighton. I’m a Wiradjuri man from Condobolin living in Wagga Wagga. I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT—Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanh, which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we’d been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of the Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme. The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

[00:03:16] So.... let’s get to know another member of our proud First Nations mob.

Uncle Greg Packer was born in Leeton in 1956. He moved to Wagga Wagga in the late 1970's under the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme.

His mother, one of his brothers and a sister were all part of the Stolen Generations. He was lucky to not have been taken himself.

Over his life, Uncle Greg has had many different jobs. From labouring on farms, to working in an abattoir... to later becoming a senior manager with New South Wales Health.

These days, he works on Country with Local Lands Services. In that role he is helping to train the next generation of our mob to do cultural assessments and traditional cool burning practices.

Uncle Greg is someone who loves a laugh, loves sport, and loves his culture. He’s left his mark on many, many people in Wagga Wagga and the wider Riverina community.

For eight years Uncle Greg was chairman of Wagga Wagga’s NAIDOC committee - so he has close connections with mob all across the city.

On top of that, Uncle Greg is a director of RMRA - Riverina Murray Regional Alliance. Its job is to represent the interests of our mob and Aboriginal organisations in 10 communities in the region. The Alliance is committed to local decision making.

Uncle Greg’s mission is to make a difference... and ensure that all government and non-government services are accountable for their funding for Aboriginal people.

[00:04:46] Greg: There's six of us in the family, we're like siblings so I had a big mob and, yeah, although two have passed now,I've got two sisters that have passed but  there's three boys and one girl left.

[00:05:08] Greg: My mother and, and my brother and my sister were, were Stolen Generation, you know, and that had a really big impact on us. And sort of mum, mum didn't really tell us a lot about that. Because I, I, my father sort of left home when I was three years of age, you know. I'm the youngest in the family so I didn't really have a male figure around me, only me older brothers. And yeah. And she didn't really go into it because I think it was, um, you know, it really hurt her because she was taken from her parents. She was taken very young and then she was told that her parents passed away and all that. And yeah. And it was, sadly because we found one of her brothers and we saw him about three or four times and then mum passed away, you know, they just started to get to know each other and all that.

[00:05:55] Greg: Yeah, so, those are sad times. And then me brother, he's only just found out that he was a part of the Stolen Generation and he didn't know. Because his wife done some research on him and the person that she was talking to, I think it could have been Link-Up or something like that anyway. And he said, ‘Oh, your husband's a part of the stolen generation because he's got a number next to his name’. And if you've got that number, that means you're a part of the Stolen Generation. You know?

The Australian government policy of stealing children continued until 1969 and has caused an understandable distrust of the authorities.

[00:06:46] Greg: You get very wary, wary of people that are around you, you know, especially if they work in government and all that sort of stuff, you know. You always think about what your mum went through and all that. Like - and she done it tough, me, me mother, like she was rearing six kids and.

[00:07:01] Greg: And like, you know, I can remember, I lived in Leeton, we'd come home from school and we'd walk up to the paddock and we'd help mum pick oranges just to feed us and all that sort of stuff. So, it was a hard time. Me mother died a very young woman and, uh, I think it was because of what she went through in the younger ages and working hard.

[00:07:20] Greg: She was a very tough woman and she made sure that we were on the straight and narrow all the time. So, you know, because I think she was frightened of the fact of, you know, police coming, welfare coming and all that sort of stuff, you know. Yeah. When you got on the wrong side of her you knew it though..

The history of what happened to our mob and our children… it’s horrible…The children weren’t stolen because they were neglected. It was to use them as slaves in white people’s homes and farms.

[00:07:49] Greg: We don't hold any grudges. We just want people to understand that's what it's about, you know. And, uh, there's a lot of people that still don't understand. You talk to some people and they say, ‘Oh, well, you know, you must have been getting fed or anything like that’ and that, you know, but we were happy, you know, yeah.

Uncle Greg moved from Leeton to Wagga Wagga in 1978.

[00:08:17] Greg: I was on the housing commission list in Leeton and it was a seven year waiting list to get into a house in Leeton. And my older sister had actually moved over here about 12 to 18 months before I did through the resettlement scheme.

[00:08:30] Greg: And there was an old Aboriginal gentleman named Roy Carroll. And he come from Narrandera. And the housing commission actually employed him to go out and and talk to different families that were on housing commission lists all over New South Wales. Anyway - and I think my sister have had a little bit of part in it and told him to come and see me.

[00:08:52] Greg: So he came over and seen me and we were talking and he just said, ‘look, if you want to move to Wagga’, he said, ‘I can get you in a house in three months’. And he explained it to me, he said ‘what the Housing Commission set up was that they were going around and they were buying private homes around the suburbs of Wagga’. And he said, ‘and that's what we can do’, he said, ‘if you want to do it’. And I said ‘okay, I'll have a go at it’.

[00:09:20] Greg: And in three months time I moved over into, um, Bungown Place it was called and, uh, It was a little cul de sac and there was a lot of old people living there. We actually loved it. We had three children at the time. We had a three bedroom home. And the only reason why I left there is because me wife then, um, actually fell pregnant and we had another baby, so we went to a bigger house out, out near Ashmont.

[00:09:44] Greg: It was a bit busier for us, but I suppose I had the luxury of having my older sister and that here that had already sort of settled in a little bit after, after about 12 months and she didn't live that far from where we moved to, you know, so it was pretty good in that area.

[00:10:00] Greg: It was daunting. And one of my major problems was is, is Leeton is a really good place for work. Like, you know, farming work and there's a lot of seasonal work at the cannery and abattoirs and a lot of factories over there that you could work at. It was always a good place for an income.

[00:10:17] Greg: But when I come to Wagga, I found it really difficult to find jobs, you know. And, and, um probably for the first 12 months, I, uh, actually struggled with it, you know, trying to get a job, but, uh, I eventually got on to the Wagga City Council, actually had the abattoirs at that time. So I started working for them and I was with them for a few years there. And so it was, yeah, sort of work sort of came in, in, into it. Then once, once I got work, I was pretty well, right.

[00:10:44] Greg: And when I moved here there wasn't a lot of services that you dealt with that had a lot of Aboriginal people that were in those positions. They come sort of later. You know? And, there was no AMS, and mainly the vital services that we used was sort of Centrelink until I got work and then the Housing Commission, you know, going and paying and rent and all that sort of stuff and yeah, it was just those basic things and the hospital and all that, that's what we used. You know.

While he could see the opportunities for his family in Wagga Wagga, services for First Nations families were limited... or non-existent.

[00:11:20] Greg: It was hard, but, you know, looking at Wagga, I, I, I could see that there was a lot more opportunities for, for me kids, you know, like around sporting and all that sort of stuff. And, there's a lot more to offer the kids in sporting and the best part about it, yeah it was all in Wagga and it wasn't that far away to go to, you know, if you played rugby league or if you played soccer or all those types of sporting things, it was a lot more to offer those kids and. And the schools were nice and close to where we lived and all that. It was a five minute walk to school.

[00:11:52] Greg: I think with the influx of a lot of Aboriginal people coming to town, I think council and, and organisations really realised, saying we've got a lot of Aboriginal people coming into these services, and you know, we don't understand their needs. And I think it impacted on a lot of people's health and all that because, see when you come from remote areas like, just say Walgett, somewhere like that, they had Aboriginal medical services at those places.

[00:12:18] Greg: And when they come here, there was none of those services here. And there wasn't many doctors that were bulk billing building at that time either, you know, so that caused a few issues for a lot of families. And what was happening when you get Aboriginal people coming in from those remote areas, they'd go back in the school holidays or whatever and they do all this stuff that they used to do when they live back there, like swimming in dams and all that sort of stuff. So a lot of children, a lot of kids come back with ear infections and all of those types of things. So I think the biggest impact it had on people were their health. And, it was just, yeah, as I said, from remote areas, it was really hard for those people to, to sort of actually cope at that time, you know.

[00:12:57] Greg: I've seen a lot of change. Especially now you walk down the street, like there's some Aboriginal people that are actually working in shops and all that sort of stuff where they wasn't before. Like I went into, um, La Porchetta and there was, um, there was three Aboriginal ladies working in there on the one shift and I thought that's unbelievable, you know. So you do see change and you see them at Coles and Woolworths and, you know, you see them in shopfronts, so it's really good to see that, you know, and they're young people, which is good. Yeah.

[00:13:31] Greg: I think, uh, we're just building, like we're building a large Aboriginal population here. I think it's up around a hundred, uh, three, three and a half thousand to 4,000 Aboriginal people that are living here now.

Like other mob, Uncle Greg copped racism throughout his life... He even had to face it as he prepared to get married.

[00:13:50] Greg: I married me second wife in Wagga and we hired this hall to have our, um, celebration at, after the wedding and. Anyway, my wife was non Aboriginal and she went up and paid for the hall and then I went up the day before we got married to get the keys to, um, actually pick up to go and clean the hall out and walked into the shop and I said, ‘I'd just come to pick up the keys for, um, to clean the hall up for, for the wedding tomorrow’.

[00:14:18] Greg: And she sort of hes.. was very hesitant to give me the keys anyway. She said, ‘I just got to ring me husband’. And anyway she walked out the back and I could hear her. And she said, ‘Okay’. She said, uh, ‘Mr. Packer's come for the keys’. And he said, ‘yeah, well, give them to him’. And she said, ‘but he's Aboriginal’. And I could hear it quite clearly. And I heard the husband sort of getting into her on the phone and said, ‘hand him the keys. They've paid for it’.

[00:14:38] Greg: So yeah, so those sorts of things were happening. Oh, it didn't make me feel real good, you know, but anyway. I tell you what, we went there on the Sunday after we made sure it was cleaner that what it was when we went into it, I can tell you. Yeah, so you just do those sorts of things to just let people know, you know, we're no different to anybody else, you know.

Despite the discrimination, Uncle Greg was determined to make a good life for himself and his family in Wagga Wagga. He went from one job at the Council-owned abattoirs, to a new job at the council depot.

[00:15:10] Greg: I was at Wagga City Council in, you know, when they owned the abattoirs and then they closed it down. I had a friend that knew there was a job going there and it was under Mick Rudd and he said, ‘go and see Mick’. He said, see if you can get that job. So I went up and seen Mick seven times in one day. And the seventh time I walked in and he looked at me and said, ‘I'm bloody sick of you’. He said, ‘be down at the depot at 7. 30 on Monday morning’.

[00:15:37] Greg: And then I was there for a few years under Mick and then I got to know Mick through football and all that because he was a really good referee and you know, and he ran the junior clubs and all that sort of stuff, the association, whatever it was. And, yeah, and that's how I got my first start there.

Like many First Nations mob who moved to Wagga Wagga, Uncle Greg found that sport helped him to make important community connections.

[00:16:10] Greg: I played rugby league, you know, for Turvey Park. And also, um, in the Kennedy Shield, that was a local pub competition, when we had an Aboriginal side in that. Tony Murray and Carl Bamblett, I got in with them and we sort of run, run the Aboriginal side that was in it, you know. And we had, you know, non Aboriginal people that wanted to play with it. We had them in the side and, you know, it was just a mixture of, of people. It was called Koori United. It was every Saturday in the local comp. That's where you sort of made a lot of connections and you found out a lot.

[00:16:46] Greg: Like when I was in health, you know, people would come up to you and say, I know it's footy, but they'd say, oh, ‘Aunty what’s her name’s a bit crook. Did you know that?’ I said, ‘no, I didn't’. And then, you know, I'd just follow it up on Monday or something like that. So you found out a lot of stuff that was going on at sport through, through people, just through the, we call it the Koori grapevine.

[00:17:04] Greg: I, um, coached football. I coached hockey that I didn't know much about, and, you know, my daughter's playing hockey, so I coached that, and my son was playing rugby league, I coached that. And, you know, and I also went on to coaching Group 9 with kids and all that sort of stuff. So it was very important around sport and encouraging other kids to play. And I’d um coach cricket in the summertime and rugby league in the wintertime, you know. So it was, it was really a good thing. The kids had no transport, so you'd be a taxi running around picking 'em all up and bringing 'em to the footy and, you know, all that.

[00:17:39] Greg: And yeah, so I enjoyed, you know, doing sport with kids and that, because I, I thought for kids, it's the right direction to go in. It gives them something to look forward to every weekend and, yeah. So, no, it's a very important part in Aboriginal culture because, like you look at the Indigenous rounds now and all that sort of stuff that are played in AFL, Rugby League. Even the cars. I'm watching the race cars on and they had an Indigenous round in the race cars and they’ve got Aboriginal design all over the race cars. So it's very important. You know, sport and, and artwork does a lot for Aboriginal people, you know, because they tell a story in their art, you know. Yeah.

Getting involved in sport didn't just help Uncle Greg get to know the local community - it also led him to get offered a job at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, looking after our mob.

[00:18:28] Greg: I was coaching a rugby league side in the Kennedy Shield, an Aboriginal side. Anyway, we ran a barbecue to raise some money one day. And I was down there and we had a fair few people there at it. And I was publicly talking to people and all that, saying what we were going to do and all this sort of stuff, and, uh, anyway, and then Maria Williams worked in, I don't know where she was working, but she approached me and she said, ‘we've got a job going at, at the hospital. It’s a hospital liaison officer’. And she said it means that there's four years of university. And what you do is you do two months, two and a half months on the job and then go down to uni for two weeks, you know. And I said, ‘Oh’, I thought about it and she kept at me. So anyway, I took it on.

[00:19:19] Greg: And then, and I was working on the council at that time and I was on about $35, 000 a year, you know, and that was a bit of overtime in it. Anyway, I went and done this job and my wages dropped back to about $20,000, so it was really hard, you know. But anyway, I got a degree out of it and all that sort of stuff. And I went on and I started as a liaison officer and what I was doing was just going and seeing Aboriginal people that come from all over the place.

[00:19:44] Greg: Like, we’d get a lot of Griffith community coming and also out from Lake Cargelligo, all those places. And I'd just go over and see them and make sure their needs are being met and, any family issues back at home, I'd ring them and all that, do all that stuff. And I remember one day I, I went up to the intensive care and it was on the sixth floor at the old hospital and I walked in and there was about six nurses there that were on a break.

