Aboriginal

3KND is Melbourne’s first Indigenous owned and managed radio station, providing a vital service not only to the Indigenous community but also to the wider community as a whole. 3KND provides information and entertainment for our community and anyone else who wants to join in.With this said we welcome you to our website

Connecting Home

A service for the Stolen Generations ABN 95 142 629 463

Gordon Hookey

CON-SENT-TRICK SIR-KILLS

Gary Foley

There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of ones native land. - Euripides 431 B.C.

Indigenous Community resources

The Victorian Aboriginal Information Guide seeks to provide Victorian Aboriginal services contacts and information. City of Port Phillip mainstream community contacts may be found in the Community Directory.

ABC Indigenous

Advice: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website may contain images and voices of people who have died

Settle Down Country

Establishment of country camps by Pitjantjatjara, Pintupi, Warlpiri, Loritja and Nyaanyatjarra people from Yuendumu, Papunya and Docker River settlements; impact of government assimilation policy and Woomera Rocket Range documented from official and Aboriginal sources; needs for essential services in camps and response by Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Aboriginal Development Commission, Kintore review. 1983

Ngargee Tree

Boonwurrung Ngargee(gathering) Tree @ St Kilda junction >300 years old

Settle Down Country
Some words from Sorry Day 2004
May 26, 2004

FOLLOWING THE RABBIT PROOF FENCE TO PORT PHILLIP

“I’ve seen some terrible things happen but whatever happens Aboriginal people are here now and will be here forever,” Doris Pilkington Garimara told today’s Sorry Day ceremony in St Kilda’s O’Donnell Gardens.

Ms Pilkington Garimara spoke movingly to the crowd of over 100 people about the events recounted in her famous 1996 book, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence. Her mother, Molly, and two sisters, Daisy and Gracie were ‘stolen’ as children from their family at Jigalong and institutionalised at the Moore River Native Settlement in Western Australia.

In 1931, the girls escaped and walked over 2000 kms back home through the desert with only the rabbit-proof fence as their guide. Their amazing feat was immortalised in Phil Noyce’s 2002 film, Rabbit Proof Fence.

Ms Pilkington Garimara herself was forcibly removed from her family at a young age and taken to the same mission. She told the crowd that it was always drilled into her that her mother didn’t love her. She always assumed her father was a white man. She was wrong was both counts and later reunited with her mother, Molly, who died earlier this year.

“I woke up this morning and felt cold – but now I’m warm, and not just from the sun,” she said.

The Sorry Day was organised by the City of Port Phillip and Port Phillip Citizens for Reconciliation and is the 7th year that it has been commemorated in the City of Port Phillip. Sorry Day commemorates the Bringing Them Home stolen generations report, tabled in Federal Parliament on May 26, 1997. One of recommendations was the holding of a national ‘sorry day’ to recognise the pain that indigenous people have experienced in this nation.

After a healing smoking ceremony performed by Jason Tamiru, the skies cleared (almost miraculously) and everyone sat back to enjoy two hours of talking and musical performances from mayor Dick Gross, Carolyn Briggs, Boonwurrung elder, and Maria Markevic, a member of the ‘stolen generation’ whose story is reflected in a sculpture unveiled last year in South Melbourne as part of the margins, memories and markers public art project.

Indigenous musician Fay Ball and partners enthralled the audience with their gutsy songs. Local Aboriginal poet and co-convenor of Port Phillip Citizens for Reconciliation, Dennis (‘Den the Fish’) Fisher also performed, as well compering the event. The event finished in a barbecue.

Cr Gross told the crowd that the imminent demise of ATSIC would leave indigenous Australians without a voice.

“ATSIC is a flawed organisation. Of that there can be no doubt. But most people don’t know that a $1 million government review of ATSIC this year didn’t recommend its sacking. After 50 community forums, 150 submissions and a range of other consultative processes, its principal recommendation was to retain ATSIC.

“There are a lot of flawed organisations around. The United Nations, for instance, is a flawed organisation but, apart from a few nutters in the US, no one says it should be dismantled. Closer to home, a Governor General was forced to resign not long ago but there was no public outcry demanding the abolition of the office.

“Dissolving ATSIC also means that regional councils will be dissolved and services to indigenous people ‘mainstreamed’. This council believes that indigenous people must have a real say on issues to do with land, their future and indeed, on the policy shape of this nation, Australia. They must have the right to speak collectively, be heard and have their views respected at the relevant level of government and about the issues relevant to this nation,” he said.

Cr Gross said that indigenous people must also have the authority (and be properly resourced) to represent themselves and make decisions regarding the policies and services that impact upon them at every level of program design and delivery.

“ATSIC may have had its problems but ‘mainstreaming’ services has a long and unmitigated history of failure. A hand-picked advisory body to the Prime Minister offers no solution. Indigenous peoples have already suffered from 200 years of colonial abuse and paternalism.

“A return to the assimilation policies of the past is a denial of their rights and their status as the “first nations” of Australia. We should fight to ensure that indigenous Australians have a real say in their future and a voice through which they can speak nationally and internationally,” he said.

Cr Gross said that as a Jew, he also belonged to a wandering tribe from the desert. “I feel deeply about the crimes that have been committed against indigenous Australians. I feel deep guilt and remorse about what has happened in the past and anger about the our national government’s inability to apologise for what continues to happen.”

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