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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2605 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Signs acknowledging Canberra's indigenous cultural heritage alongside its status as the nation's capital would be symbolic of a genuine partnership between the ACT government and people and those members of its community that have indigenous heritage. Partnerships with the community will be pivotal if this government is ever to address some of the ongoing concerns that I have mentioned. Surely, erecting the signs should be seen as an exercise in promoting positive community partnerships.

I met recently with representatives of the Ngunnawal Land Council, including Ms Matilda House, Michael Bell, Agnes Shea and other members of those families. Ngunnawal people feel that now would be a particularly meaningful time to erect signs acknowledging the country's traditional owners, given the international focus on Canberra during the Olympics. The opening of the Federal Highway, scheduled to be finished before the Olympics, would be a great opportunity to unveil a sign at the border indicating to people that they are in Ngunnawal country and that the ACT was traditionally the land of the Ngunnawal people.

I have also undertaken to set up a joint meeting with the Ngunnawal Land Council and New South Wales Transport Minister Carl Scully to discuss the prospect of erecting signs at New South Wales boundaries of Ngunnawal country. I understand it is generally accepted by anthropologists and by members of the Ngunnawal community that the northern Ngunnawal boundary is somewhere in the vicinity of Lake George. I understand from members of the New South Wales Transport Department's indigenous consultative group that Mr Scully has endorsed and the New South Wales main roads authority has actively participated in the erection of signs throughout New South Wales along the traditional borders of the traditional lands of the various Aboriginal or indigenous tribes that exist in New South Wales.

I believe this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate in a tangible way the value and emphasis we place as a community on the acknowledgment and preservation of the ACT's indigenous cultural heritage. I note that in an article published in the Chronicle last week Ms Matilda House was quoted as saying:

As I have mentioned, I believe that this is one small way of doing that. In proposing this motion and this initiative I want to emphasise that I am not in any way downplaying the importance of that range of other issues in relation to indigenous disadvantage that we confront here in the ACT. There is no doubt that two centuries of indigenous disadvantage have created here in the ACT, along with every other community or jurisdiction in Australia, a range of indicators of the extent to which indigenous people have suffered and continue to suffer. The fact is that indigenous life expectancy in the ACT is 28 years less than that of the non-indigenous population. A range of other indicators show us that those levels of disadvantage continue in relation to health, education, employment, housing and substance abuse.

I acknowledge the challenge that faces all of us in relation to those issues that go very much to the heart of the disadvantage that indigenous people suffer. I do not wish to downplay those by proposing this motion today. I think what is proposed in this motion is something that we can do quite easily. It is not costly and I think it has very significant

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