[00:20:11] Greg: And I walked in, I had my tag on me saying Greg Packer, Aboriginal Liaison Officer. And I just walked in and I said, ‘Oh, I've come to see a person from Griffith’ and, uh, I won't say his name and the nurse just looked at me and said, ‘Well, what are you, what are you going to do that we can't do?’ She said, ‘Are you going to do a corroboree’? And I looked at her and I said, ‘Well, actually, I don't dance, but I play the didgeridoo’. And I just walked out.

[00:20:35] Greg: And as I was walking out, Pat Stevenson was the boss of the nurses, anyway - and she interviewed me for the job, Pat did and she's a lovely woman. Anyway, she come out of the elevator and she could see. And she said, ‘what's wrong’? And I just told her. And she stormed up there and I was on the sixth floor and I could hear her yelling at these nurses and the elevator was going down and the voice was getting really, in a distance.

[00:21:01] Greg: Anyway, and the next day I went into work those six nurses were sitting, because I was based at Community Health, that was in the hospital grounds. And anyway, she, uh, she had the six nurses there the next morning and I took them up to my office and I just sat there and I said, ‘look, my job is to assist youse’. I said, ‘when you've got patients that are coming from Lake Cargelligo or Griffith or wherever’, I said, ‘I'm just sort of making sure that they're right and that youse are right and the communication between you and the patient is there. And also the communication between the family and the hospital and all that’. I said, ‘I'm here to make your job easier’. Yeah, so there was all of that sort of stuff that was going on. They did apologise, yeah, yeah. But I think it was only because of Pat, you know. Yeah.

But that discrimination didn’t make Uncle Greg feel like an outsider in Wagga Wagga.

[00:21:57] Greg: I was always an outspoken person and confident person. I get on with a lot of people and I'm sort of a person that likes to talk to people. And for me, it wasn't such a problem. But as I said, I've given you an indicator of some of the things that happened to me and that had some impact on me, you know, but for a person that's shy and all that, it'd impact them a lot more, you know, than, than what I did.

As we've spoken about in other episodes of Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha, having Aboriginal run services is incredibly important for mob, allowing them to tap into the support they need.

[00:22:38] Greg: There was a bit of a movement sort of happening with, you know, uh, the momentum starting to build, because there was a larger population of Aboriginal people in Wagga, coming to Wagga, you know. So, the momentum was building and then, and then, you know, the Aboriginal Legal Service started then and all those types of things.

[00:22:57] Greg: You know, you had somewhere to go, like. And they had meetings and different things like that for community people to attend and all that. And then on top of that, the Lands Council came then and, so there was a bit of momentum with the Legal Service and the Lands Council then, then the children's services and all that sort of coming in and. And there was a lot more like um, liaison officers in all different services around town, you know. Like you had them in the Housing Commission, you had them in Health, you know. And so it was mainly a lot of the vital services that Aboriginal people actually used.

The development of RIVMED - the Riverina Medical and Dental Aboriginal Corporation - was a big deal for the community.

[00:23:39] Greg: It was good to see because what I found out when I was in health, there was a, as I was saying, going back to the Aboriginal families coming here from remote areas, like the first thing they'd ask you, what doctor's bulk bill? You know? And that was a bit of a problem for, for a lot of Aboriginal families and once the, um, well, once the, the medical service opened, it was mainly, the main core of it was around doctors, seeing doctors there.

[00:24:05] Greg: There wasn't a lot of the, you know, other services that were there that they sort of tacked on as they, as they got stronger. You know, like, you know, maternal health programs, all those sorts of different things. The Otitis Media program you know, around hearing, because Aboriginal kids had a lot of, a lot of hearing problems and all that. So, but the main core of the AMS when it first started was, was seeing doctors, you know, and then, and then all, all the other services built on, onto that, you know.

Uncle Greg was part of the push to have a medical centre for First Nations mob set up in the village of Brungle, between Gundagai and Tumut.

Brungle Mission Station was established in 1888 by the so-called Aborigines Protection Board.

[00:24:50] Greg: When I was in health, because I went from hospital liaison officer to Senior Aboriginal Education Officer and then the opportunity came up for the Manager job and I got the Manager job. And that meant negotiating with all those organisations and, from, from a health perspective. And we had a really good understanding and all that on what we were doing and I'd meet with the board and, I’d try and work out a lot of, a lot of issues that were in the community.

[00:25:18] Greg: And, it was like putting that health centre at Brungle, like I was one of the main instigators of that and that was only through people that I knew. And the AMS was involved in that, like, you know, I'd get them, we'd have meetings up there in the freezing cold of a night in that old fire hall up there, you know. And, um, we'd go up there for meetings.

[00:25:38] Greg: And it was quite funny because my, my boss, and I was talking to her about, you know, discrimination and all that sort of stuff and she said, ‘well, I don't see it, Greg’. She said, And I said, ‘okay’. And anyway, we went up there and we had a meeting one night and there was all these farmers that came in and we're talking about building the centre and getting the money for it. And we had it. And you know, and they were, they were objective of it. And they were saying, ‘no, just give the money to the, to the Tumut hospital’ and all this and yeah.

[00:26:05] Greg: And yeah anyway, it was funny because I was driving back, she said, ‘now I understand what you're saying’, you know. So that they've got to experience it and all that. But now we've got doctors that go out there now and the farmers go there instead of driving all the way into Tumut. So, you know, over time you win things over, you know, yeah.

[00:26:26] Greg: There's always a problem with mainstream services with a lot of Aboriginal people. Even now it's still the same, you know, like, especially the police and, uh, you know, and the youth and community services and all that sort of stuff, because they were the people that sort of took our kids away and, and.

[00:26:44] And the police are working hard of changing that. And, I've been to a fair few meetings with, with the police and all that. And, you know, they've got a lot of, a lot of activity stuff happening and, they've got liaison officers and all that. So, so, you know, I'm hoping in years to come that that will be a really good thing for the whole community.

On top of all of that, Uncle Greg was chairperson of the NAIDOC committee in Wagga Wagga for eight years - and he's a big supporter of mob celebrating culture... and sharing that pride with non-First Nations people.

[00:27:27] Greg: I was on the first ball that we held here and it was at the old PCYC club. Yeah, it was really good. It really had an impact. And we'd make sure that we involved the mayor and all that to that and they'd come. Council, like council would have a good representation there. Like it was really good. And different police. There was some police that were attending and all that.

[00:27:48] Greg: It was people of all ages, yeah. And, you know, and we, we tried to keep the costs down for, for everyone. I think, I think the tickets were $25 bucks or something at that time and that was just to pay for the feed and all that sort of stuff and try and raise a bit of money for the band. We'd have raffles going. And yeah, there wasn't a lot of money around for those type of activities so you had to really scrape for it and all that sort of stuff.

[00:28:10] Greg: What we’d do is we give so many Elders a free ticket and make sure that they got there. And, we just made sure that they had an Elders table there and all that sort of stuff, you know, trying to cater for everybody, you know. And, and, uh, we also made sure that the band played different type of music, you know, and all that to cater for everybody. We had Foot Full of Bindis and Aboriginal bands from Canberra to come over. Yeah, it was good and people enjoyed themselves.

[00:28:36] Greg: I'd written an article in the paper on what it meant to the Aboriginal community and um, letting people know that we can actually dress up in black suits too and go out and have a good time, you know. And it was really good.

Uncle Greg fondly remembers one Christmas party when he played Black Santa..

[00:28:58] Greg: I was all dressed up and had this white beard on. I was walking around and I was, I was anyway, I was chucking lollies and minties and all that out and, and, uh, and the kids are.. And this little kid couldn't get any, wasn't getting any because the bigger kids were taking them off her.And she come up to me and she grabbed me and she pulled me. She said, ‘Mr. Black, Mr. Black’. She said, ‘they're not letting me get any lollies’. I said, ‘well, you put your hand in that bag and grab a handful’. And I always thought of that girl, yeah. But anyway, that was, that was the story that I had when I was Santa Claus of PCYC.

Now First Nations culture, Wiradjuri language, weaving and art are all being celebrated in Wagga Wagga.

[00:29:42] Greg: I think the language course is really good and there's a lot of non-Aboriginal people actually going to that. And, I find that's good because, you know, it's a positive that, you know, you look at reconciliation and everything, and, and I just think it's great. And it keeps people employed too, you know, and, and I, I think it's important to learn it, you know.

[00:30:01] Greg: As I said, our language and, and, and artwork is a major thing for us, you know. Like they go into schools and do the basket weaving and all that, and that's very important, you know, to hear people talk. And Uncle Stan running it and doing that, dictionary - and they've got an app.

[00:30:18] Greg: I work for Local Land Services. I work with a lot of schools because I do an art program with work and it runs every two years. There's you know, a lot of signage going up now that sort of helps. And as I say, there's a lot of schools that do a competition and they ring me and I tell them to get the app on there. And I said, and ‘look for a word that's close to what you want’, I said. ‘And have a look at it. And if you have any problems, just contact me’. And you go out, and you go out to the schools, and you might see a plant, and you know and they name it and all that sort of stuff. So it's really good to see those types of things, you know, that are happening.

Along with his desire to celebrate First Nations culture, Uncle Greg is big on teaching Aboriginal ways to heal the environment.

[00:31:01] Greg: We've got the Wiradjuri plant book that Alice Williams done from Tumut. And a lot of people are using that - farmers and everything. They look at what they're doing on their properties and all that, you know, and looking at, you know, different plants to grow around creeks and all that sort of stuff. And we talk about farming in a cheaper way.

[00:31:23] Greg: Like, I've run courses through, through Local Land Services around cultural site assessments, you know. And then what it is, it's a, it's a six month course, it's run over, over three days every couple of months. And they get a, a Certificate III in cultural site assessment and land management.

[00:31:43] Greg: You know, a farmer might call, call us up and say, ‘oh, look,we need a cultural site assessment done on this here’ so I contact those people that have done the training and send them out there, and they actually get paid and identify it and all that. So that's what it's about, trying to, trying to create a better understanding around cultural heritage and also some Aboriginal community people that are not working get a bit of, a bit of cash in their pocket.

Uncle Greg is involved in helping to train people in cultural burning, as a way to promote the practice to heal the land.

[00:32:19] Greg: See what you do with, with a cultural burn is you, if the wind's blowing sort of that to the right, well, what you do is you start down there. And the wind blows, well the flame comes real slow because the wind slows it down. And if you're at a cultural burn, you can stand there and you'll see lizards and insects move out of the road. When the burn goes through, you'll see them going back to their nest or whatever. You know, that's how it works.

[00:32:45] Greg: I've run the uh cultural fire and cultural burning, I've run that through my work. What we do is, a part of that, we do a four day rural fire brigade certificate. And so they do four days with the rural fire brigade and then a couple of days with, with a person that's trained in cultural burning. And he takes them out. And those four days, they do a lot of theory and also they get on the fire trucks and they unroll the hoses that  put fires out. And they just love it. It's just really good.

[00:33:17] Greg: And this year we had seven students from Mount Austin High. We had 15 all up and we had seven students from Mount Austin High that done, done the burning and, and, and the course and everything like that. So it was really good.

[00:33:30] Greg: We just had it at a program finished with ANU. They wanted to do some measuring on the effects during, before a burn. during a burn and after a burn. So we done that on 30 Travelling Stock Reserves throughout Wagga and also Young. They got employed for, you know, for 30 burns. And, um, and ANU are doing all the studies now, they're still measuring it. They went out to TSRs and they, they measured out a big square patch and we burnt that. And, and, and now they're planting some plants to go with it and all that. So, and see there's not a lot of research being done in that area, and that's, that's what we're hoping to do, that. And then once we get some positive feedback, then, then we can really sell it to farmers and say, ‘look, this is what you can do’.

[00:34:20] Greg: But you know, people are not going to go out and do it for nothing, you know. And if the farmers were looking at a cheaper way to, to manage their properties, that's the way to go, you know, do a, do a slow burn.

In his experience, Uncle Greg says farmers are generally really supportive of cultural burning.

[00:34:36] Greg: When we first started doing the burning, like we, uh, like we’d go out to a, uh, a travelling stock reserve. And what we do is ask the Rural Fire Brigade in that area to attend with their trucks, you know, just in case. And the farmers are the first one there because, you know, we've got a TSR that's running wild with weeds and grass and everything, and they've got a million dollar rice crop next door. You know, and they're always saying, ‘can we, can you clean up the Travelling Stock Reserve?’ So, they're there with us, you know, and their first one's there and they're really keen on it. You know, the ones that live in those areas.

While being part of the growing First Nations community of Wagga Wagga is fun, Uncle Greg says these days it feels like something’s been lost.

[00:35:19] Greg: It was good because we'd have meetings, start to see each other. We'd meet at the park or something like that and have conversations. And we were always keen on the old fire bucket in the backyard and having a few families around and just sitting around talking and singing and all that. And, you know, different card nights at different places and stuff like that. It was really good. Yeah. It was a bit of activity happening, a lot sort of socially like between ourselves and all that, you know.

[00:35:46] Greg: And it was really good those days, but it's sort of gone now, you know, but which is, which is sad. Because I think what happens is, the older people keep families together and they keep that contact and all that. It's, it's just like the family lunch on Sundays, that's all sort of slowly dying out. And I think as the older people pass, well, that's, those sorts of things fade out, you know.

Before colonisation, Wagga Wagga was an ancient trading and gathering place.

On Australia's bicentenary in 1988, the city hosted people who wanted to protest against the celebrations - to highlight the immense hurt that was inflicted on our community in those 200 years of colonial rule.

Then in 2019... Marrambidya wetlands on the Marrambidya Bila - was the site of a big First Nations celebration - a corroboree.

[00:36:46] Greg: It felt good, you know, to see it all, all there. And, when you look at Wagga, it was one of the meeting places and that. And, there is a bit of history here that people don't know. Down there at the wetlands, you know, that was a trading place, you know, where a lot of Aboriginal people traded stuff and, uh, you know. And there was also a crossing there too, over to North Wagga, like out, out near Charles Sturt University, that, that Aboriginal people actually run a little raft across and helped people across the river and all that.

[00:37:14] Greg: So there's, there's a fair bit of history out, out there and, and I think in that big meeting place, um, you know, when we, they walked over the bridge in ‘88 and all that sort of stuff, and they met, there was a lot of people travelled through and stayed there, and, you know, on buses and tents and all that, so it was really a revival of all of that, you know, so yeah.

