Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
{IN CONVERSATION WITH THOMAS MAYOR}<br />
On Sunday March 3rd, <strong>2019</strong> Emanuel Synagogue presented a special event as part of it’s<br />
In Conversation series, featuring Thomas <strong>May</strong>or, delegate to the Uluru Statement process.<br />
Thomas has been travelling<br />
throughout Australia with the<br />
Uluru Statement advocating for<br />
its call for the ‘establishment of<br />
First Nations Voice enshrined in<br />
the Constitution’. He shared his<br />
story and explained in detail the<br />
significance of the Statement.<br />
Thomas <strong>May</strong>or is a Zenadth Kes<br />
(Torres Strait Islander) man born<br />
and living on Larrakia country<br />
(Darwin). Thomas was a delegate at<br />
the Convention and is now touring<br />
the country as the current custodian<br />
of the Uluru Statement, talking<br />
about its significance to regional<br />
and metropolitan communities.<br />
Mr <strong>May</strong>or says the document has<br />
not received enough attention or<br />
leadership in Parliament, but it was<br />
written to the Australian people,<br />
so he's taking it out to them.<br />
The Uluru Statement from the Heart<br />
was signed in <strong>May</strong> 2017 by a historic<br />
gathering of around 300 Aboriginal<br />
and Torres Strait Islander leaders. The<br />
statement is a proposal of reform that<br />
would establish a constitutionally<br />
enshrined First Nations representative<br />
body to advise parliament on policy<br />
affecting Indigenous peoples and<br />
commit Australia to a process<br />
of truth-telling of its colonial<br />
history through the establishment<br />
of a Makarrata commission.<br />
You can read the whole statement<br />
at https://www.1voiceuluru.org/.<br />
Here is an extract, “Our Aboriginal<br />
and Torres Strait Islander tribes were<br />
the first sovereign Nations of the<br />
Australian continent and its adjacent<br />
islands, and possessed it under our<br />
own laws and customs. This our<br />
ancestors did, according to the<br />
reckoning of our culture, from the<br />
Creation, according to the common<br />
law from ‘time immemorial’, and<br />
according to science more than<br />
60,000 years ago. This sovereignty<br />
is a spiritual notion: the<br />
ancestral tie between the<br />
land, or ‘mother nature’,<br />
and the Aboriginal and<br />
Torres Strait Islander<br />
peoples who were born<br />
therefrom, remain<br />
attached thereto, and must<br />
one day return thither<br />
to be united with our<br />
ancestors. This link is the<br />
basis of the ownership<br />
of the soil, or better,<br />
of sovereignty. It has never been<br />
ceded or extinguished, and coexists<br />
with the sovereignty of the<br />
Crown. How could it be otherwise?<br />
That peoples possessed a land for<br />
HEALING THE WORLD<br />
31
Change language