First People deserve greater recognition

I never expected to be planning the ambush of a Prime Minister in my living room on a Saturday afternoon but that was part of the journey of the Multuggerah Way campaign.

A special badge honouring the great warrior was designed to literally pin onto Malcolm’s chest.

Uncle Darby McCarthy was our operative for the breakfast sting and things were well in place.

Internal party politics came to play, the PM was a no show and the rest is history.

Nobody ever set out to arrive at 2019 with more than 14000 streets and roads having been named since white settlement and not one after an Aboriginal man, woman or child.

I would also like to believe that nobody set out deliberately to exclude the descendants of the First Peoples of this region when it came to honouring and remembering our shared past.

It may seem trivial, but the path that led to the naming of the Multuggerah Viaduct as part of the Toowoomba Bypass is a little metaphor of inclusion for our community.

When I joined with local elder Uncle Darby McCarthy to start the campaign to name the second range crossing Multuggerah Way, much work had already been done.

The first step was the breaking of the Great Australian Silence and writing Aboriginal people back into the story of our shared past.

Many of us learnt about the explorers. We then learnt about the pioneers. But we kind of skipped over the bit where the land magically became the “property” of the new arrivals.

It was not just a great Australian silence it was also a very awkward silence which we are still dealing with.

Local historian and founding principal of Centenary State High School, Bob Dansie helped us break that silence with the recognition of the role of the great warrior Multuggerah.

The second step in the campaign was the gap in the school curriculum which allowed school teacher Scott Little to share the story of Multuggerah with his Year Four Class at Middle State School.

Today students could rightly expect to learn the truth of our shared history as a matter of course.

The third step was the then Toowoomba City Council accepting a petition honouring Multuggerah.

At the request of the students they erected three plaques situated across the escarpment. The wording wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge step forward in bringing a visibility to what had been ignored for so long.

The fourth step was the fact that the Toowoomba Regional Council acknowledged the importance of a First Nations perspective in their Heritage Advisory Committee (HAC).

A real appreciation of knowing and honouring our shared history is the final goal. It is a hope that we can mature in how we view the past.

To move past the awkward silence to a place where we can embrace the fact that the descendants of the ancestors were heroes, warriors, villains, thieves, thinkers and dreamers.

To everybody who joined and supported the Multuggerah Way campaign a heartfelt thank you.

To those of you who want to know more you are very welcome to join the Friends of Multuggerah at our 5th Commemoration of the Battle of One Tree Hill, midday this Friday, September 13 at Bill Gould Look Out, Picnic Point.

A book titled “The Battle of One Tree Hill” will be launched along with a song written by legendary Australian singer song writer Kev Carmody and family.

For the record we’ve still got the badge.