Seeking knowledge

It was recently reported in the Townsville Bulletin that a new Centre of Excellence is to be established by the JCU, this will be a

Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Future. The Education Minister Jason Clare revealed that $384 Million would flow to 11 ARC Centre of Excellence.

Professor Sean Ulm will head the JCU $89Million program which will generate a new direction in knowledge on Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander-led to managing land and sea country. During the Bushfires in recent years the knowledge and advice put forward by Aboriginal peoples who knew how the land was managed by fire, the Bulletin carried articles on the subject, yet it was ignored. If Professor Ulm is seeking knowledge on the care of the land and how the Aboriginals lived and survived, he would pull the book out of the University written in 1889 by Carl Lumholtz which is an account of four years in 1880 of living and documentation of life with the Aborigines of Queensland. As I have written before he was a member of the Royal society of Sciences of Norway. I found the book covered everything pertaining to the life, climate, animals their weapons and implement how they lived. The Cambridge Library Collection produce copies of original works. I found this book interesting as it is factual in every way including interaction with the white man. The JCU has a copy but when I was in Council the University refused to allow it to be out once one of the Councilors had read it and other Councilors requested the book. Now we find the Government allocating $384 Million and 7 years with 11 ARC Centres fo Excellence to be set up to produce what? A study of the last 30,000 years (prior to the arrival of the British) of the Aboriginals would be a good start. To put this into perspective, during the last 30,000 years, the Egyptian empire came and went between around 1570 BC and 1070 BC. The Greek empire was at its peak in the period 500 BC to 300 BC and the Roman empire was at its peak around 117 BC. Each of those empires were highly advanced and contributed enormously to the

advancement of the modern world. Aboriginals had inhabited this great land for at least 27,000 years prior to the Egyptian empire. I am sure the Aboriginal community would appreciate the money to combat domestic violence, and violence against children, this money should go the Aboriginal community and not to 11 Government funded departments. This is out of the Education budget not for education of children who are NOT taught our History but to provide Universities Millions of dollars of taxpayers money. Will this make the world better?

SANDRA CHESNEY, Jensen.