Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, 'Yaama' is the welcome in Gamilaraay, and 'Iludiwiga' is the welcome in Bundjalung. I want to express my support for this motion and say how important it is that we also acknowledge the mother tongue of so much of my area, which is Aboriginal—though they call themselves Gamilaraay in one part, Anaiwan in the Walcha part and Bundjalung in the north. I have always been an absolute supporter of making sure we had the re-establishment of language in the country where I grew up.

I live in a town called 'Danglemah'; I know that was Aboriginal—and they prefer to be called 'Aboriginal' in my area, not 'Indigenous'—and I've got no idea what it means, and neither does anybody else. We know it's Aboriginal; we just don't know what it means, because the language has been lost. Likewise, I went to a primary school at a place called 'Woolbrook'; no-one knows what that means; we know it's Aboriginal but we don't know what it means. 'Weabonga'—I grew up in the hills, being a hillbilly—was Aboriginal, but no-one knows what 'Weabonga' means. Up the road was another school I went to, the Woolbrook public school, but it was never called 'Woolbrook'; it was called 'Maluerindi' and we changed it to an anglicised form, which is bad, because it wasn't 'discovered' by Europeans; it had long since been occupied by Aboriginal people. And they're still there—the families who are there have been there for tens of thousands of years. They don't harp on it, but they very much acknowledge what it is.

I also want to acknowledge some of the people in my area, such as Lenny Waters, who was born at Toomelah; he always promotes the Gamilaraay language at his welcome to country. I think there is nothing better than hearing a welcome to country in language, because you actually get the ethos of their more spiritual beliefs as to how things work. For instance, 'Gunagulla' means 'big sky', and it's vitally important; I used to drive past Gunagulla all the time, and never knew what it meant, but Lenny Waters told me: it means 'big sky'. Likewise, Mark Sutherland has been a great proponent of promoting language.

In essence, in talking about mother tongues, we must, through this motion, acknowledge the mother tongue of our own country, the country we live in, and all its diversity and all its nuances across the Indigenous and Aboriginal nations in Australia. I would like—this is a personal request—to see the acknowledgement of country that we perform in our parliament every day given in the language of the area. There seems to be something oxymoronic in doing the acknowledgement of country, to acknowledge the nation's Aboriginal founders, in our language. It just doesn't rock up! So I think that would be a really nice sentiment of reconciliation.

I also acknowledge Dr Anne Aly and what she just said. It is a fact that there is no better way to stimulate neuroplasticity, your brain's plasticity, than by the learning of another language. The worst is watching midday TV. After that, it's simple equations—two plus two; four plus four. Dreaming is a bit above that. And the best way to exercise your brain—which is just another organ—is to endeavour to learn another language. In Australia, we are not naturally a single-language country. In the noting of languages that are lost, you won't get a better example than Australia. And, for giving people a sense of ownership, a sense of identity and a sense of connection—especially for the Aboriginal people of my electorate, the Anaiwan, the Gamilaraay, the Goomeri and the Bundjalung—it is their attachment to their language. There are still people who genuinely speak it, and speak it as they learnt it, but they are quickly disappearing. They, like all of us, are dying.

So I acknowledge that, in this great nation, we should acknowledge the 60,000 years we've been around, not the 230 or so, and we do that best by acknowledging the mother tongue of this nation—that is, our multiple Aboriginal languages.

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