Introduction by Croakey: Australia’s inaugural Ambassador for First Nations People, Justin Mohamed, this week returned to Shepparton, on Yorta Yorta Country in regional Victoria, to express his gratitude and appreciation for the support, strength and vision of the local Aboriginal community.
In delivering the Dungala Kaiela Oration on 24 July, Mohamed recounted arriving in Shepparton many years before, as an 18-year-old panel beater fresh from Bundaberg, Queensland.
The opportunities and support that he received in Shepparton were pivotal for his journey towards his current role, the first such position in the world, said Mohamed, who outlined how community-driven initiatives are influencing his work internationally on issues such as climate, human rights, trade and health.
The local commitment to economic development, social equity, and cultural preservation is reflective of what he was striving to achieve on the international stage – “to not just enhance the standing and prosperity of First Nations people but also enrich the global community and economy with the diversity and sustainability of Indigenous cultures”, he said.
The oration is an annual event co-hosted by the Kaiela Institute and the University of Melbourne.
Oration by Justin Mohamed
Wung Yung, I would first like to acknowledge the Yorta Yorta people as the Traditional Custodians of these lands on which we gather tonight – whose social, spiritual, economic, and cultural links with this land have never been broken; a relationship with Country that has continued since time immemorial.
I want to acknowledge OAM Paul Briggs, his amazing life partner Aunty Kaye Briggs, University of Melbourne’s Vice Chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell, Co-Chairs of the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria Ngarra Murray and Rueben Berg, my wife Adjunct Professor Janine Mohamed, my sister who loves to keep me humble Selina Douglas, other VIPs in the room and online.
I pay my deepest respects to the Elders past and present, whose knowledge and wisdom have ensured the continuation of culture and traditional practices.
And finally, but not least, I want to acknowledge the next generation of leaders, elders and game changers here this evening – I got to meet a number of the next generation leaders yesterday.
Role as Ambassador
As mentioned, I am a Gooreng Gooreng man from Bundaberg in Queensland, and very proud of it.
However, as a number of you will know, I also have a deep and personal connection with the community here in the Goulburn Murray region, a connection that is interwoven through people who are here tonight, others who have sadly left us and the proud and resilient Aboriginal institutions like Rumbalara Aboriginal Co-op, Rumbalara Football Netball Club and the Kaiela Institute, just to name a few.
But this evening I am here as Australia’s inaugural Ambassador for First Nations People. A title I am still getting used to, and occasionally pinching myself when people address me as Ambassador or Your Excellency. Something I can’t seem to get my family to do without laughing or kindly putting me in my place.
The role as Ambassador for First Nations People is a new position that was created by the Federal Government and appointed by the Honourable Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong. When the role was first announced, it was described “to weave the rich heritage and diverse perspectives of our First Nations into the fabric of Australia’s foreign policy”.
Sadly, to date our National foreign policy had reflected very little of the 65,000 plus years of relationship Aboriginal people have had with this land that also included international connections of trade, customs and ceremony.
Meaning this international diplomatic role may be a first globally for governments of today, but I can safely say international diplomacy and trade has been practised on our shores for thousands of years by our people.
So fast forward to April 2023 when I was appointed as Ambassador for First Nations People, this role not only represents Australia in international forums but also is spearheading initiatives that enhance First Nations trade, investment, human rights, climate and diplomatic engagements globally.
However, to do this effectively meant I needed to engage first and foremost with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
To not only to explain the purpose of this role but most importantly listening to the priorities, aspirations and innovation that lay with local First Nations communities that can guide, lead and enhance our international policies on trade and investment, intellectual property, climate mitigation, human rights, gender equality, health and justice.
Meeting with over 100 First Nations groups, organisations, businesses and individuals across every state and territory provided me with the early guidance and expertise as we “built the plane while flying it”.
As the weeks rolled into months, I have had the honour and privilege to represent Australia at key forums, including the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People in Geneva, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum APEC in San Francisco and COP29 in Dubai just to name a few.
Together with these key international engagements the role has seen me recently returned from talks in Paris with the French Government and museums and other collecting institutions about returning of cultural items and ancestral remains to their First Nations communities.
Earlier this year, I was pleased to play a central role in the negotiations that led to a landmark WIPO treaty on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources.
This treaty is a monumental step for global Indigenous rights — it mandates the disclosure of the source of genetic resources and traditional knowledge in patent applications.
And, as we are all aware, climate change is everyone’s business and this is the same for my role.
Ensuring First Nations peoples’ expertise and knowledges are not only included but front and centre of any domestic and international policy developments and mitigation roadmaps.
The role of Indigenous peoples is critical in this space and more and more our First Nations people’s expert knowledges is being internationally sort after.
As we seek to influence and contribute to Australia’s foreign policies and take these developments and learnings internationally, we need to ensure all that we do is meaningful and genuine.
