Dean of Identity | Mr Charles Brauer

Let’s Listen

Two days into the EREA Let’s Talk immersion to north-west NSW, I had plenty of evidence to suggest the program be changed to Let’s Listen. Standing at the barbed-wired perimeter of a dry and desolate pastoral property outside Brewarrina, NSW, the outlook was sad and deeply disappointing (see below image). On the horizon were trees marking the site of a massacre of 300 Aboriginal people in 1859. In the foreground was memorial to this tragedy, and all too repeated occurrence of the time. Keeping me from each of these places was a barbed wire fence of a property owner who refuses to allow anyone access to either of these sites. This outlook summed up my immersion experience. As a nation, we are still not listening to the hurt, the hopes and the wisdom of our Aboriginal people. As a result, we are all suffering. Let’s listen.

The Hospital Creek Massacre site is located about 10km outside of Brewarrina, a town standing on the backs of the Barwon/Darling River in north-west NSW. Local Aboriginal Elder, Brad Steadman, spent the day with our immersion group humbly sharing the cultural traditions, historical injustices and current hopes of his people. What quickly became evident was how the same sequence of events have deeply affected his people and have deeply affected, and continue to deeply affect, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people across our nation. 

Many of us are familiar with the impact European colonisation of Australia has had and continues to have on our Aboriginal people. Prior to my time away last week, I would have been among the first to say that I’d be more than familiar, and quite confident, with understanding the impacts of colonisation. How wrong I would have been. How wrong you may well be. As is often the case, until we are personally connected to an idea, a story or an experience, we cannot truly understand its meaning. 

The Hospital Creek Massacre site is a metaphor for our nation and our relationship with our Aboriginal people, history and culture. We have acknowledged wrongs of the past in parliament. We have erected public memorials. However, as is the barbed wire in the above image, we are yet to remove the barriers and injustices in our political, economic and social systems to truly and fully liberate our Aboriginal people.  

We need to listen to our Aboriginal people’s approach to caring for our land and waterways. 

We need to listen to our Aboriginal people’s approach to building loving and caring communities. 

We need to listen to our Aboriginal people’s approach to integrating our physical, spiritual and emotional being. 

We need to listen.

I will be forever grateful for being given the opportunity to be with and listen to the Aboriginal people of Kamiliaroi, Wirradjirri and Wailwaan countries. Their resilience, honesty, hope and optimism has inspired me to talk less and listen more when trying to understand others, be it an individual, a community or a culture. Although saddened and deeply disappointed by what I heard and grew to understand whilst away, I have been inspired by the endurance and heart-felt determination of our Aboriginal people who continue to find ways forward where we can all thrive together. 

‘We don’t travel a road. We are the road.’ -  Locky Dennis, proud Wailwaan man.