[Didgeridoo]
[Indigenous song]
Kaya, Kaya wanju.
Hello and welcome, my name is Simon Forrest Burungu. And I'm a Whajuk
Barladong Nyungar, with kin connections to Yamaji and Wongi peoples.
I'm also Elder in Residence at Curtin University and here to give a welcome
to country.
In giving this welcome to country, I am joined by Nigel Wilkes & Mungart Yongah, dancing, Yibiyang singing.
We are of this land and place.
We were born to this land.
This Boodjar or land is in our DNA.
We follow a bloodline of people who have cared and walked this land for over 65,000 years.
Our people, are the very first of the first nations across the globe.
This place where we are now, you might know as Burswood, but its correct Nyungar name
is Wondoolier and the Swan Coastal Plain is Wadjuk Nyungar Boodjar.
Wadjuk Nyungar Boodjar is my mother's maternal country.
My mother can trace her maternal line back to Nyungar woman who lived in the early days
of the Swan River Colony.
It's the maternal line of my family that have been living on this Boodjar, for over a thousand
generations.
Australia is one of the most culturally diverse nations on our planet.
It is a cultural diversity of Australia that makes it a wonderful place to live.
As individuals, as a community and as a nation, we all have a responsibility to acknowledge this.
We all have to be accepting and skilled in interacting with fellow Australians, who may
be from different cultural backgrounds.
I, as an Aboriginal Australian, as a first Australian, embrace the cultural diversity
of our nation, and in particular, I especially welcome people that have come to this country
as refugees.
As human beings living on planet Earth, we are all in a sense custodians, of Mother Earth,
while we are here.
A welcome to country, however recognises and acknowledges us, as the very first Australians,
and the first and continuing custodians of this land Australia.
A welcome to country also acknowledges that protocols of the past continue and are relevant
in the present.
And that this land that we know as Australia, was, is, and always will be Aboriginal land.
Kaya, Kaya Wanju.
Ngaany kwerl Simon Forrest burungu. Kaya wanju ngaany nidja wajuk Nyungar boodjar.
Gnaala kaaditj Nyungar moort, keyen kaadaj nidja boodjar.
Ngaany kaaditj, Nyungar kabarli, bworan koora yey.
May the good spirits be here at this gathering.
[Didgeridoo]