Honouring A Giant Of The Nation

In the coming months, Australians will be asked to vote in a historic referendum calling for the recognition of the First People of Australia in our constitution – to enshrine an Indigenous Voice in the parliament. This work has been years in the making and builds on a long legacy of First Nations leadership, which often goes unrecognised and underappreciated. Progress happens when it stands on the shoulders of ancestors to keep broadening the horizon of justice and possibility.

One such ancestor is Galarrwuy Yunupingu, a co-designer of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and pillar of Australian leadership, who passed away after a long illness in early April 2023.

The Yothu Yindi Foundation described him as “a giant of the nation”.

He represented his people while he pushed for change and recognition in Australia.

He grew cultural and business institutions and launched the Garma festival. At the same time, he advocated for he spoke for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people when they were voiceless, “working with leaders from throughout the country to return Indigenous people to their rightful place.” – as described by the Yothu Yindi Foundation.

“Yunupingu walked in two worlds with authority, power and grace, and he worked to make them whole — together,” said Prime Minister Albanese. “What he could see was not the reinvention of Australia, but the realisation of a greater one.”

Yunupingu was born in 1948 on sacred lands of the Yolŋu people. He did not know any Europeans in his early childhood. At age 11, he went to a mission school, then a Methodist Bible College 3500 kilometres from his ancestral and spiritual homeland.

His activism began in 1963, when, as a teenager Yunupingu assisted his father Mungarrawuy and uncle Djalalingba in drafting the Yirrkala Bark Petitions. The petitions asserted customary law and native title rights over land, including an area that the Menzies government had granted a commercial bauxite mining lease without consulting traditional Gumatj owners.

The historic barks feature traditional art surrounding text in both English and Yolŋu and are considered the first traditional documents recognised by the federal parliament. This was one step on the journey towards the recognition of Native Title, a cause he supported over the following decades.

He met Prime Minister Rober Menzies with his father and dealt personally with every Prime Minister since Whitlam.

With Yolŋu leaders, he led the revival of the homelands movement in the 1970s and the emergence of the Land Rights movement throughout Australia.

In 1975, Yunupingu worked with then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser on what would become the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.

He was elected chairman of the Northern Land Council the following year, a position he would hold twice, for a total of 23 years, before retiring from the role in 2004.

He was named Australian of the Year in 1978. In accepting the award, he delivered one his most famous quotes:

“We are at last being recognised as the Indigenous people of this country who must share in its future.”

Yununpingu received an Order of Australia medal in 1985. Speaking at the time, he said the award would help him “shake off the image of ratbag and radical” and give him “greater strength as an individual and as a leader”.

Bringing People Together

In 2019, he invited Australia’s first Indigenous minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ken Wyatt, to the opening of the four-day Garma festival.

There, Yunupingu again stressed the importance of unity through constitutional reforms to recognise First Nations people and expressed his ongoing frustrations with the ducking on commitment from Canberra.

“When I sat beside him, he said, ‘It’s good when our cultures come together’, and we sat side by side,” Wyatt told reporters.

In a family statement Binmila Yunupiŋu, his daughter, said:

“We remember him for his fierce leadership, and total strength for Yolŋu and for Aboriginal people throughout Australia. He lived by our laws always.
Yunupiŋu lived his entire life on his land, surrounded by the sound of bilma (clapsticks), yidaki (didgeridoo) and the manikay (sacred song) and dhulang (sacred designs) of our people. He was born on our land, he lived all his life on our land and he died on our land secure in the knowledge that his life’s work was secure.
He had friendship and loyalty to so many people, at all levels, from all places.
Our father was driven by a vision for the future of this nation, his people’s place in the nation and the rightful place for Aboriginal people everywhere.”

The Yothu Yindi Foundation listed his many achievements. Its CEO Denise Bowden explained:

“With his Yolŋu kin he gifted the nation the Garma Festival, which showcased Yolŋu miny-tji (art) bunggul (dance), manikay (song) and story-telling to a national audience, and which today leads discussion and debate of issues affecting Yolŋu and other Indigenous people.
He won a string of awards but never sought recognition or accolades for his work.
He established a suite of sustainable large and small businesses in the region that supported local employment, including a cattle station, a timber mill, and a nursery, and in recent years he set up the Gumatj-owned Gulkula Bauxite Mine – the first Aboriginal-owned and operated mine in the country.”

Addressing the broader issue of Indigenous reconciliation, the statement from Yothu Yindi Foundation CEO Denise Bowden said:

“Many promises were made, none were delivered in full. As a sovereign man of his clan nation, he was left disappointed by them all. In 2022, he responded to Prime Minister Albanese’s commitment to the Voice, asking whether his commitment was “serious”. He was told it was. That promise has been kept.”

While there are opponents to the Voice, it’s clear that Yunupingu believed in its power to return Indigenous people to their rightful place.