There are currently five declared Aboriginal Places in and around Wagga Wagga, but Uncle Greg says First Nations mob wants more than 40 more cultural sites to be preserved.

[00:37:52] Greg: The men's group and that by, uh, Jacko Hampton and James Ingram and all them. They're the ones that actually put in for those, those five locations to be named an Aboriginal place. And it was, it was a lot of hard work from those fellows, you know.

[00:38:06] Greg: Local Land Services have actually got a, a cultural water licence and it's, um, and it's 2100 megalitres and we use that yearly. But at the moment, because we've only got three different sites that are on, on that licence, what we're doing is going along the Murrumbidgee River, we're identifying different sites. And once we identify those sites we're going to put into the water department and government that we want these sites added to it, so we can pump water from the river.

[00:38:39] Greg: And those five sites that are identified here at Wagga, they're, they're on it. And like the axe, the Bomen Axe Quarry and all that. So hopefully when we get that, well, then we can look at cultural activities for, for the community on those, you know, like similar to the wetlands down there. So just get some different sites. So there is planning in the future for what's going on.

[00:39:01] Greg: And, you know, we've got a lot of sites. We've got 40 something sites that we've sort of, had workshops with all the communities right along the river and we've identified 45 sites and get them on there. Well, hopefully we can start some activities for cultural activities along the river. You can't sell the water like anyone else can and all that. It’s for non profit organisations. So, they can plant basket weaving grass and all those type of things. Or have a nursery and all that and grow plants and trees and all that.

In 2006, Wagga Wagga City Council employed its first ever Aboriginal Community Development Officer. But Uncle Greg thinks the council needs more than one person to properly support the community, which is still so disadvantaged.

[00:39:45] Greg: Council are trying to do a little bit more, but the problem is with those positions that they created, there's too much pressure on those people. They don't last. They're overworked. And it's like every other organisation. You get one Aboriginal person in there, but anything that comes in, that's a black issue, you’ve got to deal with it.

[00:40:08] Greg: And you know, and that's the same where I work, you know. And it's not necessarily all my, all my problems that come up. You know, people can actually deal with it themselves and, and just send me an email saying yes, ‘this is an issue but we'll work on it and get back to you’ or whatever.

[00:40:24] Greg: I think what council could probably do is probably have another three identified positions at council, you know. And they could all do different roles, you know. But you've got one person that's doing everything, like running committees and, and yeah and doing everything, you know. And they burn out. And they've had some good people in there. Because they are a good employer of Aboriginal people out on the roads and all that and labour and all that stuff. But they, they need a good three positions in, in, in, in the council chambers to actually dealing with cultural issues.

And even though Uncle Greg wasn’t elected when he stood for the Wagga Wagga City Council, he hasn’t given up on the idea of having a more direct say in the community.

[00:41:10] Greg: I won't run this time, but I'm sort of close to retirement. I might run then and see how I go. I got a fair few votes the last time that I run. But anyway. I got more votes than some people that got in, because they had preferences. But I got some wrong advice actually. I was told to run under a person and I should’ve run as an independent.

Wagga Wagga City Council has a bit of a dark history for us black fellas.

In 1993, Councillor Jim Eldridge was found to have committed racial vilification at the Council’s launch of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People.

After a welcome speech from Aunty Marianne Atkinson, Eldridge interrupted proceedings, saying, "My people came down the river and established this city when nobody other than savages had been here before. I have a right to speak for the white people... these half-caste radicals have made a claim upon the city and the people of the city and I have a right to speak on behalf of the white people in this city, against these radical half-castes..."

At the next council meeting, Eldridge called us savages and said that white people have been subjected to a reign of terror for 30 years and that the white people in Wagga Wagga understood that this was a war.

Uncle Greg laughs at his reaction back then - which was to drive a truckload of shit to Jim Eldridge's driveway with the intention of dumping it there.

[00:42:41] Greg: He was saying some unbelievable stuff that, yeah, it was inappropriate. And I remember when it happened and I was working on council and I was working on the sewerage department. And what we used to do was get a lot of rubbish in the back of the truck when we'd clean out the cages and everything.

[00:42:59] Greg: And, and it really, he really upset me, you know, I knew where he lived and I was going to go and dump the rubbish on his driveway. But only for me mate that was with me and he was an Aboriginal guy too and he talked me out of it because I was, I pulled up out the front of his house. And I said, ‘no, I'm going to tip it’. But I didn't.

But... laughs aside - the Eldridge rant hurt everyone in the community.

Uncle Greg says the racist attack and the reporting of it was a big setback for the First Nations community.

[00:43:38] Greg: Well it, to me, when I was thinking about it, it's, it's all the work that's been done by all organisations and, and Aboriginal people and, like it just put us back 10 years. That's how I felt. And that's what a lot of people felt with it and in his comments. And I was a bit dirty with Michael McCormack at the time.

Back then the current Member for Riverina Michael McCormack was the editor of the local newspaper.

[00:44:06] Greg: Because he was the, what's the name of the Daily Advertiser and, uh, yeah, and there was a lot of people putting inappropriate stuff on it. And I complained to him, but he said everyone's got the freedom of speech and all that sort of stuff but, yeah.

[00:44:20] Greg: And I, I, I actually, um, emceed the first ball that I was telling you about. And, and it was around that time when he's making a lot of, a lot of noise. And I, I just said, ‘Oh, we've got Jim Eldridge standing outside on a 44 gallon drum looking in.’ I made a few jokes about him. So I got back to it, back at him in my own little way.

Jim Eldridge was ordered by the tribunal to pay three thousand dollars reparations to the Elder who brought the court action and he had to print an apology in the Daily Advertiser.

This was the first complaint of racial vilification to be sustained by the Equal Opportunity Tribunal since the legislation was introduced in 1989.

The decision overwhelmingly established that there is a dividing line between free speech and racial vilification.

Today, more than three decades later, Uncle Greg hopes that racism is gradually going to die out.

[00:45:17] Greg: I think it's slowly happening, you know, and I know it's sort of a bad thing to say, but people that had racist tones are slowly dying. You know, and, and there's a new generation coming through and, uh, and hopefully that'll change. And I probably won't see it before my lifetime, but, I think a lot of stuff will, will phase out and, and, yeah, and, uh, hopefully that we can all live in harmony with each other, you know. And, and that's just not quite there yet. I think it's important that we, we keep growing and looking at, and looking at positive stuff and reconciliation.

Download the transcript for Episode 6

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 6 | Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence

Geoff Simpson: We really are people who belong in nature that are floundering around in the economy. I mean, it's like sitting on a barbed wire fence, you don't know which way to move.

Hi. I’m Luke Wighton. I’m a Wiradjuri man originally from Condobolin now living in Wagga Wagga.I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT - Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we had been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme. The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

So, let’s get to know some of the proud mob from Wagga Wagga.

Geoff Simpson was born in Walgett in north-western New South Wales.

[00:02:30] Geoff: We are Yularoi people of the Gamilaroi Nation.

I don't know how you spell that. There's probably multiple spellings given we're an oral history,

Geoff is a proud Yularoi man from the Gamilaroi nation.

He’s worked in several state and federal government jobs ranging from the old Commonwealth Employment Service to the NSW Environment Department.

Geoff lived happily in Walgett until his mid teens.

Then Geoff's parents shattered his world when they told him, and his brother Rod, that they were moving to some far-off place... called Wagga Wagga.

[00:03:06] Geoff: We got a two week holiday when we turned up, just as an incentive for mum and dad for us to move here because they knew we, we came, you know, screaming and, and hanging on. I thought Wagga was on the north coast, on the beach somewhere. And, I also remember leaving Walgett in tears because I'm going, ‘why are we leaving this Gamilaroi Nation going to someone else's country?’ I knew it was someone else's country.

[00:03:36] Geoff: I was probably, uh, not aware that it was Wiradjuri country. But, uh, I knew it was someone else's nation and I'm going, ‘I don't know anything about this one. Why am I going to that one?’ And yeah, we left in tears in, um, cause we're leaving all our, all our family.

[00:03:54] Geoff: Walgett was great. We had our friends. It was a real sense of community, one that we didn't have when we came here. We knew every inch of that place in Walgett, whether it was the country or, and the landscape and the people, and we knew what families and how they belonged together. And we, we didn't know any of that when we came here because we.. Oh, my cousin lived here. She was living here with her boyfriend at the time. She was the only person we knew in the town. Aside from, um, Mum's friends and Dad's friends,

[00:04:30] Geoff: We turned up in Wagga Wagga in, uh, 1981, I think. I say 1980, but my brother says 1981. Yeah, I was 15 at the time. I knew about the resettlement scheme at 15 I think, because Mum and Dad talked about it. I think they wanted different opportunities for us that we possibly didn't have in Walgett. Or they wanted to come and reconnect with their friends. So yeah we packed up and came to the big city of Wagga Wagga.

[00:05:02] Geoff: I remember when we landed in Wagga, driving down the main street and going, ‘Shit! Bloody hell! Pizza! What's that?’ I'd never ever seen it before. What the hell is pizza? So, we pulled up at Marilyn’s Pizza joint and we had pizza for the first time ever. So just seeing things like that, just driving down a main street that was longer than 150 metres or, you know, um, and just seeing all the cars and all the lights and it was, it was incredible. And it was.

[00:05:36] Geoff: There was, there is more opportunity in, uh, and services in a place like Wagga, but at the sacrifice of community and connection, I think, you know. Which I, I know now, but, um, I mean in a town like Walgett, uh, everyone's connected and everyone's back in that, back in the day, I'm not sure what it is now because I haven't lived there for 30 odd years, maybe 40 years.

[00:06:04] Geoff: But um, um, everyone had everyone's back, you know, and um, and, and Wagga's, Wagga was not like that when we got here, and um, it's probably not like that now. You've got to form your connection. You've got to form your community, to for people to look after you and take care of you. Walgett it's a given, because we just grew up with it, you know. And anyone that goes to Walgett, they get it straight away, they feel part of it, because it's smaller, it's, it's more, um, it's more, uh, isolated, so, you're relying on everyone else.

Luckily it didn't take Geoff and his brother long to settle into Wagga Wagga. They started at Mount Austin High School and soon found that sport could help them form strong links to the community.

[00:07:06] Geoff: We pretty soon found our friendship group and subsequently introduced mum and dad to their friendship group. Dad, dad became a part of the footy and mum became a part of the footy and then we played cricket and rugby league, which was our leg in the door. The headline for me is you actually have to participate and contribute to your community if you want one. You can't just expect it to come to you.

Geoff and his family quickly built a new life for themselves in Wagga Wagga.

[00:07:39] Geoff: Mum picked up work in the school here straight away. Dad left the Namoi Valley County Council and came and worked with the Southern Riverina County Council a couple of days later, yeah. So we're back into normal life in a different location.

[00:07:52] Geoff: We moved from Walgett which uh into Tolland, which is public housing. It was the bottom of Mount Austin actually. People describe it as the ghetto or the, or whatever, public housing. They.. not many people would look at Tolland housing as an ideal living conditions, but that's what we found our um, our community down there and our friendships. All the people we played footy with and went to school with all came from public housing. It was new housing. It was flash compared to what we had. We had a two bedroom public house in Walgett.

[00:08:31] Geoff: And it was posh when we moved to Warren Place in Tolland, you know. And it was a little cul-de-sac and, but we played with.. we knew everyone in the street. It was a great place to live. Anyone who judges it never lived in it, you know? So they don't know the sense of community, I reckon. And it's strong and vibrant in those places still, I reckon. We mixed with everyone. We went to school with everyone and got along with everyone - didn't matter what colour they were or what nationality they were.

But Geoff says there was still a lot of racism running through the regional city.

[00:09:07] Geoff: I still feel it now, you know, like it hasn't changed. Um, it's difficult, I think, to, uh, I don’t know, how do I say it, to be in a predominantly white community and be black, because the judgement and the, even though it's not obvious, I mean we, we can feel it.

[00:09:30] Geoff: It's no different to what it was back in the day, even though I was more oblivious to it when I was a teenager, I didn't, we didn't … Well I don't have the wisdom that I have now about how people feel about people of a different nation. All my life playing sport, playing rugby league with, um, you know, snide remarks and comments and black so and so's. And I remember walking home one day from the Turvey shops and someone just drove past and he just started verbally abusing me just because of the colour of my skin.

[00:10:07] Geoff: And I've seen him since and made peace about it all, you know, but… Turns out, uh, we were really good friends with his brother, you know. So yeah, nothing's changed. At least people back in those days called it straight to your face whereas now you might think it and I know you think it, but you won't say anything about it.

[00:10:33] Geoff: I can see it in people's energy, you know. I can feel it in people's energy, you know. I can feel it in people’s energy. So it's no better than it was back in the day. There's plenty of times when I've been ashamed of my Aboriginality as a kid. Not now though, not now. I, if anyone ever says anything, which I have never had anyone say anything to me directly as an adult off the footy field, I'd stand up and educate them on, I mean, look at the whole Yes thing.

[00:11:04] Geoff: And then I just took the view that oh, you can't, you can't teach anything to people that know everything. So I just, you just got to let people go on their journey, you know. If people feel that way, that they got to carry that around, not me, I don't want to carry it around, it's on them.

[00:11:37] Geoff: My nan Nan Ivy was part of the Stolen Generation. And, um, and she lived with us for, for years and years and years. And, and I used to talk to her about it, like, you know, cause she was removed because of the colour of her skin, the lightness of her skin, but she always told me she had a good time at Cootamundra Girls Home, right? I talked to her many, many times.

[00:12:02] Geoff: And then anyway, one day my cousin Mark took her to Cootamundra and she sat in the car and cried and wouldn't get out. Yeah, and I went, ah, she didn't have a good time at all. She told us she had a good time just to protect us, you know?

[00:12:19] Geoff: So we never really talked about that stuff, but, uh, my dad was always, uh, at the forefront of going ‘I am who I am’, without even saying this,’I am who I am’. And people are going to accept me whether they want to or not. Like if you didn't accept him, he didn't care. He still treated you with love and respect and kindness. And, and that puts, yeah, puts the onus on them to go, ‘shit’, well, you know, without even having a conversation about it, ‘what am I missing?’

[00:12:53] Geoff: Which I think is the big thing for, for non Aboriginal Australians to, like, they don't know any blackfellas. We, I say to people all the time, white people are our family, we're just not theirs. But do they do anything about it? Maybe not, but it's still planting the seed, you know.

