Walking Together – From Redfern to Cape York

Sam Mostyn, Governor-General of Australia, the people of Cape York, ladies and gentlemen.

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet tonight and the lands and waters of Cape York and pay our respects to First Nations elders and leaders, past, present and emerging.

I was first introduced to Indigenous Australia in Redfern, in the early 1980s.

At the time, I was assisting my dear friend, the late Ted Kennedy, Catholic priest of Redfern, and the indomitable Shirley Smith – known to all as Mum Shirl.

It was there that I met the people our world chose not to see – the homeless, those caught in addiction, despair, incarceration, and violence.

And it was in Redfern that I learned two lessons that have never left me.

The first was this:
If one seeks to be of genuine service to Indigenous people – to make even the smallest difference – one must begin by understanding.

Understanding their histories. Their griefs and their trauma. Their aspirations. You must strive to imagine the weight of two centuries of dispossession.

Above all, you must become someone they can trust – someone who can be called a friend.

The second lesson was about place – and belonging.

I came to understand the essential position of First Nations people in this country – their country – our country.

I came to understand that there can be no Australia without their enduring presence proudly impressed upon the very forehead of our nation.

I have tried to keep this insight – this moral and historical truth – in mind ever since.

In the late 1990s, through Patrick Dodson, I met my friend Noel Pearson, who unfortunately can’t be with us tonight.

From our first conversation, I was struck by the precision of his thinking, the clarity of his moral purpose and the ambition of his agenda.

Noel believed – and still believes – that the future of Indigenous Australians cannot rest upon dependency.

He saw that the entrenched problems confronting Indigenous communities could not be remedied by conventional policy responses.

They required a fundamental re-imagining – a new social contract built upon empowerment, responsibility, and opportunity.

Attributes that most Australians take for granted – yet for generations they were systematically denied to our First Peoples. People whose humanity and agency were held to be less than our own.

Noel’s conception of empowerment was never abstract.

It encompassed both communities and individuals: the capacity for every Indigenous Australian to stand with confidence and purpose in two worlds – the world of Indigeneity, rich in culture and kinship, and the modern world of education, enterprise, and economic life.

He called this vision “the radical centre.”

It is not an easy path to tread – this radical centre.

It requires courage – moral as much as political – and the patience to dwell in that difficult, creative space where genuine change becomes possible.

When I think about the Cape York Partnership Group, I think of courage, endurance, and intellect. Of the people Noel and Fiona call “our old people” – those who founded the Cape York Land Council and helped drive the Mabo and Wik decisions in the High Court. And I think of Noel himself – his formidable mind, his unrelenting diligence, his capacity to challenge orthodoxy and his unyielding temperament.

He has never sought popularity; and criticism has come from all quarters:

• from the right, who sometimes refuse to see the structural inequities that persist; and
• from the left, people of goodwill but, as Noel once said, people burdened with a kind of moral vanity that too easily resists the hard work of reform.

As Noel has observed: “If the hard bigotry of prejudice and discrimination is a wall that keeps the marginalised out, then the soft bigotry of low expectations is a prison.”

For most citizens, the state acts as protector – providing education, health, infrastructure, opportunity and so on. But not so for our First Nations.

We must all remember that, for almost two centuries, the machinery of state, even at its most benign, acted not as protector but as overseer.

Its paternalism, frequently not at all well-intentioned, became the handmaiden of dispossession – an instrument of control, exclusion and dehumanisation.

Welfare, when introduced in the 1960s to redress these injustices, only entrenched the loss of agency, empowerment and responsibility.

As a result, much of our work in the Cape has meant grappling with government itself – with the inertia of bureaucracies whose good intentions too often perpetuate the very dependencies they wish to cure.

Our task has been to reshape that system - to replace dependency with capability; to replace control with partnership.

And through it all, we have held firm to Noel’s radical centre–- that delicate equilibrium between accountability and cultural authority.

 

Along the way, the Cape York agenda has achieved a great deal:

 

• The establishment of Djarragun College and the Cape York Girl Academy
• The Cape York Leaders Program – over 600 student scholarships
• Cape York Employment
• The Pama Language Centre
• The Cape York Institute
• Ngak Min Health
• The Welfare Reform trials
• The growth of Bama Services and Cape York Enterprises
• Good to Great Schools

Each represents not only institutional progress, but lives transformed.

I have not mentioned the Voice. So much of the creativity behind the Voice came from Cape York. In the end, the Referendum failed, but it did garner the support of six million Australians. A remarkable achievement in itself.

And there are individual stories that make all of this very real – people such as Tania Major, Troyson Bassani, and Fiona Jose, our outstanding CEO and a graduate of the first Leadership Academy.

Fiona embodies the very purpose of this work: young people walking tall – proud, confident, and accomplished – standing at ease in both worlds. And then, of course, there is her outstanding capacity, tenacity and leadership.

I am grateful to those who have shared this long journey – to the board members, past and present; to the communities; to professional firms and corporate partners; to those whose wisdom and generosity have sustained the vision. Many of you are here this evening.

People like Richie Ah Mat, Marcia Langton, Gerhardt Pearson, Duncan Murray, Ann Sherry, Gabrielle Trainor, Ken Henry, David Jones and many others – too numerous to mention.

And our current board members: Jody Currie, Jon Nicholson, Karen Gibson, Marijke Bassani, Nicole Scurrah and Rob Koczkar.

And to the dedicated staff of the Cape York Partnership Group, past and present.

From the outset, we have all believed that good governance is the foundation upon which everything stands.

If enduring problems are to be solved, they must be reframed – and solutions built within structures that are accountable, strong, transparent, and culturally grounded.

The balance between compliance and kinship, between financial accountability and belonging.

As we look forward, we know the journey is far from complete.

The headwinds remain strong; politics shifts, social media shouts, and misinformation spreads faster than truth. Yet through all of it, the work continues.

The spirit endures.

For what we are engaged in is not merely a set of programs or policies – it is, at its heart, an act of faith. Faith in the Australian people. Faith in friendship. Faith in Martin Luther King’s oft-used phrase that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.

Whatever storms we have faced – and there have been many – Cape York has endured, adapted, and remained true to its purpose. 

So, when I look back – from Redfern in the 1980s to Cape York today – what I feel most profoundly is gratitude. Gratitude to the Indigenous people who opened their lives to me.

Gratitude for friendships that have lasted decades.

And gratitude for the chance to play even a small part in something larger than my everyday world.

We have come a long way. There is still a long way to go.
But if we keep walking – side by side – I have no doubt we will get there.

Thank you – for your loyalty, your belief in our work and your great generosity.