Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
MARK MCGOWAN, WA PREMIER: Thank you for joining us. Can I, first of all, acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet today, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, and their elders, past, present and emerging. And can I thank Barry for his excellent welcome to country. And can I thank the members of the Whadjuk Cultural Authority who are here with us today. We’ve done an enormous amount of work in getting to the point that we’re at this point in time. Could I also acknowledge representing the Prime Minister is Patrick Gorman, Minister Templeman and Minister Buti and also Sabine Winton my Parliamentary Secretary who’s been involved with the Whadjuk Cultural Authority on this important project. One of the things we committed to prior to the last State election is working on an Aboriginal Cultural Centre for Western Australia. It’s a long overdue initiative, something that would showcase Aboriginal culture, be a place of education, of learning, of understanding, of art. Hopefully some great architecture and a wonderful tourism attraction. And after the election we’ve put together, the Whadjuk Cultural Authority which provided some advice on this important idea. We put $54 million into the State Budget. The Commonwealth Government has put in $50 million and so that’s $104 million we now have allocated towards this project and we’re working through the details of what it will look like. But an important part of it is selecting a site. The Whadjuk Cultural Authority has provided us with advice on the site. They’ve looked at six different locations around Perth and the best site for the Aboriginal Cultural Centre is right here in front of the Derbarl Yerrigan, in front of the Concert Hall, in close proximity to the city, to public transport, but most importantly, a wonderful, beautiful location with great cultural significance that will showcase Aboriginal culture back to Australia, to people from all over the world. So we landed on a site right here. This is where it will be located. The plan is to have it finished by 2028 and we’ll work through the further funding details over the coming years. We expect major private sector and philanthropic contributions towards this potentially magnificent facility that will be of world standard and will be a showcase and a great opportunity for education for everyone across the community along with our wonderful Aboriginal culture. So this will be an exciting development that we’ll work through the details now. But a very important part was selecting a site. The Whadjuk Cultural Authority did a lot of work in examining different locations. I would like to thank them for all of their work so far in getting us to this point. As you can understand, there’s so many different competing interests and so many different sites that could be selected, but I think that they have actually chosen the best one, not just because it’s culturally appropriate and very close to the river, which is of great significance. It’s also an easy location for people to access. We want tourists from Australia, from around the world to come and visit and understand and enjoy that experience. One of the things that surveys show is a lot of people from both Western Australia and other parts of Australia, but especially internationally, want to enjoy an Aboriginal cultural experience. It’s one of the reasons they come to Australia, one of the reasons they come to Western Australia. So having an Aboriginal Cultural Centre that provides those opportunities is a great tourism attraction. So it’ll be great for employment and also great for Aboriginal people to demonstrate their cultural practices and history and heritage. It’s a great opportunity for understanding and for creation of jobs and also for that great sense of identity that will come with it. So we’re very excited by this location, it’s a wonderful opportunity. We’ll continue to work on the project and certainly six years from now we expect to be opening it. So I’ll hand over to Patrick Gorman to say a few words
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much, Premier, and if I can join the Premier in thanking Barry for that beautiful welcome to country and thanking the Advisory Committee for selecting this site. It is so exciting to be here on behalf of the Australian Government working in partnership with the McGowan State Government on this incredibly important project. This is about giving Western Australia something that expresses the full breadth of Aboriginal culture and making sure that we can tell that story to as many people as possible. And in the site that has been selected and announced by the Premier today, we will be able to do exactly that. As the Member for Perth, I’m very excited that we will have something of world class significance right here in Perth, something that not just people from other states wants to visit. It’s something that people from all over the world want to visit, as was just highlighted. This is something that we know visitors want when they come to Perth and I really feel that this project can be Western Australia’s answer to the Opera House. It can be that thing of grand scale, given one of the best sites in the entire city for this project, which shows just how much the State and the Commonwealth Government want this to be a success. And we’re just so delighted to be partnering with you Premier, Sabine Winton, Parliamentary Secretary who is leading on this project and we want to see it be successful. That’s why the Australian Government contributed $50 million in that seed capital to make this a success. And I’ll just finish on this point. I’m so proud to be part of a government that is committed to delivering the Uluru Statement in full. Voice, Treaty, Truth. And this Centre will give Aboriginal people another opportunity to tell the truth in their words, through their culture, and it is so important that we’re providing this facility to do exactly that. We see this as part of that great nation building project of not just getting constitutional recognition, but being able to tell the stories of 65,000 years of continuous culture. Congratulations to everyone who’s been a part of this so far and so excited to see the work that you’ve done so far become a reality by 2028. Thank you.