In 1985 Geoff started his first job at the Commonwealth Employment Service.

[00:13:23] Geoff: James Ingram was the Aboriginal vocational officer charged with the responsibility to get Aboriginal people into employment. Now he said to me, he goes, ‘you get your HSC and I'll get your job at the CES’. And I went, okay, right. No worries.

[00:13:40] Geoff: I had no ambitions about, about, um, any other career or I hadn't thought about it, but so, you know, I started there. And, um, I guess work, um, gave me a range of skills. So that was the federal government. And, uh, over time I moved to Narrabri to work in the CES with a friend of mine, Georgie Rose at the time, and, um, then I moved back.

During that time Geoff also became heavily involved in music. He played in a few bands - like the Murrumbidgee Country Club - and one of the most famous bands in Wagga Wagga - Foot Full of Bindies.

After he returned to Wagga in 1992, his Uncle Billy Simpson moved in with him.

[00:14:26] Geoff: And he was a singer. And so we put this band together and we just used to play covers. He was a great Elvis impersonator, a great Queen impersonator. Plus he had his own unique ability to engage an audience, you know? And so yeah, we just had this huge following and we played pretty solid.

[00:14:45] Geoff: And then when we gigged there was heaps of Aboriginal people at our gigs, you know, because we were predominantly an Aboriginal band and we had lots of Black and white followers come to our gigs for years, 10 years plus. We played everywhere. Played all over the place.

[00:15:02] Geoff: Music's a binder. So no matter what colour you are, if it makes you move it makes you move. You know, if you're standing next to someone, you're going to dance with someone. And the music we played was all from our heart. So Uncle Bill being the entertainer is, he just bought people together and people just loved and they still talk about him to this day. They love him, you know, he was just one unique talent.

After returning to Wagga Wagga, Geoff also trained as a teacher - though to this day he hasn’t taught a single class. Instead, he found a deep purpose in environmental connection and cultural science.

[00:15:41] Geoff: I did a teaching degree out at Charles Sturt University and the government had changed from the Commonwealth Employment Service to the Department of Employment, Education and Training. So whilst I was working I also did a teacher's degree. I never wanted to be a teacher. It's just the opportunity presented itself. And I never taught - ever.

[00:16:02] Geoff: So then I went back into government, went into state government. I did some juvenile justice work. And then a lady, she said, ‘Oh, you'd be great at this land management job’. And, um, so I applied for this, I can't remember what it was, but, uh, Aboriginal advisor for the Department of Land and Water Conservation. And that's where I really found my sense of identity. And I really found out about my Gamilaroi culture, by the people I met in that land management agency.

[00:16:37] Geoff: Three or four years ago, I finished up in the department of um, environment. I think it's a department of environment, but in the science division, doing some work around cultural science and research. And that was a great identity finder.

[00:16:59] Geoff: I spent lots of time in the bush with key people. A fair bit of time out at Lake Mungo, did some research out there. So that journey has taken me to people like Jeanette Crewe, Hewitt Wyman, James Ingram, Uncle Jimmy Ingram, Mick Kelly, Uncle Mick Kelly, Uncle Paul Gordon, um, Aunty Mary Pappin, Aunty Alice Kelly, all of those, all of those old people that I reckon they had had their eye on me for quite a time about how serious I was about identity and was I going to, take it with, um, with the responsibility and obligation that is needed.

[00:17:42] Geoff: I spent a lot of time with a lot of those different people. I reckon they gave me snippets of dribs and drabs of information here and there just to test the waters and um, I mean, that's where I, uh, I really found my purpose and my identity in doing that work around environmental connection. And um, yeah, I thank all of those people for the investment and um, now, now the responsibility is back on to me to share that with others. So that was really great work. Like I met some great people.

[00:18:23] Geoff: But when I left there, the interesting part, uh, and I was sitting at my desk one day and I go, ‘You know what? Working in government, there's this, I felt this oppression forever’. Because in essence they tell you what you're worth, what time you work. They, they tell you the messaging. And, um, I think that's, I think that's lateral violent in a way because they recruit us to work with our community so that the community can inform what they do. So I'd go back and say, ‘Oh, the community wants this’. ‘Nah, you can't have that’. ‘The community wants this’. ‘Nah, you can't have that.’

[00:19:05] Geoff: The government has - whether it's state or federal - they have um their lens and that's the only lens that matters. So, I, I felt this whole oppression lifted off my shoulders when I left it, that I didn't realize I had it. And, um, even though I loved the work, I loved the people that I worked with, and the jobs were, they were fantastic. But the under, the undertone or the underpinning thing is, ‘no, you do what we tell you to do’, whether it's right or wrong.

Geoff says he will remain forever grateful to that diverse mob who helped him discover himself and awaken his deep connection to Country.

[00:19:49] Geoff: What I know now is that we come from the land. So if you want to know who you are, you got to get in touch with the land. And because we've spent so much time on this country we know, we know the law of the land and we belong with the species. Plants and animals are our brothers and sisters.

[00:20:11] Geoff: Now, I didn't have this wisdom when I was growing up. It was in my DNA, but I didn't know much about it. But now I do know, and this is what, this is.. So the law of the land is every, every species has a song, story, dance and language. And I always knew that I belonged with emu or feather.

[00:20:38] Geoff: I always knew that ever since I was a little kid. I don't know who told me. My, my Nan Bertha or my Aunty Jenny, or someone told me that. And so that has grown into, um, you know, we are feather people. We belong with the feather skin group. And our culture is so simple and so well organised, but that's the core of it, is that everyone belongs in a landscape.

[00:21:14] Geoff: So my feather landscape then is, I've got responsibility to grow that country for those species. And Wedgetail Eagle is very important in our skin group. And, the cultural lens of the Wedgetail is they're big picture thinkers. They fly over everything and piece the puzzle together which is, I think what I do, you know.

[00:21:42] Geoff: The law and the language and the song and the story all comes from the landscape. It's not this Western approach about, okay, here's the language we wrote down so you must speak that, speak that language.

[00:21:55] Geoff: And a lot of people say, oh, the culture's lost. Well, it can't be lost. Why is that? It's in the country. So if you want to connect with culture, the song's still there, the story's still there, the language and the dance is still there. But this Western approach takes people out of nature and makes people dependent on money and other people for their existence.

This connection to the land is part of our culture - it's in our bones. And Geoff thinks that the whitefellas are missing out by not listening to the people who have known this land for thousands of years.

[00:22:59] Geoff: We've achieved sustainability, we've achieved unity and oneness. I mean, why wouldn't you want to learn that? Everyone's in pursuit of it and not asking us. And we know that. So we go, ‘Oh, well just let them go’. They've got to come and say hello and sit around the fire before they learn it you know.

[00:23:18] Geoff: And show that, uh, alright, the wisdom we're going to give you, you're going to treat it with the humility and the respect that it deserves to be treated with and you're going to do right with it. Otherwise you ain't going to get it. That's what I mean about those old people was watching me, going, ‘is he going to do the right thing with it?’ I think, you know, and, um.

[00:23:40] Geoff: So yeah, that's what we're missing out on. We're missing out on unity, oneness and harmony by not knowing any Aboriginal people and our ways, knowing our ways.

Geoff describes his time out at Lake Mungo working with the traditional owners as transformative.

[00:24:07] Geoff: Mungo's a special place for the planet. And it's challenging because, um, including myself, when people go out there we are often walking around the bush with tears in our eyes going, what the hell are we doing?

[00:24:24] Geoff: And that's not anyone saying anything. That's the landscape, I reckon, challenging people going, ‘Are you on the right path? Are you doing what you're supposed to be doing? Are you being who you're supposed to be?’ And Mungo does that all on its own. So it's challenging in that sense because we come back to town with a different lens.

[00:24:48] Geoff: And, and, I've seen many relationships break down after they come back to town because, um, people, in essence, find out their true identity, which is the thrilling part of it also. So you've got this heartache and love at the same time. But it's thrilling to, to just, for me, it's been thrilling to know who the hell I am and what role I play.

[00:25:16] Geoff: If you know your role and your purpose, everything else just falls into place. I'm not saying there's not challenges. There's lots of challenges. But you got these foundational values to call back upon at any time, which I think society has really lost its values. Values are really about money, power, greed and control. And it's not who we really are.

[00:25:40] Geoff: We really are a group of people who belong with nature and belong with each other. Now, I think culture and connection can coexist with money. It has to, because we're never going to lose it. So it's more about, okay, how much more deeper do you want to get connected? Live your purpose, live your identity, live who you are, you know?

[00:26:05] Geoff: Yeah. So who are we as a group of people? We really are people who belong in nature that are floundering around in the economy. I mean, it's like sitting on a barbed wire fence - you don't know which way to move.

One of Geoff’s roles has been doing cultural conservation at a very special reserve at Lake Mungo.

[00:26:43] Geoff: Mick Kelly's, been the leader of it. He got this crown reserve called Rick Farley Reserve in honour of Rick Farley of the Farmers Federation - he brought farmers and Aboriginal people together back in the day.

[00:26:57] Geoff: So we look after that place and the big difference, we've got thousands and thousands of different species out there because we culturally conserve it and grow it. And, and we're a part of it. So we do fire cool burning practice, we do ceremony, we do song, we do story and we do deep connection.

[00:27:19] Geoff: Now if you look at the research say for example, say, World Heritage Area or Parks found, over 40 years they found 10 species - I'm making the numbers up here - but they found 10 species or 20 species over 40 years. We do research in six months and find 3000 species. So we've just got to be out there and you just got to grow their country if you want diversity.

[00:27:44] Geoff: Now, the difference with Rick Farley Reserve out at Mungo is that our driver is not money. So, we've taken the management back to it's about bringing our culture to life. So, uh, we don't have grazing on there. We have native, stuff for native species. Once you grow the country there is diversity everywhere. We've got thousands and thousands of different species.

In one trip, Geoff and his team invited Dave Hunter, Senior Threatened Species Officer in the Environment Department - and he saw a jewelled gecko. It’s a vulnerable species found in parts of New South Wales and South Australia, and one that Dave had never seen before. On his first night in the camp, Dave spotted a jewelled gecko and a wood gecko.

[00:28:44] Geoff: Dave goes, I come out here to find this jewelled gecko. Well, there's two of them the night he set up. He'd never seen it in 30, 40 years of working in the field.

[00:28:56] Geoff: We've just found Harrow Wattle out there. It hasn't been seen in that part of the landscape or New South Wales for 25, 30 years. And the experts reckon the goats ate it out, you know, and they might have some truth in that. But the goats ate it out. They shit it out too. And what happens? Seed everywhere. Plants everywhere. So maybe, uh, they're an important part of the landscape and people see them as pests or weeds and rather than turn the lens onto ourselves, like who's the biggest pest and weed is, is humans, you know?

Another big revelation for Geoff has been learning about cool burning.

[00:29:44] Geoff: My first cool burn, I was nervous as hell because I still had the Western approach to burning in my mindset. Like if we all think about what’s a burning regime looks like we go back to, what was the year? 2019, 2020. Like, you think about burning, we're all thinking about that, you know. That was months of smoke hanging over this city. So, um, but, you know, I'd obviously done some cool burning before that.

[00:30:15] Geoff: But, our culture's got no words around hazard and risk. Wildfire, like this is not, not in our language. I'm not saying it didn't exist, but when you have a nation of people burning, cool burning the country and knowing when to do it, through June, July, August, the approach is, um, it's, it's patch burning. Burn that little patch like just this metre by metre just and watch it trickle around. Um and if the fire is up in the canopy, that's, that's just your ego out of control, you know. We don't want the fire in the canopy.

[00:30:55] Geoff: So it really is a trickle burn during June, July and August. And you  almost need a blowtorch to get it going because it's that cold. So, um, spinifex is a little bit different. It's highly flammable. And we've got a lot of spinifex on that place. So it takes off pretty well, but it only goes a bit wild for 30 seconds like it, like it's having a little, little wild dance, you know. And then 30 seconds to a minute or so and then it just settles right down completely. Now if you're out there burning in June, July, August, you actually need to burn the country because it's cold. So you're standing out there freezing if you haven't got fire going.

[00:31:35] Geoff: But there’s this whole thing around cultural fire - and it's a protection thing too. Like, I don't know, for the, for the Parkies and the Rural Fire Service, it's, it's a lot of overtime. So. I don't think they want our cool burning practices - it might impact on their overtime. But it's connection at the deepest level when you've got fire under your feet and you're walking around it and you're part of it.

[00:32:04] Geoff: So, I mean, that's the feeling on offer for people. And. so you've got to really, um, immerse in it first before, before you, uh, are able to, not master, it's the wrong word, cause we're not trying to master anything. We want to be a part of it, but be comfortable with it. You know, we burn when the breeze hits our back and it's really cold.

[00:32:30] Geoff: So we go, let's go because it’s cold standing at this camp, even though we're standing around a fire. And you can feel the cold through your bones. So we take people out and just say, righto it’s, it’s bit by bit. So a metre by a metre. You take care of that one, you take care of that one. And don't let it be above your waist. Don't let it get up in the trees. And yeah, let's spend a lot of time out here tonight burning it you know.

[00:32:58] Geoff: And you got connection, you got unity all in the one practice because you've got responsibility. And making sure that you're burning into the wind and you don't burn at the back of the plant, you burn into the wind.

[00:33:13] Geoff: Because if there's critters in there, you send them a warning, let them know to go and find somewhere else. Because we're burning to create fresh country for those critters. We're not burning to, for kilometres or hectares, which is some of the other targets. We don't do that. We're just burning for fresh tucker.

[00:33:31] Geoff: Now, spinifex is, that's real prickly, so it'll take over the landscape if you let it. And it becomes, uh, it out-competes all the other native species. So once you burn it, you see that other species get a chance, you know. And a predominant spinifex landscape, it's got mallee, mallee tree, um, spinifex and more spinifex.

[00:33:57] Geoff: So, um, once you open that up, you get Tea Tree, you get, uh, you get Harrow Wattle. You get all sorts of species that haven't had a chance  that invisible plant out there that you know. There's so much more diversity once you apply cool fire. Um.  Cool fire brings the right plants. Hot fire brings hot plants. So the hot fire brings more and more um fuel and um, and we'll probably be asking the same questions that we asked back in 2019. Why are we not doing anything about it?

