Patrick Dodson - Dialogue and Nation Building in Contemporary Australia

At the beginning of the month I was camped on the banks of the Mary River in Western Arnhem land along with one hundred other Aboriginal and Islander peoples who had met to discuss issues related to the use and management of the water resources across Northern Australia. The Mary River as it is known to non Indigenous Australians is on the land of the Limilm Ngari people who are living on and sustaining their land and waters in the traditions of the forebears while endeavouring to develop a tourism enterprise that is framed around sharing their country with visitors from Australia and other lands from across the sea. In that country on the edge of Kakadu where the great rivers of the north make their way from the majestic Arnhem land escarpment across vast flood plains and on into the Arafura Sea, Aboriginal people are seeking to play their role in the sustaining of the resources that have been entrusted to them from their fathers and mothers and those before them... The full text of Patrick Dodson's speech to launch the Indigenous Policy Dialogue and Research Unit at the University of NSW.