1999 State Heritage Convention Report

WELCOME ADDRESS

ON BEHALF OF THE NYOONGAH CIRCLE OF ELDERS

by Robert Bropho

First of all I want to make welcome each and everyone here today in this hall no matter where you came from nor who you are or what you are representing. Welcome to the Swan Valley.

I came into the hall this morning and started looking at all the photos. I tracked it right around and there's only one issue that I've seen up in the corner relating to Aboriginal people. That's the old ancient sacred site that we've got up north of here in the Swan Valley. It's dated 1000 years old so that puts us, the Aboriginal people, so many years before you.

So, heritage, what is heritage? From the white man's point of view it is old trams, old engines, old buildings. I can go back to the mid 40's to people like Rab Dowell who built up the Bell Brothers industry, also the vineyards and people I've known there. But all these things can only exist through you, the white people's government using our country to build all your history on top of it. It is sad, in more ways than one, that we, the original owners, are not respected more strongly by the people governing the country. You people speak of heritage; I cry for my heritage because its part of me.

One thing has got to be understood clearly today by people who speak of heritage, particularly white people, is that our heritage is still living, stronger than ever. It's still here. So I'm saying to you people, it is still strongly within us. People today might say, where heritage is concerned, the Swan Brewery fight is over; it is not. The building is there but underneath the spring still runs, underneath our song lines and our dreaming stories and all that goes with what we are concerned about, so in a sense what we are saying today is, "will you please acknowledge and will you please respect us too, because we have given you a lot of things".

In the beginning you were overseas, and you came, and you did not ask, and you stayed, and you took, and you built from there onwards up to what you have today. Its gatherings like this you all come together in an old building. It's a beautiful old building, but you've still need to have land to build it on, and that land belongs to us. When I say us, I mean now, it is for all of us to share, for all of us to respect. Heritage to you is ANZAC; heritage to you is Christmas, or your Jesus Christ, or your Ten Commandments. Heritage to us too is the beginning of time through our first Mother, our first Grandmother. It is from these and with all the generations of people who pass through living in this area up to where we are now. This is a similar case to your case, you've had one heritage from another heritage passed on from one generation to another generation.

This is where we are today but you must remember, we are still here too. It is sad in more ways than one that we're always behind. We're not recognised. There's no acknowledgement of our strong ties to the land. You only have to look at the media coverage, television, radio where it is always the aboriginal people who get the blunt end. Bad things only - there's no good things spoken about us. So, in a sense, we are left for dead by the people who are governing today through their law and order; order that is set down by members of Parliament, State and Federal. Right now, our heritage, our culture and our concerns are not respected. Its been smacked to smithereens by greedy decision making politicians be they Prime Minister, be they Premier, be they, for that matter, any politicians who think along those lines.

We've got to meet with those people sitting in Parliament House in Perth and other States when Parliaments act against Aboriginal people. There's disrespect for who we are; there's disrespect for our culture. By rights, there should have been more showing of Aboriginal history on those billboards up here today. We can talk forever and a day about white heritage. What we are saying is "Where is ours?".