[00:34:32] Geoff: Because once upon a time, as I said at the start, everyone used to burn the country. You walk in a ceremony up there, you get a feed back here in three months time. There'd be kangaroo in this landscape because they'd be grazing on fresh tucker. So, um..

[00:34:48] Geoff: But now the responsibility is on a couple of agencies that ain't equipped. They ain’t equipped with skills and they ain’t equipped with resources. Nor do they have the right approach to it, because their approach is about, we need to burn X number of hectares this year, whereas, uh, yeah, that's the wrong driver. And it hasn't worked in 200 odd years so why keep doing the same thing? It's like buying watermelons for a dollar and selling them for a dollar and think the answer is a bigger truck.

In 2019 after a long period of terrible drought, Geoff was the MC at a corroboree at the Marrambidya wetlands in Wagga Wagga – to which the public was invited. It was a huge and moving event - what Geoff describes as the power of culture and connection.

[00:35:52] Geoff: That was sort of a defining moment in Wagga's history around having that corroboree and it just brought a lot of people together and I don't think we should lose the intent about what it offered. Because we easily go back into, into normal everyday practice.

[00:36:12] Geoff:So corroboree is about ceremony and belonging to the earth. Yeah, and all the dances that you saw that night are all part of that. The shark, the whale, the porcupine, the kangaroo, the emu dance, etc, etc. So they're all stories about who we are as a united people and what our responsibilities to the earth and each other are. And I think people felt it that night and people still feel the effect of it.

[00:36:42] Geoff: Our, uh, cultural group, we have corroborees all over the place every, every year, every second year. So it just, what led to it is funny because one of the old uncles will just say, ‘right, we're having it in Wagga’. Okay. That's it. So then um Dick Green and a couple other Peter Ingram and a couple other people that, that are in that group, Joey Williams, et cetera, we just go, okay, we're here.

[00:37:09] Geoff: So we've got the relationships with the council. We've got the relationships with the community. So we just took an active role about  doing some coordination, bringing it to life really. But yeah, one of the uncles’d say, right, ‘Wagga this year, uh, South coast, Nowra next year’, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I mean, they know where it needs to happen. So we just assisted with the planning and the implementation and.

[00:37:37] Geoff: And we don't really have to think about it that much because we know what happens with it. And everyone just brings their energy from all over the state, all over the country. Um, we had people from the Territory come down for that, women from the Hunter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So everyone just brings their connection and their energy and people have got no choice but to buy into it.

[00:38:01] Geoff: But that's the power of culture. That's the power of connection. Imagine, imagine everyone with that lens and that practice, the landscape and the people would be so different. That's still what we've got to offer.

[00:38:12] Geoff: But then I think it's on everyone else, just everyone just to find that connection and to keep practising that. It's got to become everyday business for people around connection and because culture is about reinforcing values, which reinforces identity and purpose. And, um, yeah, we're walking around without those values and without that identity, without that, uh, collective belonging with nature. So, um, that's still there for us to do.

[00:38:57] Geoff: We are nature. The trees are us, the grasses, the herbs, the forbs, the winds, the sun, the sand, the water. It's all part of who we are as a collective of people and the sooner we get back to that, the better off our society.

[00:39:11] Geoff: I had a lot of people saying, um, yeah, it’d be great if we did it again, you know, et cetera. And it would be, but, um, the opportunity to connect with culture is right under our noses every day. So you shouldn't need a facilitator or an MC to say, ‘Oh, you got to do this.’

[00:39:30] Geoff: Because what we get taught is if you want to learn anything about who you are and what role you play, learn it from nature. Nature tells us what our role is. So, um, yeah, people have still got that opportunity to practice corroboree and ceremony every day if you want.

[00:39:49] Geoff: Culture is in essence about how we belong with the land and our role we play with looking after the environment. And the deeper lessons are about what does nature teach us about the values of who we are? And if that was the intent in businesses and organisations, they'd deliver something different. Their intent right now is, we've got this amount of money, we've got to do these jobs which is, yeah, it's fraught with danger.

[00:40:25] Geoff: If you look at culture from, it's got song, story, dance, language. And it teaches us about values of humility, trust, respect, patience and ego. Culture is all about values. It's totally all about values. What do we learn from nature? That, um, the mallee fowl, which comes straight out of the nest and flies into the nearest tree to get away from predators, it knows its gift straight away. We're all born with gifts. Do we practise it? Probably not. Do we search it? Probably not. Or we're still on the treadmill trying to do it.

[00:41:05] But culture, if you look at it from a Western lens, it's well planned. Everyone got a clear role and responsibility. You got to be accountable for your deliverables and you celebrate the good and bad. So if, if any organisation, business had that as their core, with a cultural lens - What's the song? What's the story? What's the dance? What's the language? What's our gift? How do I bring your gift to life in this organisation? You know, bring your gift to life in the workplace and you'll see a vibrant, happy, joyous workplace.

Geoff is a huge supporter of Aboriginal run services. And the rejection of the Voice referendum left him jaded about the nation’s refusal to let go of controlling the lives of First Nations mob.

[00:42:10] Geoff: You walk into a Aboriginal Legal Service and you know the people there, or the Aboriginal Medical Service, you know the people there. You walk in a non Aboriginal one, you don't know anyone and there's judgement in them. And that's the difference. That's the big difference. And had people not had an Aboriginal Medical Service, they'd be falling off the perch at a rate of knots. That's only because they know everyone that works in there that they go and seek treatment because they're comfortable. So those kind of services are crucial. Because we don't get that kind of support in non Aboriginal services.

[00:42:51] Geoff: My thinking lately has been, I know what's best for me. You know what's best for you. You know what's best for you. Why wouldn't people want that? Why would you want me in charge of your decisions in your life? You don't. But the Voice, as a collective, they think they know better for us. And they don't know us to know better for us.

[00:43:20] Geoff: And the opportunity to connect and to learn how we achieve sustainability and unity and oneness and harmony, it's still on the table, but, uh, yeah, maybe people have to work a bit harder to get it, as they should.

[00:43:36] Geoff: I think about the Welcome to Country ceremony and I go, I wouldn't do that because why welcome people to our country that don't deserve it and they haven't earnt it. That's my view on it. And I see a lot of these things in, uh, in, in art that it's just symbolism to me without telling the true intent of, um, of why it was crafted or… no-one seems to be interested in the story in it and what it really means. They just have it hanging on their wall as a, uh, as a spectacle or a showcase piece or, or their contribution to purchasing art. So yeah, I, I think, there's some great art, there's some great practitioners and people who live it and are part of it. But for me, I think it's got to go beyond the symbolism and beyond the tokenism and yeah, I don't know if they'll ever get to that.

For Geoff, one of the key parts to cultural connection and unity is the revival of languages and teaching them to the younger generation.

[00:44:56] Geoff: Well, the value in it for me is that it's the language of the land. Yeah. So if we want to belong with the land, we've got to know what the language of the land is. All the stories are still in the landscape and the meaning and the intent, you know, that goes beyond just speaking and it comes with intent.

[00:45:14] Geoff: But once you learn that, that is really about knowing who you are and what your identity is as well. And how you belong in this landscape, how we look after it. Yes, so language is crucial to it. And I think we should all be trying to understand what the landscape is telling us.

Ivy Simpson - Geoff’s daughter - is a dancer who recently performed at the 2024 School’s Spectacular in Sydney, with a piece that celebrated the magic of culture.

[00:45:43] Geoff: I've got six kids by the way - that's just in case any of the other kids listen to this podcast. But yeah, she crafted this piece around, um, what we're talking about - connection, identity, and purpose. And that the magic is in the country. The magic is in our way of, uh, doing it.

[00:46:03] Geoff: She's practiced ballet her whole life and jazz and tap and hip hop. And she was a ballerina as she was telling this story. So she's walking out on the, um, Qudos Bank, um, stage to 15, 16, 000 people. So she's telling a story about song, language, skin groups and which one she belonged to and how that's helped shape her identity. And then she was sharing just about, you know, Aboriginal people do have the magic about how we live it. We live at one with this landscape and each other.

[00:46:36] Geoff: And then she transferred from this ballerina into a brolga, and they painted her on as you go. And then the Bangarra dance troupe, um, and dance students from all across the country, they just went from this ballerina dance to this brolga dance and there's, I don't know, there's probably a hundred people involved in it and it was just, we were sitting up the top and all I felt was, there it is right there, unity, oneness and harmony in the dance and the story and the song.

[00:47:07] Geoff: And the place was eerie, eerie quiet, because you could have heard a pin drop. And she just, she just had them eating out of, out of her hand. And it was just such a powerful piece, you know, that she'd crafted. She obviously shared some ideas with us and she'd crafted with, uh, Sonia, the lady at, who looks after school spec. And Sonia said ‘that was one of the most powerful things we've ever done’ - I think that's what Sonia said. Yeah, but it was, uh, yeah, it was a call out to the nation about, come on, we've got to do better. Let's, it’s right under our noses and we can do it. What's stopping us?

Geoff’s wife Bridget is his inspiration. She, like Geoff, is also heavily involved in the Wagga Wagga community and is also focused on changing the system.

[00:48:03] Geoff: She teaches well-being at, uh, at Turvey Park. And, um, she brings a cultural lens to her teaching philosophy. She's about teaching kids about nature and about values. And, uh, she has remarkable relationships with students and parents, which I think is missing in the education system.

[00:48:25] Geoff: So, you know, people are so worried about the curriculum and the content - even if you look at the word content, conning and intent, your intent is to con. That's how I see it, right? So people who teach content, um, are usually people who don't have the relationships with the students or the parents. If you want to open up opportunities for students, you've got to have the relationship and you've got to know, you've got to bring them to life in the, in the education system. And, um, she does that, you know. And people talk fondly of her.

[00:49:07] Geoff: I remember she used to work in Juvenile Justice. She taught in Juvenile Justice and we turned up to Dubbo one day and her and I are standing at the car and this young, younger, buff-looking lad come up to her, little solid fella, really well built and, um, and he goes, ‘You don't remember me, do you?’ And she goes, ‘Yeah, I do, but I don't really know your name’. And he said, his name's such and such. This was 20 years later, you know, and she's going, ‘he's brave coming to talk to me with my husband standing there.’

[00:49:42] Geoff: Like I knew what was happening straight away and he goes, ‘I'm such and such you taught me at juvie’ and, and he said ‘You really made an impact on my life by just valuing who I am’. And, and I went, ‘Yeah well that's what she does, you know’. And I've had students and parents forever come and come and say that to to to her and to me. But she builds a relationship with the parents and she, she tries to bring the kids to life, you know, and make it fun.

[00:50:16] Geoff: School's lost its fun. You know, not only does she talk about it, but the teachers we know, um, they said, ‘Oh, we used to have fun.’ And I go, ‘Why'd you stop for?’ Well, because it's all this process and tick a box and tokenism, that, um, covering your bum, you know, that's all they have to do in the job these days. So, um, yeah, she's an incredible educator and an incredible human being. Yeah.

Geoff believes that if culture was stronger within our community, the problem of a huge number of young kids ending up in the juvenile justice system could improve.

[00:50:56] Geoff: People are in that environment because they don't have hope, nor do they know who they are. They don't have identity or their values. Now, if you get culture, you get all those things. So the opportunity is there to address that easily. And people who share culture with us or who I've learned it off, we know, we've had lots of people on the edge of going into custody. As soon as they know their ceremony and their song and their story and their dance, and their identity, they're not involved in that environment. You know your purpose and your identity and your values, you're not involved in crime. You're living your gift. So, there's hope there for, for people. Um, yeah, culture's the only answer. Anything else is just putting a bandaid on a boil, you know.

[00:51:54] Geoff: You still have ups and downs, don't get me wrong, but, it costs nothing to get culture and costs $370,000 to keep someone in custody. Hey, you know, give us $350,000 and we’ll make $20,000 per person savings for you. Cheap!

These days Geoff feels very much at home in Wagga Wagga.

[00:52:18] Geoff: We are a part of this community. We came here not part of it, now were a part of it. I think that's been the big change. We've got friends and family all over the place. And, um, we've got our gym group, our environmental group, our  music group, our, chicken group.

[00:52:41] Geoff: And I think we've made a contribution to all of those different things and all of those, uh, different opportunities that are present in Wagga. And, um, yeah, it's, we love the joint and we love the people in it. We love the landscape, even though it's winter time, but you know, we can get out to places and light the fire and yeah. It's, it is a great, great city for opportunity. It's a great city for connection, but you have to contribute to it.

Geoff says while he tries to not think about the future, he does hope it will turn out well.

[00:53:24] Geoff: I don't watch TV and I don't read the news. Because, it's a deficit model that sells headlines. So I don't, I try not to think about it, you know, that's, which is scary. That's very scary.

[00:53:39] Geoff: I want my kids to be connected. I hope they do what they love and I hope they, um, are stress free and just happy doing it. That's all.

[00:53:51] So all I want to do is play music and be in the bush and I'll be happy. But all I want to do is do the things that bring me joy. So, but I've got these foundational values and practices to come back to it and sitting in the bush and going to Mungo and spending time with no-one else is a part of that.

Download the transcript for Episode 7

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 7 | Hit With the Trifecta

Aunty Maria Williams: Why are my people still beggars in our own country? We have never ceded sovereignty of our country. And why are we beggars? And I've made the decision I'm not going to be a beggar any more. I have seen by working for government the destruction that they have caused.

Hi, I’m Luke Wighton. I’m a Wiradjuri man from Condobolin now living in Wagga Wagga. I’m the host of this podcast series RESETTLEMENT - Wiradjuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha which means Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors. It’s all about Wagga Wagga’s First Nations community.

Before white settlement, we had been living peacefully and sustainably in this beautiful part of Country on the Marrambidya Bila - or Murrumbidgee River - for tens of thousands of years.

From the 1830’s, colonisation of the Wagga Wagga area began, destroying our Mob through land theft, disease, murder and oppression. Our language and culture were denied, even made illegal. Our children were stolen from their families to be trained as slaves for the colonisers. We were banished to the fringes of society.

But in the early 1970’s that changed. The children’s homes were closed, the missions were shut down and the size of our population in Wagga Wagga began to grow again - under what was known as the Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme. The federal government scheme ran from 1974 until 1986. The aim was to move our mob from the missions and fringes of smaller remote towns to larger regional areas like Wagga Wagga, with the promise of better services and more opportunities.

