Education

Fifty years ago , on the morning of August 23, 1966, Vincent Lingiari led a walk-off of 200 Gurindji, Mudburra and Warlpiri workers and their families from a remote Northern Territory cattle station, escaping a century of servitude . The families rejected the pleas of their British multinational employer Vestey’s to return to the Wave Hill station, re-occupied an area of their own land at Wattie Creek, and fought until the nation’s leaders heeded their cause. Nine years later, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically returned the Gurindji’s country with a handful of red dirt. [node:read-more:link]

Ghillar Michael Anderson shares the Stories of the universe that can be told publicly. He has been doing this though oral presentations and now for a broader audience in the recently premiered film 'Star Stories of The Dreaming'. In these Star Stories he has revealed ancient Stories of the stars, the Blackholes and the creation of the natural world that we all now belong to. Very recently Western scientific research has now confirmed these very ancient Stories about the Aboriginal world of Creation. The ancient Stories go much deeper than what science has delivered so far. [node:read-more:link]

We can be almost certain that the First Nations people did occupy the coast “where the Great Barrier Reef now stands” during the last ice age for it would have comprised broad floodplains and undulating hills with a range of subsistence possibilities, bordered in most parts by steep cliffs ... then the story might date from as much as 13,000 years ago. A more conservative interpretation, based on a sea level just 30 metres lower than today, would place the age of this story at around 10,000 years ago. [node:read-more:link]

With a new and exciting future ahead, Michael Anderson reminds us of where we have been in the past 40 years in respect of our struggle for land rights, sovereignty, restitution and compensation, and what has been said and acted upon by the governments.

He presents an overview of our struggle for sovereignty and outlines the importance of standing our ground. This article includes examples of the concerns the state and territories have in respect of our potential claims that will come their way.