Monday, 17 February 2025
Freedom Ride Memorial Park, Walgett
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Yaama mari-gal Walgett-i

Gaba nginda buudhaa nhalay yaadha

Ngaya Yanay baluwaa-baraay[1]

Thank you for your welcome here on the lands of the Gamilaraay Nation. I pay my respects, to Elders, past, present and emerging and all First Nations people here present.

There are two expressions in the Gamilaraay language which so aptly describe why we are meeting here today. The first is: ‘Winanga-li’ which, I understand, means ‘to hear, listen, know and remember’.[2] The second is ‘guwaa-li’: ‘to engage, to speak, to share stories’ which is etched into one of the sandstone blocks here, in this beautiful memorial park.

As well as describing why we are here, in many ways these two expressions capture the essence of how one learns and understands history – revealing the big stories and unfolding the personal stories of those who have lived and breathed that history, indeed, who are that history. 

Today is a commemoration of a big story - the Freedom Ride that came to this and 15 other towns in February 1965. It was that big event, 60 years ago, that told the stories to the nation that needed to be heard, the stories that were already in plain sight – but which needed to be listened to – and acted upon;  the stories of this and the other communities in New South Wales.  

Inspired by the US civil rights movement and spurred into action by racism and discrimination on home soil - on country - the Freedom Ride bus set off from Sydney on 12 February 1965.  

Its stated aims were to:

1. To arouse public attention to fundamental Aboriginal problems in health, education, housing;
2. To challenge and break down social discriminatory barriers to the extent possible by student action; and
3. To stimulate the interest of Aboriginal people themselves in resisting discrimination;

It was action underpinned by the principles of passive (non-violent) resistance, as laid down by Martin Luther King Jr.[3]

This was not a group of students looking for notoriety. It was a focused challenge to a status quo which had allowed and tolerated the shocking racism and conditions experienced by many Aboriginal communities.   

Thirty-three students from Sydney University took part, including:

>the renowned Aboriginal leader Charles Perkins;

>Ann Curthoys, Emeritus Professor of Australian History at ANU, whose diaries provided a record of the trip and the conditions of the towns that were visited. We are honoured by her presence and that of other Freedom Riders today; and

>the Honourable James Spigelman, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, who recorded many of the events on his 8mm home movie camera.

Today Ann and five of her fellow Freedom Riders are back here with the Walgett community today. Thank you for what you did then and for being here today. The Ride also had the support of Sydney’s Wayside Chapel.

The student’s contemporaneous reports of what they found in the towns they visited on the Freedom Ride told the nation the stories of overt racism and discrimination they observed and also of the abuse that was directed at them personally. But they had made their point.

As former Chief Justice Jim Spigelman reflected in 2011, shortly after his retirement from the Court:

“This was the first time Indigenous affairs had been front-page news in Australia … It was an event that received attention and raised consciousness in a way that nothing had before.”[4]

By the time the Freedom Ride set out, the treatment of Aboriginal peoples as equal citizens was already under intense scrutiny, leading to the passing of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 which gave to all Aboriginal Australians the right to vote. By 1965, all were enfranchised in each Australian state.  

The Freedom Ride thus came at a significant time when things were ripe for change.  But it was the huge cultural impact it had and the national attention it drew to the conditions under which Aboriginal peoples lived that marks its importance.  In particular two years later, an overwhelming 90.77% of the Australian population voted ‘Yes’ in the 1967 Referendum, whereby all Aboriginal Australians were counted in the national census.  

The NSW Aboriginal Land Council also recognises the Freedom Ride as one of the precursors that led to the recognition of Aboriginal land rights and by extension to the passing of the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983.[5]

Sixty years on, what can we learn from the Freedom Ride?

As a nation we have learned much, and we have much more to learn and to do. Importantly, we have learned from a peoples whose strength, resilience and gentleness continues to speak to us all just as that Freedom Ride spoke to the nation 60 years ago.

The phrase ‘Winanga-li’: ‘to hear, listen, know and remember’ tells us that we can’t change history, nor should we hide from it.  However, the point of knowing our history is so that we can change the present and the future.  As Charles Perkins put it “History is a guide but (it is) still a memory”.  It “must not be a cross we …carry as a nation, into the future. Our children must inherit a society better than the one we inherited.”[6]

I pay tribute to the courage and resoluteness of local leaders, the women and the men of Walgett who challenged discrimination to integrate and unite this community, both before and long after the bus had left town, so that we do live in a better Australia. 

Communities are stronger when they work together. I thank the community of Walgett - Walgett Shire Council, the Local Aboriginal Land Council, Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, Community Working Party, Dharriwaa Elders Group, and Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service – for bringing us together to share in this ceremony and mark this important milestone.

[1] “Hello, people of Walgett. Thank you for meeting here today.  I come with respect.”

[2] https://www.dnathan.com/language/gamilaraay/dictionary/GAM_TWY.HTM

[3] Charles Perkins: Student Action for Aborigines Report 16-18 April 1965: Reports and Resolutions of 8th Annual Conference on Aboriginal Affairs

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-31450529

[5] https://alc.org.au/newsroom/freedom-ride-fact-sheet/

[6] https://nacchocommunique.com/2014/03/20/naccho-aboriginal-health-dr-charles-perkins-1993-speech-aboriginal-people-and-a-healthy-economy/