This podcast series was a goal of the Wagga Wagga City Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan. It has been developed by the Museum of the Riverina in collaboration with our First Nations community.

So, let’s get to know some of the proud First Nations mob from Wagga Wagga.

Aunty Maria Williams is a Wiradjuri cultural authority. She is the daughter of the late Wiradjuri Elder, Wongamarr - also known as Pastor Cecil Grant - and is the niece of Uncle Stan Grant senior and the late Aunty Flo Grant.

Aunty and her first husband Uncle Ivan ran the first Aboriginal church in Wagga Wagga. They trained under the Australian Indigenous Ministries - a Christian organisation that provides ministries to our mob.

She later worked in health and for the police - as an Aboriginal Liaison officer at Wagga Wagga and Griffith. She also joined others in the fight for Aboriginal run services.

Aunt Maria Williams is a member of the Wiradjuri Council of Elders and is a fierce fighter for self-determination.

She wasn't unhappy with the defeat of the Voice Referendum - because she wants Wiradjuri Elders to be the ones having a say on what goes on and what needs to be done in and on Wiradjuri Country.

[00:03:29] Luke W: It's great that you could take time out of your busy day to come in and record this awesome information.

Aunty's mob are Murrumbidgee River and Lachlan River people.

[00:03:40] Maria: I'm from the Marrambidya Galari clan groups. Marrambidya is my matriarchal line and Galari is my patriarchal.

[00:03:50] Maria: 1984 we arrived in Wagga. We moved here from Cootamundra where, both my then husband Ivan and I did Bible training at the old Cootamundra Girls Home. We came here because we were asked to come here and establish an Aboriginal church in Wagga.

[00:04:15] Maria: My father who's Pastor Cecil Grant, Wiradjuri name Wongamarr/Wungamaa, him and a couple of other Aboriginal pastors - and all of them were brought up under the AIM mission - believed strongly in having our own churches. So that took quite a time.

[00:04:39] Maria: Their vision, as you can imagine, weren't initially welcomed by the missionaries. So it was a struggle like all of... everything that that happens for change for First Nations people. Your challenges come with it. But eventually they did, they were successful. And on the east side, they established the double AAEF, the Australian Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship.

[00:05:10] Maria: And then they heard that around the same time without them knowing, Western Australian pastors were thinking the same thing. So they all came together. And then they became the AEF, which is the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship. So from that, and Wagga becoming a resettlement city - and with a significant population of First Nations peoples - then they thought that we needed to have an Aboriginal church here in Wagga. So that's how we came to be.

I remember going to the church Aunt is talking about as a kid.

But in the beginning, there wasn’t an actual church building.

[00:05:58] Maria: Families opened up their homes and so we'd go in and have Sunday school and church in people's homes. Then we were gifted to rent a church. Anglican or Uniting because financially we were supported by the Uniting Church. Oh, it was wonderful. Even though it was lovely in the homes. But for the people to realise that they've just got their own place that they can call - we've got our church.

[00:06:37] Maria: Families - and this just wasn't Wiradjuri families - it was mainly Kamilaroi that resettled here in the early days and we've always been friends with each other and got on well. Everybody enjoyed just having their own pastor to marry them. My then husband married quite a few people here in Wagga, christened their babies and sadly also conducted their funeral services. Even though people may not necessarily have been religious people but they did really appreciate having their own to do those things for them.

[00:07:21] Luke W: Aunt, I remember growing up, going to Sunday school and I loved it. And I think that's what's missing for these younger generations today. We're not, like you said, not necessarily full on Christian or religious people, but I really did enjoy those services.

Sadly, there is no Aboriginal church in Wagga Wagga today.

It stopped operating a long time ago... and I for one feel our mob is really missing out on something special.

My brother Paul - otherwise known as Stump - has had some training from Aunty Maria’s dad, the late Wiradjuri elder Pastor Cecil Grant.

[00:07:53] Luke W: I know over in Albury, I think, my brother who was lucky enough to be mentored by Wongamarr/Wungamaa, which is a really special thing - so he's kind of carrying that on a bit over there, but we don't necessarily see it so much here in Wagga. I actually miss it. If there was something here, I would go to Sunday school here and take my children along as well.

[00:08:14]Maria: A lot of their families particularly sent their children to Sunday school. And yeah, overall, I guess we had good representation at the church from families in, in Wagga.

[00:08:30] Maria: But as Luke said, all of our old people, and I'm of that era, born at a wonderful time, all the kids went to Sunday school. It was a must. The old people, ‘you are going to Sunday school’. No choice, no. ‘You must go to Sunday school.’ And then our old people would go to church. And sadly that has been lost for one reason or another.

[00:09:01] Maria: And you can see the difference in people that have had that spiritual connection in their life to those that that haven't. So it's been a very important part of my life, growing up. Going to Sunday school, going to church, being brought up in a Christian family, as has Luke. So that's brought a lot to our lives.

Aunty was born in Griffith and like a lot of our mob back then, they moved around a lot.

One of the homes they lived in was a tin humpy. It had no running water or electricity.

[00:09:46] Maria: My family migrated from Condobolin in 1946 I think it was, after the war. A lot of families, not just my family, but kin families as well, all migrated from Condobolin to Griffith, seeking work. So it took them about a month, or a bit over a month in horse and sulkies, travelling. And when they first... Griffith didn't exist. There was the village of Hanwood. And the Condo people migrated and lived on the channel banks in tin humpies and dirt floors at Hanwood.

[00:10:33] Maria: And then my family... my great grandparents - they moved into what was known then as Bagtown, before it became Griffith. And they moved to what was known as Frogs Hollow and from there then moved to what is now known as the Three Ways Mission.

[00:10:57] Maria: And then my family went to Bilbul, Binya and then ended up in Yenda. My dad then became employed with the railways. So they moved. I went from a tin humpy, dirt floor to a tent in Leeton beside the railway line. And I think I was about eight or nine before I lived in what you call a real house with running water and electricity. Good old days. They.. They were just lovely.

Despite being forced by white authorities to live on the fringes of town, Aunty Maria remembers her community as strong and respectful, all supporting each other.

[00:11:47] Maria: Because we were all together. Even though we had, once we moved to Leeton, we'd go back every weekend and visit. My great grandfather had passed away at that time. But we'd go back, visit my great grandmother, all my cousins, aunties, uncles. And, so you never lost it. We were just one big happy mob and we all shared with each other.

[00:12:16] Maria: Nobody ever went without. Whatever was around, that, that was shared. I really enjoyed growing up with that happening. And our old people were never angry. They really practised Yindyamarra. Which means a lot of things, but overall to respect each other, to give honour to each other. Because the honour of one is the honour of all.

[00:12:50] Maria: And this is in a time when you were segregated - living on the fringes of town. Still weren't allowed into the local swimming pool, into a lot of shops. There were some that you could go into, others that you couldn't go into.

Aunty is lucky enough to remember both her great grandmother and her great grandfather and their Saturday outings. That’s where they’d all get dressed up and gather in the main street of Griffith, before going to the movies.

[00:13:22] Maria: Everyone used to walk up from the mission on a Saturday morning and they'd all be done up - all dressed up. The ladies would have their hats on, the men would have their hats on. And we'd all sit in our family groups in the park in the middle of Banna Avenue. And if you could afford fish, you were lucky enough to have fish, or if you couldn't it was just chips in newspaper - wrapped up in newspaper - and a loaf of bread. And that would just be shared around.

[00:13:51] Maria: But it was good yarning. Everybody would just sit there, yarn, laugh, talk about everything that's happened through, through the week. And then my great grandmother would take all of us kids to the matinee on a Saturday afternoon. And she had a lot of grandkids, there was great grandkids, there was a big mob of us.

[00:14:10] Maria: Another cousin and I were the fairest out of all the kids and you could only sit in the  front rows of the picture theatre. So, my cousin and I are all in line, see, behind Nanny, and, the fella said, the ticket person said, ‘You two, you can go through’. And my cousin and I ooh. So we've taken off to go through, and our grandmother got us by the hair of the head, and dragged us back, and said, they're black. … but they were just, they were happy days.

[00:14:48] Maria: I was fortunate to grow up to see my people with work ethics. Our men - they would go to work. Even though it was just fruit picking or rabbit trapping, they all worked and then would share their resources. And come Friday night, men’d get paid and they'd give their wife and that money for food and what have you.

[00:15:15] Maria: And then they'd go bush and drink. The men would just go off and they'd drink and they'd come back in on a Sunday afternoon and go back off to work. And I think that's changed for us too where it was just different back in those days.

Aunty is really grateful for the strong family she was raised in, but says that these days it’s different for many of our mob.

[00:15:47] Maria: The majority of our young people don't want to know. And I'm guilty of it when I was growing up. And I'd say, ‘oh look, them days are gone’. And it wasn't for me until I got into my late 30s, early 40s that I started to really think back on my childhood and my growing up and realising how privileged - really I'm a privileged Wiradjuri woman in my growing up and wanting to learn more and understand more.

[00:16:20] Maria: Even though I'd seen it, heard it. But I wasn't interested. Them days, they’re just gone. And I think that's for the majority of people. It's around that age that we start to question who we really are and who we really want to be. And what do we want to live for ourselves? And what we want to teach to our children, to our grandchildren, great grandchildren, which I'm in that era now.  It’s continuing on with my great grandchildren now.

[00:16:54] Maria: But not everybody has been privileged to grow up with strong heritage and strong people around you. And that's not to say that we as a family didn't suffer and are part of the Stolen Generation. We had members of our family removed. But there was just that sense of, I don't know, resilience, I guess, to continue moving forward.

[00:17:27] Maria: And there's a couple of cousins of mine, and we're all really close and we often have this conversation. Is… Why do we have resilience and some, we've all grown up the same and some don't. And the conversation, Is resilience something that you learn? Is resilience something that's inherent in you? Who knows? But not everyone has resilience for one reason or another.

[00:18:10] Maria: It's not just entirely as a result of resettlement, but it goes back to colonisation where so much of our culture has been lost. Because language - culture is contained within language. That's why Wongamarr/Wungamaa started the Wiradjuri language course. It began with him and he handed it then over to his younger brother.

[00:18:42] Maria: Then, moving us from traditional lands, our own clan lands onto missions. So there's been a whole breakdown of our culture, sadly. But for clans who have been able to stay together, I can only share the story that was passed to me from my grandparents, great grandmother, and my father and his  siblings - that even at Condobolin before they migrated, they were family.

[00:19:19] Maria: Clans are made up of family and kin. So these practices could happen because they all belonged to each other and the behaviour of one is the behaviour of all. So traditionally, those who were not behaving as they are to behave as Wiradjuri people, it had to be dealt with.

[00:19:50] Maria: When I applied for a job with the police force here in, in Wagga and I rang my dad up, and I said, Dad, ‘I've applied for a job with police. What do you think about it?’ And he said, ‘You know that you're going to have to deal with your own mob.’ And I said, yes. But he said, ‘I think you're a strong enough woman to be able to do that.’ So he said, ‘What else are you worried about?’ And I said, ‘Oh, look, you just know what the justice system's like and probably, my own people are going to turn against me. So I'm just a bit concerned about that.

[00:20:28] Maria: Is it a job that I should take on? But I really think that I can bring something to, to that position.’ And he said, ‘Well my girl’, he said, ‘If you are with police and one of your  family members or kin or just any Aboriginal person is arrested, don't feel guilty about it’. And I said, ‘But I would’. He said, ‘No, because under our law, if you broke the law, you know law, you understand law, you're responsible for keeping law’.

[00:21:11] Maria: And in traditional times, your great grandfather who was a Wiradjuri initiated lawman, if somebody broke law, even if it was his own brother, it could result in death. Depends on the severity of the law that's been broken. I won the job and quite enjoyed my years with police.

[00:21:36] Maria: But I think to go back to Luke's question, and even in the migration from Condobolin to Griffith, we were still, because we were Condo mob originally, so we were all together, so that stuff could work. But today, we're just so broken. So you know, there's this lack of sense of belonging. Luke and I know where we belong. We know where we come from.

Luke W: They have no identity.

[00:22:07] Maria: Exactly. But not everybody has that, unfortunately. And that is sad. And that's where we see, particularly in resettlement areas where you've got people coming from all different cultural nations and we have different languages, we have different belief systems. We're just not one people. And our young people are, ‘Who am I? What am I?’ And we've still got a lot of work to do around that.

As Aunty explained earlier, her forebears were displaced by white settlers after World War two and forced to move from their Country at Condobolin to Griffith.

Then in the 1970’s, there was more displacement of our mob. The authorities, supposedly aiming to improve our lives, tried to move people into selected towns like Wagga Wagga... with the promise of better living conditions.

But yet again, this was more control of our mob under the colonisation of our country.

[00:23:16]Maria: We've had separation. We've had isolation. We've had assimilation. And that's what resettlement was about. It's about assimilating us. So that we would become Australians - one people.

[00:23:36] Maria: And so within assimilation, there's no recognition of who we are and what we are. It's just, you move to Wagga, you'll have better housing, better education opportunities, better employment opportunities. Those things sound good, really good, and anybody wants those for their families. But in that movement, people leave behind their social structure and just come here as you know, a nuclear family. So when it comes to yes, I've been able to get a better house here. My kids are going to school and now I'm working. But what about my children after school, before school? Holidays? I don't have any family here. Whereas before I never knew what it was to pay for daycare or preschool or anything.

[00:24:49] Maria: And I had nine kids - four of my own and five that we reared on top of that. And then there was always floor space for anybody that wanted a bed. Luke knows. That was our home. So there was no thought to that, that. And our social structure is critical because that's where grandmothers…

[00:25:13] Maria: Because aunties are not aunties, they're mothers. Right? And you're surrounded with that when you're in your own social network. I was fortunate. I had a wonderful mother-in-law, wonderful mother, sister that wasn't working. So, financially, I was the financial provider, just not for my nuclear family, but for my extended family. But they done everything else. I never had to go shopping with my children.

[00:25:48] Luke W: And that's right, like your aunties had just as much a right to chastise you as your very own mother. I remember copping a couple of clip up the ears from my aunties. So if all your aunties and uncles around that are watching over you, protecting you, guiding you, it didn't leave much room for you to get up to mischief.