Like:
– When First Nations participants join Government delegations, they need to be given the time, space and opportunity to meaningfully shape Australia’s negotiating priorities and positions.
– When our trade negotiating teams is deliberating whether to include or not include First Nations chapters or exemptions – then First Nations people need to be actively involved in considering such negations.
– When Australian aid contracts are awarded to a non-Indigenous supplier based on their cultural capability credentials, who is assessing these claims?
– When First Nations personnel are included in aid tender proposals – have these First Nations people been given agency and choice over the scope of their contracted roles and contributions?
All extremely important processes and questions we need embedded for appropriate participation and inclusion of First Nations people.
Shepparton/community roots
This role as Ambassador for First Nations People is far more than representation – it is about working to redefine Australia’s identity and role on the world stage, ensuring that global and Australian foreign policies reflect First Nations peoples.
But the key point I’d like to make here tonight is that my role is an inaugural position – it’s not only the first such position in Australia, but the first in the world. Many other nations with and without Indigenous peoples are watching this development along with others very closely.
This is both an honour and a challenge, and as there is no blueprint or masterplan…it’s been literally as I said earlier – building the plane while flying it.
I want to quickly revisit an occasion that took place only hours before my appointment was made public.
I arrived at Parliament House and was ushered into a room where I was greeted, with smiles, congratulations and a sense of expectation by eminent people like Senator Pat Dodson, who at the time was the Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, together with a number of senior advisors and government officials.
After about half an hour of pleasantries, Minister Wong then asked everyone in the room to leave – except for Senator Dodson, Minister Burney, herself and I.
At that moment, whatever excitement I had quickly evaporated and turned to sweaty palms and a couple of deep breaths.
Somewhat overwhelmed, I hurried to remind them that this would be the first time I have worked for a federal government and that more than 70 percent of my working life had been from an Aboriginal Community/non-government base with limited experience as a bureaucrat.
Without hesitation Minister Wong (like she had pre planned her response earlier) responded incredibly clearly and confidently:
“Ambassador Mohamed…we already have plenty of experienced bureaucrats, you have been appointed because of what you bring with you to this role, your expertise, experience, and connection to the First Nations people.”
I share that story with you, standing here at the RFNC [Rumbalara Football Netball Club], because a large portion of that expertise, experience and connection Minister Wong was referring to was forged right here in Shepparton, where I spent 20 years living and working in a community steeped in Aboriginal Community Control, leadership, and self-determination.
The time I speak about here in Shepparton has been pivotal in where I am today.
As an 18-year-old panel beater fresh from Bundaberg, Queensland, arriving in Shepparton in the middle of winter wearing shorts, hoodie and pair of flip flops (that in itself was a cultural shock) to join my parents who were here picking fruit at the time.
To then have people believe in me, to take on roles that have been both life and career changing, to be able to ‘step out of the box’ that often society tries to keep us in – was exactly what was afforded to me here in Shepparton.
And with some of those people who believed in me are here with us tonight – thankyou.
Having now been away from Shepparton for more than 10 years, spending time in Canberra, Melbourne, visiting many communities across Australia and now globally, the strength, vision, leadership and identity of the Aboriginal people of the Goulburn Murray is in many ways unmatched and should forever be valued and never underestimated by this region.
In short what equipped and brought me to this role…was being part of this community, learning and witnessing the legacy of what happens when you dare to dream and are courageous enough to break the ‘glass ceiling’.
You only have to drive around Shepparton to see the images of those who came before us, to know whose shoes we walk in, whose shoulders we stand on….William Cooper, Sir Douglas Nicholls, Aunty Marj Tucker and Aunty Geraldine Briggs just to name a few…
These Elders, together with many others, have profoundly shaped our present and future.
They were not just representatives of their communities but architects of transformative change, advocating tirelessly for Aboriginal rights to land, self-determination, and cultural integrity.
And their work and vision for transformative change continues, and during my time in Shepparton I experienced exactly this:
Rumbalara Football Netball Club (RFNC) – defied the resistance and being told many times there was no place for a club like this!!!!!
The Rumbalara Elders Facility – defied the broader community warnings (over 700 signed letters of petition) saying a development like this would see a decrease in the value of surrounding properties and if developed it would become a ghetto.
And just a hundred metres from here, the Munarra Centre for Regional Excellence — also defied doubters and advocates against such a complex, questioning if a development like this should be built in regional Victoria, right here in Shepparton and belonging to the Rumbalara community.
All of these achievements were hard won – no easy wins or free hand outs here – but unshakable dedication and persistence.
Talk about daring to dream and breaking the glass ceiling.
Prosperity ahead
Being personally involved in different ways in each of these defying accomplishments… I am sure you will agree with me that what was considered as high risk, impossible or it just won’t happen…are now integral, landmark institutions of Shepp life.
