Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

On Thursday, across the nation, by candlelight and wearing pink, people stood in strength and love with the family of Kumanjayi Little Baby, who we honour again today. Her mother said she loved cuddling puppies, watching Bluey, listening to Bruno Mars and playing Minecraft with her big brother—the simple joys of childhood so many families would recognise. Her mother asked for her to be remembered as a beautiful little girl in pink deeply loved by her family.

Over the past few weeks, we have seen the best of this country as thousands of us come together, setting differences aside to stand with this family in shared humanity and healing. As we work through the need for change, we must hold onto that. The family asked for their child not to be made a political football. Not everyone has respected those wishes. We have seen damaging commentary and calls for reforms that would further harm our people. I will address those debates directly at another time—believe me—because this is a time of deep grief and sorry business for our people. We must respect the family as any of us would expect for our own families.

Sunday was Mother's Day. As Aboriginal mothers, we hold in common a deep and unique love for our children, an understanding that they are sacred, because our children carry our old people and our future. They carry the promise that, despite everything done to our people, we will continue on. But, as black mothers, we also share a common fear: a fear that our children will be taken, targeted or imprisoned by the state or lost to violence. This fear is passed from grandmother to mother to daughter because so many before us have lost children. So, when a mother loses a child, together, we feel it deeply and we grieve together. We know this moment, the loss of this beautiful child, will be a turning point, but many of us fear it will mean more harm against our families. We must not let that happen.

We do need a national conversation that addresses the systemic failings that contributed to this tragedy and so many others like it, but this must be led by our people. We must not return to the assimilationist approaches of the past based on false assumptions about us. We must reject the idea that safety means severing children from their culture, kin and country. Our children's identity must be central. Blood line, culture, language and country—knowing where you come from is the absolute foundation of a strong person. This nation must not rob our children of that birthright.

The real issue is that our communities face deep poverty and a lack of basic services, and incarceration and child removals are doing enormous harm to our families. We need systems that afford our communities the authority and resources to drive our own solutions, because our families are tapestries of love, obligation and care that have carried our people through so much violence done to us, through so much pain, and yet we are still here. For thousands of years our people have understood that a village raises a child: mothers, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins and elders together. Our babies are held by kinship, language and country. This foundation must be upheld. Our cultures are our strength and our mothers and grandmothers hold the solutions. And so we honour Kumanjayi Little Baby, the pretty girl in pink, deeply loved by her family. In our grief we must choose healing over harm and ensure every child in this nation is held and loved, safe in kin and safe on country.