Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Worimi, Birpai, Djangadi and Gumbaynggirr nations, who are all traditional land holders in my electorate of Cowper. I give a personal shout-out to Uncle Bill O'Brien, who you know very well, Deputy Speaker Gillespie. Bill O'Brien OAM has the most magnificent welcome to country. He takes you on a journey for about five minutes, talking about the plateaus, the oceans, the fish and all the native animals. It gives you an insight into how powerful the attachment to land is. I have imagined being a tour tourist sitting there, listening to this welcome to country, and I've said for a very long time that Indigenous tourism in Australia is completely untapped.

The $40 million is a very good step in the right direction, but there are many excellent tourism operations and tourism providers—Indigenous tourism providers. In fact, this notice of motion is a very timely one. I met this afternoon with Minister Wyatt, Clark Webb, Christian Lugnan and Aunty Julie Carey, very proud Gumbaynggirr people who started the Bularri Muurlay Nyanggan Aboriginal Corporation. That not only is seeking to establish an Aboriginal bilingual independent primary school but in the past 10 years has set up three excellent tourism opportunities—or tourism experiences, I should say.

The first one is the cultural experience not only for the locals but for the tourists. That's been going for a decade. In addition, they have very successful cafe at the top of Sealy point in Coffs Harbour. They see over 30,000 people come through their cafe every single year. They employ in excess of 15 people. But, most important, and one of the reasons we were speaking to the minister, is the opportunity they see for an Indigenous ecoresort. It is just a magnificent idea. It's my idea of camping—it's a bit like glamping. It will employ 49 people, and it is well underway. They have the site and they expect to open within the next 12 months. These are the very essence, the very ideas, of Indigenous culture—being taken on a trip by the descendants of somebody from 30,000, 40,000 or 60,000 years ago, taking their same steps through the same countryside. Of course, I'm a little bit biased about Cowper: it is the most beautiful electorate in the country. But this is about gaining knowledge from an Indigenous person about what it actually means to be there, including local knowledge about food, hunting, and fauna and flora. This is untapped and such a fantastic opportunity for all our Indigenous people in all of our electorates.

In addition, there are numerous cultural experiences across the electorate. It was good to see, for Port Macquarie's bicentenary, the Wakulda light projection on the old courthouse, 'Wakulda' meaning 'as one' in Gathang, the language of the Birpai people. I sat there at the opening and watched the light projection on the side of the courthouse, recognising and acknowledging that that was on Birpai people's land; acknowledging that we are not the perfect country and we don't have the perfect past but that we are working towards conciliation and making right; and acknowledging and recognising everything that our Indigenous people have to offer to our country. So this $40 million will go a long way. It is a good step in the right direction.

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