Them and us and NAIDOC

Later in my film career I was designing the story outline of an informational programme for the Paroo Shire in Queensland which administers the Cunnamulla area. During this time I had frequent phone conversations with a couple of aboriginal elders of the district's tribes. A significant fact to come out of these research chats was the matter of ownership and possession of Country.

The vast difference between the indigenous and later European cultures is that they do not own the land – the land owns them!

This is a critical major difference which needs to be understood clearly, and goes to the heart of their habit of sharing and mutuality, a thing not as commonplace amongst many whites.

As a saving gesture, possibly driven by tokenism, we do have a history of using aboriginal place names for our towns, streets, waterways and districts.. This normalises the blend of discrete cultures, as does the more recent trend to assign Asian and Middle Eastern names to zones with a high number of new residents from those backgrounds.

An important issue to come out of NAIDOC awareness, therefore, is the need for our first people to be able to live, to blend, to function, and to enjoy, the benefits of our modern societal style without relinquishing their own deep heritage.

Your mob, my mob - should both become our mob.