INTRODUCING ANDREW JAKAMOS – COMMISSIONER FOR ABORIGINAL CHILDREN AND YOUND PEOPLE – HUMAN RIGHTS ORATION – MORNINGTON
Cr Fraser – “Thank you Tony Coburn, Chair of the Mornington Human Right Group, for your welcome and also to Aunty Caroline Briggs for your Welcome to County. I have an apology from our new Mayor Cr Bev Colomb and also from our new Chief Executive officer Carl Cowie who commenced his duties with the Shire on Monday and is much looking forward to meeting you all at the earliest opportunity.
However, I have with me my co Councillor from Nepean Ward Cr Tim Rodgers who has a longstanding interest in indigenous matters and I am delighted to have him with me this evening together with the Shire’s Director of Sustainable Communities and recently Acting Chief Executive Officer – Rob Macindoe.
I should like to begin by acknowledging the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders as the first Australians and that they have lived here for thousands of years. The Boonwurrung / Bunurong, members of the Kulin nation, have traditional connections to the land and waters of the Mornington Peninsula including along the coast of both Port Phillip and Western Port Bays.
Pausing here –the connection is much more than 1,000s years it is TENs of thousands of years stretching back 40,000 years and more recently 20,000 years – when Port Phillip bay filled with water from rising sea levels and it formed the shape we know today: the connection is to a region stretching from what we now know to be Hobson’s Bay all along Port Phillip Bay to the Heads, around to and Including Western Port Bay and their hinterlands.
In fact the Mornington Peninsula Shire has the largest coastline and land mass remaining of what was the traditional lands of the Boon wurrung / Bunurong . I speak for myself only when I say that I look forward to a time when we can give recognition to this by calling our wonderful Peninsula the Boon wurrung / Bunurong Peninsula.
So on behalf of our Mayor and Councilors I should like to welcome you all to this evening’s oration. I am especially delighted to welcome our Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People – Andrew Jakamos -to deliver his Human Rights Oration which I understand is to focus on the cultural right of indigenous children “Linking our past with our future.”
Last week in Federal Parliament, The National Children’s’ Commissioner Megan Mitchell told the Parliament that “Indigenous children aged four to nine are twice as likely to kill themselves as others the same age, while the suicide rate amongst Aboriginal teenagers is five times higher than for other teens.”
She also said that – “Indigenous children account for 28 per cent of suicides, even though they make up 3 percent of the population.”
These are profoundly disturbing statistics and I look forward to Andrew’s Oration and a clue as to how we as a society and community can address this appalling evidence.