Page 1760 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 13 May 2015
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Many Indigenous people, not only youth, suffer from a loss of identity and loss of culture. In the Indigenous community the loss of culture, not knowing what land you come from, has a major impact on their lives. Everything about the Indigenous community comes from culture, you learn from your elders, your cousins are all the friends you need, your parents aren’t the only one who raise you, but how do you learn and grow if you don’t know who your elders are where your family is from, what community you belong to. The damages of this can be seen in today’s society with the lack of community and the lack of respect and protocol which comes from these young people not being taught and not knowing their identity.
The intergenerational trauma from the stolen generation is still present in today’s society and has many impacts on the way Indigenous people relate to service providers, which causes increases in unemployment, lack of education, issues with authorities and government agencies.
Real change starts with the next generation; education is the foundation for the future, instilling a pride in people to accept who they are, to move closer to closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is where it starts. I believe that teaching Indigenous culture, history, dream time stories and language will educate not only the Indigenous children but all children as the Aboriginal culture is Australia’s culture. Having a strong identity and sense of self will help empower the next generation to make the changes in society to move forward to a positive future. It all starts with education.
We are your future, we are our future, and we are the future.
I would like to thank Klair for giving me the opportunity to share her story with members today.
Top Secret Showcase
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (6.15): I would like to talk about an event I attended recently at the Australian War Memorial. It was called the Top Secret Showcase. It was a tourism-related event. Some of my colleagues were there. Mr Doszpot was there, as were Mr Smyth and Mr Barr. They are the members that I am aware of that were there, so if anyone else attended, I apologise.
The event brought people from all over Australia to Canberra to help them consider using Canberra for a convention or a conference purpose. It took them to a range of different tourism venues around Canberra and to a number of dinners, lunches et cetera.
By all accounts it was enormously popular, but for me the highlight was the dinner I attended at the War Memorial. There were maybe 150 people there, and the keynote speech was from Dr Brendan Nelson, who really seems to have adjusted enormously well to his role at the Australian War Memorial.
Dr Nelson gave a speech which covered everything from a bit of his time as a politician to his work overseas as a representative of the Australian government. He told a very funny story about a cat called Nelson and a small boy, ending up with
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