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CARING FOR CULTURE AND COUNTRY
IDOC NA 2022 L LY 3-10 JULY
Dubbo’s Grace Toomey (in the gallery, left front) watches on as veteran MP Rev Fred Nile commits his Culture is Identity Bill to the NSW Parliament. PHOTO: MS MICHELE HEYWOOD.
concerns. “My Bill instead awards custodianship of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage to the local Aboriginal Community. The Bill draws inspiration from the Uluru Dialogue, the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework (VAAF) and the measures proposed in Closing the Gap.” Rev Nile thanked locals such as NSW Aboriginal Land Council Councillor for Central Region, Grace Toomey, and Nanima-born Roy Ah-See, a former chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Land
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Council and former chair of the Uluru Voice to Parliament Regional Dialogue Leadership group. “My own personal opinion as a non-Indigenous Australian is that the Australian Indigenous community is firmly united under the concepts of reconciliation, healing and most importantly a truth-telling process,” Rev Nile said. “This process must occur before a treaty is proposed.” Grace Toomey told Dubbo Photo News that Aboriginal culture and heritage is being destroyed at alarmingly high rates under the
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current laws, and that new laws are needed to better protect cultural heritage from destruction. “This Bill represents a significant improvement on the current laws which is urgently needed, NSW is the only state without modernised laws,” she said. “The delays are letting our people down. Aboriginal Culture and Heritage can’t be rebuilt. Once it’s lost, it’s lost for ever – we must protect Aboriginal cultural heritage for this generation, and for all future generations.” Continued page 3
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CHRISTIAN NSW upper house MP Fred Nile joined forces with same-sex marriage campaigner, Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, to submit the Culture is Identity Bill to the NSW Parliament last week – and there were plenty of supporters from Dubbo and Wellington who’d worked behind the scenes to help make it happen. Rev Nile told Dubbo Photo News the Culture is Identity Bill was created after the horrific de-
struction of the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. “Aboriginal Cultural Heritage legislation has been promised by successive State Governments since 1983. I know this because I have served in Parliament since 1981,” he said. “The Western Australian Government legislation centralises custodianship and control over Aboriginal Cultural Heritage to the Ministers, a concept that has been so universally condemned that even the United Nations took notice and expressed their strong
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