Here is my response to two articles in CCN328 (February 4).
Page 1 had a headline “Possible transfer of Peat Island ownership to Land Council creates controversy”.
The Page 5 article headed “Community gathers on sacred land” reports “Direct descendant of the historical figure Bungaree from Patonga, Paul Craig” … “said Darkinjung Land Council does not represent the descendants of Bungaree”.
“Our people, known as the Guringai, fully acknowledge the Darkinung people who inhabited the western part of the Central Coast.” … “The Guringai and Darkinung came together to protect Kariong Sacred Lands at Bambara.”
I am a non-Indigenous Australian vitally interested in learning all I can about the tortuous process of achieving Constitutional Recognition of Australia’s First Nations people, and certainly since 2017 when I first read the excellent book edited in 2016 by Professors Megan Davis and Marcia Langton, It’s our country. Indigenous arguments for meaningful constitutional recognition and reforms.
I hope that the people active in the Darkinjung Land Council will accept the principles embodied in the final report of the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process dated July 2021 and finally released to the public just before Christmas last year.
Page 41 of this Final Report said, in response to consultations on the Interim Report, “In terms of Inclusive Participation, there was strong support for arrangements to reflect diversity and represent both traditional owners and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people residing in the region”.
On Page 43 the report states that consultation feedback “also highlighted the need to ensure a particular focus on unheard voices and specific groups that were not explicitly referenced in the Interim Report.
“Additional groups that were identified as often unheard or at risk of being marginalised included people who are not members of specific community organisations, members of the Stolen Generations, those without a high profile or formal education, people in contact with the justice system and Torres Strait Islander people residing in the mainland”.
I urge these different groups on the Central Coast to read Pages 50-53 of the Final Report, and then perhaps also seek skilled mediation to ensure that, as Paul Craig was quoted as saying at Kariong on January 26, “To quote the late and great Martin Luther King: ‘We must learn to live together as brothers (sic) or perish together as fools’.”
Email, Feb 4
Dr Romaine Rutnam, Avoca Beach