Prime Minister
PRIME MINISTER: Well, thank you so much, especially to you Aunty Agnes. Thank you for welcoming my family and to Ken and to Ben and to his family as well. Can I particularly start by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people and I acknowledge their elders past and present and emerging as well, which we are so excited about. The emerging young Indigenous leaders that are there that I have met all around the country and I think fill you with hope and I think fill the nation with hope about how they see the future and how they see a future together. And it is wonderful to provide that acknowledgement here today.
This gathering, that we are having for the second time, I am very appreciative, because it is an opportunity for my family and those who have joined us to stop and reflect as we go into an important day tomorrow. And to reflect on the many centuries and thousands of years of ancient Indigenous culture which is so inseparable from the land and it was always be inseparable from the land. And so in coming here today, what I am seeking to do with my family and my ministers and their families is to seek to try and connect with that and it has been wonderful to experience it this year in a different way again and to connect with the language that is so much a part of how that culture sits and connects with, understands and helps us interpret the land of this wonderful continent in which we live.
In recent weeks and months, we have once again learnt how ferocious this land can be and earlier this week, I met with the coalition of Indigenous Peaks. We spoke about many issues that are important to closing the gap and closing the gap, as Ken and I speak of, not from the perspective of where government sits and sees where the gap is but trying to understand the gap from the perspective of Indigenous Australians and how you see the gap and what the gap is and how we work together to close that gap. Not from governments telling others how the gap should be closed but how we can close the gap together and the most important gap to close is the one that you see and that connects and brings Australians all together in the way that we must.
But particularly over the course of these fires, we have been reminded of the wonderful care that Indigenous Australians have for the land. Whether it be the wonderful group that Ken wrote about earlier this week the Indigenous female bushfire brigade in East Gippsland that turned out for the, I think, eight or nine of those who have been charged up in Brewarrina and Bourke as custodians of the land, not only to protect as firefighters but the cultural places and this is something that has been done for thousands and thousands of years. And this week we stopped and we thought about the fires and how for Indigenous Australians this brings another element to the great crisis and disaster that we’ve lived through over these many months and we understand that when the land suffers like this, Indigenous Australians understand that at a level the rest of us can only try and understand.
So that’s what today is about. Today is about us trying to understand together. To listen, to learn, to expose our understanding to things that we need to know more about. And so it is a simple gathering today, it’s not a large one, it’s not intended to be. But it’s meant to be personal. Because the only way that we can continue, I think, to come together is if we engage these issues in that way - in good faith, in good spirit, as fellow Australians who love each other and love the land on which we live. And if we can get an inkling of the understanding that the Indigenous Australians have for our land and how we can care for it in the future, whether it’s how we face and deal with disasters or how we care for it more generally, then all Australians will be much better for it.
So I want to thank you again for welcoming us here today and the wonderful spirit in which you have received us. It is very touching. Can I also thank you for your very kind regards regarding the sorry business of my father. It is a difficult time for our family but Indigenous Australians know better than any how to comfort each other in times like this. So thank you so much, it is greatly appreciated.