[00:26:09] Maria: And we couldn't go home and say, auntie or mum, however you'd refer to it, is, just went crook on me and even smacked me. Because you’d cop it again. If you got smacked and you got into trouble, you deserved it. End of story.

Aunt dedicated much of her adult life to fighting for a fair go for our mob... and for an end to discrimination.

[00:26:53] Maria: I didn't personally suffer from racism as an individual, right? It was that racism, in the early days, of not being able to go to the public swimming pool. That sort of racism, yes, I experienced. But then, in my work, I've had to deal with racism on behalf of my people, for my people.

[00:27:21] Maria: And my work involved bringing to the attention of departments issues that were with police, issues that were in the health system. And as a result of me bringing those things to the attention of departments, we got Aboriginal liaison officers in the police force. We got Aboriginal health workers in health. And then I was the coordinator of the Aboriginal Health Program. That's prior to police. So that kind of racism, I've always fought on behalf of my people to make changes, to improve things for my people.

From the early days of the Aboriginal Church in Wagga Wagga, Aunty Maria was pushing the police for better treatment of First Nations people.

She helped change the way police dealt with juvenile crime and saw the introduction of what’s known as Youth Justice Conferencing.

[00:28:27] Maria: With policing, you would see, witness, so many of our people being arrested and hit with what we call the trifecta. Okay? Resist police, assault police, that, that was just common. So it was seeing that continually. And then Ivan and I used to, along with others in the community - this is before I was working with police - we used to do a lot of work for police. So if our mob got arrested, then we would be there as a support person for them.

[00:29:12] Maria: We would witness that they would be interviewing people intoxicated. And that's a big no. So it was those sorts of things that, that we were seeing with police and thought this has to change. And then just the repeat, it's like a revolving door of particularly our younger people back then going through this revolving door of juvenile justice.

[00:29:47] Maria: But nothing was happening within juvenile justice to even then culturally connect them. And while ever our people are not culturally connected, they're going to keep going through this door. So, my husband and I then had a meeting with Superintendent Frank Fuller and Commander Wales at the time and said, ‘This has got to stop. We've got to come up with something better.’

[00:30:22] Maria: And taking it from a cultural perspective/respective, it's about if you cause injury to yourself or injury to another person, you've got to take responsibility for that. So we had this young person that we'd been working with for a long time - we'd seen the potential that he had. So they said, ‘Well how are we going to do this?’ And I said, okay, ‘He needs to come before us, with his mother and he needs to come before us. And he needs to come before the victim.’ Thus we have the Young Offenders Act from that.

[00:31:13] Maria: Initially, it worked really well. Really well. Now, I think it's just so common - it needs revival or it needs to be looked at again and some changes made to it. It is just lip service. And you do see that break down from the early days to how it is now. And then it's having the, it's having the right people in that conference.

[00:31:45] Maria: This is when I joined the New South Wales Police Force as an Aboriginal Liaison Officer and if I was participating in the conference and I'd have our young boys that would walk in with a cap on. And I'd sit there. And I'd say, ‘Excuse me. Do you know you were offending me?’ ‘No I'm not. Yes you are. Take your hat off please.’

[00:32:20] Maria: Then you'd have the opportunity to teach them about culture. You're sitting, you’re coming before an Elder and you're sitting in front of me with a hat on. I need to see your face. I'm not here to go crook on you. I'm here to support you and try and link you culturally. But it just depends who is convening the conference, who your Elder is, or your community person in the conference that can really steer our young people or attempt to steer our young people in the right direction.

[00:33:05] Maria: Unfortunately, because we go back to colonization again and the breakdown, and we've talked about the breakdowns, sadly for Aboriginal young boys and for Aboriginal men, jail, juvie is their initiation.

[00:33:56] Maria: I am a real black man or a real young boy because I've been in jail or in juvie. So they see it as their rite of passage and that breaks my heart. Because, 12, 13, they would have been going off to men's business. They would have started going through the burbang - through their initiation pathways. We don't have that anymore. So jail is the way now that I'm really black. I'm better than you because I've been to jail. And that just breaks my heart.

[00:34:48] Maria: And the same is for women because incarceration of First Nations women now is on the increase, really high. So when the young boys were going off, then the women would be taking the girls through their business as well - women's business  - and preparing them for motherhood and for their next role and responsibility. We don't have that anymore.

[00:35:18] Luke W: You know I think a lot of the pain - we suffered a lot from colonization. But it's the government policies that have been put in place that have had a real massive impact on our people.

[00:35:27] Luke W: Like I'll use the Northern Territory Intervention, for example, Absolutely shocking. It was based on, I think, was it paedophilia or something like that? So when you actually look at the report and then you look at the legislation for them to go in there, cause it was about protecting the children. Well in that Act, there's not child safety, not mentioned once. When you do like your search, your word search. But you search the word land and it comes up over 900 times. There's not one word of child. There's not one word of safety. It's the government policies as well that continues to have a massive impact on our people.

[00:36:08] Maria: We've mentioned the complete total breakdown of culture. To turn this around then, it's not putting money into building more juvenile centres, more jails. Put that money into culture. So that we can rebuild. We have to rebuild.

[00:36:49] Luke W: Absolutely Aunt. Instead of building more jails, why aren't we building first class rehabilitation centres? Because that's what we need, healing, that rehabilitation, not to be locked away. I've just caught wind of they’ve, they've just brought out a new law, if you get caught stealing a car, that's instant two, two years jail. So how many more of our people are going to be, our jails are already full with, you know, our mob.

Aunt says she’s troubled by the stories of our youth filming themselves stealing cars and speeding around - just for the thrill of the chase.

[00:37:22] Maria: For a lot of young people today, I think that's what it is. I can get away with it, I'm so institutionalised that it's a holiday in there for me.

[00:37:33] Luke W: It is. When I had a couple of visits to the juvie as well, you know I was speaking with a couple of the young boys in there. And it's like, they'd rather be in there because there's nothing for them on the outside. In there, they're getting housed, they're getting fed and they're forming this like brotherhood. That's what we need for them on the outside - to feel that same kind of brotherhood, but without the criminal activity.

[00:38:13] Maria: That's, exactly right, Luke. Now, I speak at a lot of workshops, a lot of meetings, whatever, I'm asked to speak. And people are horrified when I say we don't have an alcohol problem and we don't have a drug problem. Now. No we don't. Alcohol and drugs are only symptoms of the real problem. The real problem that we have is cultural disconnection and that's what we've got to fix. We have got to rebuild our communities, our families, and get them connected back to who they are.

[00:39:07] Maria: I'm not Aboriginal. I'm not a First Nations person. I'm a Wiradjuri person. I am a member of the Galari clan and I'm a member of the Marrambidya clan. That's who I am. I know Luke has said it, but do we really need rehabs that cost millions of dollars? For me the answer is to build our family. Start with your family. Teach Wiradjuri way. Teach Wiradjuri law, L A W. Teach the practices of that. This is how you are to behave as a Wiradjuri person. Connect them to that. We've lost it. But there's those of us that hold that knowledge. We can get there, but it's going to be a long, slow process to get there.

Aunty and her former husband, Uncle Ivan, had a role to play in reclaiming Wiradjuri language.

They were looking for stories of our mob in a magazine called Dawn when they found a dictionary.

That led them to Uncle Dr Stan Grant Senior and Dr John Eliot Rudder, which resulted in the Wiradjuri Dictionary and app.

[00:40:47] Maria: Ivan and I went to the Aboriginal Institute of Studies in Canberra. And we were - we went there to look through old Dawn magazines for photographs and, because there was a lot of stories in the old AIM and the old DAWN that were put together by missionaries. So we wanted to go through them and compile stories and what have you.

[00:41:12] Maria: While we were doing that we just came across the dictionary. Mmmm. We were given permission to bring that home. So I rang Dad and he came over. And when he seen it he just started crying. Because he, in our family, grandfather -  this is my great grandfather, Wongamarr/Wungamaa's grandfather, was arrested for speaking language in town. And he's an initiated man, the law man.

[00:41:51] Maria: So he would go bush when the war started. My grandfather - he went to war along with a lot of other men from Condo. And my grandmother had illness that took her to Sydney for long periods of time. So Wongamarr/Wungamaa was brought up by his grandparents until after the war. So, grandfather used to take him out bush with him and he talked language to him.

[00:42:21] Maria: So, Wongamarr grew up hearing language, knowing language, but knew that he couldn't speak language to protect.. ‘Cause grandfather and his brother and another old man, but I can't recall his name from Murrin Bridge, they were the last three initiated Wiradjuri men and they said no more language, no more our ways. And they had to make - that seems a hard call - but they're protecting a whole nation. So that was their decision.

[00:42:54] Maria: So, Dad and Ivan and I had lengthy discussions. What are we going to do with this? And I thought, No, we need to reclaim our language, because Wongamarr was a firm believer in that culture is contained within language.

[00:43:16] Maria: And Luke and I are evidence of that, that the more you learn language, the more culture comes out in our language. So, Wongamarr started teaching it in his church and would translate language, Wiradjuri language, into hymns and choruses and all that sort of stuff.

[00:43:42] Maria: And then Wongamarr was a very busy man. So he said to his brother, ‘Stan, I want you to take over the language and work on the language.’ And Uncle Stan's never, ever been a political man. There was two things you would never talk to him about and that was politics and religion. Uncle Stan's a very hard worker in the background. ‘I can't do that Cecil, no.’

[00:44:10] Maria: So then it came, ‘You are doing it Stan’. So Uncle Stan started working on it then and then he met Dr. John Rutter and thus we have the dictionary and thus we have the language course. So it's beautiful. And just so much comes out of the language.

[00:44:35] Luke W: It's the language of this land that we're living upon. That's where it comes from. And when you look at the word Yindyamarra and all the different meanings behind that, it is so powerful in that one word. To have respect, to show honour, respect yourself, respect one another, you respect the land to show honour. Being gentle.

[00:44:58] Maria: Being gentle. Going slowly about your business. Being slow to react.  And that took me a long time to learn that. And being a mother and rearing my children. As a parent you just, No. Think about it. So I got to this stage then as a parent - be slow to react.

[00:45:22] Maria: Now, how am I going to do this as a mother? So, I had - was the coordinator of Aboriginal health, I travelled all the time, and basically would be home Friday night to Monday morning. I'd ring them up. Their father would tell me, ‘So and so’s done this, so and so’s done that’. Okay. I’d ring them up and I’d get on the phone when I’d ring every night - ‘I've scheduled you in for a cup of coffee or a milkshake.’

[00:46:00] Maria: So I would. And that's when I'd work them through their behaviour, talk to them about their behaviour against Yindyamarra. ‘Do you realise, do you understand whose name you carry? Do you know, do you understand who you're connected to? Is that bringing honour to your father and I? Is that bringing honour to your grandparents? Is that bringing honour to your great grandparents? You come from a line of great people. Honourable people. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.’

[00:46:45] Maria: Anyway, I just said my eldest daughter's just turned 51. She was mid forties. She came home to visit one weekend and she said, ‘Mum, you know what? The pennies just dropped for me.’ I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘I always wondered why you wanted us in a public place, to meet you in a public place.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said ‘Because we couldn't react. We had to just sit. I said you got it love. You got it.’

[00:47:17] Maria: So much. One word. Be patient. Be patient with each other. Be gentle with each other. Move about your business quietly. Going back to my growing up, I never heard my old people speak in anger, I never. And they'd be sitting around and they'd be talking about a lot of things and yes, people had different opinions even back then.

[00:47:49] Maria: But they never spoke - but no, they'd sit there for hours and speak. But when they opened their mouth, they were dynamic. Because they're listening to you. They're thinking about what you're saying and then they give an answer. And when we're having conversation now, we're not really listening, we're cutting each other off, we're butting in.

[00:48:15] Maria: And, the three L's that Wongamarr brought us up with - look, listen and learn. Have a gentle, quiet spirit. Don't be quick to give an answer. Go about things slowly. Because they're the practices of Yindyamarra. The principles of Yindyamarra are respect and honour. But how do I practise that? All those things is how I practise it. And then you've got our key words too.  Winhangagigilanha - care for each other, care for Country. Ngungilanha - share with each other. And these - that's how I grew up.

[00:49:07] Maria: It's the depth in Wongamarr. I'm extremely proud of him, love him. He was a visionary. He established the Wiradjuri Council of Elders. He commenced the Wiradjuri language. He got recognition of his Country. He was the first to get that. And now that's all around Australia – Recognition of Country. And it's wonderful to go through, drive through Country, and just see all the signs up ‘Welcome to’, you know. And then nation building. We are nation building. That was his dream. So he was a real visionary. And I feel very honoured to work with Elders across Wiradjuri country to be able to continue his work, his vision and particularly nation building is where we're at now.

These days Aunty Maria lives in Darlington Point, an hour west of Wagga Wagga on the Marrambidya Bila.

She says knowing her language helps her to live the Wiradjuri way.

[00:50:25] Maria: And, you say in English, you've got to care for Country. What does that mean? What does that mean for me to care for Country? Every day, I am privileged that I'm a three minute walk from my house into the bush. And I walk Country every day. And as soon as I hit the bush, I'm saying, Mandaang Guwu Baiame, acknowledging the creator. Thank you. Mandaang Guwu Baiame.

[00:51:04] Maria: What am I thanking him for? Ngurambang. Country, my Country. I'm thanking him for Marrambidya Bila - water, river. I'm thanking him for Garru. I'm thanking him for Waagan. And then I just go on naming everything in language that I'm seeing as I'm walking Country. And you feel the spirit of our ancestors. They’re there.

[00:51:43] Maria: Darlington Point is a place of massacre. And you can feel your old people, if you're connected, if you're in tune. And the thing that you - not the thing, that's wrong - the person that you need to be connected to is from the beginning, Baiame.

[00:52:12] Maria: Because it's a spiral effect. We began, I have been here before the world. I have been inside Baiame. He knew me. He knew the family I was going to be born to. He knew the Country I was going to be born on. He knew my journey and all the people that I would meet along my journey. I know I'm never going to die. I'm going to live on. Because I will return to Baiame. Because I'm not perfect, but every day I get out of bed with determination to live proper Wiradjuri way.

[00:53:12] Luke W: And I think also, that's the a big problem today. A lot of our mob are disconnected from him. And they think, oh, we don't have a God or a creator. It's like, yeah, we do. Yeah.

