Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on indulgence to acknowledge the death on 25 July of Dr G Yunupingu, one of the most important figures in Australia's music history. I place on record the House's appreciation of his contribution to the arts, and I tender our profound sympathy to his family and the Galiwinku community in their bereavement. Dr G Yunupingu was a Gumatj man from Elcho Island, the remote island in north-east Arnhem Land.

He began experimenting with music as a small child, when his aunt and his mother placed sticks in his hands so he could hit the empty can set up in front of him along the shore. When his uncle put a guitar in his hands, it set free a once-in-a-generation talent, a startlingly beautiful voice that would weave its way into the hearts and souls of millions.

Dr G Yunupingu established his early career performing alongside family members in Yothu Yindi. His eponymous 2008 triple platinum solo album brought his Yolngu Matha language to the world. He won a swathe of ARIA and Deadly awards, and in 2009 was named Northern Territory Australian of the Year. He soon joined a select group of musicians to have performed for the Queen, the Pope and a US President. In 2012 Dr G Yunupingu was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Sydney.

So many have been touched by his voice and his music. We heard recently of a distressed fellow renal patient who was calmed when Dr G began singing from his nearby hospital bed. But his mark on this country extends beyond the beauty of his music. Lucy and I were honoured to be at Garma Festival on the weekend with a number of other colleagues here in the House and our families. His uncle, Dr Yunupingu's Uncle Djunga Djunga spoke of Dr G Yunupingu's music, which aimed to create reconciliation with Indigenous people. Many of us have not understood the beauty and the significance of our First Australians' languages. Dr G Yunupingu opened our minds and our hearts to them. Many of us have been indifferent to the ancient Indigenous cultures of our First Australians, the most ancient human cultures. Dr G Yunupingu helped us understand them.

Many of us did not know perhaps that today's First Australians share a spiritual connection to their ancestors through their music, their language and culture. Dr G Yunupingu showed all of us this truth. He brought the Yolngu language to the world—ancient words—as often in poetry as prose. And by 'poetry' I mean that which is lost in translation—words of enormous power and significance. We heard those words and many words like that at Garma this year. As the Gumatj leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu reminded us at Garma, those ancient words—the most ancient words—are Australian words. They are Australian words.

So to all of Dr G Yunupingu's family and to all in the musical and broader Australian community who mourn his loss, I offer on behalf of our parliament and our people our most sincere condolences.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At Garma on the weekend, the Prime Minister and I stood with the Yolngu to remember one of their own: a man born blind who helped Australia see. He was a child of the rainbow from the remote Elcho Island of East Arnhem whose music moved monarchs and presidents alike. Dr G Yunupingu shared ancient song lines with the world, his every inflection speaking for the saltwater shore and humanity's oldest story. He also achieved a modern appeal and commercial success that not even his ever-devoted friends at Skinnyfish records could have imagined.

It is the hard truth of Australia's unfinished business that this superstar could delight a packed house and be refused a cab ride home afterwards. The unique talent that both the Prime Minister and I remember today endured all too familiar trials, celebrated and yet neglected, lauded by our nation and let down by our nation.

In remote and very remote areas of Australia, the rate of end-stage kidney disease for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is up to 20 times higher than it is amongst non-Indigenous Australians. For Dr Yunupingu, for his uncle and for so many others, treatment can only be obtained by leaving country and connection, uncertainly farewelling family and friends. Professor Alan Cass and his task force have previously suggested that we add an MBS item to fund renal dialysis in remote areas, supporting nurses, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners and Aboriginal health workers to provide treatment on country and in communities. So today, as we move our motions of condolence, perhaps our parties too can also work together to fund this vital service, a small price to pay compared to what Australia has just lost and we commemorate now.

In one of Dr Yunupingu's songs, Galiku, he sings about gilan. Roughly translated, this is the sound of the wind that fills sails and flaps flags. It's the noise you can hear outside this building every day—the snap and rattle of our nation's flag high above the people's House. Yet so often that sound, Dr G Yunupingu's gilan, is drowned out by TV and radio, by ringing of bells and phones and, indeed, by our own voices. So it is with the plight of our First Australians. Too often, their struggles pass unnoticed in the background of our democracy. Too often, their cries from the heart are unheard by our ears. And too often, they die younger than they should from diseases that the rest of us won't.

Dr G Yunupingu will be remembered as an international superstar, a musician of prodigious talent and a storyteller without peer. His life, his music and his triumphs uplift us all. And his death—too young, too soon and easily prevented in other parts of our nation—should prod at our national conscience. Perhaps next time we scurry from one meeting to another, from one press conference to a division, perhaps we can imagine ourselves hearing the rattle of the flag above our building, we can look up and we can remember Dr Yunupingu and remind ourselves there is more to do. Our heartfelt condolences to all who loved him. May he rest in peace.