The Australian Government launched Reconciliation Week on Thursday 27 May 2010 by pledging $150,000 to the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre to research the history of Indigenous stockmen and stockwomen.
Over the next 18 months ASHOF will begin researching and collecting the stories of Indigenous stockmen and stockwomen, creating a collection to showcase their role in shaping Australia’s pastoral industry.
The centre will provide a scholarship for a PhD student to travel across Australia to meet Indigenous stockmen and stockwomen and visit regional and remote Indigenous communities to collect stories to become part of a future display.
Mr Jack Thompson AM and life-member of the Hall of Fame is lending his support
to this initiative. “In the past cattle properties had white owners and white drovers
but the rest of the workforce was black”, he said. "It's never been acknowledged.
This will draw attention to an area of our history that's been ignored."
The actor, now approaching 70, went to work on a Northern Territory cattle station
in 1955 when he was just 14. "I was the only white fella out on the stock camp and
they treated me like their own son", Mr Thompson told AAP. It was wonderful - one
of the most fabulous things that ever happened to me. You're out there with these
people who speak their own language and still have their own culture entirely”.
The $150,000 grant was announced by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin
on Thursday outside Parliament House in Canberra. Before being taught to crack a
whip by Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) trainees who had travelled down from
Crocodile Station, she told reporters it was important to recognise the ongoing work
that indigenous stockmen and stockwomen did. "We know that Aboriginal people
have an enormous amount to be proud of given their history as stockmen and
stockwomen and we want those stories to be told", Ms Macklin said. "We want our
children to hear them to know that this is part of the Australian story”.
Aboriginal trainee stockwomen Ellenore Lowdown, from Laura on Cape York, says
working with horses on the land is a dream come true. She'll work anywhere once
her training is complete - so long as it's on a cattle station". "I love working with horse
s," she said outside parliament. "Helicopters and motorbikes are quicker, but I like
the horses”.
Further more, Qantas will be showing the Indigenous Heritage DVD on all domestic
flights commencing late May for 4 months. This will be wonderful exposure and will
assist in raising the profile of the project - all with the aim of raising further funds to
undertake the project.