Similar to these experiences, I also experienced again those early deficit responses to this role as Ambassador for First Nations… in the media and elsewhere, about ‘why this role won’t work, how we don’t need it’ or ‘it will take trade opportunities away from Australian businesses’.
Like First Nations businesses aren’t Australian??
And yet, as this role, and the Office of First Nations International Engagement has evolved, it’s become very clear how needed our work is.
Just keeping up with the requests for our office and my role to be involved on key issues – including climate, human rights, trade and health both domestically and internationally – is challenging in itself.
And it’s where the aspirations of First Nations people here in Shepparton and the wider Goulburn Murray region dovetail with the work we are doing internationally.
The Goulburn Murray Regional Prosperity and Productivity Plan, dreamed of and developed by the Kaiela Institute, aims to generate mutual prosperity in the region by restoring and sustaining a thriving and sustainable First Nations economy.
As it says, until now, Yorta Yorta and First Nations people have largely been excluded from the benefits of participation in the strong regional economy, which plays such an important role in Australia’s food production, and of course globally.
And commitment from the region and the state to the plan will ‘challenge the invisibility of First Nations people and flip the way we view and understand the value of Yorta Yorta and First Nations people’.
It’s a model that underscores the necessity of community-driven initiatives, and it’s one that strongly influences our approach internationally…
It’s a commitment to economic development, social equity, and cultural preservation that is reflective of what we are striving to achieve on the international stage – to not just enhance the standing and prosperity of First Nations people but also enrich the global community and economy with the diversity and sustainability of Indigenous cultures.
And this is what makes for different and special — so critical for a food bowl economy like the Goulburn Murray.
What once was somewhat unique to the region – food, produce, transport and manufacturing – can and are being replicated across the globe.
The products that are grown and produced in regions like this, today with modern technology can be reproduced nearly everywhere…but the one thing that can’t be replicated or reproduced is this region’s traditional and cultural connections to the land and people we hold here.
And internationally that’s what’s setting different regions apart from the others.
But this requires an Australia that can truly, as the Goulburn Murray Prosperity and Productivity Plan promises, ‘flip’ the way we view and understand the role of First Nations people in the regional economy.
The more I travel in my role as Ambassador, across the Pacific, the Americas, and beyond…Indigenous rights, values and knowledges are becoming part of the global language…not just human rights, but climate, economy and trade.
As I mentioned earlier, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – a specialised UN agency – in May agreed to a ground-breaking new treaty addressing intellectual property in relation to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, protecting Indigenous rights.
Free Trade Agreements are beginning to incorporate chapters and exceptions for First Nations businesses and trade.
Australia is a founding member of the Indigenous Peoples Economic and Trade Cooperation Arrangement (IPETCA), a regional initiative to strengthen the economic empowerment of Indigenous peoples in the Pacific and beyond, with members like Canada, Chinese Taipei, New Zealand and now with the US considering membership, this is not just an idea – it is the future.
On the domestic front, the Federal Minister for Trade and the department are honing and sharpening our nation’s 2040 International Trade Strategy that will reach across many regions like Southeast Asia, north America, Europe – with a firm commitment to embed First Nations aspirations and targets within these strategies – not in the future – but now.
And bringing it back home here in the Goulburn Murray – in my opinion you have the Goulburn Murray Regional Prosperity and Productivity Plan.
A Plan that Senator Pat Dodson referred to as Nation Leading.
A Plan that acknowledges the ‘rights’ of Yorta Yorta people for inclusion in an economy that underpins the sustainability and prosperity of Yorta Yorta people.
A Plan that proposes a 150 million dollar per annum increase in the Regional Gross Production.
A Plan that reframes the value of Yorta Yorta people from a crisis intervention cycle relying on government intervention and tax dollars – to an optimistic, aspirational vision and approach that will positively change the course of generations to come.
Innovative ideas like this are so often stifled…and not given the opportunity to fly, meaning opportunity for generational change and prosperity are sadly left behind in history…instead of becoming the bedrock of the future.
In closing: I was honoured to be able to share the stage with Paul Briggs last year at the Lowitja Institute International Indigenous conference, where he talked about the Goulburn Murray Prosperity and Productivity Plan – saying that it seeks to build the aspiration and optimism of the Yorta Yorta people, to follow in the footsteps of Sir Doug Nicholls, William Cooper and others.
And I quote him: “Like our Elders and ancestors, we’re playing the long game and waiting for the Australian people to wake up.”
And as the amazing Moana Jackson, who also delivered an Dungala Oration, reminded us:
We as First nations peoples have always dared to do things differently, to build the plane while we’re flying it, dare to dream and be courageous enough to break the glass ceiling so we can fully take our rightful place.
We just need the rest of the nation to keep up with us – to reach our full potential as a nation we call Australia.
Together let us look forward and ever upwards.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the cultural determinants of health
