Speeches
Saturday, 28 December 2024
City of Holdfast Bay Proclamation Day
I thank Quahli Newchurch for welcoming us to country in ways which give us all cause to think and rethink, and Allan Sumner for conducting the smoking ceremony.
It is my great pleasure to join the City of Holdfast Bay and broader community with Rod to mark the 188th reading of the Proclamation, to reflect on the year that has been, and to look to the future.
Since my first Proclamation Day as Governor in 2021, each year I have focused my annual address on reconciliation. I do so again today.
As I have said previously, against the backdrop of our State’s foundational documents - the Letters Patent, the South Australia Act 1838, and the Proclamation itself – I believe it is the right thing for me to do as Governor.
Significant change takes time, and it is not unusual for setbacks of one kind or another to be encountered.
Formerly as a public service leader, and now as Governor, I have learned the importance of concentrating on what unites rather than divides us, and of staying focused on long-term goals.
This year Rod and I have had the privilege of meeting indigenous people and non-indigenous people who are dedicated to truth telling and sharing First Nations culture and heritage with all South Australians.
An important means of doing this has been through art.
We recently visited Riverton, where Robert Hannaford showed us his
sculpture in the main street of an Aboriginal woman and child, commemorating the continuity of the Ngadjuri people in the area.
In Port Lincoln, I was pleased to open Country Arts SA’s Saltbush Country exhibition in which seven Aboriginal women tell stories of their culture, community and connection to country through their art.
The exhibition has been travelling the state and is currently showing at the Signal Point Experience Centre on Ngarrindjeri country in Goolwa. I highly recommend it for the quality of the art and the window it provides into the world and world view of these women.
While in Port Lincoln, I visited the RSL sub-branch, and saw a commissioned work by Vera Richards, a Barngala artist, of local First Nations diggers who fought in the First and Second World Wars.
It was heartening to see the RSL taking an active role in honouring these indigenous servicemen and women, as is also the case at the ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day commemorations in Adelaide.
Of course, art can draw visitors and generate valuable income as Rod and I saw at the Ceduna Arts and Culture Centre, which sells work by more than 120 artists in the Far West.
We also travelled to the APY Lands and saw artists at work at Ninuku Arts and Tjungu Palya Art Centre, telling the stories of their country through painting, while also supporting themselves financially in one of the most remote regions of South Australia.
This year, in schools across our state, we have seen the power of education to advance truth telling and reconciliation in our community.
It has been great to see primary school aged children engaged in activities such as enthusiastic whole of school acknowledgements of country through song, such as Rod and I saw at the Children’s Week launch at Dernancourt Primary School.
I also attended a reconciliation-themed assembly at St John’s Grammar, an R-12 school, during National Reconciliation Week.
During visits to schools, Rod and I have spoken extensively with students about what civics means to them, and the privileges and responsibilities they have as Australian citizens.
We have been impressed by the insights they continue to express in entries for the Governor’s Civics Awards, some of which will be presented today.
It is also encouraging to see the dedicated teaching staff in indigenous schools, working to make a difference in the lives of teens experiencing challenges, such as those at Warriappendi School, or the challenges of remote living, such as at schools on the APY Lands.
In July, I hosted a public conversation at Government House on Genomics and Precision Medicine with guest speakers, one of whom was Professor Alex Brown, an indigenous genomics expert.
I was pleased to see the engagement of the non-indigenous Australians in the audience with the concepts Professor Brown outlined.
As an Australian diplomat who learned and worked in foreign languages, I realised, as I returned to my home state to be sworn in as Governor, that I had never studied a language used by our country’s first inhabitants.
And so, earlier this year Rod and I became students again, attending an Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara language and culture course at the University of South Australia.
Our tutors were Anangu, people who traced their ancestry back through countless generations in the part of central Australia which we now call the APY lands. Their personal stories, and the generosity of spirit with which they shared them, were extraordinary.
As the field of linguistics has established, language shapes the way we see, think and feel about the world, as well as our perceptions of fundamental life experiences.
I recommend studying an indigenous language to anyone who wants more deeply to understand and appreciate the First Nations cultures of our country.
Throughout 2024 it has also been my privilege to witness non-indigenous people, community organisations, businesses and government engaging with indigenous people as part of the truth telling process, advancing reconciliation in our community.
I have been pleased to see how hard local councils – the City of Holdfast Bay, the City of Mitcham and others - are working to engage with the First Nations people local to their areas, and to centre indigenous culture and history in the built form of their regions.
A strong example of this is the Rural City of Murray Bridge’s multifaceted riverfront development at Sturt Reserve.
The award-winning masterplan includes a Ngarrindjeri Cultural Play Precinct, a new open-air area designed in genuine partnership from the very first day of discussions between Murray Bridge Council and Ngarrindjeri Ruwe Empowered Communities.
It will represent the creation story of the River Murray, while also showcasing plants of importance to the Ngarrindjeri people.
I have also been pleased this year to visit war memorials paying tribute to indigenous servicemen and women, including the Gums Reserve War Memorial Garden in Campbelltown.
Rod and I laid a wreath at the Keeping Place at RAAF Base Edinburgh, a new space where Defence and the broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can come together for ceremony, education, kinship and heritage.
In November I travelled to Maria Creek in Kingston South-East for the launch of the Telling the Whole Story project, undertaken by First Nations people, the National Trust and Kingston District Council.
For the first time, this project presents the tragic 1840s story of the Maria shipwreck passengers, and their encounters with the local indigenous people, through a First Nations lens.
At the level of community organisation, Rod and I also visited Colebrook Reconciliation Park with the Blackwood Reconciliation Group.
We were shown the memorial honouring the stolen generations of children who lived at Colebook Children’s Home, and later took part in a community National Sorry Day event.
Blackwood Reconciliation Group is an excellent example of indigenous and non-indigenous South Australians coming together over many years to advance reconciliation in our community.
Friends,
In 2025 I will continue to do all I can as Governor to make more room for indigenous people to share their perspectives, their stories and their points of view and for these to be listened to with respect, to be understood and to be learned from.
We all have the power to inform ourselves and to engage actively in the reconciliation conversation in our state.
I thank Mayor Wilson and the City of Holdfast Bay for hosting this ceremony and I look forward to our continued work together in 2025.