BARRY WINMAR: Look, thanks everybody for attending the event. I would like to thank the Australian Government and the West Australian Government for showing their commitment to ensuring that Aboriginal culture and people have a strong voice and that we’re represented in the community through our eyes, and through our song and our story. The significance of the site we’re on today is very significant to Whadjuk people. And the site selection has been a complex process. And I would like to reiterate and congratulate my fellow members for going through this process. As members of this cultural advice committee, we went through an election process and we were selected and endorsed by the broader Whadjuk community. When we looked at a process to go through to who’s going to be a representative, we were all nominated and we were endorsed and the site selection process is a part of the process we’re going through. It’s the first time in a long time that Aboriginal people have got a voice at high level of government to be able to influence and contribute in a way that really exemplifies what a strong Aboriginal culture is about in Western Australia. Being part of an iconic location right on the foreshore, it’s an honour to be here, my ancestors walked these trails in years gone by and it’s a tribute to them to showcase the location and being a host for all those Aboriginal cultures across Western Australia to give them an opportunity to showcase the richness and the diversity and the challenges they’ve gone through to be able to show the culture in the best light. The Whadjuk advice committee are here to progress further with the government and we’re in a position now where we can look at moving forward. This is only a part of the journey. It’s a long way to go and further commitment and support from the Western Australian Government and the Federal Government allows Whadjuk Aboriginal people to be able to showcase all those other cultures in Western Australia so that it’s to the world. We want to be able to have an on country experience right here on the waterfront. When the tourists come across the shores and they look at what Western Australia has to offer, Aboriginal culture is primary and underpinning everything that we do about our identity as Aboriginal people. It gives us an opportunity to tell our stories, see our songlines, showcase what our culture was like in art, dance and print and media. So, we’re looking at moving forward. We haven’t yet established what most that’s going to be. That’s for further consultation. And with philanthropic input, we’re really looking forward to all of us getting behind what we’re going to be doing to showcase Western Australia, so we can get people involved and engaged through industry, through opportunity and through tourism. Thank you very much.
REPORTER: What is the particular significance of this site?
WINMAR: So the site we’re on at the moment, even though this has been reclaimed lands, the banks of the Derbarl Yerrigan that is behind us, there was a tributary that flowed down and it was a watering place here. And for me personally, it’s a site where you pass between Matagarup and Kaarta gar-up and there was a walking trail there and we had a really strong connection with the water and the land. It gives us a showcase, of being able to identify the site of significance. It’s not to say that the other sites were any less significant. It was a hard choice to go through. But all we can do is to make a recommendation. We took that back to the Whadjuk community with the recommendations and some of the insight into the background of each of those sites. And then we presented that back to government.
REPORTER: Is there a story behind the smoking ceremony today?
WINMAR: The significance of the song I played is a spiritual song, so the spirits know that we’ve got visitors here today and we want the spirits to rise and overlook the site and to take it back into their care, so that this is a safe place for everyone that comes to visit and for all Australians. Now, and moving forward. We’re hoping that the site once it’s up and running is going to be prime site to really activate this precinct of Perth and which is really going to truly define it as a cultural precinct. As Aboriginal community members, now we use the Supreme Court gardens. We use Elizabeth Quay, we use the Concert Hall. I reckon that having the cultural centre here just completes that set where we can completely activate it and showcase Aboriginal culture to the world.
REPORTER: Would you expect it going to the water’s edge? The actual project being built on the water’s edge, i.e., get rid of that ugly carpark out there.
WINMAR: Our role as the Aboriginal cultural committee was purely around the site selection stage. That’s going to be further developed when we have further consultation with that community. And, you know, it’s great to be working with a government that really wants to look at the input from the Aboriginal communities, and the Whadjuk community and saying this is your centre and what do you want it to look like and where is that going to go forward? So at this particular point in time, I can’t answer that question. But other than to say that, you know, there’ll be definitely further discussions in the consultation phase.
REPORTER: You said you want to see corporate support for this project. A lot of the big corporates here that have the money to do that have a pretty checkered record when it comes to dealing with Aboriginal and Indigenous communities. Would you be satisfied to see, for example, the Rio Tinto put a big cheque towards the sort of project? Or would that not be appropriate.
WINMAR: Look, I think the big corporates, especially the mining resource sector, have a big part to play in healing country. And if we can bring culture from the countries in which they operate and really exemplify that they are a beautiful place to visit and to go. I think that’s their corporate social responsibility to be able to showcase that so we can get people back into the regions and look at what that looks like.
REPORTER: Can I just ask though, obviously we’re talking about philanthropic and then corporates donating to something like this, but why wouldn’t the Federal and the State government just do it? Given that they build museums in Northbridge, for $450 million?
WINMAR: The response from the advice committee at this stage is that’s a matter for government to really do that. Us as an Aboriginal community, I mean, my elders have been lobbying for years to find a place of somewhere to showcase Noongar pride, Noongar culture and Noongar strength. And I think this centre brings that. We’re more than happy and very excited to work with Government and especially on the back of this announcement today, with the site selection.
REPORTER: We talk about the need for corporations and so on to donate. Why doesn’t something like this that needs to be recognised, just get done?
GORMAN: What you referenced around the WA Museum. I don’t think there was any federal money that went into that museum build. So these projects can be done in a range of different ways. Our contribution as the Australian Government is the same as the contribution the State Government is making. And I’ll note that at cultural institutions across Australia, those big nationally significant ones I think of, for example, the War Memorial, they have large contributions from a range of philanthropic and other donors. It builds the buy-in, it builds the ability of everyone to feel that it’s not just the responsibility of community leaders or governments to share culture. It’s a responsibility of all of us. So that’s why we think this is an appropriate contribution. And we still want to make sure that we dream big, that this can actually happen. That it doesn’t become another Bell Tower. It becomes something truly of world significance. And I’m pretty confident the people of Western Australia, from the corporate, the philanthropists, governments, state, local, federal, we can get this done and everyone at the end of the process in 2028 when it opens will go, wow, well done Western Australia.
