Page 15 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 16 February 1993
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Olive was especially well known for her work in founding and coordinating the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service. This service has grown from one that operated for two days a week in a room at the Shortcuts Youth Centre to one which operates as a full-time service and provides for over 1,000 registered clients. Olive was also a member of various government and community organisations that worked on alcohol and drug abuse, on domestic violence, on women's health, on Aboriginal children's advancement, and on Aboriginal and police liaison. Her commitment to all of these organisations was voluntary and reflected a real depth of care and concern for the ACT community.
Through her work at the health service and through her other community involvements Olive acted as a vital link in helping to bring the ACT Government and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities closer together. She knew the needs of her people and she worked persistently to ensure that those needs were listened to, were articulated, and were provided for. Olive helped the ACT Government to understand these needs, and in a true spirit of cooperation and friendship she assisted with the implementation of Aboriginal services in the ACT. Olive helped the Government's services to adapt to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Olive Brown's contributions were outstanding, and she will be fondly remembered in the hearts and minds of all who knew her.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Opposition to support the motion the Chief Minister has put today. I had the pleasure of meeting Olive Brown on several occasions during her six years of very intense activity in the ACT and of witnessing the energy with which she laboured to advance the interests in particular of her own people. I was present in 1990, I think it was, for the opening of the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service in the Griffin Centre. I think Mr Berry was there as well. It was obvious on that occasion that that service will be Olive Brown's great legacy to the ACT and that there was a great sense of community pride in and support for the concept from the Aboriginal people of the ACT. I believe that much of that spirit and drive emanated from Olive Brown. She was clearly a major force, and I think that force will continue even now after her death.
I understand that Aboriginal society is often very matriarchal, and I think Olive Brown was a good example of the sort of position a person such as she attains in Aboriginal communities on occasions. She was not by any means an old person, though; she was only 47 at the time of her death. Just as an aside, that is a telling reminder that Aboriginal people in this country have a very substantially lower life expectancy than other Australians and a reminder of our need to combat that problem.
Olive Brown was one of those indispensable ingredients in a just society. She was a selfless labourer for the tangible improvement of others. We cannot do without such people. Her efforts were on behalf of her Aboriginal community, and I think we are all better off because of that. I want to add my voice on behalf of the Opposition to the motion moved by the Chief Minister, and to express condolences to her six children in particular.
Question resolved in the affirmative, members standing in their places.
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