Investiture Ceremony – Dr G. Yunupingu 

I pay my respects to all Traditional Owners here, all the clans, all of the people. I thank you for the extraordinary, warm welcome we have already had and will continue to have throughout this ceremony. I acknowledge the many, many family members, daughters, nieces, uncles, brothers, sisters, grandchildren of the late Dr G Yunupingu. I can feel him over my shoulder, that beautiful smile, and I hope today feels like a celebration, despite the loss of this great man, but we're on his own country to do something very, very special today. 

I thought I'd share with you that for Simeon and me, this has a special, special memory. Simeon, my husband, worked at the Central Land Council in the 1990s before working for the then Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Robert Tickner, during the days when Dr Yunupingu was part of the team that negotiated the native title rights that were then passed through the Commonwealth. Simeon spent many, many hours across the table as a part of the Commonwealth, working with those that joined Dr Yunupingu for those extraordinary moments where finally things were done. So for Simeon, to have worked with Dr Yunupingu, it is very, very special for us.  

And for me, it has meant very brief meetings with Dr Yunupingu at Garma. But I mostly knew him through the women of his world and his family. And so for us, this is not just about a celebration of the Order of Australia that I do as your Governor-General. I hope you know that we come as friends, as family, as people who feel deeply connected and grateful for everything that we have learned by coming to Yolgnu land and from Yolngu people. 

In preparation for today, thinking about the remarkable life that we are going to be commemorating through the Investiture of the Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest order in our Australian honors and awards system, I went back and I reread the extraordinary essay that Dr Yunipingu wrote back in 2008 called ‘Tradition, Truth and Tomorrow.’ There is so much in those words, both in Yolgnu and in English, that we should still pay deep attention to. He talks in the essay about his totem, the fire, the rock and the salt water crocodile, the flame that's always burning and through which he drew his energy and power and strength.  

He talked about Yolgnu having your own laws, repeated in ceremonial song cycles and known to all members of your clan nation. Sung into your ears as babies, disciplined into your bodies through dance and movement – learnt and inherited the knowledge of fathers and mothers, living on your land with your laws, speaking your language, sharing the beliefs of Yolgnu and living your lives bound together with the other great clan nations of this peninsula.  

As I read those words, I was reminded that, of course, for Dr Yunupingu, a ceremony like this would have many, many different components. It's an important one that we do, investing medals like the one I am wearing. It says something about the way in which our country does acknowledge our great leaders, those that we respect, we admire and we learn from and continue to pay attention to, even if they are gone.  

But I'm also aware that in the 50th year of the Australian honors and awards system, this may be an award that Dr Yunupingu would not have really seen as necessary, or seen as adding to the way in which he lived his life. In a way it's an important thing that we are doing in acknowledging his life through a system that must sit alongside something else that Dr Yunupingu said in his essay.  

He talked about where allegiances for Yolgnu people really lie, and whilst I represent the Crown today in presenting this wonderful insignia, he spoke of an allegiance to each other, to land and to ceremonies that define Yolgnu, create lives, record and pass on the laws that give you ownership of the land and the seas and the rules by which Yolgnu live. He said,  

Our ceremonial grounds are our universities, where we gain the knowledge that we need. The universities work to a moon cycle with many different levels of learning and different inside ceremonies for men and women.  

He talked about the only cycle of events that ever gives a Yolgnu person, someone from this part of Australia, the full energy that he and she requires for life and without this learning, Yolgnu does not achieve anything.  

He talked about, as a clan seeking the moment in the ceremonial cycle where all is in balance and is equal. He talked about the inner life that he had and you have as Yolgnu people through song cycles, the ceremonies, the knowledge, the law and the land. This is yothu yindi – balance, wholeness, completeness, a world designed in perfection, founded on the beautiful simplicity of a mother and her newborn child, as vibrant and as dynamic as the estuary where the salt waters meet the fresh waters, able to give you everything you need. 

I don't think I could say anything at all that would say more than Dr Yunupingu, who said whether in that speech, or in every moment when he acted on behalf of this country over decades and decades, seeking fairness and justice, the Yolgnu way of balance. And I hope that today, I could talk through all of the great things that he did, starting as a young man, leading the Northern Land Council, where he was chair for 23 years. I could talk about when he was Australian of the Year in 1978 or when, in 1985 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day honors list. 

In 1988 when he presented to then Prime Minister Bob Hawke the Barunga statement painted on composite wood, which was commemorated in the Yothu Yindi song ‘Treaty.’ 

Dr Yunupingu sang on some Yothu Yindi tracks, as you know, and painted covers for those extraordinary albums for the band. 

He was so many things to so many people, and ceremonially and from a government point of view, taught those that needed to learn about what still lies ahead.  

But in sharing the Gumatj Corporation, the Yothu Yindi Foundation that brought us the Garma festival, that brings in those of us who want to learn and to listen and to pay respect to the balance of Yolgnu culture. Those were important reforms, as was the arrival of the Dhupuma Barker school that I visited yesterday with Simeon to see Yolgnu teaching alongside the curriculum that is taught elsewhere in the country. 

In 2019, he was one of the members of the Senior Advisory Group that helped co-design the Indigenous Voice to government that was set up by Minister for Indigenous Affairs at the time Ken Wyatt, a group that was co-chaired by Marcia Langton AM and Tom Calma AO. 

Also in 2019, he launched a $700 million compensation plan on behalf of the clans here against the Commonwealth over the Gove Peninsula, which became the site of the Nabalco mine. The Federal Court of Australia ruled in favor of the Gumatj people in May 2023, a decision that only this year was upheld by the High Court of Australia in Canberra on the 12th of March. These are things that were done by a man in the course of his life that no one else could have achieved in many, many lives. That is why he is going to be invested posthumously with the Companion of the Order of Australia in the ceremony that I'll conduct shortly. But in saying those words, I feel that they are just telling you things that happened across his life, but the words he used and he shared with those that were not Aboriginal, that came here to learn are the words I think we reflect on today. Today, we don't only celebrate Dr Yunupingu, his family, his clans, this community, this land, we celebrate Yolgnu. 

Yolgnu continues to teach all Australians about balance, about yothu yindi, about the things we all need to learn, and we have the honor to visit and be so generously welcomed in ceremony. And because he talked of ceremony, I hope that in today's ceremony that is both Yolgnu and Commonwealth, we see some of that balance. I come with deep respect, understanding that sometimes these things have been difficult. So thank you for inviting Simeon and me and our team. It will be a very important moment when we posthumously invest Dr G Yunupingu with the Companion of the Order of Australia. Thank you.