[00:53:24] Maria: They told us we were heathens. They come to Christianize us. Lovely that the missionaries came and we got the Bible. But we had our own spirituality well before missionaries came. And all of that comes out of language. It's that connection. Firstly, being connected to Baiame, because everything in our culture is connected.

For Aunty, the No vote in the Voice Referendum was exactly what she wanted.

She says the Wiradjuri Council of Elders already exists as a local Voice and it has work to do.

And Aunty Maria says now they also want to set up their own Wiradjuri government.

[00:54:17] Maria: It's been different for First Nations people, but for me, and I've mentioned it briefly in our talks today, I'm Wiradjuri, and I'm proud Wiradjuri. And I don't believe that anybody else has the right to speak for me. I can speak for me. And Wiradjuri people can speak for themselves. We don't need a handful of hand picked First Nations people. They don't know me. They don't know my people. They don't know my Country and yet they will make decisions to Parliament for us.

[00:55:12] Maria: Which brings me back now, Wongamarr was a visionary. He lived in Albury, we lived here in Wagga. And he'd always come over at least once a week and we'd have conversations. And I just said to him this day, ‘Dad, what do you think would happen to all the assets that have been obtained under the Land Rights Act?’ I said, ‘Because at any time, government can put a pen through that, but yet there's huge amounts of assets’. He went, ‘Oh, daughter, that's a good point you're raising’. So we kept talking as we used to. He said, ‘I know what, daughter. We need to set up our own Wiradjuri Council of Elders’. I said, ‘Yes, I agree’. I said, ‘Because then, those assets, come back’.

[00:56:21] Maria: So we did. We called a meeting here in Wagga and about 500 Wiradjuri people from right across Wiradjuri country attended that meeting in the old regional land council building in Gurwood Street. And then history was made. Officially, the Wiradjuri Council of Elders was formed. And the Elders nominated to be on council with representation right across our country. I would have been about 45 back then.

[00:57:00] Maria: They had their first meeting and then they nominated myself, Jenny Coe and Isabel Coe to be Elders in Learning.So we came to the table, but we didn't have a say. It was look, listen and learn and do all the running around for us. It was beautiful. And so we were there, look, listening and learning for a number of years until they agreed that we were ready now to be Elders on Council.

[00:57:37] Maria: Then at that level decided that we needed a second layer. So we're about forming our own government. Okay? So I have carried on their work, their wishes, of my Elders and we have just established the Wiradjuri Billa Council of Elders. So that's, we have Elders now from communities from all of our rivers. Alright. And we've just established that. So that's the second tier.

[00:58:20] Maria: And we will speak on behalf of our people, not the Voice. I would have voted yes for the Voice if it was just about recognition. Recognising us in the Constitution would have been a big yes for me. But for the other, no. But that's me personally, my reasons why.

The Wiradjuri Council of Elders wants to negotiate a Treaty and to ensure that truth-telling happens.

But Aunty Maria admits there’s still a lot of work to be done in rebuilding our nation.

[00:59:00] Maria: Most certainly I support truth telling and I do support treaty. And I believe that we are the people, the Council, Wiradjuri Council. And other nations, whatever structure they have in place, need to be talking to their people and we need to be negotiating our own treaties. Not having these hand picked people that the government put up to negotiate those things. No, that's not cultural principles.

[00:59:34] Maria: So as time goes on and we really, as I said, we're just getting established, we will be moving that way. We're also about another big thing of Wongomarr's was to rebuild our nation. Why are my people still beggars in our own country? We have never ceded sovereignty of our country. And why are we beggars? And I've made the decision I'm not gonna be a beggar anymore.

[01:00:05] Maria: I have seen by working for government the destruction that they have caused. We have wonderful, good organisations that do good work, but the majority of their time is acquitting grants. It's not building. And Wongamarr used to say, throw one bone in to a pack of dogs and what happens? We've seen it.

And Aunty Maria is determined to get a share of the wealth that’s been generated by the theft of our country.

[01:00:49] Maria: But it's about us as Wiradjuri people through our Council negotiating that we get finances out of it. So we can build our own. I don't have to go to government. My people don't have to go to government. We can build what we see we need to have in our country and to reconnect our people and get the language more and more out there and culture and coming back to our true selves.

[01:01:27] Maria: That's the vision. That's the hard work. We have got to rebuild our nations. How do we do that? I'm just taking Darlington Point is where I live, okay. Massive solar panels going up on Country. Now, we're going to begin negotiating. We're not greedy people. We believe in sharing. But we are the traditional people. We get money from the solar panels. Massive.

[01:02:09] Maria: Just one property that my husband works on, they've got two built dams that hold more water than the Sydney Harbour. All the water rights that are going to farmers destroying our country. I love fishing and I loved eating fish. I still go fishing, but I don't eat fish any more that comes out of my river. Because they've got sores all over them. It's dry most of the time, unless we get rain. Seeing a lot of insects and things that are no more. Destroying Country. So how do we as Elders look after Country? It's about having a voice to these big companies, Murray Darling Basin Plan.

[01:03:14] Luke W: We went for a drive out on Country and we went and got a couple of didges and we went across the Hay Plains and the amount of cotton that we saw, just between that stretch, just in that area, was incredible. And you could see it for miles. They're raping our rivers.

[01:03:35] Maria: Cotton all around us at Darlington Point. They ruined up north, then they've come down south. And as Luke's saying, there's cotton everywhere. They assure us that they have better methods that they're using now and that none of the chemicals that they're using are going back into the river. I don't accept that.

[01:04:03] Luke W: We've just seen that big -  the fish kill out at Menindee. That's also happened again, but it hasn't been televised. And they're saying it's the chemicals that they're using on the cotton.

[01:04:13] Maria: I just recently did a trip around from Darlington Point. I went to Lake Cargelligo to catch up with family there and then on to Condo. And I never thought I would ever live to see cotton, the amount of cotton being grown out at  Condo. This is unbelievable. It's everywhere on our Country. So we're not going to stop it. You won't stop these things.

[01:04:47] Luke W: What are your happiest memories of Wagga?

[01:04:51] Maria: Hewitt and Dot and Aunty Val, they were very committed and their work was around establishment of Aboriginal Legal Service, establishment of Aboriginal Children's Service and establishment of Early Childhood. They were their key areas. And then, as I said, we came here with the establishment of the church, because we identified the need particularly for young people. So that, which we've talked about, providing support for people in custody and from our work with police back then was, came the establishment of the Young Offenders Act.

[01:05:39] Maria: My work with health, we were able to get hospital liaison officers into the hospitals. Aboriginal liaison officers in with police. Initially, I was employed in 1989 with Community Health to conduct a survey for them and out of that survey came the two things. One was that the health system wasn't culturally friendly and our people didn't feel comfortable when they were in hospital. Thus we got the Aboriginal liaison officers. We got in the hospitals, just visual stuff to make people feel more inviting for them.

[01:06:26] Maria: And then the other thing that came out is that, out of the survey was people felt the need to have their own. Alcohol and drugs were the two issues that concerned people who participated in the survey. So from there, I had a meeting with Dot Whyman and a few others. And, from there, Penny Everaadt and myself went to Sydney and attended a Aboriginal Health Resource Committee back then, and lobbied for a drug and alcohol service here in Wagga. And we were successful.

[01:07:11] Maria: And then on top of that, we were also successful in getting a dental clinic. And those services were to service our communities within the Riverina. That's why our Aboriginal Medical Service now it's called Riverina Aboriginal Medical Service. So we had a person from every - all of those communities - formulated the board.

[01:07:39] Maria: And then Ivan and Ken Murray were heavily involved in the youth side of it as well. They worked with PCYC and would go and pick young people up, take them there. They would play sports. All sorts of activities would take place. Our young people were involved in putting together an alcohol campaign, so it was just, we all just worked together.

[01:08:08] Maria: That's my involvement, the establishment of the Drug and Alcohol Service. Then it went on from there to become what we have now, the Riverina Aboriginal Health Service. I was also, myself and Carol Moffat, we were working with Homecare and our people were saying that they needed their own. So we lobbied and lobbied. But we were successful in the end and we got our own Aboriginal Home Care branch here in in Wagga. That, that was really good.

[01:08:41] Maria: Also involved with the women's refuge and for women fleeing domestic violence. So worked with them and we were successful in getting another number of houses, medium term, for victims of domestic violence. And then, so much happened, I can go on and on.

[01:09:06] Maria: Then Ivan and Ken Murray, they, formed a football team to to play in. I just cried the day my sons played football with their father. And Ken Murray, - who's fondly known as Tunny - his sons to run out and play football with him. It was just, and every Saturday down at Bolton Park, you know, families would come together and, oh, it was just amazing.

[01:09:37] Maria: I have fond memories of Wagga and just loved living here. I think I ended up living here for about 20 years. My youngest son still lives here with his family. And the reason I left Wagga was when my parents passed away. I lost them three months apart from each other, and I just, they were buried at home, I had to go home. But no. Love Wagga and have really good memories of how we all worked together.

[01:10:08] Maria: In the old days it was church and sport. Sport's great to bring families together. Always church and sport that brought us together. And now it's, well, Ivan and Tunny used to then take our side to the knockout. And it's just lovely now to see the sons of the men that were involved in playing footy with Group 9 are now got Dindima  and they're taking their sons to the knockout. Just to see that continuum happening, wonderful.

[01:10:53] Luke W: I know your grandchildren are very talented in sport. Can you tell us a little bit about Zaid and how's he been tracking with his footy?

[01:11:05] Maria: I never forget my son, Paul, or fondly known as Stump. He played for South Sydney and he got a football injury that ruined his career. And so he stayed sort of out and away from football for a long time. But when his son turned five and a lot of his cousins sons turned five, he must have had a long, hard think and say I can get back involved in football. So he became the coach for Brothers.

[01:11:37] Maria: These little fellas, their first games, and there's young Zaid and his cousin, Carl Little's son, Cody, here they were just running along holding hands with each other at the back. And his grandfather and father and uncle were there and they were singing out, ‘Stump, make them stop holding hands and play football’.

[01:12:10] Maria: And then there was another game at where? It was a freezing day, Tumut. We went and watched them play in Tumut. And there was a little fella there and he was late. And so he gets there, and he, and Stump comes over to him and says ‘I'll put you on in a minute’, and he said, ‘I'm here! I'm here. I'm here all because of you. I don't want to play football, it's cold. But I'm here because of you’.

[01:12:41] Maria: Oh, funny times just watching them. Paul has coached them from five and they're under 15’s now. And to just see how that whole team have just come together. They're just fantastic and really talented footballers within that team.

[01:12:59] Luke W: Yeah, he's coached them for 10 years. And the last three years they've made the grand final. Two years of that they went through the whole season undefeated. Like what an incredible record.

[01:13:12] Maria: It's a real achievement for Paul as a coach. The families have just been so loyal, turning up every game with their kids. And there's only four Aboriginal kids in it. And they're just a big, happy football family. It's been incredible.

[01:13:32] Maria: But Zaid has just been outstanding. He's so committed to football. He knows what he wants to be. And he puts in the hard work to get where he wants to be young. Oh, he is. And it's not just - people recognize him. He's now been approached by NRL. So they go on attendance at school. He never misses a day of school.

Luke: A hundred per cent attendance.

[01:14:01] Maria: At school. They see him as a good mentor. He's very caring, gentle, mentors other young kids. So overall, he's just developing- he's going to be a real Wiradjuri in, in terms of sport. And it's just lovely for me as a grandmother, wherever I go, everybody comments on how he conducts himself. It's not just about his football. It's overall the young man that he’s become. And a lot of credit goes to that, to Paul and Luke. Like Luke's his godfather, but culturally is his father. And so they go and do a lot of cultural stuff together.

While there are still many challenges ahead, Aunty Maria and the other members of the Wiradjuri Council of Elders hold out hope for the future.

[01:14:55] Maria: When I go back to my childhood and for those my era and around that, still facing - for me - institutional racism, but for others individual racism. And we now have worked hard and worked together here in Wagga to establish services for our people.

[01:15:24] Maria: And we have language, which it's going to assist us in rebuilding, reconnecting our people back to culture. It's looking very bright and I am so happy that the future just looks wonderful for our young people.

[01:15:48] Maria: And as the Wiradjuri Council of Elders, we don't make decisions for tomorrow. Our decisions are looking for seven generations to come. Wonderful.

And she's hopeful that non First Nation Australians will come along on the journey.

[01:16:09] Maria: How I was brought up, my grandfather, Wongamarr used to say to us, sit with the people. Sit with the people. And they were classical examples. As I said, all my old people on a Saturday morning walk up from the Three Way, sit in the ... They'd be dressed to the nines. Real ladies and gentlemen.

[01:16:42] Maria: And my grandfather used to walk the street while we were all sitting. He would walk the street and there was an old man that we called Charlie Nakanoo. And, he was an Afghan. And nobody would talk to him. Nobody. All fearful of him. And my grandfather would sit in the gutter, in a suit, and talk for hours to Charlie. And Dad was the same.

[01:17:32] Maria: Wherever people were - and he travelled Australia - he travelled around the world. And out in the centre of Australia and they'd be sitting in the red dust with people. And with his own people. It’s just sit with people. Learn from people. Share with each other. Be willing to have those conversations. And listen, look and learn. And we need to do that more - because our culture demands... It demands Luke and I to share. It's a command. It's an order. We're willing to share our knowledge, our history.

[01:18:28] Maria: And another favourite word… Well it was a favourite word of my aunt's, Auntie Flo. Her favourite word in language was Maldanggilanha. Work together. Working together. And to work together, we need to build a relationship. We need to put the effort, all of us putting the effort in to build that relationship with each other. Trust each other and come to the table as equals. And when we can do that, oh, just imagine what we can build together.

[01:19.13] Luke W: Absolutely. We've been truth telling for so long now, and I think to answer your question, it's time for truth listening. Yep. And learning.

[01:19.27] Maria: I just want to thank Aunty Maria for her time. She is an absolute asset to our community. I love her as one of my mothers. We're very close. And I have, yeah, utmost respect and love for Aunt. And we really appreciate your time here today, sharing your stories and knowledge with us. Mandaang Guwu.

[01:19:47] Maria: Mandaang Guwu Luke. And, as I said, I'm extremely proud of  Luke and his work, and Paul, how they work together and with their children. It's just wonderful. So Mandaang Guwu.