Saturday, 4 July 2026
Government House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

The invitation to experience living traditions of welcome, of coming-together, and of sharing; to be present and participate in these ceremonies whose roots entwine through networks of culture, belonging, and interconnectedness stretching back to the dawn of time is an honour as humbling as it is inspiring.

So… warm thanks to Uncle Allen^[1] and the members of Burrundi for providing that privilege this afternoon.

I acknowledge the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of the lands on which we celebrate and pay my respects to Gadigal Elders past, present, and future. I extend that respect to the Elders of all parts of this beautiful continent from, and through which, you have travelled to be here today.

Tomorrow, another NAIDOC week begins.

For more than 50 years, it is a week that has been amplifying and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, culture, and achievement.^[2] A platform for advocacy and recognition; a statement of pride and survival; an expression of culture, identity, and belonging… importantly, it has sprung from, and is powered by, community.^[3]

To mark and honour this growing legacy, this year’s theme is ’50 Years of Deadly.’^[4]

Thinking about that theme – and, in particular, that word ‘deadly’ – led me to thinking about language. About its place in making us who we are.

As R. M. W. Dixon points out in his book Australia’s Original Languages, “Language is first and foremost something to be spoken.”^[5] Sometimes, we who come from cultures that privilege the written over the spoken word forget this… writing tends to be a solitary affair rather than something created through the shared performance, in the here-and-now, of talking, of sharing – and adding to – story.

Also, as something learned within family and community, our language, as an inheritance, fundamentally constitutes the way we think and what we know.

Each language carries with it its own point of view… its own echoes of cultural memory, that, in being learnt and being used, is carried into the future.

Our National Anthem sung in the local Sydney Language is a perfect example.^[6]

For instance… the line “with golden soil and wealth for toil” is sung as Yarra Bamal Yarrabuni.^[7] Which means, in English, something beautifully poetic – ‘Yellow Earth do not fatigue yourself’^[8] – which reminds us that our landscape is not a mere resource to be exploited, but something to care for and to which we belong.

When English came to this continent, there were many languages spoken here… some say more than 250.^[9] More than half, through dispossession, displacement, and suppression have since been silenced.^[10] Thankfully, communities are working hard to reawaken these ‘sleeping’ languages.^[11]

There are also the ‘new’ languages… Kriol^[12] in the northern parts of Australia – the largest language spoken exclusively in Australia^[13] – and Yumplatok (literally ‘our talk’)^[14] in the Torres Strait. These are going strong and are growing.^[15]

Then, there are the variations of Australian English that Indigenous communities have adapted and developed for themselves. Under the umbrella term Australian Aboriginal English (Englishes is probably the more correct term, but is harder to say), an estimated 80% of Indigenous Australians speak some of form of it… and for many, it is their first and only language.^[16]

Too often, Aboriginal English has been dismissed as a ‘broken’ or ‘simplified’ version of English. Which is not only staggeringly ignorant and disrespectful – it is a language as rich, nuanced, and sophisticated as any other living language. If we are deaf to the language someone speaks, we will never fully hear them.

A couple of years ago, there was an interview with researchers Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodríguez Louro, who through their Yarning Corpus project, began compiling video recordings of interactions with people speaking Aboriginal English in and around Perth.^[17]

Glenys – who is a Noongar academic and has spent decades working as a linguist and educator – was asked at the beginning of the interview, ‘What is Aboriginal English?’

Glenys did not then list a set of characteristics, a vocabulary, or a set of distinctive sounds. Instead, she said, simply… “it’s who I am.”^[18]

Her language was her identity…. its expression a vital and sustaining connection to her community, and to Indigenous communities across Australia. As importantly, she pointed to the immediate and pragmatic consequence of recognising and giving full voice to Aboriginal English. She said:

You know why [this is important]? Because that’s why we have these things called Closing the Gap. And the achievements will never be met until people understand that the clientele group of Closing the Gap, the majority of the clientele of Aboriginal English speakers are not educated Standard Australian English speakers.^[19]

She also spoke about the embedding of cultural memory, in using the example of how many of words in Aboriginal English mean something different – often  opposite – to what they do in Standard Australian English – ‘hungry’^[20]… ‘cruel’^[21]… ‘wicked’^[22]… ‘deadly’.^[23] She told a story about her grandmothers and aunts. They had been taken to the Moore River Settlement as children and, in Glenys’s words:

...they always got: ‘You, wicked, wicked evil children.’ So, when you’re being taught negative, negative, negative, you turn a negative into a positive.^[24]

The ground-breaking aspect of Gladys and Celeste’s research is its basis not in the traditional sociolinguistic question-and-answer interview, but in the process of yarning.^[25]

As Celeste, a non-Indigenous person, remarked, the privilege of being present during the recording sessions guided by Gladys… to hear participants empowered to tell their stories – so often traumatic, so often full of sadness, but also, so often full of humour, of love and connection to community and Country… was an immense and humbling honour. When she asked Glenys, ‘why are these people so open?’, Glenys said, ‘well, no one’s ever listened to them before.’^[26]

The warmest of welcomes to all… I know many of you have travelled a long way to be here and Dennis and I are extremely grateful you could make it.

Indeed, we have Sharon Winsor here from Indigiearth in Mudgee, who Dennis and I visited last week. While we there, she gave us an emu egg, which we brought back (very carefully) and gave to Chef. He’s included it in his bush tomato and zucchini fritter, which you will be enjoying shortly… As soon as I stop talking!

Please enjoy this beautiful weather, each other’s company, and this year’s NAIDOC week, a celebration of your stories, told in your way, on your terms.^[27]