Turnbull’s bid to unite the nation as Garma festival opens

Malcolm Turnbull has promised to “bring all Australians along with us” in the push for indigenous recognition.

Lucy Turnbull is overcome as she embraces Eunice Yunupingu, aunt of recently deceased Dr G Yunupingu, at the opening of the Garma festival in Arnhem Land. Picture: Melanie Faith Dove.

Malcolm Turnbull has promised to “bring all Australians along with us” in the push for indigenous recognition, as Bill Shorten said this weekend’s annual Garma festival in northeast Arnhem Land must be spent working on substantive outcomes.

An emotional opening ceremony saw Lucy Turnbull weeping openly in the red dirt at Gulkula on the Gove Peninsula, as Gumatj singers performed a powerful tribute to their kinsman, the internationally famous prodigy Dr G Yunupingu, who died last month of renal disease.

Fire was the theme of the opening, with Gumatj men and boys presenting their Gurtha, or fire dance, and clan leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu telling the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader he was bestowing on them sacred words. “The fire is now our future and I have given the fire to you so you can talk to us with tongues of fire,” former Australian of the Year Mr Yunupingu declared. “Because we have come here for serious business, Prime Minister — very serious business.”

The significance of fire in ­Yolngu and other indigenous Australian cultures has to do with both pain and renewal, matters at the heart of the current debate.

A day after Mr Shorten wrote to Mr Turnbull proposing a bipartisan parliamentary committee to examine the recommendations of the Prime Minister’s Referendum Council, there were fears from ­indigenous leaders this could be a tactic to weaken the proposal, with government support.

Indigenous leaders were critical of Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten’s limited response to the demands for action, calling for greater commitment from the pair. “We’re not going to let poor leadership define this weekend,” Cape York figure Noel Pearson said.

“It is such a miserable scene, the leadership scene in Australia. But we have never let that in the past determine our fortitude and we have to have our eyes on the prize. Our greatest leader (Galarrwuy Yunupingu) is in a wheelchair and he’s petitioning the political leadership of our country to now respond properly. He’s the bridge between an ancient past and a hopeful future for our people — he is the bridge and our political leaders don’t even know what ­occasion they’re participating in.’’

Clan leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu with Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten. Picture: Peter Eve

Indigenous MPs including Labor’s Linda Burney and Patrick Dodson, and Liberal minister Ken Wyatt, have continued to push for previous proposals regarded since the Referendum Council process began as “minimalist”, including altering or deleting references to race in the Constitution.

Mr Shorten made clear he hoped talks this weekend would boost the fortunes of the council’s ­report, which proposes a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament and a declaration of recognition outside the Constitution. It also backs a “Makarrata commission” to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling. He said indigenous leaders had for years “heard a lot of balanda (white people) speeches and then very little happens” and the recent “Statement from the Heart at Uluru spoke to all these failures”.

Young dancer Dhunumbu Mununggurr at the opening of the Garma festival in Arnhem Land yesterday. Picture: Melanie Faith Dove.

“What I’m interested to see perhaps this weekend is not that we stay here on the (ceremonial) bunggul ground … Garma is an ­opportunity to provide us in Canberra with inspiration, to argue for a Makarrata commission, for truth telling, for treaties,” he said.

Mr Turnbull has not ­embraced either the Referendum Council report or the Uluru Statement contained in it, but nonetheless compared the indigenous constitutional recognition project’s significance with that of the Mabo decision 25 years ago and the referendum on Aboriginal rights of 1967. “We acknowledge the path has a way to go, but will be an ­easier path to tread if we bring all Australians along with us,” he said.

Senior Gumatj man Djunga Djunga Yunupingu appealed to Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten to “help us find … unity; two laws, two people, one country”. “This was the work of my nephew Dr G ­Yunupingu, who in his songs spoke to the nation in his own language, of himself as a Yolgnu person and the land that he was born to,” Mr Yunupingu said.